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- Naval Officer’s Commonplace Book and Summary of US Schooner “Boxer’s” Voyage from Norfolk to the Pacific Station
Naval Officer’s Commonplace Book and Summary of US Schooner “Boxer’s” Voyage from Norfolk to the Pacific Station, 1834-1837.
Manuscript.
8vo notebook, 21cm. Unpaginated, about 60 pp.
Price: $350
Boxer was a 10-gun schooner, 88 feet loa, launched in Boston in 1831. This journal was produced by one of her officers. The first 45 pages or so are devoted to snippets of topical or inspirational poetry copied from such luminaries as Byron and Scott. Typical throwaway stuff. However, the final 12 pages contain a list of officers aboard “Boxer” on her departure from Norfolk in November, 1834, and their transfers and other assignments off the ship. (Most of them transferred to “Brandywine” or “Vincennes” in the Pacific.) This list is followed by a summary account of “Boxer’s” voyage around the Horn to her assignment on the Pacific Station in 1834-1835, and to her return to the East coast in 1837. “Boxer” seemed to have served mostly as a shuttle for the Navy, carrying US officials, whaling captains, and local businessmen from port to port along the South American coast, and to the Isthmus of Panama for return to America. On June 29, 1837, the journal keeper boards USS “Peacock” for the journey back to America, reporting that, while he was aboard her, “the Boxer ran the distance of 47,500 miles.” Though shorter than a traditional log, this summary of “Boxer’s” travels contains information otherwise unobtainable – “Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships” contains only 13 lines devoted to her entire career. For example, from this journal we glean obscure nuggets such as the sale of US Schooner “Dolphin”- the ship that rescued survivors of the “Globe” mutiny and massacre – at Callao in 1835 for $5100. The keeper of this commonplace book and journal has not identified himself. However, he has made copies of two letters of recommendation, dated 1838, for an R.D. Taylor, who is “applying for a Ltcy in the M corps.” In the list of officers in the front of the book, Robert D. Taylor is listed as “Capts. Clerk.” Hamersly’s “General Navy Register” has an entry in the Marine Corps section for “Taylor, Robert D. Second Lieutenant, 2 March, 1839. Died 13 November, 1845.” This journal is bound in half calf over marbled boards. The backstrip is chipped and worn, and the sewing is weak. Text clean and legible.
