The American Coast Pilot was published privately until the 1870s, when the U.S. government first published its sailing directions. This coast pilot was published by the author, Edmund M. Blunt. He also published The New American Practical Navigator for many years.
Chinese devil chaser mask brought back from the Yangtze River area by Captain Wilbur Carver of Searsport. He was a young naval officer when he purchased this mask, in service on the China station in the 1930s.
Fishing line and reel. Wooden reel with cotton line. This fishing line and wooden reel were presumably used by Benjamin Franklin Pendleton Nichols for handline fishing in Penobscot Bay in the 1900s. "B.F.P. Nichols 1928" is written on the reel. B.F.P. Nichols, 1883-1941, was the son of Searsport's Capt. Wilfred Virum Nichols.
This reel is designed so that it can be spun around the central pivot, letting line be wound in faster than a regular hand line.
Carved wooden eagle, gilded, from the pilot house of a Penobscot Bay steamer. Eagles were the common carving found on the tops of steamboat pilot houses.
Billet head in the form of a small scroll. About two feet long (or tall as it is shown here.) This carving has only the scroll carved in three dimensions; the rest is incised. The groove in the edge mates to the vessel's stem.
Highly unusual for Maine is this scrimshawed sperm whale tooth by a sailor named Pettegrow from Rockland Maine. The other side has a image of the whaler Emerald. There were vessels of this name out of New Bedford and Sag Harbor.
Empire ogee mirror with reverse painting on glass at top. Painting shows a half-brig or brigantine with an American flag. The heavily raked masts and gunports are in the style of the privateers out of the Chesapeake in the War of 1812, which were commonly called Baltimore Clippers.
Needlepoint picture of the Manuel Llaguno, one of Wiliam Whorf's maritime history series. Whorf's spelling (Llaguna) varies slightly from the correct Llaguno.
