[ARCHIVE OF SEVERAL INTERRELATED NANTUCKET SEAFARING AND WHALING FAMILIES, CONTAINING CORRESPONDENCE, INVOICES AND RECEIPTS, A MANUSCRIPT LOGBOOK, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND MORE].

[Whaling]:

Published by [Various locations, including Nantucket, Boston, New Bedford, Lahaina, New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Cochin, Calcutta, Rangoon, Cardiff, Singapore, Yokohama, and Shanghai. 1833 to ca.1950, bulk 1833-1872].

About this Item

An extensive archive collecting material from several interrelated Nantucket seafaring and whaling families over multiple generations, including correspondence, invoices and receipts, a manuscript logbook, photographs, and various other items. The core is material documenting ship captain Henry Bigelow's time in Lahaina, Maui, where he served briefly as U.S. vice consul, including many documents relating directly to his involvement with the infamously corruption-ridden U.S. Marine Hospital at Lahaina. Also significant is the manuscript logbook of George H. Brock, captain of the clipper ship Midnight, covering a ten-year period from 1862 to 1872, during which he made numerous voyages between Boston, San Francisco, and New York, as well as to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Calcutta, Cochin (Kochi), Rangoon (Yangon), Cardiff, and Yokohama. Additional contents include various collections of family correspondence, numbering more than thirty letters in total, including two from James Hussey Barker to his mother, written while on a nearly two-year-long whaling voyage in the Atlantic, three from James' brother Edward to their sister, Mary Barker Bigelow, concerning her youngest son Edward Bigelow and whether he is fit for a life at sea, and a gold rush letter from Thomas Coleman, Jr., who, along with hundreds of others, left Nantucket in search of his fortune in California. Often described as "the whaling capital of the world," the tiny island of Nantucket dominated the whaling industry for much of the 18th and early 19th centuries (Philbrick). As Eric Jay Dolin explains, Nantucket, "by virtue of its isolation and the high degree of interrelatedness among its inhabitants," was a tightly knit community in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Whaling had been practiced in various forms on the island by English settlers since the 17th century and by the island's Wampanoag inhabitants before that. What existed then as haphazard and sporadic shore whaling had by the 19th century developed into a massive, global industry that took New England whalers to distant waters in the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic Oceans on voyages that often lasted years. Such efforts were led by a handful of Nantucket families, many of whom, including the Barkers, Bigelows, Brocks, Husseys, and Colemans, are represented here. The earliest items in the archive are two manuscript letters from James Hussey Barker (1812-1885) to his mother, Lucretia Hussey-Barker (1787-1877), both written while James was attached to the ship "George" on an Atlantic whaling voyage. The George departed Nantucket on July 31, 1832, under captain John C. Congdon. The first letter was written on November 9, 1833, some fifteen months after the ship's departure. In it, Barker reports that the first part of their voyage had been "rather unsuccessful," having obtained "only about 500 bbls of Whale Oil." Barker notes that they then rounded the Cape of Good Hope, anchoring briefly at the Bay of Saint-Augustin off the west coast of Madagascar, before leaving for "a short cruise in the Mozambique Channel for Sperm Oil," which yielded an additional 400 barrels. They afterward set off for the South Atlantic, "Where We are now to be found with something rising 1300 barrels all told." Barker writes briefly of "a dispute with some of the Hands about which I presume You have heard," noting that the dispute has since "passed," and all is now "quiet" aboard the George. He writes also of having "spoke" to the ship Lewis, whose chief mate relayed news from back home: "He informed Me that You were well Father much better." The second letter is dated May 7, 1834, the day of the George's arrival at New Bedford. "We have now been absent about 22 months," writes Barker, "and have obtained about 500 bbls of Sperm and 1700 of Whale Oil." Barker goes on to express how "anxious" he is "to see Edward [his brother] and hear from You," and asks "to have some Cake or Pies sent on." Next are three manuscript letters.

Seller Inventory # 67534

Bibliographic Details

• Title: [ARCHIVE OF SEVERAL INTERRELATED NANTUCKET SEAFARING AND WHALING FAMILIES, CONTAINING CORRESPONDENCE, INVOICES AND RECEIPTS, A MANUSCRIPT LOGBOOK, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND MORE].
• Publisher: [Various locations, including Nantucket, Boston, New Bedford, Lahaina, New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Cochin, Calcutta, Rangoon, Cardiff, Singapore, Yokohama, and Shanghai. 1833 to ca.1950, bulk 1833-1872].