Log chips : the periodical publication of recent maritime history.

[trippwj]

Maritime historian John Lyman wrote and edited a mimeographed news letter called Log Chips: A Periodical Publication of Recent Maritime History. Starting in July 1948, each issue was twelve pages and each volume consisted of 12 issues. There were four volumes between 1948 and 1959, and Norman Brouwer edited a series of Log Chips Supplements in 1980.

From Issue 1:
LOG CHIPS, of which this is the first issue, has been created to preserve and disseminate in a concise form the research of the Editor and his correspondents, and to serve as a means of communication among them. It is in no sense intended to be a competitor of “Sea Breezes”,  "American Neptune", “Steamboat Bill”, or the other excellent periodicals already existing in the field of maritime history and nautical research. It is intended rather to supplement those publications by presenting, in an extremely simple format, lists and tabular matter of slight interest to the casual reader but of permanent value to the serious student, preliminary treatments of aspects of recent maritime history for circulation among those having personal knowledge of the facts and events; and observations and notes for which no suitable medium of publication at present exists.

 

Each mimeographed issue offered a variety of information to the historian.  Topics were wide ranging, and the collection is a wonderful resource for those people who are interested in commercial sail in the Pacific after about 1860. Most issues included a List of Launchings in the United Kingdom, biographical articles, launching lists for ship builders up and down the coast (such as Matthew Turner, Hans D. Bendixsen and the Hall Brothers). Lyman likewise covered the East Coast, particularly New England.  The men and the companies who built the East Coast schooners were included, along with lists of schooners and their story from seven masts down to three masts.

 

Why do I mention this, you might ask? Well, chummly, it seems that, through the generosity of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, pretty much the entire collection of Log Chips has been posted to The Internet Archive.  Note that these are NOT Google scans, but appear to have been done at a higher resolution specifically for the Archive.  This is a treasure not to be missed!

 

Here is a link to one issue – at the bottom of the page you will see more.

 

https://archive.org/details/LogChips1948July

 

Here is a bibliography of Lyman's various writings as well.

lyman.pdf