112 CAPTAIN ZACHARY G. LAMSON 



icle" for 1807, "have usually risen from 

 being carpenters of ships of war, and before 

 that time been in low employment in the 

 dock yards. They understand the practice 

 of the art, but not the theory." The master 

 builders of the United States studied their 

 profession both practically and theoreti- 

 cally, and in addition many of them came 

 of families to whom skill in ship-building 

 was as much an hereditament as the fam- 

 ily farm. 1 



The American builders were progressive, 

 the English conservative. The English 

 were afraid of our lofty spars and light 

 construction, and when in the War of 1812 

 they captured one of our clippers they 

 usually lessened the height of the masts and 

 strengthened the hull only to find her no 



1 The Beckets began to build in 1655, the Barstows 

 in 1740, the Rogers family in 1722. A little later the Cross 

 and Merrill families were building at Newburyport, the 

 Hackets at Salisbury and the Briggs family all over New 

 England. Son succeeded father in the business and he in 

 turn handed it over to his son. The younger sons in many 

 cases went to other towns to start yards of their own. 



