Follow the progress of my research for my next book on my FaceBook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Linda-J-Collins-Author-104987188664609 (cut and paste that address into your browser).
Research Blog from Facebook — Oldest posts are shown first
November 8, 2021
After I finished my first historical novel, I swore I wouldn’t write another book. However, during my genealogical research several years ago, I stumbled upon a gripping true tale of a shipwreck in 1809. I’m having to do a genealogy do-over due to an unfortunate hack to my computer several weeks ago, and I re-discovered this account. So… I’m going to research the people involved and might write a second book.
November 10, 2021 — First I’ll give you some background on the shipwreck story. There were 35 men on board a sloop heading from New Bedford, MA, to Savannah, GA in Nov. 1809. Only 5 men made it there. The Captain was one of the survivors, and he wrote back to the town clerk in New Bedford to tell who had died and what had happened. It’s a harrowing tale!
I plan to research all the men, their families, their occupations, etc. A file will be kept on each one. Every good genealogist has to document their sources! I’ll learn about shipbuilding and the community of New Bedford. I’ll compile a list of questions to investigate, and also a list of possible plot points when I encounter them. It will be fun!
The first man I investigated is Captain John Taber Jr.; he was born in 1778, was a survivor and captain of the sloop. If I have constructed his genealogy correctly, he is descended from two Mayflower passengers — Francis Cooke and Edward Doty. I wonder if he knew his heritage? He married a woman named Rachel Delano — is she a Mayflower descendant too? Poor John died young; he was just 38 years old. Did he continue sailing after his terrible experience at sea? Did he have children? Did Rachel remarry after he died? Lots of questions to answer! I’ll let you know in the next post what I find out.
Meanwhile, here’s a picture of a sloop. It looks pretty small to carry that many people. I hope I can find out more about the actual ship.
November 12, 2021 — New England Whaling Museum — https://www.whalingmuseum.org/
I worked hard yesterday and today sorting out all the ancestors and descendants of Captain John Taber Jr., skipper of the shipwreck. He and I have his great grandfather in common, so I guess that makes us 3rd cousins many times removed. My goal was to possibly find a living descendant who might have stories or artifacts from Capt. John.
Capt. John’s wife, Rachel Delano, is a descendant of Richard Warren, Mayflower passenger. She died young at age 32 in 1812; her husband lived 6 years longer than she. I tried to get Capt. John’s obituary from the Columbian Centinel newspaper, but the nearest copy is at Oberlin College. Maybe it’s on Genealogy Bank?
Capt. John and Rachel had 2 children, Mary and Henry H. Taber. Mary had 7 children and 2 grandchildren, but no great-grandchildren. Henry H. had 2 children and 4 grandchildren, but no great-grandchildren. I have a few more leads to check out, but it appears that Capt. John does not have any living descendants. Rats!
I visited the New Bedford Whaling Museum online and looked at their collections of whaling logbooks and journals. They have a database of whaling ships, and a John Taber was listed as a “Master” of a sloop called “Manufactor” but its first sailing date was in April 1820, so if he died in 1818, I doubt he was sailing much! It might be a different John Taber, or perhaps he owned the sloop originally. I’ll have to look for a will for him.
November 21, 2021 — I found two living descendants of Captain John this week. One has a tree on Ancestry, but alas, he hasn’t signed in for over a year. His tree didn’t go back nearly as far as the one I made. I left a message, but I don’t know that he will ever get it, so I’ll have to find another way to contact him. The other descendant is on LinkedIn, so I’ll write to her that way. She has a fantastic story I found on Google that could make a TV show! I also discovered a couple more possible descendants to investigate.
I looked in Google Books for more information about Capt. John but didn’t find anything. I bought a Tabor Genealogy book Part 1, but it only showed the first four generations (he’s in the fifth), and Part 2 online didn’t have him either.
The map shows the location of the shipwreck using Google Earth. However, Capt. John said the location was Latitude 34.8, Longitude 76.30, and that puts him on land, so either the land shifted the last 200 years or his instruments were a bit off. This is near the Outer Banks of North Carolina where thousands of ships have wrecked.
