Between the Covers

Unbound. A collection of autobiographical writings retained by two prominent seamen (father and son) from Salem, Massachusetts. The archive was compiled by the son Isaac Bullock (1800-70): a self-taught scholar and artist who first went to sea aboard fishing vessels and later as chief mate aboard ships owned by the famous Salem merchant Joseph Peabody. As he recounts in a manuscript note on his father's 1799 Seaman's Protection Certificate: his father "died of yellow fever July 1800, in his 25th year [on a voyage to Havana] - when I was about 3 months old." The Certificate (issued to protect American sailors from the British practice of impressment), is signed by Benjamin Lincoln: a famous Major General during the Revolutionary War (as George Washington's second in command he formally accepted the British surrender at Yorktown), and the first United States Secretary of War.

Also included is the elder Isaac Bullock’s shipboard account of a meteor shower, written in manuscript on a quarto sheet titled: "Some particular remarks of the appearance of the sky on the 12 November 1799 at sea - in Latt. of 49:20 North & Longt. of 22:00 West." This was the first recorded meteor shower in North America (by American astronomer Andrew Ellicot, who had witnessed it from a ship off the Florida Keys). Bullock witnessed it "on the Brig *Helen*, Andrew Haraden Master - from Boston bound to London": "At 4 am being my watch on deck ... I saw with astonishment the stars shooting or otherwise falling repeatedly from the sky down to the horizon as if they were compelled to leave their native abodes and dwell in the lore [lower?] world. Some leaving after them a stream of fire which continued in the sky for the space of a minute ... These continued shooting or otherwise falling till day light ... we could see their blaze shooting in every direction till almost sun rise. What it is foreboding we cannot tell ... ." Tipped onto the 1799 quarto manuscript sheet are several smaller sheets of appended manuscript notes and comments by Bullock's son dating from the early 1850s, including a pencil sketch portrait of the great German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who had observed the meteor shower from Central America.

The rest of the archive consists of five gatherings of miscellaneous autobiographical writings and musings compiled by the son Isaac Bullock, in which he relates various notable voyages, including being pursued by an armed pirate ship "off the double headed shot Keys [Cay Sal Bank]," and barely surviving a shipwreck in the English Channel.

Also included are accounts of two trips to California (he twice spent time prospecting and mining on the South Fork of the American River, first in 1850 at Salmon Falls, and then in 1852 at Mormon Island): "... in 1849 the gold Crusade to California, enticed me to try if Fortune would smile on me as a Miner. I shipped as 2d mate of ship *Nestor* of Salem for San Francisco, and started from Boston in the autumn of '49 with a large number of passengers bound to See the Elephant! - I saw him! and have survived the sight! ... A year of privation and excessive labour broke me down in a long fever, and in partial recovery, I started for home - Returned through the Nicaraguan route, and escaping its perils and privations I once more reached home ...". Soon thereafter he decides to try his luck in the mines again: "hoping for better success ... I landed in Aspinwall traveled on foot through the dense tropic forest to Panama, losing all my baggage by robbers ... At last I reached San Francisco again ... ."

Most if not all of Bullock's reminiscences and musings were written and compiled upon his return from California: one manuscript is dated 1853 and another 1862. He was well read in classical literature and ancient history, and comments on Alexander von Humboldt and Hester Thrale in the manuscripts. When not abroad he lived in Salem, where some his other papers are held at the Peabody Essex Museum.

An entertaining and historically important collection of writings, documenting the lives of two prominent seamen who sailed out of Salem when it was among the most significant seaports in America. A detailed list of the manuscripts, with selected excerpts, is available.

Item #601691