![John Faunce Leavitt](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/John_Faunce_Leavitt.jpg)
John Faunce Leavitt (1905–1974) was a well-known shipbuilder, writer on maritime subjects, painter of marine canvases, and curator of
Mystic Seaport
Mystic Seaport Museum or Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea in Mystic, Connecticut is the largest maritime museum in the United States. It is notable for its collection of sailing ships and boats and for the re-creation of the craf ...
in
Mystic, Connecticut
Mystic is a village and census-designated place (CDP) in Groton, Connecticut, Groton and Stonington, Connecticut, United States.
Historically, Mystic was a significant Connecticut seaport with more than 600 ships built over 135 years starting in ...
.
John F.
Leavitt was born to the sea. His Maine family were sailors, as reflected in early photographs showing his seven-year-old sister Syrena and him at the wheel of the ''Alice S. Wentworth'' in
Lynn, Massachusetts
Lynn is the eighth-largest municipality in Massachusetts and the largest city in Essex County. Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Boston city line at Suffolk Downs, Lynn is part of Greater Boston's urban inner core. Settled by E ...
. Leavitt himself was a crew member on several coastal schooners in
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...
beginning in 1918 until about 1925, the tail end of the schooner era.
Later in life, the boatbuilder and artist began working for the esteemed Mystic Seaport museum, where he continued painting and writing about his love: the sea and the boats built to withstand it. At Mystic, Leavitt worked as an assistant
curator
A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
, applying his knowledge of sailing vessels to the museum's collection.
He continued to paint and write, and his watercolor and oil paintings are in the collection of the
Peabody Essex Museum
The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts, US, is a successor to the East India Marine Society, established in 1799. It combines the collections of the former Peabody Museum of Salem (which acquired the Society's collection) and the ...
,
Salem, Massachusetts
Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, located on the North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem would become one of the most significant seaports tr ...
, and other museum and private collections. Leavitt painted everything from ''Old Ironsides'' to the Gloucester fishing schooner ''
L. A. Dunton''. In 1952 the maritime artist's works were the subject of a one-man show at the
William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum,
Rockland, Maine
Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 6,936. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination. It is a departure point for the Maine State ...
. Leavitt continued to write about the technical aspects of the shipbuilding industry, including the monograph ''Shipbuilding in Colonial Connecticut''.
Leavitt's best-known work was ''Wake of the Coasters'', published in 1970 by
Wesleyan University Press
Wesleyan University Press is a university press that is part of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. The press is currently directed by Suzanna Tamminen, a published poet and essayist.
History and overview
Founded (in its present for ...
. Drawing on his work for the Maritime Historical Association of Mystic, Connecticut, Leavitt sketched a biography of the smaller
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
coasting schooners in a work now considered a classic among aficionados. On the opening page of his work, Leavitt's elegiac tone towards the noble wind-driven ships of the past was evident. "The dude cruisers are only maritime ghosts in an atomic world", Leavitt wrote wistfully of the old schooners.
In his works, both on canvas and paper, Leavitt's passion for the old schooners was palpable. "There was a time when spars and rigging made a commonplace pattern against the Maine sky", Leavitt wrote in ''Wake of the Coasters''. "It was in 1938 when the last cargo-carrying schooner was launched in the State of Maine, yet today there seem to be very few who remember when the reaches and thoroughfares swarmed with coasting schooners. Perhaps that is because the sight was so taken for granted."
Leavitt's books were often the exception in the world of cool rigging-and-spars nautical writing. In ''Wake'', for instance, Leavitt revisited the sinking of the 1928 sinking of the schooner ''William Booth'' by its much larger counterpart, the ''Helen Barnet Gring'', an enormous four-masted coasting schooner built in 1919 by Robert L. Bean in
Camden, Maine
Camden is a resort town in Knox County, Maine. The population was 5,232 at the 2020 census. The population of the town more than triples during the summer months, due to tourists and summer residents. Camden is a summer colony in the Mid-Coas ...
, for the
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
shipping firm of Crowell and Thurlow. The three-masted Booth, according to Leavitt, was cut down and sunk by the Gring. In Leavitt's hands, these arcane tales of the sea were rendered with the passion of
Herman Melville
Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American people, American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his bes ...
.
Leavitt published a number of other books, most accompanied by his own artworks of the great coasting schooners. ''The Charles W. Morgan'', published in 1973, delineated the history of the restored Morgan, the last wooden whaling ship, anchored at
Mystic Seaport
Mystic Seaport Museum or Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea in Mystic, Connecticut is the largest maritime museum in the United States. It is notable for its collection of sailing ships and boats and for the re-creation of the craf ...
. The work included more than 80 photographs of the restored vessel, documenting the ship's crew at work on the vessel.
In an unblinking assessment of the hazards of sea travel, Leavitt noted the number of crew deaths aboard the schooner. "The late author John F. Leavitt chronicled the life of the vessel", wrote Leslie Rule in her ''Ghost in the Mirror'', "referencing archived ship logs to provide much of the information, including many fatalities."
