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How old were you when you first went to sea? I was twelve when I went offshore. In between times I would go to school. I learned to use the English language. Skippers were always glad to have someone on board who could do some ciphering and sketching, whether they had mariner’s papers or not. I soon found out that I could always find somebody who wanted to get rid of some good looking seaman’s papers for a bottle of booze. If I had been a nice little boy and played by all the rules I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. Some of these grandfatherly-type skippers would go, “What the hell, come along.” I’d go out on the old Mosquito fleet and take two round trips to Tacoma, do a little lettering for free, get a couple dinners and have a good time. So you’d do whatever was interesting and got you by? I’d work in logging camps. I learned to draw out the mauls and things from an old time blacksmith, or I’d show up to see if they needed someone for a couple days and stay around the camp for another week. Same with the circus. I was down in Pioneer Square at a gallery which had a fine exhibit of art from the southwest during the Depression years, and lo and behold, in one of the carnival paintings the fat lady banner was one that I’d done. I would go into a restaurant in a strange town and tell the boss I was in the market for eight or ten meals, how many posters could he use? I never worried about being paid in cash. What about sailing on the old ships? Handling a sailing vessel is awfully hard work. There’s always some risk in it. There’s much beauty in it as well. There was a great deal of both violence and serenity in it. There’s fellowship among the men you work with, many things that were very rewarding. Some authors make life aboard the old windships sound pretty harrowing. Oh bullshit. Some of these authors painted a picture of “hell ships.” Some of the ships they wrote about laid up in Puget Sound and their skippers were still around. I was quite willing to listen to their stories and the stories of the men that sailed with them. No doubt they did “handle the crew” if need be and all this “hell ship” stuff sounded great. One source of it was sailor’s yarns; if it’s tough you make it tougher, if it’s horrible you make it incredible, and if it’s incredible you turn around and tell the truth. Now I’ve been in some pretty rough situations with some pretty tough masters and mates in the days before things were really unionized and I never got bothered. Most of the guys who got rough treatment deserved it. A competent, able-bodied man was too valuable a commodity to boot around. Sometimes being at sea isn’t that healthy. You can be wet, you can have sea sores under your old oil skins. Your ears can be chapped from the flaps of your Sou’wester. Skin can be coming off in your socks after a prolonged blow. It’s all admittedly pretty miserable, but I’d gone out hunting for fun in those days and slopped around for three or four days without getting dry, and all for no game. It’s basically the same physical condition. What do you think of sailors today, I mean those traveling the world under sail? You’ll find that some of the best sailors who ever lived are sailing as yachtsmen today, doing ocean cruising. Some of them are remarkably shorthanded. I see them always getting asked the same question, “Why do you go to sea?” When asked why one goes to sea, I’ve always put it this way; If you’ve got to ask the question, I’m not going to bother to answer because you’ll never understand the motivation. Did your voyages always start out from Puget Sound? All voyages don’t have to be on water. I’d start out from anywhere. For instance, if there’s anything on rails that runs in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia or New Zealand, I’ve probably ridden on it. I never paid to ride on a railroad until I was mustered out of the service. During all this time you were sketching. Did you ever have any formal training in drawing or illustrating? No, I just liked to do it. And every time I made a mistake there was some kind soul who would tell me about it. I had the advantage of talking with some very fine illustrators, engineers and naval architects because I’d be someplace and a drawing was needed. Some of these guys would come back and give me nice drafting instruments and books on drafting and let me look over their shoulders. When I was bumming around I met a number of prominent artists and authors. There was one thing I always found: You take small time people and they’re likely to be snooty and stand-offish. The smallness seems to disappear the higher up you go in levels of competence. I traveled with Steinbeck when he was writing Grapes of Wrath. I just happened to raise my thumb and get in the car with him. We bummed around for a few days then went our different ways. I spent a very pleasant three days with Norman Rockwell. I have always found that if I would listen and had something to offer, that they were interested in, there was always a helping hand. What was the first ship you researched? Vancouver’s Discovery. That was?the first serious one I did. The Seattle Historical Society asked me to do something. The first work was published about 1947. It turned out to be the damnedest ship to research. I eventually traced down her lines and specifications, worked up the lines and sent them to Chappelle for comment. He comes back, “What in the devil is this?’ We finally decided she must have begun either as a whaler or a lumber carrier. Vancouver bought her when she was half completed. So the historian takes the pieces of the puzzle and puts them together? It’s a learning process. The first thing that you have to learn is to take what is presented and evaluate it. I don’t like these “historians” whose grandfather had some land on the Oregon coast, and they’re going to prove that Sir Francis Drake anchored there. You don’t start out to confirm a supposition. Your personal opinion, your likes and dislikes, don’t enter into it at all. What’s the difference between a historian and a history buff? The history buff really enjoys it. He reads historical novels, reads Chappelle, and just writes stuff. Everything he reads, he reads lightly. He basically just enjoys it. The historian is slow. What the buff will do in two hours, the historian will take three years. People don’t really have an idea of how much patience is involved. What do you think of the historical-maritime dramas on TV? Sometimes the photography is beautiful. I just turn the sound down and watch the photography. Proper research is a never ending process. As you read, each thing you read will lead you to a question that you will ask. And each answer you get will lead to several more questions. I find that uncovering a continuing thread of valuable minor things that can be added into a combination with others is very rewarding. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ...back to Article Page One ...back to 48° North title page.
| Hewitt studying a ship’s lines in his studio in Bellevue.  Jackson’s paintings grace the walls of museums and many maritime art collectors. Above is a portion of a painting in which the “HMS Chatham” is shown off Restoration Point in Puget Sound.  Captain Cook’s ship, “Resolution,” built for the Oregon Historical Society.  Hewitt’s sketches were more than just of ships upon the sea. He tried to capture not only the ship’s detail, but also the proper sea states for the time and place, along with that of the action surrounding the ship. 
Jackson’s studio was more of a small building containing a truly eclectic collection of paintings, drawings, old printing presses, vintage cameras, and, above all, books. Of course, there was a collection of National Geographics, along with obscure tomes of many a sea voyage. He loved to scour book shops and sales for those rare volumes that would lend yet another clue to his ongoing reasearch of ships and maritime history.
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