SEACOAST BOOKS

The Portsmouth Marine Society Press, part of the Portsmouth Historical Society, announced today its newest publication, A Race of Shipbuilders: The Hanscoms of Eliot, Maine.  Copies are now available in the Discover Portsmouth Museum Shop which is open daily from 10-5 PM. (Continued below) 

In his latest "riveting" work, maritime historian Richard E. Winslow III, a librarian at Portsmouth Public Library, gives a rich and vivid account of one family’s unique American experience. He carefully intertwines a family biography into a dynamic historical overview of shipbuilding on the Piscataqua.

The Hanscoms were a family with shipbuilding in their genes as each generation left its own unique mark on their trade. Generations of Hanscoms, from the earliest to arrive in the mid-1650s well into the 20th Century, showed a remarkable ability to adapt their craft to the rapidly changing science and technology of modern shipbuilding. This flexibility kept the Hanscom family central to shipbuilding for over two hundred years.

The Hanscoms were innovative maritime entrepreneurs whose family story chronicles some of the biggest events in American history. 

The Hanscoms built ships and were active participants in the Revolutionary War, the California gold rush, the Civil war, the luxury yacht mania, the Spanish American War and the era of transoceanic merchant marine and passenger vessels. This narrative brings to light the local Seacoast influences that greatly changed the nature of American shipbuilding through inventive design and use of technology.

The new book is available at Discover Portsmouth in the gift shop, 10 Middle Street, Portsmouth, NH. Phone for more info at 603-436-8433 or visit the new DPC Web site at www.PortsmouthHistory.org.