No family has been more intimately associated with the history of the
city of Bath, then among the most productive shipbuilding communities of
any size in the world. Despite a veneer of old-fashioned formalized
civility, international shipping in the late 1800s and early 1900s was a
highly competitive, low-margin, and often cut-throat business. While the
Sewalls' shrewd responses to market changes make a fascinating story,
the surviving correspondence from their captains offers adventure of
another kind. Sewall captains were required to make regular reports to
the Sewall office, and this correspondence is a treasure-trove of
stories about the voyages of Sewall ships--surly crews, mutinies,
plagues, shipwrecks, cannibal isles, destitute widows, and more, along
with details of ship performance, weather encountered, trouble in port,
and even lawsuits. The Sewalls also invested in railroads and other
non-maritime securities and speculations, and also became involved in
politics, but it is in the maritime world that they are best remembered.
As the owners of the last surviving important fleet of American
square-riggers engaged in worldwide trade, it was the Sewalls' fate to
draw the curtain on this economic enterprise. No family had worked more
assiduously, more stubbornly, or with more enterprise to delay the
arrival of that day.
