Keywords: English navigator
Item 27192
Waymouth Memorial Dedication at Mall, Thomaston, 1905
Contributed by: Thomaston Historical Society Date: 1905-07-06 Location: Thomaston Media: Photographic print
Item 100303
Harbour of Casco Bay, Portland, 1720
Contributed by: Tate House Museum Date: circa 1690 Location: Portland Media: Ink on paper
Exhibit
Anglo-Americans in northern New England sometimes interpreted their own anxieties about the Wilderness, their faith, and their conflicts with Native Americans as signs that the Devil and his handmaidens, witches, were active in their midst.
Exhibit
George Henry Preble of Portland, nephew of Edward Preble who was known as the father of the U.S. Navy, temporarily lost his command during the Civil War when he was charged with failing to stop a Confederate ship from getting through the Union blockade at Mobile.
Site Page
Historic Hallowell - Seaport on the Kennebec
"… with capable officers and crews, established a Navigation School at the Academy to teach advanced mathematics to boys who wished to pursue careers…"
Site Page
Thomaston: The Town that Went to Sea - Thomaston Narrative
"… but Captain George Waymouth, an early English navigator, renamed the river the Georges—often interchanged with the St."
Story
Sister Viola Lausier: Finance Director with a big heart
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center
A life dedicated to applying financial and leadership expertise in the service of others.
Story
John Conroy: proud heir of a 4-generation business
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center
The evolution of a family business providing funeral services
Lesson Plan
Longfellow Studies: Longfellow Amongst His Contemporaries - The Ship of State DBQ
Grade Level: 9-12
Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
Preparation Required/Preliminary Discussion:
Lesson plans should be done in the context of a course of study on American literature and/or history from the Revolution to the Civil War.
The ship of state is an ancient metaphor in the western world, especially among seafaring people, but this figure of speech assumed a more widespread and literal significance in the English colonies of the New World. From the middle of the 17th century, after all, until revolution broke out in 1775, the dominant system of governance in the colonies was the Navigation Acts. The primary responsibility of colonial governors, according to both Parliament and the Crown, was the enforcement of the laws of trade, and the governors themselves appointed naval officers to ensure that the various provisions and regulations of the Navigation Acts were executed. England, in other words, governed her American colonies as if they were merchant ships.
This metaphorical conception of the colonies as a naval enterprise not only survived the Revolution but also took on a deeper relevance following the construction of the Union. The United States of America had now become the ship of state, launched on July 4th 1776 and dedicated to the radical proposition that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights. This proposition is examined and tested in any number of ways during the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. Novelists and poets, as well as politicians and statesmen, questioned its viability: Whither goes the ship of state? Is there a safe harbor somewhere up ahead or is the vessel doomed to ruin and wreckage? Is she well built and sturdy or is there some essential flaw in her structural frame?
