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We have  posted a number of items over the last two years pertaining to an extraordinary collection that was given to the Museum a few years ago. This collection of ocean liner ephemera entails nearly 10,000 items and will be a great source of exhibit and research material for the Museum for years to come. A number of people have been involved in cataloging and digitizing the collection, and one member of the staff has created descriptions for a sampling of what appears in the collection. You can see that sampling through this link.

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to all as Dr. Seuss, the beloved children’s book author and illustrator, began his career as cartoonist for Vanity Fair, Life and other publications before moving into advertising; most notably for Standard Oil, the parent company of Esso Marine Oil and Lubricants.

As ad man for Esso, Seuss created a menagerie of sea-dwelling creatures and a host of mariner characters that appear in numerous advertisements in boating publications such as Yachting and Motor Boating. Captain Taylor, a mariner who often dispensed tongue-in-cheek boating advice, and perhaps the most well-known of the characters, is seen here adorning a roving advertisement for Burr’s Yacht Station (New London, CT) during the Harvard-Yale Rowing Race in June of 1935. MSM Rosenfeld Collection. Acc. # 1984.187.71507F

When asked to create a campaign for Esso Marine Lube for the 1936 New York International [Motor] Boat Show, Seuss and his colleagues created 15 certificates stating that the selectee had been named an Admiral in Seuss’ Navy. The inductees, especially in the beginning, were celebrity boaters like Vincent Astor. The aim, much like today’s advertising campaigns, was to attach the Esso Marine brand to the celebrity, “If it’s good enough for [celebrity], it’s got to be good.” The campaign was supposed to be somewhat in jest, but the selectees hung their certificates up in their yachts and soon everyone wanted to be part of Seuss’ Navy, where every man was an Admiral. Certificate: MSM Acc. # 1988.107.35

With growing interest in becoming a member of Seuss’ Navy, the simple ad campaign became a full-fledged feature at the shows. Seuss’ Navy was deemed the “Fun-Makers” and sponsored boat races, games, contests, and hosted an annual “Seuss Navy Luncheon and Frolic” MSM Rosenfeld Collection. Acc. # 1984.187.85312F.

Esso marketers and salesmen even put on short plays created by Seuss. In one of Seuss’ “Little Dramas of the Deep,” “The demon sludge fish is the villain… an enlightening story for those embryo mariners who would gamble on lubricants…”- a big hit.

Seuss went on to create three 30-page Seuss Navy story booklets – with rhyming text. Seuss later said his experience working at Standard Oil taught him “conciseness and how to marry pictures with words.” Seuss published his first children’s book in 1937.

The Navy sank by 1949 as a result of what Seuss claims was a “casualty of its own commercialism.”

Esso Marine Advertisements

Emily Mayotte

In my work researching materials from the Witherill Collection, a collection of documents and objects relating to the grand ocean liners of the 20^th century, it has often been frustrating trying to learn more about women’s stories. The passenger lists we have are full of interesting and accomplished men and, no doubt women, but even the women who seem to be traveling without a husband are often identified only by their husbands’ name or initials. Sometimes, though, a woman passenger does stand out for her title or her name.

A wonderful example is this passenger list for the QUEEN ELIZABETH’s voyage departing New York on September 18, 1947 for Southampton, England. It is full of interesting men: Allen W. Dulles, the future director of the CIA; H.S.M. Burns, the president of the Shell Oil Company; Dr. Hajo Holborn, Yale professor of history; Dr. Otto Stern, a Nobel Prize winning physicist at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh; Harvard philosopher Dr. Ralph Barton Perry. There are also a number of Congressmen listed, including John Davis Lodge, who later became the governor of Connecticut. Clearly, it was a post-war moment when Americans were eagerly embracing European travel again.

But there, at the bottom of the first page of names, is “Congresswoman Frances Boulton.” On further investigation, it turns out that this 1947 voyage represented both a turning point in U.S. history and a milestone for women in politics.

Frances Payne Bolton (the passenger list misspells it) was Ohio’s first Congresswoman and one of just a handful of women in the House of Representatives. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, she was an heiress to the Standard Oil fortune, making her one of the richest women in America. Her husband, Chester Castle Bolton, was the Congressman for Ohio’s 22^nd District, and when he passed away, Frances Payne Bolton ran in the special election for his seat. This was often how women managed to get a foothold in politics in this time period. The men who encouraged her to run for her husband’s office thought she would serve out his term and then retire from politics. Instead, she continued to serve and win elections for 28 years.

Congresswoman Frances Bolton. Wikimedia Commons.

In the fall of 1947, Congress sent many of its members on fact-finding missions abroad. It was a crucial moment: the US had emerged from World War II as a new superpower, with parts of western Europe in ruins, while the USSR seemed to be engaged in a power grab. The world’s hunger for Middle Eastern oil was clear, and the United Nations was attempting to resolve a fiery situation in British Palestine.

By this time, Frances Bolton was a seasoned member of Congress and served on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. In the fall of 1947, as chair of a subcommittee studying the situation in the Near East, she made history, becoming the first woman ever to lead a Congressional delegation. On October 4, she and her colleague Congressman Chester E. Merrow of New Hampshire arrived in Jerusalem to meet with all parties. This September 18 passenger list is from their trip over to England, before continuing on to Jerusalem.

Bolton and Merrow issued a report in early 1948 about what they had seen and heard. Their report back to the Committee on Foreign Affairs includes a paragraph about their voyage on the QUEEN ELIZABETH and how it helped shape their experience.

Already 55 years old when she was first elected, Frances Bolton threw herself into her public service and into the minute details of foreign policy. At a time when many women’s lives are barely visible in the historical record, she went on fact-gathering voyages, wrote reports and gave speeches that were instrumental in forming American understandings of the post-war world, of the Communist threat, and of policy towards the Middle East and Africa.

Michelle Turner, IMLS Cataloging Supervisor

References and Further Reading:

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/frances-bolton

https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/678

Committee on Foreign Affairs. House. National and International Movements. Report of Hon. Frances P. Bolton, Ohio and Hon. Chester E. Merrow, N.H. Relative to the Near East (and other Points Visited). Jan. 1, 1948. 80th Congress. https://li.proquest.com/elhpdf/histcontext/CMP-1948-FOA-0033.pdf

Bolton, Frances P. The Strategy and Tactics of World Communism: Report [of] Subcommittee No. 5, National and International Movements, with Supplement I, One Hundred Years of Communism, 1848-1948, and Supplement II, Official Protests of the United States Government Against Communist Policies or Actions, and Related Correspondence. [July 1945-Dec. 1947]. United States: U.S. Government Print., Office, 1948. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Strategy_and_Tactics_of_World_Commun/_Kk3AAAAIAAJ?hl=en

The Life of Frances Payne Bolton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I3EfHHlPYw

Two small collections of papers in the G.W. Blunt White Library illuminate how United States merchantmen trading with Europe faced many obstacles during the early 19^th century as continual warfare convulsed the continent.  France’s emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, issued the so-called Berlin Decree in 1806 that tried to blockade any trade, including that of neutral nations, with Britain. The British responded with a policy that allowed neutral ships to trade with the Continent only if they first touched at British ports, discharged their cargoes and paid a tax for an export license. In response, Napoleon then issued the Milan Decrees in 1807 that ordered that any ships that had touched British ports before sailing into French, or its allies’ territorial waters, be seized and condemned.

