Richard H. Burgess: daguerreotype in leather case

This collection documents the lives of William H. Burgess, a seaman and whaler, and his wife Harriet Dunbar Burgess. William Burgess’s life is predominantly captured through the text in his whaling journal/ commonplace book, which documents a whaling voyage on the Polar Star (leaving from the port of New Bedford, Massachusetts), and also includes verse, vocabulary words, and other tidbits from his life and interests. The collection also includes a printed book, purchased by William Burgess in Honolulu in 1854, which bears his stamp and inscription. Harriet Dunbar’s life is less thoroughly documented, although the collection does include her manuscript friendship book, with handwritten verse inscribed by friends between the years 1853 and 1862. A number of the friends writing in the book are from the area around Newark, New Jersey, including Newark, Morristown, Elizabeth, and Leicester, while others are from New York and Massachusetts; enclosed between pages are some news clippings, images, and bookmarks.

The collection also includes daguerreotypes of William Burgess’s and Harriet Dunbar Burgess’s respective families, presumably taken in their respective home states of Rhode Island and New Jersey.