I’ve been nattering on for years about the commercial advantages of working with manuscript material. Most manuscript journals, logbooks, diaries, and sometimes letters are singular by nature; they’ll never have any direct competition in the open market so will never be subject to the online “race to the bottom” that has restructured the used book market. Manuscripts can often be purchased to advantage from people who don’t have the time or inclination to read them. Many manuscripts fit perfectly with well-established institutional archives or collections. Some kinds of manuscripts, such as documents signed by famous people or whaling logs have ascended to the “object of desire” category – rich folks see them simply as a place to park money… etc., etc., etc.
I never talk much about manuscript material that doesn’t pan out, but believe me those kinds of manuscripts exist in abundance. You take a flyer on a fat journal or stack of letters – who has time to read them in detail when previewing an auction or working through a house call or estate sale? Then you get them back to the office and spend half a day discovering that the heap of paper under examination has no redeeming value, social or otherwise, and might as well be made into Papier-mâché. Bingo! Half a day down the drain.
That nearly happened to me a couple of days ago. I had been cataloging two logbooks of a hard-working American merchant ship named the “Edward Stanley,” 1860-1863. After several hours, the only thing I could determine for sure was that she was, indeed, hard working. She hauled salt, coal and cotton early on, then switched over to the Indian Ocean and the timber trade, hauling teak from Burma. Yawn.
Still, there was something just a little off about the events recorded. It took a few more hours to get to the bottom of the mystery. But when I did… Whoah!
*****
Manuscript. Log of ship “Edward Stanley,” T. Nichols Commander. Liverpool, Boston, New Orleans, St. Stephen & St. John, NB. October 28, 1860 – August 10, 1861. Thomas Nichols and G.M. Yates, Masters. (with) Log of Ship “Edward Stanley” London, Cardiff, Simon’s Bay Cape of Good Hope, Amherst Point and Maulmain Burma. March 10 – December 19, 1863. Folio logbook, 45 cm. Unpaginated. About 125 pp. manuscript entries. (and) Folio logbook, 32.5 cm. Paginated in ms. 175 pp. manuscript entries.
The itinerary of this hard-working merchant ship in 1860-1861, as outlined in the first logbook is as follows: Liverpool – New Orleans, October 28 – December 16, 1860. (Discharge salt, take on corn & cotton.) New Orleans -Liverpool, January 15 – February 23, 1861. (Discharge corn & Cotton, take on coal.) Liverpool – Boston April 3 – May 8 ,1861, (Caulk and maintain ship, discharge unspecified cargo in 1 day – Came home in ballast?) June 3 – June 14, Boston to St. Stephen N.B. (Painting and repairs.) July 4-7 St. Stephen – St. John. (Maintenance?) July 7 – August 10, St. John – London. G.M. Yates now master, replacing T. Nichols. (“Crew all left except 7 hands.” Discharge unspecified cargo take on 60 tons ballast – sand & gravel.)
This seems to conform, more or less, to the standard sort of log for a merchant ship employed in the cotton trade. There is good detail on daily evolutions, ships spoken, events onboard – with crew and officers named in the daily entries. However, a few incongruities are apparent, chiefly this entry for December 6, 1860, shortly after the ship’s arrival in New Orleans:
“At 4 PM the Police came on board & took our crew to jail. Collard Crew.”
What was going on aboard the “Edward Stanley?” Had there been a mutiny or criminal action of some sort?
As it happens, the Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport has a journal of an anonymous young man who sailed as a passenger aboard a merchant ship carrying paving blocks, cider, tools, and hay from Bristol, Maine to New Orleans at the same time the “Edward Stanley” put into port there, and this young man had as a traveling companion the son of the “Stanley’s” captain, Thomas Nichols.
The young man’s journal entry for the arrival of the “Edward Stanley” reads as follows: “This Sunday, P. M. having heard that a Waldoboro ship had arrived, and on going on board found her to be the “Edward Stanley,” Capt. Nichols 46 days from Liverpool. She having a negro crew Capt. N. was obliged to deliver them to the Chief of Police to be kept in jail till ready for sea again that being one of the regulations adopted in all ports in the Slave States, for the security of the “peculiar institution.” Dined with Capt. N. … He had some salt on board. Great quantities of this article are brought here and carried up river by steamers.” This information is contained in an article “New Orleans in December 1860” edited by Charles R. Schultz, then librarian of the Blunt White Library where the journal resides, published in Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Winter, 1968), pp. 53-61
On Saturday January 12 the logbook keeper continues, as the “Edward Stanley” was about to depart for Liverpool with their cargo of cotton, the negro crew was released from the Hoosegow.
“At 1 pm got the crue onboard and started down River.”
I will leave it for interested scholars to sort out the names named and the incidents onboard and ashore to determine origins and treatment of the “negro crew.” Though I know many African Americans served aboard US Navy ships during the Civil War, and aboard whale ships throughout the 19th century, I’ve never before had a log of an American merchant ship manned by African Americans. The log is bound in quarter sheep over blue boards. Text clean and legible.
The second log records the activities of the “Edward Stanley,” still under command of G.M. Yates, but off the cotton trade, probably because of the Civil War. She departed London in ballast March 10, 1863 and arrived in Cardiff March 30. There, she took on a cargo of coal and proceeded to Simon’s Bay, south of Capetown in South Africa, where she arrived June 29th. She discharged her cargo of coal and underwent maintenance until August 26. She then sailed in ballast to Maulmain Burma, arriving at Amherst Point October 18 and proceeding to Maulmain on October 20. There, she discharged ballast and took on a cargo of “timber” – most likely teak. This log ends December 19, with the “Edward Stanley” – surveyed on December 14th – and ready for sea. There’s plenty of detail – we learn for example, that Second Officer George Morton deserted as the ship was about to leave London. Landfalls, events on board, weather conditions and sail handling are all diligently recorded. However, I can find no information regarding the origins of the crew on this voyage. The one anomalous fact that stands out is that on her voyage to Maulmain she stopped first at Amherst Point, south of Maulmain, “for orders.” She was then ordered north to Maulmain to pick up her cargo. Who issued those orders?
This log is bound in 1/4 sheep over blue boards with paper “LOG BOOK” cover label. It was published and sold by Imray in London, and features full-page printed “Scale of Medicines” and “Scale of Provisions for the Merchant Service.” Text is clean and legible. Both volumes $3500
Funny how booksellers often don’t read what they’re selling. I sold a lot of material that, for example, was listed in Howes for a particular reason, say a trip to California, but which was of interest to a customer of mine for an entirely different reason, like a stop in Australia on the way. This applies less to manuscripts, of course, because you know you’ll never know unless you read them. And poke around.
Another example, currently on display at the Peabody & Essex Museum, is the logbook of the Nantucket whale ship Potomac. Anchored in the Marquesa islands, fourteen year old log keeper William Hussey Macy notes 4 sailors had jumped ship from the Achusnet of Fairhaven. One of these is Herman Melville. Macy subsequently wrote a popular book “That She Blows!” and published many stories on whaling. The Potomac figures in Melville’s poem “The Stone Fleet”: sunk by Union forces to provide a blockade.