November 28, 2021 — I investigated how a sextant works this week. Wiktionary defines it as “A navigational device for deriving angular distances between objects so as to determine latitude and longitude.” To “take a sight” you use a celestial body (sun, moon, star, or planet) and the horizon, and with some mathematical computations you can determine your position. It’s very accurate! There are several possible explanations for why Capt. John’s measurements are off and he seems to be on land: (1) the landforms of the Outer Banks have changed over the last 200 years, (2) the ship was blown off course from the last sighting taken (usually at dusk or dawn), or (3) his recollection of the numbers were foggy. PBS Nova has a show about it (I’ll try to find it), and of course, you can learn how to use a sextant on YouTube. The navy still trains recruits on its use since it doesn’t use electricity.
I haven’t heard from either descendant I contacted, but I found another one. He has an interesting story too — for the last 40 years he has researched Mt. St. Helens. My son in Olympia, Washington, is not far from there.
My books on the Outer Banks arrived — lots of reading to do. One book had the name of the ship in the index and almost the correct year, but it was not the right one. Just like genealogy where everyone used the same name over and over. Phooey!
I watched a webinar titled, ” Out to Sea: Researching Mariner Ancestors in New England,” and got lots of new places to research. Thanks, Sunda, for the suggestion!
November 29, 2021 — I discovered the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA. They have copies of old newspapers — really old newspapers — and I was able to get a copy of Capt. John Taber’s death notice in 1816. You can search their database to see if the paper you need is there. If so, set up an account, and they will copy what you need and send a PDF at NO CHARGE! I think you can make up to 10 requests a month. I didn’t get any more information than I already had, but there might have been more. It said, in the DEATHS column: “In Fairhaven, Capt. John Taber, jun. aged 38”. They even found the notice and highlighted it for me. WOW! americanantiquarian.org
December 10, 2021 — This week I researched the genealogies of the four other survivors (besides Capt. Taber) of the shipwreck. There wasn’t a lot of information to start from, other than I know their names and that they were on the ship from New Bedford, MA, in 1809.
I began researching Thomas Snow, but after a discouraging day, I still haven’t straightened out which man (out of what seems like 15 different ones!) is the correct one. It looks like I’ll have to start a spreadsheet to compare them all, and maybe I can figure it out.
The second man was Asa French Taber who was much easier to trace since he has a rather unique name. He was a first cousin to Capt. Taber; their fathers were brothers. He was the eighth child of eleven born to his parents and was born in 1781. He would have been 28 when he sailed. He lived to age 83 and had two wives and 12 children.
The third man was Amos Kelley. I was able to find his parents and birth in 1784. He was the ninth child (of 10) born to Eleazer and Sarah (Chase) Kelley. I found Amos in the 1820 census, but have not been able to find him beyond that date. One researcher has his death recorded in 1826, but no documentation for that fact. Perhaps I can find more information by researching his wife, children, and siblings.
The fourth man was Braddock Gifford. He was born in Falmouth, Barnstable, MA, in 1791, so he was just 18 years old when they sailed. Perhaps his youth helped him survive the wreck. He lived until 1875 (83 years old) and was a blacksmith. I found a picture of his blacksmith shop and his house. Too bad there wasn’t a picture of him!
When I research the men who perished, I’ll at least have a death date for them. There are 29 of them!
December 17, 2021 — The Mystic Seaport online collection has a book published in 1823 titled “Accounts of Shipwrecks and Other Disasters at Sea” by William Allen. It has an account of the shipwreck I’ll be writing about (not as detailed as the description I have) and loads of other fascinating information. The beginning of the book tells of the 8 classes of disasters at sea and some ways to prevent them from happening. Some are pretty obvious, but others not so much. Here they are with my comments added:
- “Running afoul of each other.” A boat collision with another boat can’t end well. Prevention: “a good light at night” and a bell rung constantly in foggy weather.
- “Striking ice.” The Titanic proved this one hundred years later. Prevention: Watch out for icebergs. (Duh!)
- “Sunk by a fish.” Prevention: Build the ship studier so it can withstand a strike by a whale or swordfish. (Ben Franklin had a scheme for better ship construction.)
- “Struck by lightning.” Lightning can explode the ship or set it afire. Prevention: Use Dr. Franklin’s invention (yes, Ben again) — of a lightning rod at the top of the mast with a wire running to the water.
- “Fire.” Prevention: Don’t fire a gun near gunpowder, don’t carry a light except under glass, keep spirits in bottles, don’t let lime get damp. (Quicklime plus water makes calcium hydroxide which produces enough heat to boil water. Who knew?)
