Portrait Of A Master Mariner

Master Mariner

J. F. Colton and Co. of Arizona are, according to their letterhead.

General Agents, so evidently it is just as a side-line, or through the personal interest of the company’s director. J. Ferrell Colton, who him self spent many years at sea. that they publish books on sea-faring matters.

All of these books, both in size, format and general lay-out are un usual, and not the least unusual is the latest of them, “Master of the Moving Sea”, a huge volume de voted to the life of Peter J. R.

Mathieson, well-known Master of sailing ships in the hey-day of these vessels. Captain Mathieson was born in a sailing ship in December, 1871. and died in a motor accident in Canada in 1954 and of the 83 years in between, nearly 60 of them were spent at sea.

He sailed the vessels of six nations and knew all the routes of the full rigged sailing ships. He raced before the gales of the Roaring Forties; knew the fury of the route around Cape Horne, and the more tranquil pas sages in the Pacific.

Born shortly after the Franco- Prussian war, several minor conflicts and two World Wars took place during his lifetime During World War II he served with the Americans in the Pacific— including Australian and New Guinea waters. He was invalided out and retired from the sea in IMA.

During the whole of his life. Cap tain Mathieson kept records and diaries and it is from these that Gladys M. O. Gowlland. a relative by marriage, has pieced together this remarkable record of one of me longest and most interesting of sea Ca, The price of the book is $lO in the US’ $10.50 elsewhere—a very large sized price. However, the size and scope of the book is in keeping, as through Captain Mathieson s eyes, the last 60 years of the sailing-ship era are covered in great detail. (Published bv J. F. Colton and Co., P.O. Box 1121. Flagstaff. Arizona.

Usa.)