LOGBOOK FOR THE FIRST WAR SHIP OF THE JAPANESE EMPIRE
A logbook of accounts kept by Captain Elbert Stannard for two of the ships he commanded out of the port of San Francisco in the late 1850s and '60s, the Bark Mallory and the Bark Daniel Webster. The latter was sold in 1861 to the government of Japan and became the first warship in the Japanese navy.
The account book contains 22 pages related to the Bark Mallory and approximately 70 pages of accounts concerning the Daniel Webster. On the first page is written: "Bark Mallory in Account with E. Stannard".
The blue-lined pages are written on in ink and pencil. Much of the spine has perished, the marbled boards are detached, and it appears a few pages have been removed from the logbook.
The accounts concerning the Daniel Webster are dated between 1859 and 1861 and begin with the cost of repairs for its voyage from New York to San Francisco. It then traveled to Victoria and Perth from San Francisco and traveled from San Francisco to Shanghai and Kanagawa, Japan and back.
According to newspaper records, Stannard (1828–1907) was in command of the first steamboat to enter Japanese and Chinese waters, trading between these ports and San Francisco. He made his home in Westbrook, Connecticut.
Historical records indicate the Bark Mallory had been plying the coastal trade since the 1850s. The ship was hired by Snohomish Mills to transport lumber from Washington to San Francisco since there was not enough demand in the local lumber trade. On one of her voyages, the Mallory took on water near Cape Flattery and was beached at Neah Bay. The windfall of lumber wound up in many local buildings.
The log from 1857 for the Bark Mallory includes a line for payment of “Chinamen pumping” for $18.50. By 1848, when the first Chinese arrived in San Francisco, they had already established a pattern of leaving China to work in other parts of the world.
This logbook also contains an untitled handwritten 2 ½ page poem about mining with no attribution. Item #80034
Price: $2,500.00