Ship’s Papers of the Thomas Hunt (Schooner) of Stonington

File — Flat File Case: Flat File

Identifier: 003-02-17

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The collection includes the records of ten voyages of the Thomas Hunt between 1872 and 1884, including receipts and bills of sale, shareholders’ agreements, insurance certificates, crew lists and crew agreements, supplies and slops accounts, shipping papers, governmental documents such as foreign manifests and customs documents, and correspondence with ship’s agent Joseph N. Hancox.

Dates

1872 - 1884

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 Schooner Thomas Hunt was built in Kennebunk, Maine in 1866 and was engaged in sealing in the South Shetland Islands, making 11 voyages from Stonington, Connecticut between 1872 and 1890. Papers from Thomas Hunt also include some bills from the Schooner Express and others because Joseph N. Hancox, agent, was buying for both at the same time. Some bills do not designate a vessel, but were interleaved with bills for Thomas Hunt, and so are filed there. This collection contains miscellaneous papers for ten voyages spanning the years 1872 to 1884. Some voyages are well documented, while for others, only a few papers remain. The return date of the 1884 voyage is unknown, and documentation for that voyage is nearly non-existent. Other records show master Andrew Eldred shipped out on the Schooner Express of Stonington on another voyage in July 1885; his usual pattern was to return in the spring and leave again in the summer, so the 1884 voyage probably returned in April or May of 1885. She left again on what was to be her last voyage later in 1885. She was lost off the Cape Verde Islands in 1890.

Extent

1 Linear Feet (2 manuscript boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

The collection is arranged into ten series, each of which contains materials from a separate voyage of the Thomas Hunt.

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 two logbooks for the Thomas Hunt from 1875-1876 and 1882-1884, and a journal from 1873-1875 (the latter volume also includes voyages on the Minnie and the Nevada). Also includes a logbook for the Express from 1878.

003-05-02, Nicholson Whaling Collection Artifacts, Providence Public Library.

Thomas Hunt logbooks, 1873-1874, 1874-1875, 1878-1879, and 1879-1880. New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Thomas Hunt journals, 1879-1880 and 1880-1882. New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Separated Materials

The materials in this collection were removed from a ship’s box marked Charles Shearer.

Two logbooks of the Thomas Hunt and a logbook of the Minnie, the Nevada, and the Thomas Hunt are cataloged separately within the Nicholson Whaling Logbook Collection. These logbooks are digitized and available at https://archive.org/details/providencepublicnicholson

Processing Information

Previously part of general Nicholson Whaling Manuscript Collection, Subgroup 15. 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. This collection was reprocessed by Angela DiVeglia in 2021.