Neutral shipping, most importantly that of the United States, faced the dilemma of being seized by the Royal Navy if they failed to touch on a British port and pay the tax before proceeding to the Continent, or seized by the French or its allies if they did. This was the difficult situation faced by the United States ship Commerce in 1806 and 1807, and the merchant vessel North America and 26 other vessels in 1809-1810.

In the first case, the Commerce sailed from Boston to Lisbon with a cargo of grain and merchandise. Cognizant of the dangers of carrying on trade in a wartime environment, the Commerce first made landfall in England and secured from the Government of George III a safe passage document.  The ship proceeded to Lisbon without further incident and loaded a new cargo for Antwerp.  Twice on the voyage British ships stopped the Commerce, but allowed it to proceed.  Intercepted for a third time, however, the ship was captured by another British naval vessel and taken to England where it was detained until its case was resolved.  The Commerce, and others, were caught in the confusing decrees and counter-decrees of the French and British.

In 1807 the Commerce once again set sail from Boston for Livorno, a customs free city in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.  Upon leaving Livorno with a new cargo the ship was seized by a Russian privateer and taken to the Island of Corfu, where it was condemned.  Russia, of course, was at war with France.  It was determined that the Commerce had unwittingly taken on a cargo of wheat in Livorno that had originated in Naples, a satellite kingdom of Napoleon.  Legal proceedings taken against Russia by the United States in defense of American shipping dragged on until 1828 when the czar’s government agreed to pay an indemnity of 50,000 rubles.

In the case of the merchant vessel North America, in 1809 it was seized, captured and detained in Norway.  The Kingdom of Denmark and Norway (united from 1536-1814) had been allied with the French since 1807 which is why they intercepted and seized neutral shipping.  Court proceedings then determined if they had violated French decrees or if they were not in fact neutral vessels.  If the Danish court was satisfied with the vessel’s papers they were cleared to trade.  But if it was determined that they had touched at a British port or if the ships were not owned by a neutral country they were condemned and their ships and cargoes forfeited. The North America was one of 26 United States vessels detained in Norway at the time.  In this instance, letters regarding the seizure were written by Samuel Longfellow, uncle of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, to his father Stephen and his brother in Gorham, Maine and John Quincy Adams was enlisted in attempts to free the ships.

These few instances allow an insight into the larger problem of neutral trade in wartime and the profound disruptions to commerce that ensued.

Thank you to Dr. Paul Goodwin, Library volunteer.

A crossing-the-line ceremony is something that many naval and merchant seamen have experienced. Traditionally, when a vessel passes over the equator, anyone aboard that is also crossing for the first time is initiated into the brotherhood of shellbacks by King Neptune himself, attended by his lovely court, of course. Duckings, being “shaved” with giant implements, dosing with some sort of medicinal potion and being smeared with tar are just some of the events that might take place during a mandatory appearance at the good King’s court. Nowadays, even certificates of such a graduation into the ranks are made available to the “lucky” inductee. Below is one such certificate from 1982 issued to the recipient by Neptunus Rex and Davey Jones.

However, the tradition is a long one going back centuries. Looking back, we find the accompanying image in a rare book in the G.W. Blunt White Library’s collection at Mystic Seaport. “Crossing the Line” is from A Picturesque Voyage to India : by the Way of China, by Thomas Daniell and William Daniell published in London in 1810. Imagine the surprise of the passengers aboard as Neptune himself makes an appearance on deck to welcome new members to his company.

The following transcript from a journal 76 years later, in 1886, lays out the scene in dramatic fashion as the naval ship makes its way across the equator in the Atlantic Ocean. The author and inductee,William E. Safford, an ensign aboard the USS VANDALIA, appeared in an earlier post. The manuscript journal is part of the collection of the G.W. Blunt White Library.

“Sept. 23 ‘86

Crossing the Equator.

As we were to “cross the line” preparations were made for receiving Neptune on board; and for initiating all those on board who had not been across the line before. At half past nine in the forenoon, a grotesque procession issued from under the top gallant forecastle, headed by an old man with a long white beard and hair, wearing on his head a glittering crown and bearing in his hand a trident.  He was all bedewed with the salty spray of the ocean from which he had just risen. Seated on a chariot drawn by ocean nymphs was his blushing bride Amphitrite whose fair curly locks were surmounted by a diadem.  In her arms she held little Rhodi, her baby, wrapped up in her sea-blue mantle to screen her from the vulgar gaze of mortal eyes. The royal couple were attended by their Lord High Chamberlain and in their wake followed the barber and hairdresser to his majesty, his court physician, four Knights of the bath, and a train of attendants.

They were received by the officer of the deck and the Executive officer on the weather side of the quarter deck; and a number of officers who had not before been in his Majesty’s realm were presented with imposing ceremonies to both the King and his royal spouse by the Lord High Chamberlain. As they expressed their appreciation of the honor conferred upon them, and begged his Majesty that he would deign still further to add to their happiness by accepting some slight refreshment for himself and his retinue after their long journey from their palace beneath the sea; the gracious sovereign not only accepted the hospitality tendered him, but presented the officers with the following credentials, headed by a portrait of his majesty sitting in a shell and drawn over the blue sea by a pair of classic dolphins:

“Our Realm surrounds the World”.

Latitude 00 00

Longitude 30 33 West.

Know all men by these presents that Ensign W.E. Safford, U.S.N. having crossed our Realm on board the U.S.S. “Vandalia” in the service of his country and for honorable purposes and having complied with all the usages rules and customs in so visiting us, he is now declared

“Free of the Ocean” Given under our hand in the Reign of wind and water on this the 23 day of September 1886.

(Signed) Neptune, Rex.

After giving us our diplomas, the procession continued on its way, stopping at the bridge on the lee-side (port) of the deck.  Here a throne had been erected for Neptune, Amphitrite remaining on her chariot with her baby in her arms.  Just forward of the bridge a reservoir had been constructed out of a large tarpaulin (an awning coated with tar) by stopping its margin up to a height of about four feet above the deck, and allowing it to sag down in the middle.  This was nearly filled with water.  Just off of this, to the right of the throne was a stool mounted on a box.

Those of the crew who had never before crossed the Equator were brought in succession before the throne.  Neptune waved them aside, and Amphitrite still seated on her chariot and with a pipe in her mouth, made them kiss the baby, whose face had been coated with a mixture of shoe-blacking and grease.

They were then seated in a chair where the court dentist examined their teeth with a huge pair of forceps and the court physician administered to them some physic from a bottle armed with a bunch of needles which stuck into their faces. They were then placed in the barbers chair on the margin of the pool; their faces were lathered with a disgusting black sticky mixture and then scraped by an enormous razor of wood. Suddenly they were tumbled heels over head into the pool and after having been held under for a short while by the Knights of the bath were allowed to clamber out, in the sorriest plight one could well imagine. Some of the victims went through the ordeal good naturedly.  Others hid themselves in different parts of the ship but were ferreted out by the detectives of the court. One coal-heaver afforded much amusement by trying to escape into the fore-top. Before he was half way up the rigging he had two of the police hanging from his legs and a number of others forcing him down from above. When finally dragged to the chair, he submitted with very bad grace, grappling with the barber and trying to pull him into the pool.  He was vigorously smeared with the lather, receiving an extra dose in the mouth, and was tumbled writhing and kicking into the water receiving an extra ducking for his resistance. When he emerged from the water he fairly roared like a wild beast.

