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- Thomas Dingleys Book Containing Acco’t of the Brigg George & Harriet (? Variously spelled)
Thomas Dingleys Book Containing Acco’t of the Brigg George & Harriet (? Variously spelled), August, 1794 – December 1795.
Manuscript.
31.5 cm. 24 pp. entries in folio ledger, plus 54 pages of individual accounts
Price: $350
Dingley was born in Marshfield, MA in 1761, and died in 1827. A death notice names him as a “Captain,” and one line in the book contains the phrase, “my days pay,” making it likely that he was the keeper of this ledger. Accounts for the brig begin in August, 1794. Expenses for the voyage include wages, fees and taxes, purchases of supplies, pilotage, primage, transportation while ashore, and similar items. This portion runs 24 pages from the beginning of the book. There follow about 80 blank pages, then 54 pages containing two sets of accounts for beginning and end of the voyage, for about a dozen individually named crewmen. These roughly establish “George & Harriet’s” itinerary as Boston, Guernsey, London, Havre, and Bordeaux, from August 1794 through July 1795. These entries mostly consist of wages and advances on wages issued in various ports. For example, the ship’s cook, William Black, was paid $40 in Havre and advanced $54 in Bordeaux. The cost of changing livres into that amount of dollars is recorded as well as his later advances in cash and for clothing. Attractively bound in old vellum with ribbon ties. Text clean and legible.