- “Ships are liable to be filled and sunk in consequence of being upset by a squall or heavy sea, or by a water spout, or in a storm by means of the open hatchways and the cabin windows not having the deadlights in. Sometimes a vessel is struck suddenly by a white squall, which could not be foreseen…rendering all human skill and effort utterly vain.” *** This is what happened to Capt. Taber’s ship. “When a ship upsets, it is necessary to cut away the masts that she may right again. Axes should therefore be made fast to each side of a ship on deck, so as not to be lost, and so that whichever side is underwater, the means of cutting away the masts may be found.” ***Capt. Taber and crew did cut away the mast to right the ship.
- “Leaks.” Caused by a rusting bolt, straining of a ship in a storm thus opening the seams, striking a rock, worms boring through the wood, rats eating through the wood. Prevention: Improve the method of shipbuilding. (Ben again.)
- “Ships lost on sandbanks.” Prevention: Compasses on deck are not very accurate as they are attracted by the ship itself, so they must be calibrated to account for that. Use a thermometer — the temperature of the sea falls in shoal water. In storms, use Dr. Franklin’s swimming anchor to slow the ship’s momentum. (That invention must not have caught on because I could not find a picture or more information about it. I won’t bore you with the description in the book.)
Did you know that Ben mapped the Gulfstream in 1786? Or that he invented swim fins when he was eleven years old? He was an avid swimmer.
December 31, 2021 –According to Wikipedia, “a white squall is a sudden and violent windstorm at sea which is not accompanied by the black clouds generally characteristic of a squall. It manifests as a sudden increase in wind velocity in tropical and sub-tropical waters, and may be a microburst. The name refers to the white-capped waves and broken water, its meager warning to any unlucky seaman caught in its path. …White squalls are rare at sea, but common on the Great Lakes of North America.” Capt. John’s sloop was a victim of a white squall near Cape Hatteras.
What’s a microburst? The air moves in a downward motion until it hits ground level. It then spreads outward in all directions. The wind regime in a microburst is opposite to that of a tornado. A wet microburst produces strong straight-line winds and produces a lot of precipitation. The Southeast US has the highest probability of wet microbursts.
Jan. 6, 2022 — The Shearman (Sherman) Brothers. There were three brothers on the ship, all carpenters from Rochester, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Rochester is located a bit east of New Bedford, Bristol County, and is on the western border of Plymouth County next to Bristol. The oldest brother was Nathaniel, 31, the middle brother was Uriel, 28, and the youngest was William Jr., 21. In 1809 when the ship sailed, their family consisted of father William and mother Hannah (Stetson), and three other sisters ages 25, 15, and 11. One older brother Elisha had already died at age 33 by that time. I originally looked at the 1790 US Census for Bristol County, but the William Sherman in Dartmouth didn’t seem to fit. I found the family in Rochester under the name William Shirman, and they are still in Rochester in 1800 and 1810 for the census.
Nathaniel was the only brother who was married. In 1809, he had 3 daughters – Betsey who was 9 years old; Sarah, age 5; and Mary, age 4. Betsy married in 1821, and Sarah in 1823. So far, I cannot locate a marriage record for Mary. There are living descendants. Nathaniel’s wife, Sally (Terry), never remarried and died in 1852. Perhaps Sally’s mother helped with the girls – she lived until 1841. It’s hard to know how the family supported itself with the husband gone.
No doubt these families were devastated when all three men were lost at sea.
January 23, 2022 –Carpenter Claghorn Pease’s family tree is full of tricks! Capt. John called him Claghorn, but his full name was George Claghorn Peas(e) – Claghorn was his mother’s maiden name. Did he go by the name of Claghorn rather than George? George’s father, Shubael was a mariner, but his title of Captain may have come from his military service rather than being captain of a ship. I’m not sure when George was born, probably about 1780. His parents married in 1761, so he could have been born any time after that, but he wasn’t married until 1806. He did not survive Capt. John’s shipwreck in Nov. 1809.
When George sailed, both his parents had been dead about 10 years, and his only sibling, Shubael (Jr.), had been dead almost 20 years, so George’s immediate family consisted of him, his wife and son, Shubael (III), who was just 8 months old. Shubael III had two children. The first child, Ann Elizabeth married at age 39, but by age 47 she was listed on the census as a maid. Her husband that year is listed as single, so the marriage must have dissolved. I could not find any children. She dies at age 68 from terminal dementia.