Every one of the crew on board ship who had not before crossed the line underwent the initiation, the majority with very good grace. The ship’s corporal insisted that he had been across, but being brought before the board of inquisition, he could not bring forward sufficient evidence to convince them. Of the entire marine guard but a single man had before crossed the line—and beginning with the Orderly Sergeant, they all submitted to the ordeal. Taking the ceremony altogether it was very amusing and it did much to relieve the monotony of our voyage. No real indignity was offered the subjects of initiation.  After every man had been declared a son of Neptune, the chief actors in the function proceeded to unmask themselves. Neptune and Mrs. Neptune tore off their beard and tresses of manilla, the baby proved to be a swab dressed for the occasion, and the various retainers jumped into the pool and began to scrub off the lamp-black and vermillion with which their faces were liberally smeared. Mrs. Neptune’s face especially was a work of art, so delicately were her cheeks tinted.

Crossed the line between 11.30 and noon.

Lat. at noon  0 03 S.

Long. “   “   30 54 W.

Temperature between 78 and 80 F.  Saw a number of flying fish.  Scarcely realize that we had passed under equator from delightful trip.”

Ensign Safford’s journal is a study in keen observation, especially of the natural world. Here his ability to examine and understand a situation does us well with his description of a ceremony that is legendary in nature yet rarely described in full. And as can be seen from his description and the image from 1810, the ceremony had changed little to that point.

Thank you Paul Goodwin for a faithful transcription.

In the spring of 1886 a young ensign aboard the U.S.S. VANDALIA on a voyage down the east coast headed towards South America made a short landfall on Staten Island where he spent time with some friends, a Col. And Mrs. Pike, on a hiking expedition to see the local flora and fauna. This ensign, William Edwin Safford, who graduated from the Naval Academy six years earlier, would go on to a distinguished career with the Department of Agriculture as a botanist and eventually have a number of plants named after him. At this young age he exhibited an extraordinary enthusiasm and breadth of knowledge as a naturalist in the U.S. Navy.

One hundred and thirty four years later, the May weather in the northeast U.S. does not lend itself to vernal hikes as it did that year. With that in mind, listed below are a few of the musings of Ensign Safford as he recalls his walk with the learned Pikes, one a herpetologist and the other a nature watercolorist. In addition to the spring plants he mentions, he also writes about the salamanders of Staten Island.

“On the 22^nd of May I went with these pleasant friends [Col. And Mrs. Pike] on a collecting excursion to Staten Island near the village of Tomkinson [ed. note, Tompkinsville] where there is a pretty sheet of water called Silver Lake.

In the open woods we found masses of yellow cinque-foil (Potentilla canadensis), the common buttercup (R. bullosis), the little yellow star-grass (Hypoxis erecta) and the pretty bluet (Houstonia coerulia). I collected also the minute Veronica serphyllifolia, and a pretty little yellow flower like a dwarf dandelion – Krigia virginica…

Crossing a field …..we saw great quantities of “Robin’s plantain” (Erigenen bellidifolluim Muhl) in full bloom, we arrived at a little brook, the outlet of Silver Lake. On its banks were thicket of alder; of “black haw”, which was covered with clusters of beautiful white Elder-like flowers (Sambucus); and of the pretty Ericaceons Lencother racemose covered with clusters of fragrant bell-shaped blossoms like miniature lillies-of-the-valley. Two other plants of the same order were in full bloom, the fragrant wild azalea (Rhododendum [Azalea] nudiflorum, L.) and the common huckleberry, and growing from the very margin of the brook were a number of delicate ferns among which of those which I had before seen at Flushing, the Osmundas being far enough advanced to distinguish two species (cinnamomea, and O. regalis). I found also a little white violet with a faint delicate fragrance [viola blanda] which I had before found in New Haven growing abundantly in wet places. It grew here on the very waters edge and near it I found a clump of yellow rag-wort (Senecis aureus, L.) in full bloom. [Of this genus there are but few species in the flora of the North Eastern United States.]”

Safford would go on to describe all manner of plants and animals on this cruise in the VANDALIA. Shown here is but one of the drawings our young naturalist would make along the way. This one in the South Atlantic. Shown is a Velella Velella which lives on the surface of the ocean. A common name today for this is By-the-wind-sailor.

The spring of 2020 is best known today for the ravages the Covid-19 virus is wreaking all over the world. It has forced us all to work from home if we are lucky enough to do so. As part of the stay-at-home workforce is Dr. Paul Goodwin, a valued volunteer in the Collections Research Center at Mystic Seaport Museum. Paul has been going doggedly through all the manuscript material I can throw at him and has managed to keep transcribing day after day. His transcription prowess makes logbooks much easier to read for the rest of us. This journal kept by Ensign Safford is from the collection of the G.W. Blunt White Library and is identified in the collection as Log 123.

Seen below is a detail from a recent gift from the family of marine artist Arthur Moniz. The artist passed away this year and his widow kindly offered the painting of the Mystic Seaport Museum fishing vessel ROANN to us as a remembrance of her husband. Moniz used a combination of graphite drawings for detail with watercolor washes to give his paintings a unique texture.

Moniz worked with Museum volunteers in the ROANN program to get proper details of the ROANN for his painting. The ROANN is an eastern rig dragger with her pilothouse aft and working area amidships as opposed to western rig draggers with the pilothouse forward.

ROANN was designed by Albert Condon and built at the yard of Newbert and Wallace in Thomaston, Maine in 1947. ROANN is one of a number of fishing vessels in the Museum’s stable with the progression beginning with the EMMA C. BERRY, a Noank smack built in 1866, to the L.A. DUNTON, a Gloucester fishing schooner built in 1921, on to the FLORENCE, a western rig dragger built in 1926 and finally culminating with ROANN.

Arthur Moniz was a well-known artist in New Bedford and created numerous works on the subject of fisheries and whaling. We are glad to welcome this beautiful little representation of ROANN into the permanent collection of Mystic Seaport Museum.

The stock certificate seen here was from the Palmetto Exporting and Importing Company of Charleston, South Carolina. Why on earth would Mystic Seaport Museum be interested in such a certificate? The initial reason that caught our eye was the name of the person, W.R. Mallory, who paid two thousand dollars for two shares in the company. The Mallory family has been very involved with Mystic Seaport Museum since the 1930’s and at least four family members have held positions on the Museum’s Board of Directors. However, the more interesting aspect of the stock certificate in a maritime sense is that it represents shares in a company that ran blockade runners for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

William Ravenel, listed as the President of the company in the lower right-hand corner, also held shares and board positions in at least one other blockade running company, the Importing and Exporting Company of South Carolina. It was one of the Palmetto Company’s boats, however, that encouraged blockade runners to once again use Charleston as a port of entry after most had abandoned it for Wilmington, North Carolina after the blockade of Charleston. While many blockade running boas were sleek, fast English-built steamers, Ravenel bought an old Charleston dredge, the GENERAL MOULTRIE, and in 1864 managed to send her through the blockade to Nassau in the Bahamas with a profitable cargo of cotton. As a matter-of-fact, the Palmetto Exporting and Importing Company (and the Exporting and Importing Company of South Carolina as well) was one of the few such companies to turn a profit. While Palmetto did not lose any money for its investors, the EICSC declared dividends totaling nearly 200 British Pounds and 9,000 Confederate dollars to investors by the time the company liquidated all its assets after the war.

Palmetto ran at least one other steamer through the blockade the same year as the GENERAL MOULTRIE. The GENRAL CLINCH made the same run to Nassau at the end of the year and both boats stayed there for the remainder of the war.

Much of the information here is taken from Stephen R. Wise’s Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989).