The papers of John Leavitt from 1966–74, during his time at Mystic as the Seaport's Associate Curator, are collected at the G. W. Blunt White Library at the Mystic Seaport Museum. The artist, writer and curator's photographs are in the collection of the
George Eastman House
The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...
in
Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...
. John Leavitt died on May 25, 1974, in Mystic, Connecticut.
Fate of the Schooner John F. Leavitt
During the early 1970s a fan of the coasting schooners of New England, Ned Ackerman, became empassioned with a dream to build such a vessel, and to prove that commercial sail could still work. He had read all the books and talked with as many authorities as he could find. Among these was the master, John F. Leavitt. At the inaugural Schooner History Symposium held at the Bath Marine Museum in the summer of 1972, Mr. Leavitt and Mr. Ackerman were present. There were many living in Maine at the time who were tremendous experts in the history of the wooden schooners, and also there were many who owned these boats and were rebuilding them for use in the sail passenger trade. It was the perfect place to nurture an interest in the old working boats.
Ackerman had commissioned a design for the vessel from the renowned naval architect, Pete Culler, the author of Skiffs and Schooners. R. D. "Pete" Culler had designed several schooners of note for the Concordia Company in
South Dartmouth, Massachusetts
Dartmouth (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ) is a coastal town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, Bristol County, Massachusetts. Old Dartmouth was the first area of Southeastern Massachusetts to be settled by Europeans, primarily English. Dar ...
. He was also the designer of the sail training vessel
R. Tucker Thompson
''R. Tucker Thompson'' is a gaff-rigged topsail schooner based in Opua, Bay of Islands, New Zealand. She is operated as a non-for profit charitable trust and owned by the R. Tucker Thompson Sail Training Trust. The mission of the trust is “Learn ...
of New Zealand.
Ackerman engaged to have this vessel built at Newbert & Wallace Shipyard in
Thomaston, Maine
Thomaston (formerly known as Fort St. Georges, Fort Wharf, Lincoln) is a town in Knox County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,739 at the 2020 census. Noted for its antique architecture, Thomaston is an old port popular with tourists ...
. The keel was laid in 1976 of the 97-foot two-masted, centreboard schooner ''John F. Leavitt'', named in honor of the author of ''Wake of the Coasters'' (1970). When finished she was painted white with a distinctive red waist, and her figurehead depicted a fox with feathers gripped in his mouth. The schooner was launched in late summer, 1979, and almost immediately began to encounter difficulties, running aground in the
Saint George River
The Saint George River is a river in Maine with a watershed of in a unique and historic area of mountains, sea coast, lakes, tidal streams and inlets. The origin of the Saint George River is the outflow of Saint George Lake () in Liberty. The ...
and having to sit out a tide on her launching day. She made her maiden voyage down the coast to
Quincy, Massachusetts
Quincy ( ) is a coastal U.S. city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Greater Boston, Metropolitan Boston as one of Boston's immediate southern suburbs. Its population in 2020 was 1 ...
, in November. It was late in the season for a North Atlantic voyage, but here again she had to wait for her cargo. One of her best crew was injured climbing a fence and could not sail with her. Leaving Quincy heavily laden, she sank a few days later following a heavy winter three-day North Atlantic gale near the Gulf Stream. Her crew were taken off the vessel by the Air National Guard, by rescue helicopter.
The building and the eventual sinking of the ''John F. Leavitt'' was the subject of a film dubbed ''Coaster'', some six years in the making. Critics gave the film glowing reviews, and it won the Best Adventure Film Feature at the American Film Festival. "A thrilling story", said ''The Boston Phoenix''. "Endowed with the beauty of an heroic epic", raved ''The Washington Post''. The schooner, carrying a cargo to Haiti on her maiden voyage, foundered in a gale off Delaware, an event captured on film.
Many in the schooner community, however, felt that throughout the sinking Ackerman was more concerned with saving face than saving his vessel. This view lead to a persistent joke at the time: (told with a Maine accent) "Called that boat the John F. Leave-It... and that's just what they did!."
![Charles W Morgan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Charles_W_Morgan.jpg)
The 83-ton schooner with 6,441 feet of sail, built by enthusiast Ned Ackerman and carrying a cargo of lumber, was seen to founder in heavy seas. Adding to the drama was the fact that the ''John F. Leavitt'' was the first sailing cargo ship built for more than 40 years in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and went to her grave on her maiden voyage.
The ship was financed by a single enthusiast owner who was eager to demonstrate that wind power still had a place in the modern world.
In Maine: A Bold Launching Into the Past, TIME magazine, September 3, 1979
/ref> The topsail schooner was built to demonstrate that a modern wooden schooner under sail could carry cargo and compete with the engine-driven ships of the twentieth century.
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leavitt, John Faunce
1905 births
1974 deaths
Leavitt family
People from Lynn, Massachusetts
People from Maine
People from Mystic, Connecticut
20th-century American painters
American male painters
American sailors
Whaling ships
Museum ships in Mystic, Connecticut
Tall ships of the United States
20th-century American non-fiction writers