Crockett Chronicle

SILAS CROCKETT--Mary Ellen Chase-- Macmillan ($2.50). Silas Crockett was 23, master of the clipper Southern Seas, when in 1830 he returned to the Maine village of Saturday Cove after a profitable voyage to Canton. He was returning to "the shining coast" to marry Solace Winship, high-spirited daughter of a local builder whose untaught good taste had created masterpieces of native architecture throughout Maine. Self-confident, aggressive, Silas was determined to take Solace with him on his next voyage, feared the opposition of her parents and of his own, was sure Solace would willingly accompany him. But when, after he had distributed presents brought from the ends of the earth, he announced his determination, there was no conflict. Solace's parents surrendered her without a struggle. The anticlimax sets the pattern for Silas Crockett, third novel of Mary Ellen Chase, 48, Smith College English professor, whose Mary Peters was one of last year's more durable bestsellers. Covering the history of the Crockett family from 1830 to 1933, it is packed with data on U. S. shipping, describes in detail the fate of each of the many Crocketts as they descended the scale from clipper ships to schooners, to coastwise steamers, to fishing smacks, to ferryboats. Silas Crockett II ended up working in a herring factory. Less a novel than a family chronicle, it is filled with glowing tributes to the sturdiness, to the unbeatable optimism of the clan, ends with an inspirational scene in which young Silas and his bride think back over the years and apprehend the radiant reality of their faith. Worldly readers may feel that the Crocketts, better endowed with backbone than with acumen, never properly realized that things were rapidly going from bad to worse.

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