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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2021 Jan 18, 11:19 -0800
Bruce Pennino, you wrote:
"I give the book only a tepid recommendation."
Meanwhile, another review says:
"[Cutler] examined over 5000 logbooks, discovered and read uncounted numbers of manuscripts, and compiled from accurate sources over 30,000 index cards which recorded arrivals and departures for thousands of vessels. The result of this research was a book entitled, “Greyhounds of the Sea, the story of the American clipper ship,” a book which, according to many, established Mr. Cutler as a dean among American maritime historians."
I have heard it's a bit tedious. I never opened it. But these days? Yes, I would love to have a copy, and thank you for the offer. Next time you're down at Mystic Seaport (maybe in Spring?), give me a yell, and I'll try to meet you in town.
Locally, where I grew up, in Noank, Connecticut, Carl Cutler was rather a big deal! In your description, you didn't mention his biggest claim to fame: he was one of the three wealthy men who founded the "Marine Historical Association" in Mystic, Connecticut in the closing days of 1929. They acquired a few small vessels over the next dozen years, and also took over a defunct marshy shipyard on a peninsula on the Mystic River estuary. And in November 1941 they secured the centerpiece to their new historical association, the whaleship Charles W. Morgan. Of couse this "Marine Historical Association" became "Mystic Seaport Museum". Carl Cutler ran the museum for over a decade, retiring in 1952.
Carl Cutler was the sort of "local hero" that schools are named after. Cutler Middle School, in West Mystic is part of the GPS system (that's "Groton Public Schools"). And yes, that's where I attended grades 7-8. A week after "graduating" from Carl Cutler Junior High, as it was known back then, I started learning celestial navigation at the Seaport Planetarium (now Treworgy Planetarium) at Mystic Seaport Museum from Don Treworgy and Sue Howell. I was quite the astronomy expert already, and they had me doing planetarium presentations within weeks.
Seems like my track in life was decided early, right? If you had known me at the age of seven, you probably could have predicted how I would turn out (*).
Frank Reed
* If that reference doesn't mean anything to you, it's a little tribute to the "Up Series" and Michael Apted, who died eleven days ago.