Shubael III’s other child was Thomas Henry Pease, or Henry Thomas Pease. For awhile I chased both men, but then discovered he was the same person. He used each name interchangeably as there are multiple documents showing either name. Thomas Henry was married twice, but to the same woman, with an intervening divorce, and she married another man in the interim. Ironically, they married both times on June 27, but 22 years apart. They had 4 children, one daughter died young between the ages of 4 and 14. Daughter Mabel married Wilmot Seiders and had 4 children. Mabel was a DAR member, related to William Brewster on her maternal line. She lived until age 80, but sadly died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. She has living descendants. Mabel’s son, Arthur Pease Seiders, had three marriages and 2 children; his son died at age 8 months, and his daughter married and has one son who is apparently still living.
Thomas Henry Pease’s son, George David Pease, died at age 28 of typhoid fever, but had one daughter Ruth, born in 1890. She was 7 years old when her father died, and her mother remarried just a year later. However, in the 1900 census, her mother and new husband are both listed as lodgers, and Ruth is not there. Her mother states she has had no children. Ruth can be found in the household of her uncle Arthur Pease Seiders and his first wife–no other children. In the 1910 census, Ruth’s mother is living with the new husband (and still says she has no children), but Ruth is now living with her aunt, Mabel, perhaps helping to take care of Mabel’s four children, although she is working as a stenographer. Ruth married in 1917, and had 2 children, one now deceased (Olive Spencer Abney who served 3 years in the army in WWII and is buried in the San Francisco National Cemetery – picture from Find a Grave), and one apparently still living, and 5 grandsons, presumably all alive with families. Mabel’s son, Franklin Seiders, also has living descendants.
So, George Claghorn Pease has a fair number of descendants living in spite of having only one son, Shubael III. Of the people who have trees listing these people on Ancestry, I only see one who has signed in recently, and he lives in Denmark! He has 45,601 people in that tree and it looks well researched and (fortunately!) jives with the information I found.
Feb. 5, 2022 — While researching the descendants of the three daughters of Joseph Terry (who didn’t survive the shipwreck), I was taken to Kingston, Norfolk Island, Australia! This small (5X7 miles), remote island is located between Australia and New Zealand. It was used as a penal colony by Great Britain from 1788 to 1813, abandoned from 1814 to 1825, then resettled again with the worst convicts from Australia. In 1855 the last of those convicts went to Tasmania, and in 1856 descendants of Tahitians and HMS Bounty mutineers (yes, those relatives of Fletcher Christian) arrived from the overcrowded Pitcairn Islands. Some of their descendants still live there.
Franklin Bates, Sr., a descendant of Joseph Terry, was a mariner, and died in 1913 in Kingston. His daughter Maida had been married there in 1901. Norfolk Island was a stopping point for whaling vessels, which is probably how Franklin arrived there. His father was also a mariner and listed as a Captain on the 1850 US Census. Whalers came to the island for food and water, and sometimes recruited islanders as crewmen. Franklin apparently liked the tropical paradise and stayed.
The population of the island today is 1,748 with one school, hospital and airport. The Norfolk Island pine is native to the island and is in the center of its flag; pine seeds are a key export.
It appears that the descendants of Joseph Terry through Franklin Bates now live either in New South Wales or Queensland, Australia. Those areas are both on the eastern side of the continent.
February 15, 2022 – Will the correct Nathaniel Butler please come forward? I had just two clues for finding the identity of Nathaniel – he was a cabinet-maker and died on the ship, Nov. 1809.
The first Nathaniel I thought might be him was born in 1763 in Newburyport, Essex County, Massachusetts. I didn’t find a death record for him but his probate papers were dated in 1810 so he could have died in 1809. However, he was a distiller and, based on the inventory of his estate, apparently owned a tavern. He died without a will. Next, I found the 1810 estate of his son, also named Nathaniel (no will again), and the administrator in both cases was the older Nathaniel’s wife (although she had remarried and had a different surname). The younger Nate was twenty-one years old, but he was listed as a mariner, not a cabinet-maker. With more searching, I found a death record for him dated 18 Jan 1810 and his place of death as New Orleans. Another hurdle was that Newburyport is about as far away from New Bedford as you can get and still be in Massachusetts. Things were not fitting together!
Then I found another Nathaniel Butler who died in 1811 listed in the Bolton, Worcester County, Massachusetts’ records. There was no record of his occupation, and Bolton is located near the northern middle of the state, not very near water or to New Bedford, from where the ship sailed. However, if Nate was a cabinet-maker, he might be going south on the ship to procure wood. But the 1811 death year didn’t fit.
