Manuscript

The Articles of Agreement is a contract between the ship and the crew, outlining appropriate behavior, wages, length of voyage, and food provided to the crew. This is from the Articles of Agreement, August 4, 1874, Ship Frank N.Thayer.

The Articles of Agreement is a contract between the ship and the crew, outlining appropriate behavior, wages, length of voyage, and food provided to the crew. This contract is for a voyage from Hong Kong to San Francisco or Portland on the Kennebunkport owned ship Frank N. Thayer. Below the header are listed some of the strict U.S. rules about use of bad language, sheath knives, and liquor (grog), for the safety of the ship and its cargo.

The original is about 21" wide and 24" long. with space for signatures of crew members.

The Shipmaster's Assistant was first published in 1837 and updated regularly. It gave a captain information on handling a crew, a ship, its cargo, ship's business, and foreign port requirements. The publisher, the Blunt company, was started by Edmund Blunt in Newburyport in 1796, then moved to New York in 1811 and carried on by his sons. They were the publishers of the Coast Pilot, the American Practical Navigator, and charts; and were the premier American 19th century professional nautical publishers.

Passenger List noting the names, ages, and occupations of 500 indentured Chinese laborers shipped from Macao to Havana, Cuba aboard the ship Forest Eagle of Rockland.

This document states that the shipping agent is providing "Five hundred Chinese emigrants all being in very good health and condition" and that he is not being responsible for the mortality."

A daily log of the voyage of 500 indentured Chinese laborers aboard the ship Forest Eagle, was kept by John O. Shaw. As “Coolie Master,” his sole charge was to prevent revolution and disease at sea among the Chinese emigrants.

Note: “Coolie” is a derogatory and dated term that now is considered a racial slur.

Bill of lading from ship Clarissa B. Carver, Capt. Dow, of Searsport. The bill of lading is for carrying 23 bales of bamboo from Yokohama, Japan to New York. Clarissa B. Carver was sunk by a steamer near Kobe, Japan nine days after this bill of lading was signed.

On this 1844 voyage from Liverpool, the ship Brunswick is recording its distance traveled every two hours. Captain B.H. Melcher has found the ship's longitude by taking lunar distances to two stars, and he had found his latitude by the sun.

The New American Practical Navigator has been the navigator's bible for two hundred years, since its first publication in 1802. It was originally published by Edmund March Blunt and then by his sons. After the Civil War, the Blunts sold copyright to the U.S. Government, and it has since been a publication of the Hydrographic Office, now part of NOAA, as H.O. #9. 

Though Thomas Jefferson founded the U.S. Coast Survey, it was not until 1874 that there were published sailing directions for the East Coast. Until then, navigators relied on the privately-printed sailing directions by Blunt. The government publication included many more charts and illustrations to aid the navigator than Blunt's sailing directions offered; however, the Blunt company stayed heavily involved in the navigation publishing business.

Most of the captains coasting New England in the 1870s and 80s would have had this book aboard.