Newburyport was once the most dangerous harbor on the East Coast and one of its most prosperous. Local captains and sailors led the nation to battle during the American Revolution and founded the U.S. Coast Guard. They sent vessels to Bombay, the gold rush and the farthest reaches of the world. Author Dyke Hendrickson explores the perfection of the clipper ship, the city s famous Federalist mansions and the bold adventures from the Age of Sail. Follow the men and women of Newburyport into battle, into gales and into fortune or ruin." Dyke Hendrickson is a journalist who has always lived near a waterfront. He has been a writer and/or editor for the Portland Press Herald, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Boston Herald and now the Daily News in Newburyport. At the Daily News, he researched a twenty-five-part column on the 250th anniversary of the community, and this effort put him on a course to write a descriptive history of the scenic coastal community. This is his fourth book. Dyke lives not far from the sea in Newburyport with his wife, Vicki Hendrickson.