The next Nathaniel Butler lived in Chatham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts. There was no birth record for him, but he married in 1793, so one might assume he was born about 1770. He had seven children; the last child was born in Oct 1808, so he could have died in 1809. There was no death record for him, and no Find A Grave memorial. The only death record possibly for him was the one recorded in New Bedford. His wife remarried in 1814 and sold his land; that transaction showed Nathaniel was deceased. But was this the correct man from the shipwreck? I found the family in Chatham on the 1800 census, and all the tic marks jived with the ages of the children. Was he on the 1810 census? I couldn’t find him there, but what about his wife? I couldn’t find her either. She had a rather unusual first name, Achsah, so I looked at the original census listings. Eureka! In terrible handwriting, that no doubt the transcriber couldn’t read, she was there. The first name looks like a bunch of squiggles but a capital A stands out, and the last name looks like Buller. The tic marks are correct for the children and her. So, I concluded that her husband had died before the census was taken in August 1810. This is the best match for the Nathaniel Butler on the shipwreck. See the map for his location of Chatham, in red. He could have easily taken a boat from home to New Bedford.
I hope the rest of these men are not this difficult to find!
Feb. 20, 2022 — Samuel Wing’s occupation was listed as a “Trader” on Captain Taber’s list of the dead. He was from Rochester, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, which borders Bristol County; that is the same town the three Shearman brothers were from. Did they know each other?
Samuel was the youngest of a family of nine children – six sons and three daughters. He was born in 1786, so he was just 23 years old. When he sailed in 1809, four of his brothers were already dead at least 8 years before, and the fifth, Stephen Simmonds Wing died a year after Samuel. Their ages at death ranged from 16 to 34. The three daughters all married and lived relatively long lives.
Samuel was not married.
The picture shows the tombstone from Find A Grave with both his brother Stephen’s and Samuel’s names. It has a lovely weeping willow tree. I’ve enhanced it a bit to make it more legible.
Feb. 23, 2022 –Timothy Taber (painter) was another man who died on the shipwreck. He was twenty-four years old and married with a three-month-old son. His son, Ellery Tompkins Taber, was a sea captain and married twice—first to Emily White and after she died in 1842 (possibly in childbirth) he married her sister Maria. The child only lived to age three. Ellery reached the age of eighty-one, dying in 1890. The picture of him is from the History of Bristol County Massachusetts and was submitted by Sandra Lennox to Find A Grave, 29 Mar 2013.
March 9, 2022 — Google News Archive to the Rescue! I wanted to find out why the men, from various parts of Massachusetts not just New Bedford, decided to board Captain Taber’s sloop and head for Savannah. How did they know about the trip? I thought perhaps he placed an advertisement so I went to chroniclingamerica.loc.gov to look for digitized newspapers from that era. Unfortunately, there were no newspapers from the 1809 time period from Massachusetts, but I perused The Rhode Island Republican to no avail other than I found a report of the shipwreck that named three of the deceased and said, “the rest of the persons lost were mostly artisans, who were going to Georgia to work during the winter…”.
The site told me a newspaper called the New Bedford Mercury was published at that time, and listed repositories for it, the nearest one being in Buffalo, NY. Field trip? On a whim, I googled the newspaper and discovered that Google News Archive had the papers I wanted! I looked at issues in October 1809 and November 1809 and saw ads for other ships but not his sloop. On Nov. 17, 1809, the ship cleared the harbor. There was an account of the shipwreck published Dec. 29 listing the names of the passengers, but the names of the apprentices on board were not listed. The Jan 5, 1810 issue added two names and corrected one – Jonathan Drew should have been Jonathan Davis – which explains why I had trouble researching him.
I found the death notice for Captain John’s wife, Rachel, who died three years after the shipwreck. She died at age 32 of consumption (tuberculosis). I had not seen her cause of death before. She is listed as the wife of Mr. John Taber, Jr., not Captain Taber, so I wonder if he no longer captained any ships.
I found Captain Taber’s death notice in 1816, age 38, and he is listed as Captain Taber, but the only other information given is that he was the captain of the shipwreck. I wonder what his cause of death might have been? His estate showed $68.51 paid to three different people for his last sickness – perhaps consumption too? His probate record lists him as a blacksmith, and also his father who died about the same year he did. Perhaps they worked together. The War of 1812 essentially closed the harbor at New Bedford, so he had to support his family some way. John Taber Sr.’s estate had assets of only $51.23 and $39.88 was paid to his widow. Captain John Taber’s assets were a bit more – the inventory showed $144.95 and a residence valued at $411 which was sold at auction to cover his debts.