Papers pertaining to William Ravenel and his business interests are held at the South Carolina Historical Society.

The two paintings below are a recent acquisition via bequest from the estate of Barbara Snow Delaney, former managing editor of Antiques Magazine. Barbara and husband Edmund T. Delaney were very socially active in the Chester, CT community for many years, establishing the historical society among their activities. According to Barbara’s will, the paintings represent Stonington whaling Captain George Seymore Brewster and his wife Mary Lockwood Clark Brewster. It certainly appears that the portraits were executed at different times by two different hands, but likely in the 1840’s.

George S. Brewster was from a family of seafaring men and two of his brothers also made their living as captains of whaleships. George’s brother William was also married to a woman named Mary who has become well known in maritime circles because of her writings as she sailed with her husband during his whaling career. And surprise! George’s brother Charles was married to a woman named…..Mary. Dinner talk must have been confusing when all three couples got together.

George S. Brewster, born in 1811, supposedly started his career in sailing vessels at the early age of 9, according to his obituary in the Stonington Mirror in 1882. Connecticut crew lists show him at the age of 13 as part of the crew of the sealing brig ALABAMA PACKET. During his career George commanded five different whaleships, the FELLOWES, FRANCIS, GEORGE, HELVETIUS and PHILETUS. The HELVETIUS was stranded off Oahu and was a total loss. Interestingly, each of the three brothers were in command of the PHILETUS during their careers.

George met an unusual and press worthy demise in August of 1882. He and his two brother captains were to be pall bearers at the funeral of their Aunt Lydia Chesebro who died at the age of 92. At this time George was a selectman of Stonington and after standing to say a few words about his aunt and her upstanding character, George went back to his pew, sat down, and died. His death caused quite a stir in the church and later in the community. His brothers went about the business of burying their aunt and then returned to the church to bear their brother back to his home where he was prepared for his own funeral.

This project was sparked when I came across a description of Marian Moore’s personal narrative in the Mystic Seaport Collections Research Center online catalog. I wanted to know more about this “melancholy” woman who presented as a man at sea, and the harrowing details of her experiences with cannibalism and shipwreck, but there was no digital version of the text available at that time. Thus, a partnership began between the University of Rhode Island and the Library at Mystic Seaport Museum which allowed me to collaborate with the Museum in an effort to make several compelling narratives of shipwrecked women at sea available to scholars and enthusiasts around the globe through digital access.

Below are links to the digital archives of some of the most captivating shipwrecked women’s narratives that I worked to make available in the spring of 2018. In my selection of narratives that focus on the hardships endured by women while at sea, I wanted to make more visible the gendered and moralizing constraints placed on women while on land and how voyages at sea, while dangerous, often presented the promise of a more negotiable and open space for self-definition. More broadly, I wanted to make narratives that have often been overlooked or neglected more accessible to a larger audience.

Marian Moore’s narrative invites many ways to interpret Moore’s piece, from focusing on larger genre categorization (is this text truly a personal narrative as it presents itself to be, domestic fiction, a blend of genre?) to the provocative poetic disruptions which break Moore’s at times journalistic approach and at other times pathos-driven style of narration.

Julia Dean’s narrative, touted as a tale of a “veritable female Robinson Crusoe” depicts the wonderful adventures of a woman who remained on an uninhabited island for nine years. Positioning herself as a novice writer and most certainly not an egoist, Dean recounts her acts of bravery, most notably the depiction of her wrestling and bludgeoning an amphibious animal’s throat.

Since the Father of Mercies has seen it fit to deliver her from “the hands of barbarians,” Mrs. Eliza Fraser feels justified in publishing her own captivity narrative in spite of her reluctance and fear of her “indifferent education” and being deprived of her husband’s influence and support. Her self-described “plain, unvarnished tale” depicts her suffering experienced at the hands of what she disparagingly describes as “savages”, an unspecified group of Indigenous captors, which she finally evades with the help of a thirteen-man crew led by Lieutenant Otter and Graham. In the afterward, the reader is told that “probably through modesty” Mrs. Fraser has omitted the account of the birth of her baby which drowns while onboard the rescue vessel.

Flora A. Foster recounts her experiences of being wrecked en route to Peru off the coast of Patagonia with her husband, First Officer Robert Foster while aboard the MARY E. PACKER, a vessel built in Mystic, Connecticut. As fate would have it, after surviving their time on Carmen and finding passage back to New York aboard the brig EMILY T. SHELTON, Robert Foster plummets to his death from the topsail when only 300 miles from New York, making Foster’s descriptions early on in the narrative of how perilous the “cruel partings, the months and years of separation, the long dreary hours of loneliness and anxiety, the constant, unremitting strain of heart and brain” to only be understood by those separated from “dear ones at sea” all the more poignant.

Caroline Stoddard’s diary details her train trip from Boston, Massachusetts to San Francisco, California to join her husband Captain Thomas C. Stoddard for a voyage to Australia. Of particular note are Stoddard’s descriptions of her natural surroundings. Her style of writing can be likened to the “very pretty sheets of water, lying so quietly many hundred feet above the sea” that she uses to describe Donner Lake. This focus on the pleasantries of nature shifts from depictions of the Salt Lakes and the Sierra mountain range to a more critical tone of her physical environment after she experiences a harrowing shipwreck. Having to spend five days in a boat before being rescued by the brig COMMERCE of Sydney, Australia deeply unsettles Stoddard, but she continually returns to a focus on descriptions of nature to soothe her anxiety as she finds comfort in the “large bushes of heliotropes” in New Zealand that remind her of familiar “lilac bushes.”

Contained within William Dorset Fellowes text describing the tragic events of the Lady Hobart is the inclusion of the curious particulars of Emmanuel Sosa and his wife, Eleonora Garcia Sala, who were shipwrecked on the east coast of Africa. The hero identified in the narrative is Emmanuel, while his wife Eleonora is also described favorably but also complicatedly gendered as “a woman of a masculine courage.” Finding themselves in a compromising position with a group of Caffres, the heroic Emmanuel fails to listen both to the advice he received previously from a king about the threats he faces in the region and the admonitions of Eleonora that Sosa not trust the Caffres. Eleonora alone resists the attacks from the Caffres and is stripped of her clothing. Refusing to be seen in a vulnerable state, Eleonora buries herself in the sand while Sosa wanders aimlessly in search of resources to rescue his family to no avail.

In the longest text that I digitized this spring, William Allen’s Accounts of Shipwreck and of Other Disasters at Sea, is not only useful for mariners, but arguably for a larger public. What follows is what can be described as a compilation of melancholic and tragic greatest hits in the annals of shipwreck. Of particular interest are the sparse representations of women at sea, sometimes mentioned only by their first name with a reference to the vessel they were aboard, or cataloged simply by a number, such as the “317 women aboard who were lost at sea.” This particular text provides many narratives which can undoubtedly be mined for further historical and literary analysis.

Marian Moore

Miss Julia Dean

Mrs. Eliza Fraser

Flora A. Foster

Caroline Stoddard

Eleanora Garcia Sala

Drew of the Sloop Nautilus and Others

Danielle Cofer is a third-year PhD candidate in the English Department at the University of Rhode Island.

A recent acquisition by the Library has links to both the local area and our own collections. The document pictured below, a Mediterranean Passport, pertains to the ship ORRIS of New York in 1809. The ORRIS was built in Old Mystic with Christopher Leeds as the master carpenter. She measured 249 tons and was 87 feet in length. The signature at the bottom right belongs to the collector of the port of New York, David Gelston, whose digitized collection of papers is in our library.

