John Faunce Leavitt facts for kids
John Faunce Leavitt (1905–1974) was a talented American who loved the sea. He was a shipbuilder, a writer, and an artist who painted beautiful pictures of ships and the ocean. He also worked as a curator at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut, a famous museum about maritime history.
Leavitt grew up in a family of sailors in Maine, so he was connected to the sea from a very young age. He even worked on coastal schooners, which are sailing ships, from 1918 to about 1925. This was near the end of the time when schooners were commonly used for carrying goods.
John Leavitt's Life and Work
Early Life and Sea Adventures
John F. Leavitt was born into a family deeply connected to the ocean. Early photos show him and his sister Syrena, at just seven years old, steering a ship called the Alice S. Wentworth. This was in Lynn, Massachusetts. Leavitt himself worked as a crew member on several coastal schooners in Maine. He started in 1918 and continued until about 1925. This was during the last years of the schooner era.
Working at Mystic Seaport
Later in his life, Leavitt, who was both a boat builder and an artist, started working at the well-known Mystic Seaport museum. There, he continued to paint and write about his biggest passion: the sea and the strong boats built to sail on it. At Mystic Seaport, Leavitt was an assistant curator. He used his deep knowledge of sailing ships to help manage the museum's collection.
His Art and Writings
Leavitt kept painting and writing throughout his life. His watercolor and oil paintings can be found in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. His art is also in other museums and private collections. Leavitt painted many different ships, from the famous Old Ironsides to the Gloucester fishing schooner L. A. Dunton.
In 1952, his maritime artworks were featured in a special show. This show was held at the William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum in Rockland, Maine. Leavitt also wrote about how ships were built. One of his important books was Shipbuilding in Colonial Connecticut.
Wake of the Coasters
Leavitt's most famous book was Wake of the Coasters. It was published in 1970 by Wesleyan University Press. For this book, Leavitt used his work for the Maritime Historical Association of Mystic, Connecticut. He wrote about the history of the smaller New England coasting schooners. This book is now considered a classic by people who love ships.
On the first page of his book, Leavitt showed his sad but respectful feelings for the old wind-powered ships. He wrote, "The dude cruisers are only maritime ghosts in an atomic world." This showed how much he missed the old schooners.
Passion for Old Schooners
In all his works, both paintings and books, Leavitt's strong love for the old schooners was clear. He wrote in Wake of the Coasters: "There was a time when spars and rigging made a commonplace pattern against the Maine sky." He also noted that even though the last cargo-carrying schooner was launched in Maine in 1938, few people remembered them. He thought this was because people used to take them for granted.
Leavitt's books were special because they weren't just dry facts. In Wake, for example, he told the story of the 1928 sinking of the schooner William Booth. This ship was hit and sunk by a much larger schooner, the Helen Barnet Gring. The Gring was a huge four-masted schooner built in 1919 in Camden, Maine. Leavitt told these old sea stories with great passion, like the famous writer Herman Melville.
Other Books by Leavitt
Leavitt published several other books. Most of them included his own artworks of the great coasting schooners. One book, The Charles W. Morgan, came out in 1973. It told the history of the Morgan, which is the last wooden whaling ship. This ship is now docked at Mystic Seaport. The book featured over 80 photographs of the restored ship. It showed the crew working on the vessel.
Leavitt also wrote honestly about the dangers of sea travel. He mentioned the number of crew members who died aboard the schooner. Leslie Rule wrote in her book Ghost in the Mirror that Leavitt "referenced archived ship logs to provide much of the information, including many fatalities." This shows how detailed and honest his research was.
Leavitt's Legacy
John Leavitt's papers from 1966 to 1974 are kept at the G. W. Blunt White Library. This library is part of the Mystic Seaport Museum. These papers cover his time as the Seaport's Associate Curator. The artist, writer, and curator's photographs are in the collection of the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York. John Leavitt passed away on May 25, 1974, in Mystic, Connecticut.
The Schooner John F. Leavitt
A Dream to Build a Schooner
In the early 1970s, a fan of New England's coasting schooners named Ned Ackerman had a big dream. He wanted to build such a ship. He also wanted to prove that commercial sailing could still work in modern times. Ackerman had read many books and talked to many experts, including John F. Leavitt. Both Leavitt and Ackerman were at the first Schooner History Symposium in Bath, Maine, in 1972. Maine had many experts on wooden schooners. Many people also owned and rebuilt these boats for passenger trips. It was a great place to learn about old working boats.
Designing and Building the Ship
Ackerman asked a famous naval architect named Pete Culler to design the vessel. Culler was known for his book Skiffs and Schooners. He had designed several important schooners for the Concordia Company. He also designed the sail training ship R. Tucker Thompson for New Zealand.
Ackerman arranged for the ship to be built at Newbert & Wallace Shipyard in Thomaston, Maine. The keel of the 97-foot, two-masted schooner was laid in 1976. This ship was named John F. Leavitt in honor of the author of Wake of the Coasters. When finished, the ship was painted white with a red stripe around its middle. Its figurehead, a carving on the front, showed a fox holding feathers in its mouth.
Maiden Voyage and Sinking
The schooner was launched in late summer of 1979. It immediately faced problems. It ran aground in the Saint George River on its launching day. It had to wait for the tide to rise before it could move. The ship made its first long trip down the coast to Quincy, Massachusetts, in November. This was late in the season for a North Atlantic voyage. The ship had to wait for its cargo there. One of its best crew members was injured and could not sail.
Leaving Quincy with a heavy load, the John F. Leavitt sank a few days later. It went down after a three-day winter storm in the North Atlantic, near the Gulf Stream. The crew members were rescued from the ship by a helicopter from the Air National Guard.
The Film Coaster
The building and sinking of the John F. Leavitt became the subject of a film called Coaster. It took about six years to make. Critics praised the film, and it won the Best Adventure Film Feature at the American Film Festival. The Boston Phoenix called it "A thrilling story." The Washington Post said it was "Endowed with the beauty of an heroic epic." The schooner was carrying lumber to Haiti on its first trip when it sank in a storm off Delaware. This event was captured on film.
Some people in the schooner community felt that Ned Ackerman cared more about his reputation than saving his ship during the sinking. This led to a joke at the time, told with a Maine accent: "Called that boat the John F. Leave-It... and that's just what they did!"
The John F. Leavitt was an 83-ton schooner with 6,441 feet of sail. It was built by Ned Ackerman and carried a cargo of lumber. It was seen sinking in rough seas. What made the event even more dramatic was that the John F. Leavitt was the first sailing cargo ship built in the United States in over 40 years. It sank on its very first voyage.
The ship was paid for by a single owner who wanted to show that wind power could still be useful today. The topsail schooner was built to prove that a modern wooden schooner, powered by sails, could carry cargo and compete with engine-driven ships of the twentieth century.
