Arthur Sewall was an American wealthy shipbuilder and politician.
Background
He was born on November 25, 1835 at Bath, Maine, United States, son of William Dunning and Rachel (Trufant) Sewall and brother of Frank Sewall.
He was descended from Henry Sewall, who had come from Coventry, England, in 1634 and settled in Newbury, Massachussets; his great-grandfather, Dummer Sewall, had moved in 1760 from York, Maine, to Georgetown (later Bath), which partly through Sewall influence was to become "the great American shipyard. " His father dabbled in railroads and politics and built twenty-nine vessels between 1823 and 1854.
Education
After a common school education in Bath, Arthur was sent to Prince Edward Island to become familiar with the cutting of ship timber.
Career
He began his active shipbuilding career in 1854 as the American merchant marine reached its zenith. With his elder brother, Edward, he formed the firm of E. & A. Sewall and commenced work in the family yard on the Kennebec. The Holyhead, of some 1100 tons, launched in 1855, was the first of his eighty vessels.
Upon Edward's death he took a son and a nephew as partners, and the firm in 1879 became A. Sewall & Company. Though English vessels, utilizing iron, steel, and steam, were driving the wooden American sailing vessels out of competition, the Sewalls specialized in the latter type, doing much to keep it alive in the period of decline. They generally retained ownership of the ships they built and at one time owned a fleet of more than twenty-five. Their shipwrights and captains were usually natives of the Kennebec valley.
During the Civil War he refused to have his ships take advantage of British registry, and his Vigilant was captured on her maiden voyage by the Confederate raider, Sumter. In the decade following the war, the Sewalls turned out a number of celebrated ships, including the Undaunted, Eric the Red, El Capitan, Occidental, Oriental, Continental, Harvester, Reaper, Thrasher, and Granger. Then came a depression without even the usual "ship a year, " but in the early nineties they built their "Big Four, " the Rappahannock, Shenandoah, Susquehanna, and Roanoke, averaging more than 3000 tons.
The next step was iron. Sewall was interested in Gen. Thomas W. Hyde's Bath Iron Works, organized in 1889, which built the Machias, Castine, and Katahdin for the new navy. After visiting England to study the latest methods he began to build steel sailing vessels, and in 1894 the steel Dirigo was launched.
His last ship, launched a month after his death, was the William P. Frye, sunk January 28, 1915, the first American vessel sunk by the Germans in the World War. He was at various times president of the Eastern Railroad and of the Central Railroad, and a director of the Boston and Maine Railroad. From 1871 until his death he was president of the Bath National Bank.
He was the most prominent of the Maine Democrats, those constant supporters of forlorn hopes in that Republican stronghold, but the only elective offices he ever received were as councilman and alderman in Bath. He was a delegate to the national conventions in 1876, 1880, and 1888; in the next two campaigns he served on the executive committee of the Democratic national committee, and in 1896 he was nominated for vice-president on the fifth ballot and took an active part in the campaign. In 1900 he was stricken with apoplexy at his summer home at Small Point, just below Bath, where he died.
Achievements
Although, Arthur Sewall introduced relatively few innovations into naval architecture, his importance comes rather from his large-scale construction of sailing vessels far into the era of steam; during the latter half of the nineteenth century he built, owned, and operated more sailing vessels than anyone else in America. His "Big Four" - the Rappahannock, Shenandoah, Susquehanna, and Roanoke, were the largest and the last of the great American wooden full-rigged ships. Sewall never held elective office, although once he was a member of the Democratic National Committee.
Politics
Since he was an ardent imperialist and a believer in the tariff as a weapon in international trade, his position as a Democrat might have seemed anomalous except for his opposition to the gold standard.
Personality
He was drawn into other fields of business activity more because of his sound common sense and executive ability.
Quotes from others about the person
He was called by Lewiston Evening Journal "a gentleman who was without fear and without offense" and "the epitome of gallant gentility".
Connections
In 1859 he had married Emma Duncan Crooker, daughter of a Bath shipbuilder; of their three sons two survived him, one of them Harold Marsh Sewall.
Sewall's grandson, Sumner Sewall, served as Governor of Maine from 1941 to 1945, as a Republican.