According to Doug Stein’s American Maritime Documents:

“The Mediterranean Passport, commonly called a ship’s passport, was created after the United States concluded a treaty with Algiers in 1795. During the early years of independence, America was one of several nations paying tribute to the Barbary states in exchange for the ability to sail and conduct business in the Mediterranean area without interference..…the “Passport” would be recognized by Algeria and later by other Barbary states through similar treaties……

…it was a printed document, on vellum, that measured approximately 15″  by 11″. Centered in the upper half were two engravings, one below the other. Signatures of the President of the United States, Secretary of State, and Customs Collector appear in the lower right-hand corner. The United States seal is in the lower left-hand corner.”

A distinct characteristic “was the presence of a scalloped line of indenture across the upper part of the document which was used as a method of authentication.”

Although faded, you can see that our example has the signature of the President, James Madison, the Secretary of State, Robert Smith and the Collector of Customs for the port of New York, David Gelston.

The manuscripts collection in the G.W Blunt White Library is full of surprises. You never know what you will find while looking for something completely different.

The following pieces from the collection should be of some interest to those of you who are Netflix fanatics and currently enjoying the second season of The Crown about the life and times of Queen Elizabeth II. The cards, personal notes and photograph all came to us through the Mallory family, many of whom have been involved with the Museum since the 1930’s. Cora Mallory Munson, to whom the items are addressed, was the sister of Clifford Day Mallory and Philip R. Mallory, both of whom served as President of the Board of Mystic Seaport. Mrs. Munson was married to Frank C. Munson, a shipping executive who was memorialized by Mrs. Munson with the creation of the Munson Institute graduate studies program at Mystic Seaport in the 1950’s.

The cards and photo were sent separately to Mrs. Munson by Edward, the Duke of Windsor and his wife, Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor. At the time the cards were sent to Cora, Edward was in his last months as Governor of the Bahamas, resigning in March, 1945 with his last official day being April 30, coincidentally the day that Hitler committed suicide. The optics of this was certainly unusual as Edward had been labelled a Nazi sympathizer.

Edward’s refusal to leave Wallis led to his abdication in 1936, turning the crown over to his brother who became George VI, the father of Elizabeth. In 1941 Edward became the governor of the Bahamas. In 1944 the pair made a trip to the States, including Newport, Rhode Island. Wallis had surgery in New York in August to remove some cancerous tumors, but obviously by the time the Christmas notes were sent, she was feeling much better. She went on to live another 42 years.

Unfortunately, we do not have further documentation concerning the circumstances around reason for the note and cards to Cora, but she was obviously well acquainted. Her note is signed “Wallis Windsor.”

While there is nothing written on or with the photograph, the context of the notes along with the image of the harbor suggests that this picture was taken in Nassau.

There are many such surprises hidden in our collections and it is always a pleasure to unexpectedly happen upon one.

In October of 1859 Captain James Hamilton took over command of the CHARLES W. MORGAN for a voyage to the Pacific and the Arctic Oceans. Along the way the MORGAN made stops in Chile, Hawaii and Japan among other places. The MORGAN left New Bedford a few weeks before John Brown’s famous raid on Harper’s Ferry and returned home, surprisingly safely, during the midst of the Civil War in 1863, nearly four years after departing. When she left, James Buchanan was president. When she returned, Abraham Lincoln was dealing with the recent defeat of Union forces at Chancellorsville where total casualties for both sides totaled more than 30,000 men.

Prices had escalated during the war and the MORGAN’s return grossed over $165,000, making it the MORGAN’s most successful voyage of her career. The MORGAN, however, did have a few casualties of her own during the voyage. A journal kept on board by Hamilton notes that seaman Francis Lacock drowned after being dragged out of a whaleboat, the second mate had a finger amputated by the captain after a whale gun exploded, and a boatsteerer, M.A. Brady, fell from the mast top and broke his jaw in multiple places.

The image here represents one of the ship’s papers for the 1859-63 voyage. The G.W. Blunt White Library also holds Hamilton’s journal of the voyage. This paper, a four-language sea letter (17″ by 22″) was recently purchased at auction and carries the signatures of President Buchanan, Secretary of State Lewis Cass and Deputy Director of Customs, James Taylor, listed as the Notary Public. The seal of the United States can be clearly seen in the detail image.

The following description of a sea letter is excerpted from Doug Stein’s American Maritime Documents:

“The term ‘Sea Letter’ has been used to describe any document issued by a government or monarch to one of its merchant fleet, which established proof of nationality and guaranteed protection for the vessel and her owners. However, it is the Sea Letter used by the United States after 1789 that is of particular interest here.

The 1822 edition of The Merchants and Shipmaster’s Assistant described the Sea Letter as a document which ‘specifies the nature of the cargo and the place of destination,’ and says that is was only required for vessels bound to the Southern Hemisphere… In 1859 the document was defined as part of the ship’s papers when bound on a foreign voyage, ‘…it is written in four languages, the French, Spanish, English, and Dutch, and is only necessary for vessels bound round Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope.’

The statement within the document conveys in part that the vessel described is owned entirely by American citizens, and requests that all ‘Prudent Lords, Kings, Republics, Princes, Dukes, Earls, Barons, Lord, Burgomasters, Schepens, Consullors…’ etc., treat the vessel and her crew with fairness and respect. The signatures of the President of the United Stated, the Secretary of State, and the customs collector appear, usually in the middle portion of the document. Sea Letters are mentioned in the formative maritime legislation forged by the new Federal governments. Like passports, they provided additional evidence of ownership an nationality, but the criteria by which a shipmaster utilized one document over the other is not completely clear. It was explained at the time that both documents were ‘rendered necessary of expedient by reason of treaties with foreign powers,’ a statement which suggests that certain nations required a particular document because of existing agreements with the United States.

In any case the Sea Letter was valid for only a single voyage, and a bond does not seem to have been required. Neither was it to be returned to the collector when the voyage was completed. Indications are that, as the years progressed, Sea Letters were being used more often by whaling ships than by merchant vessels, perhaps because American whalers fished in areas where this document was preferred as proof of national origin.”

Mystic Seaport continues to collect such documents through purchase and gift on a regular basis. This particular paper was a nice find for the collection and we look forward to making additional discoveries in the future.

The painting seen below depicts Captain James F. Smith of New London, one of five brothers who were whaling captains out of that port. All had successful careers and their combined return on all their voyages grossed over 1.2 million dollars. Quite an accomplishment for the mid-19^th century.

To get ahead and succeed in such a business obviously took a bit of spunk and our man James seems to certainly have had a surfeit of it.  The whaleships he commanded, beginning in 1824, were the COMMODORE PERRY, the PHOENIX, the BINGHAM, the COLUMBIA and the HIBERNIA. According to former Mystic Seaport Curator Edouard Stackpole, Smith had quite a reputation as a rough and tumble captain with one story having him “beating the tar” out of a rival British whaling master while ashore in some foreign port.