Now I’m on the trail of the newspaper account in Charleston, SC, of when the survivors arrived. It is not available at either Library of Congress or Google News Archive. I put in a request to the Antiquarian Society, so I’m hopeful they can find it!
news.google.com/newspapers, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
March 31, 2022 — Jonathan Davis, shoemaker, and his apprentice, Abner Hicks, were two of the men listed as lost in the shipwreck. All the family trees on Ancestry show Jonathan Davis Sr. as being the man shipwrecked, but I think it was his son who perished. Davis Sr. was born in 1743, which would have made him 66 years old at the time of sailing. I found his will, probated in 1826, showing his wife as the administratrix. Davis Jr. was born in 1786 and would have been 23 years old at the time of sailing, which fits in with the majority of the other men making the trip. Davis Jr. married in Oct. 1808 in New Bedford, MA, and had one son born about 1 Oct 1810. October is after I would have expected a child to be born whose father sailed in November 1809, but his tombstone says he died 1 Oct 1850 in his 41st year with no birthdate shown, so he could have been born before 1 Oct. There is no further data after 1809 about Jonathan Davis Jr., so I conclude he was the one who was shipwrecked.
Abner Hicks, shoemaker apprentice, is an interesting puzzle. He was a nephew of Jonathan Davis Jr. and was born in 1793 which would make him 16 years old when they sailed. Accounts of the shipwreck say he perished, but he apparently did not! The Abner I found lived until 1879. I searched the Hicks histories, and Abner is not a common name in this family–this Abner is the only one I found. There was one other Abner Hicks in Massachusetts, but he was a Native American of the Marshpee Tribe and was born in 1786. Lucky Abner apparently didn’t make the fateful trip. He was probably greatly surprised at the report of his demise. He married in 1810 and had four children.
Pictured are shoes common in the early 1800s.
April 7, 2022– While looking at historical newspapers, I discovered this article in the Rhode Island Republican, Oct. 18, 1809, author unknown:
HISTORICAL NOVELS
HISTORICAL novels have been condemned by some late Reviewers. The censure, in my opinion, is ungenerous and rash. If well written, they are certainly productive of utility to the readers of narration. By recalling to the mind the historical facts on which they are founded, they tend to impress them more strongly on the memory. They likewise induce the reader to turn over the pages, on which the “deeds of days of other years,” are minutely recorded to ascertain what portion of the work is the offspring of fancy. For my part, I have read with much profit and delight the volumes of Llevellin, Florian’s Consalvo of Cordova, and Miss Musgrove’s Rose of Raby and Edmund of the Forest.
I couldn’t find any information about Llevellin.
Florian is probably Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755-1794), a French writer most known for his fables. One expression from his works we still use today is, “He who laughs last laughs best.”
A reprint of the Cicely, or The Rose of Raby by Agnes Musgrave is available on Amazon for sale and has been digitized by Google Books. There is a series of four books “about Cecylee Neville (1415-1495), mother of Richard III and Edward IV, Queen by Right and Abbess. This tale of Cecylee’s girlhood will appeal to readers of YA novels.”
Edmund of the Forest (also by Agnes Musgrave) has also been reprinted in four volumes and is on Amazon. The original was in the library of Victor Amadeus whose Castle Corvey collection of 9500 titles was discovered in the 1970s.
Perhaps on the ship voyage, one of the men will be reading one of these books!
From the Cape Hatteras National Seashore National Park website, Cape Hatteras Light Station https://www.nps.gov/caha/planyourvisit/chls.htm
Construction of a lighthouse at Cape Hatteras was first authorized in 1794 when Congress recognized the danger posed to Atlantic shipping. However, construction did not begin until 1799. The first lighthouse was lit in October of 1803. Made of sandstone, it was 90 feet tall with a lamp powered by whale oil.
The 1803 lighthouse was unable to effectively warn ships of the dangerous Diamond Shoals because it was too short, the unpainted sandstone blended in with the background, and the signal was not strong enough to reach mariners. Additionally, the tower was poorly constructed and maintained. Frequent complaints were made regarding the lighthouse.
