During the great age of sail there were many seaports along the New England coast that supported maritime industries. The Port of Gloucester in Massachusetts is well known for its fishing fleet. New Bedford and Nantucket are famous for their once large whaling fleets. Today…
Posts tagged as “Gregory Pettys”
On the night of February 11, 1907, only two miles off Watch Hill, the wooden paddlewheel steamship Larchmont, on the New York/Providence run, and the lumber schooner, the Harry P. Knowlton collided. As many as 150 people perished that night. The exact figure is not…
The Life and Strange Adventuresof Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe is considered the greatest maritime adventure story of all time. The idea of being stranded on an uninhabited jungle island and living off the land has fascinated people of all ages for generations. In 1719 Daniel…
Of all the lighthouses in this country only a few have as sinister a history as Whale Rock Light. Today, its ruins tell a grim tale of death and madness. Was Whale Rock Light cursed? Forty year old assistant keeper Walter Eberle, who perished there,…
It was late fall and a cold northeast wind rustled the water as we headed out of the Mystic River to a spot on the chart marked, “unexploded depth charges 1945.” Onboard the charter boat Thunderfish, Captain Bill Palmer and two other divers were planning…
A bitter April wind blows across the sandy scrub of Napatree Point sending the wind chill into the twenties as a US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist and a group of volunteers try to warm themselves by pounding steel posts into the sand. The…
Ice shrouded the rigging and angry seas swept over the deck as the Resolute plunged through the North Atlantic. Sailing out of New London, Connecticut on the whaler George Henry, Captain James Buddington found the British ship HMS Resolute locked in the ice, abandoned. The…
November 18, 1820 was the two hundred year anniversary of the sighting of the continent of Antarctica by Nathaniel Brown Palmer of Stonington, Connecticut. He was one of three parties to do so in 1820, the other two explorers led fully equipped government sponsored expeditions,…
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, of the 16 million who served in the armed services in World War II, only about 325,000 American veterans were estimated to still be alive as of May, 2021. They became known as The Greatest Generation, a…
For over two-hundred years the Mystic River in Connecticut was a center for New England’s shipbuilding industry. Many of the 1400 ships built there went on to have long successful careers. One ship that gained fame at the time and now is almost forgotten is…