After leaving whaling, Smith sailed packets for some years between San Francisco and Hawaii. It was on a trip to Hawaii as a passenger that Smith achieved the dubious honor of becoming a character in not one, but two different stories written by Mark Twain. It seems that on the passage to Hawaii on board the ship AJAX in 1866 Twain met Smith (alias “Captain Cuttle” per Twain) who was accompanied by two New London whaling captains, Asa Fish (“Captain Fitch”) and W.H. Phillips (“Captain Phelps”). In a spate of writing that launched his career, Twain wrote a series of letters from Hawaii  for the Sacramento Union in 1866. In them he writes about all three captains and their boisterous card games where they engaged in nautical repartee and drank copious amounts of whiskey (nineteen gallons according to Twain).  Smith also appears as the “Old Admiral” in Twain’s Roughing It. The introduction of Smith in the book is as follows: “And then there was “the old Admiral” – a retired whaleman.  He was a roaring, terrific combination of wind and lightning and thunder, and earnest, whole-hearted profanity. But nevertheless he was tender-hearted as a girl. He was a raving, deafening, devastating typhoon, laying waste the cowering seas, but with an unvexed refuge in the center where all comers were safe at rest.”

It is difficult to imagine that the serene person in the painting  with one of his whaleships in the background could be a “roaring, terrific combination of wind and lightning and thunder,” but then again, looks can be deceiving.

The Collections Research Center will be closed Thursday, Nov. 23rd and Friday, Nov. 24th for the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving, Pilgrim!

One hundred years ago this month, in November of 1917, America suffered its first casualties on the battlefields of Europe. During the one year that the United States would be engaged in the war, over 100,000 Americans would lose their lives with nearly twice as many being wounded. The war to end all wars required a  tremendous amount of ships to get those American troops and wartime supplies to the allies on the continent.

The U.S. Shipping Board, organized in 1916 to regulate U.S. merchant shipping, created the Emergency Fleet Corporation in 1917 once the U.S entered the war. The EFC was created specifically to oversee the vast shipbuilding programs that would be needed during the war. In its early stages, the EFC was managed by General George Goethals of Panama Canal fame. However, infighting, corruption and other problems plagued the organization and millionaire Edward Hurley was eventually brought in as chairman to create some stability.

In addition to building ships for the war effort, one thing the U.S. Shipping Board and Emergency Fleet Corporation did very well was to hire artists to create dramatic propaganda posters to raise money to support U.S endeavors. The poster seen below was produced by artist James Henry Daugherty who trained at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C. Interestingly enough, Daugherty became best known for writing and illustrating children’s books, winning both the Caldecott and Newbury awards during his lifetime.

Other heroic posters showing shipbuilders, soldiers and sailors created for the period included titles such as “Rivets are Bayonets, Drive Them Home!”; “Teamwork Builds Ships”; “On the Job for Victory”; “Make Every Minute Count for Pershing.” And many more.

While the EFC and the Shipping Board continued to have managerial problems after the war, many of the artists went on to bigger and better things as evidenced by Daugherty’s success.

Michael P. Dyer is the Senior Maritime Historian at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. He recently wrote a book entitled “O’er the Wide and Tractless Sea: Original Art of the Yankee Whale Hunt.” In the book are a myriad of illustrations created by whalemen in logbooks and journals depicting the hunt and much more. In a New York Times interview Dyer notes that he had “not yet been able to connect a whaling scene drawn in a journal with a whaling scene engraved on a whale’s tooth.” However, a number of other interesting connections can be made between ships, sailors, illustrations and objects.

The following image is taken from a journal in the New Bedford collection. Sailing out of Mystic, Connecticut in 1843, seaman Washington Foster kept this finely illustrated journal during a voyage to the Indian Ocean in search of elephant seals, more commonly known to sailors as sea elephants. Like whales, sea elephants were killed for their blubber which could be boiled down into oil that could be used for lubrication and lighting.

Mystic Seaport has an object directly related to the journal kept by Foster and while it was supposedly used as a club in the killing of the giant seals that can range between 3 and 4 tons in weight and 15 to 20 feet in length, it is likely that it was kept more as a showpiece than a killing tool. A heavy sperm whale tooth with a handle bound in rope, the carver’s name and ship and date appear on one side, while the other side has this unusual and imaginative scene probably dreamed up after reading one of the many books on pirates and shipwrecks of the period.

The scantily clad woman bound to the ship awaits a savior while crying out, “Help, Help, Help. Is there nowon to save the fair damsle from the freebooters lewd embrase.” It’s clear that Foster, like so many other whalers and sealers of the time, had an active artistic streak and kept himself occupied during the long sailing days with pen, ink, paints and scimshanding tools. Michael Dyer’s book is a tremendous resource for examining the art of the whaleman and is a great jumping-off point to make other connections to the creative side of these roamers of the world’s oceans.

Literally thousands of people over the years have built models of the CHARLES W. MORGAN. Some makers used kits to build full-rigged models of the whaler, including at least one kit that was made for a “MORGAN in the bottle” model. We have one kit in our collection that was originally produced in 1939. MORGAN plans are one of our hottest sellers in the Ships Plans collection and many have used the lines from here to make their own hand-crafted version of the pride of our Museum. We field calls weekly from people who want to donate their, or their family member’s, home-made model. Unfortunately, the Museum only has so much space to house models and if we accepted every MORGAN model offered to us we’d have no room for any other model, and we have nearly a thousand. Any MORGAN model we accept has to be truly exceptional. For example, we have one that was given to us a number of years ago that was made by master model maker Lloyd McCaffrey.

Lloyd’s miniature cutaway model is extraordinary, with exposed interior accommodations and a center section of built-up frames all of which are treenail fastened. The mid-ship section shows interior ceiling planks installed and authentic stowage of gear and whale oil casks.  On deck includes all appropriate furniture, fittings and details (binnacle, skylights, anchors, companionways, windlass, hatches, tryworks, cooper’s bench, etc). It is a truly magnificent piece and any maritime museum would be thrilled to have it.

We feel the same way about a new MORGAN model that just came in to us from a California collector and member. This model is more than a model. The creator of this model was highlighted in an article in the Fall/Winter issue of Mystic Seaport Magazine by Curator Fred Calabretta. In the article Fred quotes the model maker, Alexander Law, as stating that he feels his models are more akin to marine fine arts because of the detail he puts into the map making that graces the base under the model; the research that goes into creating the model and the scene; the cabinetry work to create the base and more. We have a fine collection of Law models that came to the Museum in 1961, so it is very satisfying to add one of the Museum’s flagship, the CHARLES W. MORGAN, this year.

Dozens of museums around the globe have exquisite models of the MORGAN, making her one of the best-known vessels in the world. Go to the website for the 38th voyage of the MORGAN and you can see why so many people remain excited about this icon of American sea voyaging, and why we are excited to have such a fine representation of the whaler in miniature.

Beginning in the early 1930’s, Mystic Seaport began collecting, among many other things, charts and maps of the entire world. Many of the charts we received came as parts of larger gifts that included logbooks and business papers of ships from ports up and down the east coast. Many of the charts were used aboard ship and show the wear and tear of numerous sea journeys as well as the penciled tracks that the ships folowed on their trek around the globe. One such chart in our possession belonged to Mystic captain Joseph Warren Holmes, someone who spent almost his entire life at sea. Indeed, Holmes holds the record for any sailing ship captain going around Cape Horn on journeys between the east and west coast. 84 times around the Horn.

And we have the charts he used on many of those trips. One such chart shows the penciled markings of numerous trips around the Horn with many separate lines converging at the tip of South America to form one thick, black line that looks as if the good captain was using fat-tipped magic markers instead of a pencil.

Some incredible people represented in our collection of well over 10,000 charts and maps include Irving and Exy Johnson, the husband and wife team that began taking young adults around the world on adventures in the 1930’s. We have hundreds of the charts used by the Johnsons as  they made there way to Tahiti, New Guinea and other exotic areas both before and after World War II.

