— July 2002 |This popular port is a living museum and a window
to America's seafaring past.| Mystic's lifeblood has been the
sea since its settlement in the 1600's. Some 600 vessels were
built on its shores between 1784 and 1919, and most of its
citizens were shipwrights who worked their farms in the summer
and spent the rest of the year building the sloops and schooners
that plied the rich New England waters as well as those of the
southern states and the Caribbean. Long an important fishing and
whaling port, Mystic changed in 1838 when George Clark and
Thomas Greenman set up their shipbuilding business on what would
become the site of the Mystic Seaport Museum. Over the next 40
years, the Greenman yard launched almost 100 vessels, including
sloops, clipper ships, and steamboats. The nearby Mallory
shipyard, now the museum's restoration yard, also built clippers
and steamboats. American's inexorable tie to the sea is nowhere
more evident than in Mystic. It's one of my favorite
destinations while cruising in