The first name of Capt. Gray appears variously as Slumon and Sluman. AOWV uses for former; the author found that Sluman was the most commonly used name, including in official records such as census reports and probate records as well as several secondary sources. Some sources (including his gravestone) describe him only as “S. L. Gray”. A few sources use greater variations of his first name: Decker uses “Norman” in one place while he and Colby use “Sherman”. The author uses Sluman in this paper.
Sluman was born in December 2014, place and parentage not recorded. He married Sarah Frisbie of Columbia CT, born in 1819 in Canaan Township PA, on August 26, 1838. The marriage record shows the groom’s name as Samuel. They had at least eight children, six of whom died in infancy or before reaching adulthood. The probate records for Sluman’s intestate estate in Lebanon CT shows the distribution of assets to “the children of the deceased as follows: Katie P. Gray, Sluman L. Gray, Nellie I [?] Gray” with the same dollar amount listed for each. The 1850 census for New London lists Sluman as age 37 and “shipmaster”, Sarah as age 33, and one child, possibly Asher (died 1/30/1852 at age one).
Sluman served as master for seven voyages on six ships, only two of which (JEFFERSON and HANNIBAL) had New London as home port:
JEFFERSON (AS1695): (ship, 396 tons, length 101 ft., built in Baltimore MD in 1826, lost Okhotsk in 1855). JEFFERSON sailed on August 19, 1847 for the Indian and NW oceans, returning on March 31, 1849. Dennis Wood Abstract 2-376. Decker shows “Norman” as first name of the master while Colby shows “Sherman” as his first name. William P. Benjamin was the agent. AV07502.
HANNIBAL (AS1529): (ship, 441 tons, length 117 ft., built in New York NY in 1821, abandoned in Cumberland Inlet in 1861). HANNIBAL sailed on September 5, 1849 for the Indian and Pacific oceans, returning on March 2, 1851. Wood Abstract 2-316. Mystic Seaport Museum holds the logbook for this voyage. Benjamin Brown & Sons was the agent. AV06133.
Sluman served as master of MERCURY (AS1927) for its 1840-1842 and 1842-1844 voyages, home port Stonington CT; NEWBURYPORT (AS2040) for its 1844-1847 voyage, home port Stonington; MONTREAL (AS0467) for its 1853-1857 voyage, home port New Bedford MA; and JAMES MAURY (AS0330) for its 1864-1868 voyage, home port New Bedford.
Sluman died at sea on March 24, 1865, four days out from Guam, while serving as master of JAMES MAURY. Wood Abstract 4-097 describes what happened: “A letter from Mrs. Gray reported her at Guam March 28 [1865] reporting the death of Capt. Gray 4 days previous of inflammation of the bowels [indeciverable] proceeds north under charge of Mr. Cunningham 1st Officer.” AOWV shows Reuben Cunningham (AM1464) replacing Sluman. The logbook for March 24 gives a briefer account: “At two PM our Captain expired after the illness of two days”.
Hen Frigates (p. 178) describes the unusual circumstances that followed: “Refusing to allow him to be slid into the sea like an ordinary man, Sarah insisted on pickling the corpse, and so the log for the following day read, ‘…made a cask and put the Capt. in with spirits’ ”. JAMES MAURY, bearing the cask with its corpse, was captured by SHENANDOAH in the Bering Strait on June 28, 1865. In response to Sarah’s “state of some hysteria”, SHENANDOAH’s captain ransomed the captured ship and sent it to Hawaii with 222 prisoners, “the cask undisturbed.” Starbuck‘s entry for this voyage of JAMES MAURY reads, “Captain Gray died at Guam March 24, 1865; captured by the Shenandoah in Bering Strait June 1865; bonded because Captain Gray’s widow was on board.”
Hen Frigates continues (p. 178), “[S]omehow Sarah got the cask home (the bill of cartage from New Bedford was $11) and buried her husband where he lies today, in the Liberty Hill graveyard. Local legend has it that he was buried cask and all, but it seem much more likely that the preserved corpse was taken out of the barrel and put in to a regular casket.”
Sarah accompanied Sluman on several voyages. At least three of her children were born at sea. She Was a Sister Sailor (p. 138) writes of the birth of one son. She was described as “one of the original seafarers” when she sailed on NEWBURYPORT in 1844 and was categorized as one of the “sister sailors” (The Sailing Circle, p. 36). The life of these “sister sailors” is described at considerable length in She Was a Sister Sailor.
Sluman and Sarah and six of their children are buried in Liberty Hill Cemetery in Lebanon. The gravestone for Sluman and Sarah shows on the front in bas relief a ”fouled anchor”, the traditional naval emblem, and below it engraved “My Husband”; on the other side is engraved “Captain S.L. Gray Died On Board Ship James Maury Near Island Guam, March 24, 1865” and below that “Sarah A. Frisbie His Wife 1819-1892”. More poignantly, next to the parents’s stone is stone engraved “Our Katie” and then in a row five small stones bearing the names, date of death, and ages (not all legible) of five children who died in infancy, atop each a carved lamb, some partially broken. The author observed and photographed these gravestones.
Sources used: see sidebar and sources cited in text. Joan Druett is the author or co-author of several books that describe the life of wives such as Sarah who accompanied their husband on whaling voyages. Among her books are She Was a Sister Sailor, Hen Frigates, and The Sailing Circle. Quotes above come from the last two. These books are available at the library at Mystic Seaport Museum.
George Shaw
American Institute for Maritime Studies
Mystic Seaport Museum
December 2025