Autograph Letter from a New Bedford Whaleman in Honolulu to His Sister Sarah
Honolulu, HI: 1854. Very Good. Item #48560
Honolulu, HI: April the 19th, 1854. Two-page autograph letter written on single sheet of blue paper (25.5x20cm); approximately 500 words. Deep old mail folds slightly obscuring some of the text, a few small chips and brief splitting to margins, else About Very Good, and for the most part still quite legible.
Missive from a homesick New Bedford man responding to a letter he received from his sister the day before dating three months earlier in January. "I wrote to you from Maui but thought I must write again," his ship having been delayed by his Captain who was awaiting the mail from California "which is hourly expected."
The writer, in an attempt to fill the second side of the leaf ("for paper is scarce here and it seems a pity to send blank paper") adds a seven lined poem we have been unable to identify (maybe his own work?) and concludes with a quick census of the ship's crew: "we have four Andrews four Henrys four Williams and four Georges there are only three of us that do not take an occasional glass three that do not swear and more than half get occasionally drunk we have four gentlemen of coulor [sic] four Kenakas or natives of these Islands."
Price: $400.00