The Sea Mark wasn't what I wanted it to be.

I was hoping for a look at the historical Captain John Smith and his voyages. I ended up with a travelogue and a lot of speculation.

The author reconstructs much of Smith's voyages, but most of it is built on guesses. He and his crew may have docked here. They may have seen that island. They could have spent time there. And the like.

I understand the difficulty, since Smith left few good accounts of the voyages. But this seems like less than it should have been.

Also, he spends many, many pages discussing the currents, the coastal features, the Native Americans, but doesn't link them very convincingly to Smith.

I concur with another review I have seen that had issue with the constant archaic spellings used throughout - that just made it harder to read.

As a look at the Maine and New England coastline, this book is fine. As a history, it's a little thin.

I received this book free for review.

More reviews at my WordPress site, Ralphsbooks. ( )

Early Reviewer review of: The Sea Mark: Captain John Smith's Voyage to New England

This book provides a great introduction to the career of John Smith. Lawson focuses on Smith's later voyages to explore and map out the coastal regions of Maine and Massachusetts. After a successful stay in the Jamestown where he helped save the fledgling colony, Smith's next trip was to be to New England. He had high hopes of being able to establish a fishing colony which would be able to peaceably trade with the local Indians. As his small boat braved the shoals, rivers, and storms along the New England coast Smith created detailed accurate maps of the regions which he saw. He met with local Indian tribes, and managed to communicate with some of them with his rough Algonquin. Smith's explorations were invaluable for later explorers and colonists. When he returned to England Smith began writing about his adventures and became a amateur historian. Unfortunately Smith never returned to America, and he never led a fishing colony. He ended his life living off the charity of his friends while he continued to write and try to inspire others to take up his cause of colonizing and Christianizing New England.

The book provides detailed descriptions of Smith's travels along the New England coast, any natives of these regions will be able to easily follow Smith's journey and appreciate the dangers he described. ( )

A narrative history of John Smith's New England voyage; mostly a sort of geographic recreation of the trip, as Lawson takes the reader along with Smith during his explorations of the coasts of what are now Maine and Massachusetts. Not by any means a full-fledged biography of Smith, and Lawson's acceptance of Smith's writings completely and face value probably isn't the best course of action. Repetitive in several places as Lawson repeats the same anecdotes more than once, but as a quick survey of Smith's New England travels, not at all a bad read. ( )

Historian Russell M. Lawson calls his book about John Smith’s exploration of the New England coast a “narrative history.” Most of The Sea Mark reads like a diary of Smith’s six-month journey from the estuary of the Penobscot west to Cape Cod and back in 1614. Although it was primarily a search for commercial opportunities, Smith took bearings and soundings sufficient to publish A Description of New England, including a detailed coastal map, that he hoped would lead investors to support colonization. The conversion of Smith’s geographical and commercial description to a narrative form results in a story that is largely supposition. Each detail added to bring life to the story brings with it hedging language: a “perhaps” or a “might well have…” Perhaps it makes the history more accessible to the modern reader, but all the guessing about what happened detracts from the history itself.

The book includes several current NOAA navigational charts to locate the events and places in modern terminology. Nice idea, but the reduction in size to fit a 3- x 4-foot chart into half a book page renders the charts useless. Even a magnifying glass is insufficient for reading. ( )

The Sea Mark by Russell M. Layton is a very interesting and revealing book about the little known later life of Capt. John Smith. Most of us have heard or read about Capt John Smith's association with the ill fated Jamestown colony of 1607. His larger than life exploits with native Americans and Pocahontas have become standard grade school lore.

In The Sea Mark, Mr. Layton has undertaken a very sizable job of sorting out the real John Smith. This is not for lack of written record of John Smith's life. But, rather, nearly all the material was written by John Smith himself with the goal of promoting the colonization of "new England". Because of this need to clearly illuminate Smith's motives and views, The Sea Mark isn't the easiest book to read. In many critical areas Mr. Layton makes use of direct quotes of John Smith including the original 17th century spelling. Where names of flora and fauna are completely different, Mr. Layton does show there modern identities.

However, as often happens the real Capt John Smith is actually more interesting than the simple man of legend. As background to his voyage to "new England" and explain to John Smith, the man, Mr. Layton describes John Smith's life before Jamestown. As only a teenager John Smith served as a mercenary fighting the Spaniards. Though not born to the sea and with little formal education, Smith became an excellent seaman. While fighting as mercenary against the Ottoman Turks, he was captured and sold as a slave. As a slave, Smith was taken to the Crimea where he was able to escape after killing his master. He wandered through the continent eventually ending in North Africa where he joined a French ship and was able to make his way back to England.

For readers of northern New England, the chapters of The Sea Mark describing the detailed exploration of the coast of Maine and Massachusetts will read like a travelogue. Mr. Layton provides such detail that many sailors will be tempted to recreate sections of his voyage to experience what Smith saw along the rocky coast of Maine.

After the interesting chapters on "new England", Mr. Layton turns to the remainder of Smith's life attempting to return to "new England" and create a permanent colony. Unfortunately, this was to never happen. It is unfortunate that Smith's efforts to lead a permanent colony never happened. His knowledge of the region and its native peoples would have changed history.

Overall, The Sea Mark is a very engrossing read (particularly for New Englanders) that fills in little known elements of the Capt John Smith folklore. ( )