Other charts express the American spirit of enterprise and exploration. The whalers of the early to mid-1800’s who ventured into the unknown in search of their quarry whose oil would light the lamps of the world. Below is an advertising label that appears on one of those charts used by a whaler out of New Bedford.

Most of the charts and maps date from the 19th and 20th centuries, but there are a number that predate the period as well, such as the collection of charts from 1671 called the English Pilot and published by John Seller. As the world experiences rising sea levels, accurate charts such as the Atlantic Neptune, a series of detailed charts of the American coastline published by the British Admiralty in the late 18th century, can be used to compare the current coastal outlines to those of centuries past.

Two grants over the last three years from the Acorn Foundation and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, gave us the resources to hire an expert to both assess and catalog the collection to make it more readily accessible to our research community.

The chart and map collection is one of many truly extraordinary collections at Mystic Seaport. You can see the description of the entire collection and the list of charts here.

Back in February, volunteer Jim Anderson was interviewed for an article about the work he and another volunteer, Bill Michael, were doing on the Museum’s 1857 tower clock located in the Greenmanville Church. You can see that article here. In it, Jim talks of the challenges the two men faced in repairing the mechanism that runs the four separate clock faces, one for each face of the tower. While Jim and Bill have worked wonders with the clock, they still face a few challenges to keep the clock running regularly.

One issue that raises its ugly head on occasion is the fact that the clock stops before the regular rewinding because of a problem with hands on one of the faces binding. Because the problem seems to be on the exterior of the building, and the building is quite high, the two decided to contact our Film and Video crew to help troubleshoot the matter. That’s right, film and video. You see, Dan Harvison and Brandon Morgan, the creative team that shoots and produces much of the Museum’s programs, have been trained in operating a drone for their work. In order to get some good shots of the clock hands to see how they are attached on the outside of the building, Dan was asked to pilot the mosquito-sounding drone close enough to the tower to try and get appropriately detailed images to analyze the problem. Once the issues are identified, someone will still need to get in a lift and take their tools up to do the job, but our hope is that we will only need to employ the bucket lift once, rather than twice. See some images of the shooting below.

In 1828 George Kurtz left New York City as the mate of the ship LEEDS on its last voyage as an American packet ship. Kurtz, born in Philadelphia in 1803, had received his seaman’s protection certificate in the port of New York in January of the previous year. The LEEDS had been a Liverpool packet from 1823 until 1828, beginning her career about 5 years after the commencement of the American packet trade. Packet ships were vessels that sailed on a regular schedule, whether they had a full cargo hold and passenger contingent or not.

According to Robert G. Albion in his book Square Riggers on Schedule about the packet trade, the LEEDS lasted only 6 years in packet service after some unusual happenings over the years. Early in her career she was grounded in the Mersey River at Liverpool and only survived because she was so strongly built. Another episode had her Captain discharged for trying to smuggle contraband in a bale of hay. Her final indignity was suffered on Christmas Eve of 1828, soon after she became a London packet. She ran aground in the Thames and was “bilged” according to the Shipping and Commercial List and New York Price Current for February 14, 1829. The March 11 issue of the same paper noted that Captain Sprague had to sell her after the vessel was condemned on January 21st.

The image above is taken from the inside cover of a book from the LEEDS’ ship’s library. The penmanship belongs to our friend George Kurtz who must have rescued the book the day before the vessel was condemned. There are two unusual things about the image. The first being Kurtz’ use of the word “police” after the phrase “lost on the Thames.” The second is the unusual ship’s stamp on the right hand side. This coat of arms, if you will, of the ship says “Packet Ship Leeds New York and L’pool.” In addition to the triumvirate of owls shown, the shield seems to bear the image of some form of livestock (cow or pig) being carried by a bird of some sort.

Captain Benjamin Sprague of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, had been a packet ship captain for about 5 years prior to his losing the LEEDS. He does not appear as a packet captain afterwards. George Kurtz, however, appears at least once as a captain in 1839 aboard the ship OHIO trading between New York and New Orleans. The book that was saved by George is The Percy Anecdotes, by Sholto and Reuben Percy, published in New York in 1822.

The name at the top of the page, James Brown Bach, is a bit of a mystery. He may have been another crew member, but that is unknown at this point. However, it seems likely that he is the James Brown Bach who was born in 1808 and died when he was only 33 years old. His name appears on a passenger list returning to New York from London in October of 1829. His son, James Brown Bach, would go on to be a pioneer in American baseball in forming the Niagara Club in Buffalo, New York, in the mid-1850’s according to the book Base Ball Pioneers, 1850-1870.

The Percy Anecdotes was brought to the G.W. Blunt White Library by one of our many dedicated volunteers.

The lithograph of the steamer CHANCELLOR LIVINGSTON is a fine example of an early black and white lithograph at Mystic Seaport. A group of print aficionados recently visited Curator Fred Calabretta for a look at some of the Museum’s finer prints and the print seen below was pointed out as a fine example from one of the earliest lithography companies in America.

Lithography in the United States started coming into its own in the 1820’s and the firm of William and John Pendleton in Boston was one of the premier producers of lithographs at the time, employing and training a host of young artists, including Fitz Hugh (now known as Fitz Henry) Lane, Moses Swett, Benjamin Nutting and others. Nathaniel Currier of Currier and Ives got his early training there beginning at the age of 15.

The steamboat CHANCELLOR LIVINGSTON was built in New York in 1816 and was used on the Hudson River route from New York to Albany and in 1825 headed the procession of boats to New York from Albany after the official opening of the Erie Canal. In 1827 she was sold to go into service on Long Island Sound, but needed to be rebuilt first, giving her the appearance that you see above.

We can date this print pretty accurately to the spring of 1828 for two reasons. The print shows her going into Newport, Rhode Island and it was in the spring of that year that she began her New York to Providence run. Also, the artist that produced the image for the lithograph was Moses Swett who left Pendleton’s that year to join the Senefelder Lithographic Co. His first lithograph for the company appeared in June of 1828, so it seems to be a pretty tight window in which this print would have been published.

The Museum boasts a remarkable print collection pertaining to the American maritime experience and this one is certainly one of the pioneering pieces.

During the 1880’s and 1890’s, silver yachting trophies were often presented to clubs by influential members. There were Goelet Cups named for New York land baron Ogden Goelet. The famous Astor cups were contributed by John Jacob Astor. As time went on, the trophies seemed to get more ornate, gaudy and expensive. The bigger clubs obviously seemed to have some of the more elaborate silver pieces.

However, one of our most lavishly decorated trophies belonged to a club that did not have the reputation or membership numbers of clubs such as the New York Yacht Club. The Palladium Trophy seen here was not for a transatlantic race or a race of major schooners, but for a race among sandbaggers. The sandbagger STRANGER, at 27 feet in length with a two foot draft, won the trophy in 1887, 1888 and 1889. Not a bad piece of hardware for the owner of a small racing boat.

This sandbagger trophy was originally donated by the “Palladium”, the forerunner of the “New Haven Register”. When the New Haven Yacht Club closed in the 1940’s, this trophy was given to the club’s last commodore, William G. Newton. It was then donated to Mystic Seaport in 1957 and accepted by then-curator Edouard Stackpole. This magnificent piece is inscribed “New Haven Yacht Club/ Fall Regatta, Oct. 6th 1887/ Won by Sloop “Stranger”/ 7th Annual Spring Regatta June 12th 1888/ Won by Sloop “Stranger”/ 8th Annual Regatta (Re-sailed) July 18th 1889/ Won by Sloop “Stranger”.

