e decay and
misfortune overtaken them. It is a traffic which flourished from the
beginning, ingeniously adapting itself to new conditions, unchecked by war,
and surviving with splendid vigor, under steam and sail, in this modern
era.

The seafaring pioneers won their way from port to port of the tempestuous
Atlantic coast in tiny ketches, sloops, and shallops when the voyage of
five hundred miles from New England to Virginia was a prolonged and
hazardous adventure. Fog and shoals and lee shores beset these coastwise
sailors, and shipwrecks were pitifully frequent. In no Hall of Fame will
you find the name of Captain Andrew Robinson of Gloucester, but he was
nevertheless an illustrious benefactor and deserves a place among the most
useful Americans. His invention was the Yankee schooner of fore-and-aft
rig, and he gave to this type of vessel its name.[21] Seaworthy, fast, and
easily handled, adapted for use in the early eighteenth century when inland
transportation was almost impossible, the schooner carried on trade between
the colonies and was an important factor in the growth of the fisheries.

[Footnote 21: It is said that as the odd two-master slid gracefully into
the water, a spectator exclaimed: "See how she scoons!" "Aye," answered
Captain Robinson, "a schooner let her be!" This launching took place in
1713 or 1714. [Author's note.]]

Before the Revolution the first New England schooners were beating up to
the Grand Bank of Newfoundland after cod and halibut. They were of no more
than fifty tons' burden, too small for their task but manned by fishermen
of surpassing hardihood. Marblehead was then the foremost fishing port with
two hundred brigs and schooners on the offshore banks. But to Gloucester
belongs the glory of sending the first schooner to the Grand Bank. From
these two rock-bound harbors went thousands of trained seamen to man the
privateers and the ships of the Continental navy, slinging their hammocks
on the gun-decks beside the whalemen of Nantucket. These fishermen and
coastwise sailors fought on the land as well and followed the drums of
Washington's armies until the final scene at Yorktown. Gloucester and
Marblehead were filled with widows and orphans, and half their men-folk
were dead or missing.

The fishing-trade soon prospered again, and the men of the old ports
tenaciously clung to the sea even when the great migration flowed westward
to people the wilderness and found a new American empir