The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse protects one of the most hazardous sections of the Atlantic Coast. Offshore of Cape Hatteras, the Gulf Stream collides with the Virginia Drift, a branch of the Labrador Current from Canada. This current forces southbound ships into a dangerous twelve-mile long sandbar called Diamond Shoals. Hundreds and possibly thousands of shipwrecks in this area have given it the reputation as the Graveyard of the Atlantic.
You can take a virtual tour of the current lighthouse at Cape Hatteras here: https://www.nps.gov/hdp/exhibits/caha/tour/
4-28-22 — I’ve been playing around with titles and covers for the shipwreck book, and I think this is it. What do you think?
April is NaNoWriMo Camp month. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and is held each November. To participate, the writer must complete 50,000 words of a rough draft in one month. For my first book, I participated and achieved this goal in November 2012. “Camp” in April is where a writer sets his/her own monthly word goal and updates their total every day. My modest goal is 500 words per day for 15,000 words by the end of April. I started out great, but then got caught up in more research and editing of the words I had written so far. I’ll only achieve 10,000 words by the end of the month, but it’s a good start. A historic novel should have between 80,000 to 100,000 words.
The first chapter is always difficult – you have to “hook” the reader into wanting to read the rest of the story – and I think I accomplished that. My next dilemma was how to introduce all the characters (34 of them!) without too much description to bog things down. I’m almost ready to start Chapter Five where the ship overturns. My goal is to not edit now but to get the ideas on paper in a rough draft.
I sold ten books of Dreams of Revolution this week—nine paperbacks and one eBook! Whoopee!
May 4, 2022 — Here’s an interesting article from The Rhode Island Republican, October 18, 1809:
The Diving Bell at Buckstown, Maine, continues to be successfully employed in raising articles from the ordnance brig, which we understand, lies in 60 feet of water. The Bell, which takes its name from its shape, is sufficiently large to contain two persons with ease. It is sunk with weights, and hoisted on a signal. The sides and top are perfectly tight; but it has no bottom, the air keeping out the water. The persons who go down are supported on seats till it descends to its object, they then proceed to work. The bell is accommodated with windows; and contains air sufficient to sustain a person one hour and 40 minutes. Sub-aqueous visits are often made by citizens of the towns on the banks of the Penobscot, for their amusement. – Pall.
Is this the first water park ride? Would you go down in this thing?
May 25, 2022 – Asa French Taber was one of five survivors of the shipwreck. He was 28 years old at the time of the wreck and died at the ripe old age of 83 in 1864. He was the eighth child of 11 children. He married twice and had 12 offspring. The censuses and his death record show him as a shipwright and carpenter.
Did he try his hand as a mariner in 1821? On the New Bedford Whaling Museum database of Whaling Crews I found an Asa Taber. The first listing was for a ship called the Nautilus in 1821, but it lists Asa as age 21. Asa French Taber would have been 40 years old then, so it seems unlikely to be him. Other entries in the crew list show voyages from 1842 to 1856, and Asa starts as a 2nd mate, then 1st mate, then Master. This Asa Taber is actually Asa French Taber Jr., son of the shipwreck survivor. On census records, he listed himself as a sailor and master mariner, and his tombstone shows “Captain”. However, this Asa was born in 1819, so he could not be the Asa Taber who sailed in 1821. It seems interesting that Asa Jr. would choose this career after hearing about his father’s near-death experience at sea, but New Bedford during his lifetime was at the center of the whaling industry.
One other Asa Taber I found who was born in 1800 may have gone to sea in 1821, as his age fits the record. He must not have liked the experience because census records show him as a farmer in later years.
6-26-2022 — This week I found many estates of the deceased passengers on Family Search. One of particular interest was that of Consider Smith, blacksmith. Consider died at age 23, was married for 3 years and had two children, a girl age 2 and a boy who was born 3 months after his death.
His estate is interesting because he had 41 debtors to be paid. His assets didn’t cover the debts and each one was paid only 21 ¾ cents on the dollar. His widow received $188, but lost her home in a real estate sale. In the inventory, his copper tea kettle and small brass kettle were worth the same amount as his one old horse — $3.00. One creditor received only 2 cents on his account. His administrators certainly earned their money liquidating his assets and paying off his creditors.
September 5, 2022 — Due to complications from eye surgery, I haven’t posted here in a while. Things are better now, so I’m finally back to writing. I’ve written 8 chapters for about 15,000 words. Plotwise, all the characters have been introduced (all 34 of them!), the ship has wrecked, and only 10 men are left on board on day 4.