It is gold-lined, on 4 feet, each with a dolphin-tailed figure of a boy blowing a horn. The bowl measures 17-1/4″ from foot to foot and is 14-1/4″ in diameter. It has an overall height of 26-1/4″. Atop the piece is a 9-1/2″ high figure of Neptune with a raised trident standing in a gold-lined shell atop the cover. He has an armor skirt and shoulder scarf which are gold. Both the base and the bowl have borders of sailboats and the cover is even more ornate with a floral design. The hallmark for the trophy reads “Rogers Smith/ & Co/ Meriden/ Quadruple/ 2000.” It is truly a sight to behold.

Who knew what tales of woe could hide in a little rare book from the 1830’s? A new addition to the collection at the G.W. Blunt White Library is only about 18 pages long and measures, in size, about 3 inches by 5 inches. But in it are three tales of shipwreck, the most gruesome of which is illustrated here. The book is so tender that we decided to photograph it immediately to make it available digitally, since the binding is so tight that just opening it can do damage to it. Thankfully, not the kind of damage that has been done to a few of the shipmates in the picture. This particular story recounts the hardships of the crew of the ship ANNE and MARY of Galway in 1750 and is somewhat reminiscent of the story of the whaleship ESSEX in that crew members drew lots to see who would become the first supper for the rest of the gang. Whether the story is true (fake news anyone?) has yet to be determined, although it, and the two other stories of shipwrecks bound along with it, seems to have been lifted verbatim from the Mariners Chronicle, another book of shipwreck stories, from 1826.

As a young man George Blunt Wendell joined a counting house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire as an apprentice. However, in 1847 he commenced his seafaring career as a cabin boy and 3 years later became first mate on a voyage. Wendell’s first command was in 1853 and by 1860 he commanded the clipper GALATEA. It was often that a ship master was found to be a thorough seaman and smart navigator, but a poor merchant. Wendell however, used his mercantile knowledge obtained in the counting house to good advantage, and his voyages usually proved profitable for the vessel’s owners and himself.

Some of his last voyages were involved in carrying cargoes of guano from the Chincha Islands on the coast of Peru. Hundreds of American ships were among the multi-national fleets that hauled guano in the mid-19th century. Sea-bird guano was a valuable commodity, especially as a fertilizer, and the Chincha Islands near Callao, Peru were the best source. In a collection of Wendell’s papers in the G.W. Blunt White Library, given to the Museum by Wendell’s son, there is a note from October of 1860 to Capt. Wendell from a Commodore Jones. While it is unclear as to who Jones was, there is speculation that he was part of the Peruvian navy and involved in administration of the port at the Chinchas by the tone of his note. It states: “Dear Sir, I send you by the bearer two small jugs taken out from 300 feet under the guano.” He then follows it with “You must not fire any more guns, as you did last night. It is contrary to the orders of the port and also a fine of $25 for each gun. Yours truly, F.D. Jones.”

The pre-Columbian Incan vessel seen here, an aribalo, was a very common long-necked vessel used for carrying liquids, among other uses, and was one of  the subjects of Jones’ letter to Captain Wendell. Incas were known to use guano as a fertilizer in their terraced fields, so it is not unusual that this particular artifact might be left behind on one of the islands. Unearthing such an object from beneath tons of such caustic waste centuries later was a side note to the brutal endeavor of mining there. Most laborers in the 19th century were shipped to the islands and coerced by one manner or other to work there, many until they succumbed from the conditions. How he came by it and why Commodore Jones thought to give this particular object to Captain Wendell is unknown, but it is now a unique object within the collection of Mystic Seaport. Other objects, manuscripts and images from Mystic Seaport have been instrumental in publications and exhibits about this odoriferous subject. Current exhibits on guano include the Smithsonian’s The Norie Atlas and the Guano Trade and one section of the new exhibit Sea Change in the brand new Thompson Exhibition Building at Mystic Seaport.

If you are like so many other museum goers of a certain age, you have a stash of National Geographic magazines tucked away in a closet, basement or attic. If such is the case, dig through that pile and find the July, 1983 issue. In it you will find an article by former New Bedford Whaling Museum curator (and former Mystic Seaport trustee), John Bockstoce. The article, entitled “Arctic Odyssey”, documents a journey by Bockstoce and associates in a walrus-hide covered umiak across the Canadian Arctic in the late 1970’s. A record of this 1,600 mile journey was also caught with camera lens by photographer Jonathan Wright.

The current exhibit in the new Thompson Exhibition Building at Mystic Seaport has as one of its “tent pole” objects that very umiak, hanging from the rafters for all to see. Its story is shown in text, stills and taped interviews. A handful of the images that Jonathan Wright took as part of the expedition accompany the exhibit. The beauty of the images taken in such a stark setting speaks to his artist’s eye.

His family was kind enough to loan us the images for the exhibit. Jonathan unfortunately met a tragic end in 1980 on another adventure. A mountaineering accident in an an avalanche in the Tibetan Himalayas cut his time short. He did a number of projects for National Geographic and we are glad that he was one of the crew along for the ride in this umiak.

There have been a number of news items locally about the anniversary of the visit of the German cargo submarine DEUTSCHLAND to New London in the Fall of 1916. You can read the story from The Day of New London here. The arrival of the sub caused excitement up and down the east coast as she also made her way to Baltimore earlier during the same visit.

A major part of the story in New London, beyond the fact that Americans were warmly welcoming a representative of a combatant in a war that had already claimed American lives, was the loss of five lives in the accidental sinking by the U-boat of a tugboat that was assisting it.

The Museum holds a number of documents pertaining to the sinking of the tug in its collection of papers from the T.A. Scott Company. The T.A. Scott Company was a salvage and wrecking company that owned the tug in question. One of their lawyers felt that the captain of the U-boat, Paul Koenig, should be charged with manslaughter because of the circumstances following the loss of five crew members in the collision.

This postcard from the Museum’s collection shows Koenig and the DEUTSCHLAND

The following letter was sent by Koenig to the T.A. Scott company expressing his regrets over the sinking.

In addition to newspaper stories about the visit to New London, boating magazines of all types also followed the visit of the submarine to America, witness the page from an issue of MotorBoat magazine in 1916.

Koenig went on to play a role as an officer in the German Navy in World War I and died in 1933 after returning to his civilian career with the shipping line North German Lloyd.

For a number of years, many of you have been accustomed to visiting the research pages at library.mysticseaport.org. If you have had that site bookmarked, you will notice that it now takes you to a completely re-vamped website. The reasons for making the change are many, not least of which was an urgency to save all the organized data which was in danger due to failing hardware. Rather than living on the Museum’s internal servers as has always been the case, our site is now moved to the ever-expanding “cloud”.

The other main reason for the change is the fact that the old site was looking a bit disheveled, having grown like Topsy over the last couple decades. The new site is cleaner and better organized, using pull-down menus to display the multiple elements included on the pages as you can see in the image below.

As with any new venture, the updated site is not without its hiccups, and we invite you to use the “Contact Us” link to let us know about anything that is untoward. Because there are well over a million links in the associated pages (including just under a million in the ship register index alone), we expect individual problems to arise. Also, some elements from the old site are still being converted, but we felt it prudent to switch to the update before any major problems arose.

The new format makes it easier to add new content to the research pages, so stop back in on a regular basis to see what new digital images or databases might be available. Many thanks to David Caldwell for his creativity and knowledge in converting the old site to the new.