Charles Tyng (August 24, 1801 – June 20, 1879) was a New England sea captain and merchant, notable for a memoir written near the end of his life. Although Tyng was born, the fifth of eight children, to a prosperous upper-middle class family, his mother died when he was seven, and Tyng thereafter seemed unable to apply himself to his studies. Sent to sea at age thirteen, Tyng matured quickly and, by his early twenties—beginning within the empire of Boston merchant prince

Thomas Handasyd Perkins Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins, also known as T. H. Perkins (December 15, 1764 – January 11, 1854), was an American merchant, slave trader, smuggler and philanthropist from a wealthy Boston Brahmin family. Starting with bequests from his grand ...

—Tyng was captaining his own ships, in the process encountering

sharks Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachimorp ...

pirates Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

mutinies Mutiny is a revolt among a group of people (typically of a military, of a crew or of a crew of pirates) to oppose, change, or overthrow an organization to which they were previously loyal. The term is commonly used for a rebellion among member ...

shipwrecks A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately ...

, horrific storms, and

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

. The memoir of his early life has been called "an irreplaceable account of the nation's seafaring history, an authentic chronicle that needs no fictional embellishment," for instance, shedding additional light on the

Canton system The Canton System (1757–1842; zh, t=一口通商, p=Yīkǒu tōngshāng, "Single orttrading relations") served as a means for Qing China to control trade with the West within its own country by focusing all trade on the southern port of C ...

in China and the

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...

of early nineteenth-century seamen. In 1826, Tyng married Anna Arnold (1804-1831), who died before they had been married seven years. In 1833, Tyng married Anna Amelia (or Amelia Anna) McAlpine (1816-1885), sister of civil engineer

William J. McAlpine William Jarvis McAlpine (April 30, 1812 – February 16, 1890) was an American civil engineer and politician from New York. He was New York State Engineer and Surveyor from 1852 to 1853. Life William J. McAlpine was born in New York City, the ...

. The Tyngs spent thirty years of their married life in

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

(where Tyng played a significant role in a diplomatic contretemps called the Black Warrior Affair) before they retired to

Newburyport, Massachusetts Newburyport is a coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, northeast of Boston. The population was 18,289 at the 2020 census. A historic seaport with vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes part of Plum Island. The mo ...

. Tyng died in 1879 while visiting his daughter in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

. Tyng's memoir was published in 1999 as ''Before the Wind: The Memoir of an American Sea Captain, 1808-1833'' (

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

Penguin Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...

, 1999). In his review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', W. Jeffrey Bolster wrote that the book had "authenticity and nerve" and was "a testimonial to an ambitious but likable man with a penchant for the unusual," a writer with a "storyteller's flair" and a "novelist's eye for detail."W. Jeffrey Bolster, "Seaward Ho!" ''New York Times Book Review'', July 11, 1999, 24

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tyng, Charles 1801 births 1879 deaths 19th-century American memoirists Maritime writers American sailors American expatriates in Cuba