Captain Taber’s account of the shipwreck states that on the sixth day, they saw a ship with “American colors” that passed nearby. Taber thought they would be rescued, but apparently, the ship didn’t think anyone was aboard the wreck and sailed off. I wondered what the American colors looked like in 1809.
From the FOTW Flags of the World website (https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-1795.html) :
In 1809, the US flag had 15 stars and 15 stripes. Kentucky and Vermont had joined the original 13 colonies, so two stars and two stripes were added to the flag. This was the official flag from 4 July 1795 to 4 July 1818. As more and more states were added (5 more joined before 1818), it obviously became impossible to continue adding stripes. Captain Samuel Reid’s plan was to add a star for each state and keep 13 stripes, and that idea became law in 1818. He was a naval captain in the War of 1812.
Reid’s picture is from Naval History and Heritage Command website: https://www.history.navy.mil
September 15, 2022 –While I was helping index the 1950 census at Familysearch.org, I checked the family tree posted for my family. I had never posted a tree on the site because I didn’t like that the trees are a collaborative effort and other people can change entries. However, I got two major surprises! The first surprise was that I was listed as deceased. There were no sources posted, of course, so I informed both Family Search and the poster that I was very much alive. The entry was corrected shortly thereafter. The second surprise was that people had built a colossal tree! There are hundreds of entries; many of them are sourced, and I found two connections to royalty! One line traces back to Edmund I, King of England, who was born in 921. There are entries going back as far as the year 420. Another line traces to William the Conqueror, King of England, born in 1028, and goes back as far as 685.
The question becomes, how accurate are these entries? William the Conqueror is 31 generations back from me, and Edmund I is 34. That’s a lot of sources to look at. However, many years ago when researching my Coffin family in Ashland, Ohio, the brother (1809-1889) of my direct ancestor said he could trace his ancestry back to William. When I saw that, I discounted it – after all, everyone is related to an Indian princess! So, there may be some truth in the royalty claim. I’ve got a lot to learn to check it out. Don’t discount those family stories because they may be accurate.
October 1, 2022 – A ship by the name of William & Henry rescued the few survivors of the shipwreck according to Captain Taber. I did further research, hoping to find a ship’s log mentioning the rescue, but I was unsuccessful. I did find that there were four ships by that name, but only one could be the rescue ship in 1809. That William & Henry was either a brigantine or a brig built in 1784 in Kingston, MA.
A brigantine has two masts (a sloop like our shipwreck has only one) with the second mast being taller than the first, and it has many more sails than a sloop does. It is more maneuverable and faster than a sloop. Before 1775, the sloop was the most popular ship for the colonies, and the brigantine was the second most popular. The carrying capacity of a brigantine ranged from 30 to 150 tons. A ton comes from the word “tun” which was a cask of wine that weighed 2240 pounds and occupied 60 cubic feet.
A brig was a later, larger, refinement of the brigantine. Several different sources list the tons for the William & Henry as—150 tons, 166 tons, or 186 tons—so it probably would be classified as a brig.
In 1790, the William & Henry arrived from Canton, China, with a cargo of tea and was among the first to trade with the Far East. Our rescue ship had at times sailed almost around the world before it rescued the shipwrecked men in 1809.
November 13, 2022
What’s a train derailment picture have to do with my shipwreck story? Well, shipwreck writing has been temporarily derailed! I was contacted by a production company agent who wondered if I had a screenplay for my book, Dreams of Revolution. I was skeptical – is this a scam? — but the company is legitimate, even though I have been unable to find more information about the agent. When I questioned him about what they were looking for, he sent me copies of three screenplays, which I doubt a scammer would do. He has not asked for money or pestered me, so perhaps he is for real.
Whether or not it’s a scam, I decided to write a screenplay, which is very different than writing a book since it is a visual medium. I learned how to format and write it, and so far I’ve written over half which is 60 pages (a two-hour movie is 120 pages). Even if my contact isn’t interested in it, I may be able to find a production company that is, although it’s a tough business to break into.
I also have decided to make a YouTube video of my PowerPoint presentation about Dreams of Revolution. I’m starting to branch out into other areas such as book clubs, and I think it will be a useful tool to promote the book.
I recently became an “Other Bookseller” of my own book on Amazon, if you would like an autographed copy of the paperback. I took a course on Amazon advertising, so I’m learning all about that, too. Unfortunately, writing a book is just the beginning of selling it – promotion is vital to success.
So, I haven’t been lazy — I’ll get back to the shipwreck story soon!