Four Years Before the Mast: A History of New York's Maritime College

Under New York City's Throgs Neck Bridge lies a spit of land dominated by a pentagonal, 19th-century fortress that today houses a school that has trained mariners since the age of sail. Within Fort Schuyler's walls are stories of heroism and mutinies, shipwrecks and desertions. In Four Years Before the Mast, author Joseph A. Williams tells the tale of that institution known today as SUNY Maritime College. The story begins during the age of sail when disaster and mutiny created a new demand for trained mariners. In response, in 1873, New York State established a nautical school under the auspices of the New York City Board of Education. Originally based aboard the square-rigged sloop-of-war St. Mary's, the school taught boys to run the rigging, tie knots, holystone the decks, and navigate on yearly cruises across the Atlantic. In its beginning in the 19th century, the school was constantly confused for a reformatory where "bad boys were made good." Because of its cost, it was seen as a symbol of government waste, and its opponents repeatedly tried to shut it down. But despite the criticisms, the school survived and its tough training practices created generations of gallant sea officers who led the American merchant fleet into the modern world. In 1938, after a bruising political battle with Robert Moses, the school came ashore at Fort Schuyler in the Bronx. In the following decades, it continued its tradition of training sea officers as a college within the State University of New York. Four Years Before the Mast is a narrative history of a unique institution that offers anecdotes from the 19th to 21st centuries revealing the harrowing existence of life at sea, death in the high Arctic, daring rescues of foundered ships, U-Boat attacks, and heroism on 9/11.