Geographic Locations

This is an example of the sailing directions included in The English Pilot, Fourth Book. They describe sailing along the Maine coast, though the top of the page says Newfoundland. See online at Boston Public Library electronic access.

Diorama (or Shadowbox) depicting Newburyport Harbor, Newburyport, Massachusetts, Maker unknown, first half of the nineteenth century.

Wood, mahogany frame, glass, brass, and paper; 43” x 24 3/8” x 9 ½”

Detail of chart, The North Eastern Coast of North America, from New York to Cape Canso, including Sable Island, by Edmund Blunt, 1847.

Cleaning and processing cod in Vinalhaven. Vinalhaven had a long history of fish processing. Edwin Lane, and Thomas G. Libby began a wholesale fish packing business in 1878, and incorporated this business as the Vinalhaven Fish Co. in 1895. In 1903, they added glue to their salt fish business as the Vinalhaven Glue Co. and in 1908 incorporated their three businesses as the Lane-Libby Fisheries Co., selling stock. The processing plant added a freezing plant in 1909, the first such on the east coast, and by 1910 had 125,000 feet of floor space. The company lasted into the 1920s.

Though the title of the chart is "A New Generall Chart for the West Indies," it shows the East Coast of North America as far as Newfoundland and the Grand Banks. The West Indies were by far the most important economic asset of the British during the colonial era. This is part of The English Pilot, Fourth Book, published in 1767.

Detail of the Penobscot Bay Maine nautical chart, 1/40,000 scale. Note how the chart not only shows depths and navigational features, but it shows much information on land, including buildings, topography, locations of stone walls, and even where there are and aren't trees. By 1876, the Rockland breakwater was protecting the great number of vessels coming and going in pursuit of the lime trade.

Very little of the Maine coast was charted well before the late 1700s. This chart shows the only part of the coast that did get charted in detail. Casco Bay was important for British shipping, because Falmouth, the predecessor to Portland, was an important center of the mast trade. This is from a later edition of The English Pilot, Fourth Book, published in 1767.

This is a detail of a nautical chart of the west coast of South America, "Peru: Independencia Bay to Begueta Bay." Though published in 1864, the original date of publication was 1836, and it was surveyed by Capt. Robert Fitz Roy, who was captain of the Royal Navy ship Beagle on which Charles Darwin sailed. The detail shows where the Chincha Islands are, off the coast of Peru and outside of Pisco Bay. They are about 120 miles south-southeast of Lima. The Chincha Islands had tremendous deposits of seabird guano, which was mined for fertilizer.