Alone at Sea: Gloucester in the Age of the Dorymen, 1623-1939

by John N. Morris

Author John Morris is the grandson of a Gloucester dory fisherman who was lost at sea in the 1930s, at the very end of the great age of sail. Haunted by his grandfather's death, Morris spent more than ten years researching the lives of these hardy souls who set off from schooners in sturdy rowboats to fish the banks off the New England coast. This detailed narrative boils down to the finest, most complete chronicle of the lives of Gloucester fishermen in the time of sail. It begins at a time when men stood side by side along a schooner's rail dropping baited hand lines to the seabed below. Then, in the middle of the 19th century, came dory fishing, and the skipper of a schooner could disperse upwards of a dozen one- and two-man dories over many miles of open ocean. Each dory could lay as much as a mile of baited line across the seabed below, and with this change in technology the catch increased and Gloucester emerged as North America's premier fishing port. Countless millions of fish were caught; over five thousand men were lost. One of Gloucester's greatest maritime historians, Joseph E. Garland, writes in his foreward that Morris's work is "absolutely authoritative" and "a masterpiece that's been waiting for generations to be told."

464 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2010

Reviews

[James Junke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meticulously researched, footnoted and annotated. Empathetically written, weaving oral and written histories, public records and much more, into an authoritative and compelling narrative. A deep fishing culture, respectfully and lovingly rendered.