Jack Corbett Mariner

Just completed a wonderful little gem of a book. Jack Corbett Mariner by A.S. Hatch can be obtained via www.jackcorbett.com with all proceeds going to The New York City Rescue Mission. A.S. Hatch was one of the wealthy bankers of the gilded era of American commerce when fortunes were being made through finance, industrialization and national expansion (including railroads and canals). Hatch's origins were humble and provincial. He was born in 1829 in Vermont to a country doctor.

Slight and asthmatic, his father recommended that he ship as a sailor, which experience would either "cure him or kill him". Clearly someone had been reading Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast (published 1840). In 1849 Hatch came to New York to find a suitable ship. While lodging in seaman's quarters along the harbor front, he struck up a friendship with an older sailor, Jack Corbett. Corbett took Hatch under wing, found a well captained and crewed ship and encouraged Hatch to sign on. They shipped in a Liverpool packet, the ships of the period that carried miscellaneous cargo to Britain but made their primary money by bringing the tens of thousands of emigrants (particularly refugees of the Irish potato famine) to America on the return voyage.

Corbett looked out for Hatch and taught him all that he needed to know to be a competent sailor and more importantly to survive the perilous duties of a sailor of the north Atlantic in the winter. Hatch and Corbett became separated after that first voyage. Hatch ended up making two voyages. He then went on to make his fortune as a banker and financier.

Thirty years passed before an aged Corbett found Hatch and made contact with him again. Hatch took him on as a family retainer, general handyman, and life guard of his eleven children.

In his later years, Hatch wrote up an account of his early sailing days and his adventures with Corbett. The manuscript knocked around the family for a century or so before his grandson, Denny Hatch, prepared it for publication. Apparently it only required light editing. This is quite remarkable as the language feels almost contemporary. In this regard it is not dissimilar to Clarence Day's Father books or Frank Gilbreth's Cheaper by the Dozen.

Touching, informative of an often overlooked but fascinating period of American history, and simply a compelling read, this is to be recommended to any adult and YA interested in history, maritime tales, or anyone prepared to be touched by a very human story.

The dedication by Hatch gives you a flavor of the book:

To JACK Who was my rough but tender guardian and mentor amid the hardships and perils and in the unaccustomed duties of my first voyage at sea: who afterwards became a humble but useful member of my household ashore and the faithful playmate and protector of my children in their aquatic sports and who died in my arms this book is affectionately dedicated.