Wayne G. Miller grew up in Quincy and remembers family excursions over the Fore River Bridge, hoping to see a ship going out to sea. He owned a collectibles business for 25 years specialising in books, postcards, sports, movie, and political memorabilia. After retiring he decided to pursue his interest in local shipbuilding. In 2013 he wrote"Fore River Shipyard A Postcard History" published by Arcadia Publishing. He followed that up in 2017 by writing the first comprehensive history of shipbuilding in Quincy. "Quincy MAssachusetts A Shipbuilding Tradition" was published by the Quincy Historical Society. Wayne is also the editor of "Quincy History," the newsletter of the Quincy Historical Society.
Wayne is a member of the Braintree,Quincy, and Bourne Historical societies, and the United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum. ____________________________________________________________________________________
By Sue Scheible
The Patriot Ledger
Posted Nov 6, 2017 at 4:30 PMUpdated Nov 7, 2017 at 8:13 AM
“Quincy Massachusetts: A Shipbuilding Tradition” by Wayne Miller is the first comprehensive history of Quincy shipbuilding, from the Unity of 1696 through the giant operation of Fore River yard.
QUINCY -- Weymouth author Wayne Miller will launch his second book on the history of shipbuilding in Quincy on Thursday Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. at the Quincy Historical Society, which is the publisher.
Edward Fitzgerald, executive director of the historical society, said “Wayne will present an illustrated lecture based on the book, Quincy Massachusetts, A Shipbuilding Tradition.
“Quincy Massachusetts: A Shipbuilding Tradition” is a follow-up to his first book, “Fore River Shipyard” published by Arcadia in 2013.
“Quincy Massachusetts: A Shipbuilding Tradition” will be available for sale when he speaks next week. He will give an hour-long Power Point presentation with many of the historic photographs he found for the book.
Fitzgerald said: “Illustrated with 150 images and exhaustively researched, Quincy Massachusetts, A Shipbuilding Tradition is the first comprehensive history of Quincy shipbuilding, telling the stories of boats and ships and the people who built them from the Unity of 1696 through the giant operation of Fore River yard. It features highly readable accounts of naval vessels, racing boats, and sturdy working craft and of men who regularly gambled everything on the success of their ventures.”
“We believe this book makes a significant contribution to Quincy history,” Fitzgerald said. “By bringing all this information and all these stories together between two covers, Wayne lets us really see and appreciate the great arc of Quincy shipbuilding. We also gain new appreciation for the personalities of the builders and workers and their families and for the challenges they faced. We are proud to be publishing it.”
Wayne Miller is also the author of Fore River Shipyard, A Postcard History. He is a member of the boards of Quincy Historical Society and the Thomas Crane Public Library Foundation.
Quincy Massachusetts, A Shipbuilding Tradition retails for $21.99. It will be available after the Nov. 9 program at the Historical Society’s Museum Shop in the Adams Academy, which is open Mondays through Fridays from 9:00 to 4:00.
This followup book covers Quincy shipbuilding from 1789 to around 1986. He recently shared one of his “finds” during nearly four years of research.
“In my book there is a chapter on the Embree Brothers,” he emailed. “They had a shipyard under the Fore River Bridge at 24 Wharf Street. The only photo of the brothers I could find is in the “Souvenir of the Quincy Patriot” from 1899.”
He has also created a Facebook Page.
“I am thrilled and honored to have Quincy Historical Society as my publisher!” he said. He is working closely with the society’s director Edward Fitzgerald.
Placing the 150 plus illustrations in the 200-page book amidst the text has been “a daunting task,” Miller said.
Last November, I wrote about Wayne’s productive passion for his hometown history: “Wayne Miller has made a productive retirement project, including a book, out of memories of his Quincy hometown and new research into the Fore River Shipyard, closed in 1986. Now he is looking into the city’s earlier shipyards and asking the public’s help with the Quincy Historical Society.”
An indefatigable researcher, Miller finds fun facts -- “John Adams came to the launching of the Mount Wollaston at Nathan Josselyn’s shipyard in 1822” --and enjoys every discovery.
