Sep 24, 2020 - Sale 2546

Sale 2546 - Lot 143

Price Realized: $ 292
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400
(MARITIME.) Hiram A. Nowell. A seaman's detailed register of service spanning ten years. [50] manuscript pages. 16mo, original calf, backstrip chipped, lacking clasp; minor wear to contents. Vp, 1845-55
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Hiram A. Nowell (1829-1858) of Bangor, ME first set out to sea at the age of 16. He brought this little diary along on every voyage, recording a summary of about a page for every leg of his journeys. It is not as voluminous as the typical sea log, but we can be grateful that he skips most of the boring parts. On his first voyage, en route from New Orleans to Europe, "one man was thrown over the wheel & had his arm broken." On the return voyage, "a perfect gale carried away the fore top mast . . . lost nearly all our sails and received considerable damage otherwise . . . a man fell from off the main top sail yard down on deck whilst close reefing in the sail, and was very badly injured." This was followed by a brief interlude in Cambridge, MA to "learn the carpenter's trade. Finding that myself and hard work did not agree, and having more of a desire for the sea, ground the saw and quit the business." He spent most of his career carrying freight and passengers on a route from Liverpool to New Orleans and Boston, serving as first mate by 1851. On an 1849 voyage from Liverpool, his ship was struck by an English bark, nearly wrecking both. In trying to get over a bar at the mouth of the Mississippi in 1852, "parted our hawsers; one man had his leg broken by one of them. The passengers were very short of water & provisions." In August 1853, "had one man die the first night out with yellow fever, & nearly all the rest sick for the first week."