Ship's Papers of Betsey Williams (Ship) of Stonington

File — Multiple Containers

Identifier: 003-02-12

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection consists of records of the construction of the vessel as well as the first three whaling voyages of the Betsey Williams out of Stonington including shipping papers, correspondence, crew lists, bills and receipts and crew accounts.

Dates

1846-1854

Creator

Nicholson, Paul C. (Paul Coe), 1888-1956 (Collector, Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

PPL believes this collection is in the public domain. Users of this item are responsible for determining copyright restrictions.

Biographical / Historical

The Betsey Williams was built in 1846 in Stonington, Connecticut. It made a total of four whaling voyages from 1846-1858. The first three voyages were out of Stonington under the ownership of C.P. Williams. The vessel’s last whaling voyage was out of New Bedford in 1843 before it was used for the guano trade in 1858.

The voyages represented in this collection include November 11, 1846 - February 1, 1849 under Master Palmer Hall; June 30, 1849 - April 6, 1851 under Master Franklin Hancox; July 23, 1851- April 20, 1854 under Master Gilbert Pendleton, Jr.

Extent

.4 Linear Feet (1 manuscript box; 1 flat file folder)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

The collection is organized chronologically by voyage.

Custodial History

Acquired as part of the Paul C. Nicholson Whaling Collection in 1956.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Paul C. Nicholson, 1956.

Related Materials

003-01-02, Nicholson Whaling Collection Logbooks, Providence Public Library. Includes four logbooks and account books for the Betsey Williams from 1847-1851.

Betsey Williams logbooks, New Bedford Whaling Museum

Separated Materials

Logbooks and account books of Betsey Williams are cataloged separately within the Nicholson Whaling Logbook Collection. These items are digitized and available at https://archive.org/details/providencepublicnicholson

Processing Information

Previously part of general Nicholson Whaling Manuscript Collection, Subgroup 10. Processing by Judith Lund in 2008 with additions made to the finding aid by Janaya Kizzie in 2014. The decision to reprocess the subgroups as individual collections was made by Jordan Goffin in 2018. The collection was reprocessed by Kate Wells in 2019.