Renowned as the creators of New England's great fishing schooners, the shipbuilders of Essex, Massachusetts, have a 300-year history that is, as the subtitle of this impressive book attests, a chronicle of Yankee endeavor. This book documents in text, appendices, photos and other illustrations the rise of the trade from 1634 to its glory days in the final decades of the nineteenth century, and its decline in the first four decades of this century. Dana Story, author of Growing Up in a Shipyard, has a well-deserved reputation for thorough historical research and for the ease and wit of his writing. Here he brings these qualities to a book that is in large part his own family's history. His forebears settled in Essex in 1637 and began building vessels in 1813.

For three centuries, shipbuilding flourished in Essex, a small village wrapped around a shallow tidal estuary that flows into Ipswich Bay. From sturdy little Chebacco boats to the tough but graceful fishing schooners that plied the Grand Banks, Essex vessels became known throughout the maritime world as swift and strong fishermen, and Essex shipbuilding became synonymous with craftsmanship of the highest order. More than four thousand ships slid down the ways destined for ports such as Gloucester, Boston, and New York. By the middle of the twentieth century, however, the industry had vanished and this extraordinary chapter in American maritime history was closed. Essex Shipbuilding recalls an era when dozens of vessels in different stages of construction lined the Essex River and the shipyard gangs worked six days a week, year-round, in any weather. Featuring the photograph collection of Dana A. Story, Essex Shipbuilding illustrates the firms of A.D. Story and Tarr & James, who built the famous racing schooners Mayflower, Columbia, and Gertrude L. Thebaud, and the high-lining fishermen Elsie and Adventure. Essex Shipbuilding also depicts these vessels at sea-fishing, racing, or pursuing more unusual work, from Arctic exploration to naval service in both world wars to rumrunning during Prohibition.

Dana Story is the last of many generations of Essex men to labor in the town's renowned shipyards. Having grown up in his father's shipyard, Story tried to carry on the trade after World War II, but by then wooden shipbuilding was an anachronism, and his yard failed in 1948. In this candid reminiscence, Dana Story captures the spicy character of a coastal New England town. With obvious fondness he brings to life the shipyard "gangs", men of long experience, proud and eccentric. This is an engaging account of a vanished segment of New England life.

Frame Up!, by Essex native Dana Story, whose family is one of the oldest shipbuilding families in Essex, is a pleasurable collection of memories and narratives about a town that is bound to the sea not only by location, but by the vessels built by its inhabitants. Story's accounts of life, toil and lore among the shipyards of this small New England town, shed light on the ever-vanishing art of shipbuilding, which made Essex unrivaled.The history of the men, their skills and the boat launchings, which have slowly faded away with the artisans and vessels themselves, is brought back through the memories of a native son, the legendary Dana Story.

This work aims to facilitate the study of the shipbuilding industry by making available information on the present location of shipbuilding archives. The brief histories of about 200 businesses are offered.