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Author of “Life of Paul Jones,” “History of Andrew Jackson,” “Life of Sir William Johnson,” Etc.
Philadelphia and London J. B. Lippincott Company 1906
Copyright, 1906 By J. B. Lippincott Company
Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia
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IT is not often that the memoirs of a man cover the history of threescore years of active manhood. Still more rare is it that the period covered happens to be the most fruitful of progress known in the annals of mankind. And yet more remarkable, even to the point of the unique, is it that such a career, in such an epoch, should be inextricably interwoven with the history of one of the fairest arts and one of the most fascinating sciences,—Naval Architecture and Ship-building.
All this is true of the subject of this memoir, Charles Henry Cramp.
Such phrases as “prominently identified with” or “an acknowledged leader in” his sphere of creative activity do not adequately express Charles H. Cramp’s personal and professional relation, or rather his individual identification, with the maritime and naval history of his country. Those phrases applied to his status and his rank would be commonplace. His impress is far deeper than that, and the association of his name and his personality with the art and its triumphs have become a symbol.
The generation of naval architects and ship-builders among whom he began his life-work sixty years ago have long since passed away. Of them all he stands alone, the only surviving link that binds the romantic memories of wood and canvas to the grim realities of steel and steam. Even the generation that knew him in the middle of his long and fruitful career is gone. He is the only man who has alike designed and built ships for the navy of the Civil War and for that of to-day,—alike for the navy that fought at Charleston and Fort Fisher and for the navy that won Santiago and Manila Bay,—twoscore years asunder! In all the history of our country there has never been another professional career like his. No other man ever made such an impress as he upon the life, welfare, and progress of the nation. No other man, without ever holding a public office, has so indelibly left his mark upon our greatest and most vital public interests as he has done.