Q 01/05

Which novelist later made famous the seven-gabled Salem house seen in Carry On, Mr. Bowditch?

A) Herman Melville

B) Nathaniel Hawthorne

C) Harriet Beecher Stowe

D) Washington Irving

Answer · why

B) Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne set his 1851 novel The House of the Seven Gables there. In the book, Nat's grandmother says the house was built by an ancestor of ...

Q 02/05

What hides Salem Harbor as Captain Bowditch steers home blind at the end of Carry On, Mr. Bowditch?

A) Thick fog

B) Driving rain

C) Battle smoke

D) A hailstorm

Answer · why

A) Thick fog

Thick fog cannot stop him: watching only his compass and his watch, Nat brings the ship in. His son's memoir of the real landfall, on 25 December 1803...

Q 03/05

Which college, Nat's boyhood dream, awards him an honorary degree in Carry On, Mr. Bowditch?

A) Columbia

B) Dartmouth

C) Princeton

D) Harvard

Answer · why

D) Harvard

Harvard announces the degree at a commencement Nat is only watching from the audience. Poverty had ended his schooling at ten, so the honour comes wit...

Q 04/05

Which trade does Nat's father take up after losing his ship in Carry On, Mr. Bowditch?

A) Ship carpentry

B) Rope making

C) Barrel making

D) Sailmaking

Answer · why

C) Barrel making

Barrel making, the cooper's trade, soon claims Nat as well: when money runs short he is pulled out of school to work in his father's shop.

Q 05/05

Which disease kills Nat's young first wife while he is away at sea in Carry On, Mr. Bowditch?

A) Smallpox

B) Yellow fever

C) Scarlet fever

D) Consumption

Answer · why

D) Consumption

Consumption, now called tuberculosis, takes her within months of the wedding. Back in Salem, Nat is told that the disease kills more people than accid...