Wild goose-foot paddle boat chase

A recent reference inquiry led to a partially successful search for information on a twelve ton boat fitted out by carpenter Elijah Ormsbee of Providence with a steam engine constructed by David Wilkinson of Pawtucket in 1792. According to volume two of State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, edited by Edward Field, Ormsbee and Wilkinson “…navigated their steamboat between Providence and Pawtucket and exhibited her capacity to their admiring fellow citizens ‘between the bridges’ on the Seekonk River. Instead of a side wheel the boat was propelled by a ‘goose-foot paddle’. The boat was named the Experiment, and the inventors had such faith in its success that they had tickets engraved and printed for passages on her.”

A ticket for travel on the Experiment appears with the caption “The above is a fac simile of the tickets that were issued by Elijah Ormsbee and David Wilkinson for contemplated trips on the ‘steamboat’ in 1792.”

The identical ticket  appears online on sheaf: ephemera and is said to have been for travel on a later vessel by the same name, built in 1808 by Varnum Wilkinson for inventor Robert Grieve. This boat was “driven by a propeller, with power supplied by [eight] horses on a treadmill” to put the machinery in motion. (Where exactly were those eight horses?)

The online article goes on to describe the sad fate of the latter Experiment, when on a return trip from Pawtuxet  “a gust of wind drove the boat upon the mud flats . . . where she lay all night.”

For a more detailed account of the early Experiment, see “Elijah Ormsbee”, by Edwin A. Platt, a paper read before the New England Chapter, Steamship Historical Society of America, at Providence, R.I., May 12, 1946 (RI Biog Or-5, Historical Monograph No. 1).

LT 12/19/2011

ON THE SECOND DAY AFTER IRENE — ALL IS WELL (AND DRY) IN THE RIHS LIBRARY

As we enter Hurricane Season in Providence we count ourselves lucky to have seen Hurricane  IRENE pass by without causing much more damage other than trees down and power outages.  A look back in time to September 21, 1938 and we can begin to understand better what few people remember—the destruction and human suffering that came with the Hurricane on that date.

Front page of the Providence Journal Sept. 22, 1938

Our Library Newspaper Collection helps us understand the story of the Great Hurricane of 1938.  The Library is the repository for the Rhode Island Newspaper Project and houses a microfilm collection of almost every Rhode Island newspaper ever published.  To find out what newspaper titles exist for a particular time and place for Rhode Island and beyond search  Library of Congress Chronicling America  Historic American Newspapers.

A glance at the headlines in the Providence Journal  of Tuesday September 20, 1938, the day before the tragedy, shows how unprepared Rhode Island was for the approach of  the storm that was making its way towards Florida before heading up the East Coast.

 “FLORIDA CLEARS DECKS TO FACE HURRICANE WHICH MAY NOT COME, Weather Bureau Reports Severe Storm Sweeping Toward Coast with 75 Mile-an-Hour Winds Has Changed Its Course” –Providence Journal 20 Sept 1938

The next day, September 21, 1938, the front page of the Providence Journal announced what all the readers in the area already knew – nature can be overpowering and human life fragile in the path of a hurricane.

This extra edition of the Providence Journal was printed on the presses of a rival paper, The Woonsocket Call, because of the flooding and power outage in the City of Providence.

To research other monster storms in Rhode Island’s history, The Great Hurricane of 1815,  CAROL 31 August 1954 and BOB 19 August 1991, visit the RIHS Library to find newspapers, photographs, books, oral histories and film on your topic.  The image below is from a book in the Library’s Print Collection titled  The Complete Historical Record of New England’s Stricken Area September 21, 1938  published by The Woonsocket Call (Providence, RI, 1938).

Images from The Woonsocket Call photo essay of 1938

The 1938 photo caption reads as follows: [left] “EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. The storm took heavy toll of shipping as it piled up scores of ships like the Standard Oil Tanker shown here which lies battered and broken on the rocky Rhode Island shores – Providence Journal”  [right] “WARREN, RI. The ship “G. H. Church” snuggled between a gas tank and a telegraph poll. Note warning to boil water before using. –Providence Journal.”

NEXT WEEK  the Collections Blog will have details on Hannah Farber’s upcoming talk about Rhode Island’s maritime insurance industry—  COMMERCE, THE NATION AND THE ATLANTIC: American Marine Insurers in the Napoleonic  Era –  at 6:30 pm on 21 Sept 2011 at the RIHS Library, 121 Hope Street., Providence, RI.

– KPC

Providence WaterFire, 1784

According to the website for Providence’s WaterFire, the summer event requires “hundreds of volunteers” devoting “thousands of hours”. But for residents of Providence in 1784, all they had to do was walk out to the river.

“Observations on the Luminous appearance of the River Water at Providence on the Night following the 16 of Sept. AD 1784″* is the title Thomas Truman gave to his brief account of that unusual night. He opens the story as follows:**

On the last evening I attended the philosophical lecture of the celebrated Dr. Moyers in which he discoursed on the nature and properties of phosphorous natural and artificial and among other matters he endeavored to account for the luminous appearance of the sea at certain times as noticed by mariners, particularly in times of boisterous weather.

Certainly conveniently coincidental timing. Truman continues his introduction by offering the Dr.’s opinion on the cause of the luminous appearance:

It was his opinion that this appearance was occasioned by putrid substances in the sea water.

Truman was a doctor (as well as a dentist, bookseller, scrivener and general merchant***), and on the night in question he was on his way home from a patient and discussing Dr. Moyers’s hypothesis with a fellow medical professional named Dr. Bowen. Not long after parting from his friend, he was called back by Bowen’s “young man,” who was sent to retrieve Truman:

When I came I observed a white luminous [streak on] the water extending from the bridge…

… it was so light as to shine through the bridge as much as though several candles had been under it.

At which point the experimenting began. Truman and Bowen first went to the steps beside the Market House and stirred the water with their canes, verifying that disturbing the water increased the brightness of the light. Phase two of the research:

We now got a basin and took up some of the water [and] upon stirring it with our hand it appeared full of small round particles of fire and gave considerable light [and] some of the firey particles adhered to the hand and remained unextinguished for several seconds.

The basin was then used to pour water out on the ground and then to splash it on the walls of the Market House (still standing after 235 years of abuse). But back to the central question: Is Dr. Moyers on the right track?

Suspecting that this appearance might be occasioned by some scum or filth mixed with or floating upon the water we got a light and found teh water perfectly transparent and colorless.

Worrying that their sample was too limited, the doctors next hired someone with a boat to bring back a dish from out on the water, which turned out to be just as clear.

The next stage of experimentation:

We took [a basin of the luminous water] to a pump of fresh water and filled the basin. This so far from extinguishing the fire seemed to increase it. The particles indeed were smaller but more numerous and were visible for more than a minute.

Onsite investigation having been exhausted, it was time to return to the lab:

We now procured some clear white vials, holding each about eight ounces, and filled two of them at the Market House steps, two at Mr. Chace’s Wharf, and one was sent to the lower end of the town to be filled there…. The vial sent down town was not returned.

Truman brought his vials home and retired to “a room so dark that nothing could be perceived” and proceeded to his tests. First he determined that shaking three vials made more light than shaking a single vial. The second discovery was one of the typical moments of scientific serendipity:

One thing I observed which was a little curious: there was in the dark room a bunch of asparagus hung up for the flies to light upon****, which were very numerous upon the vials [and] being shaken, so much light was produced that the flies took wing and made that humming noise which they usually do upon a candle being brought suddenly into the room where they are at rest.

Dr. Truman’s experimentations continued until 1:15.

The nineteenth century would see much more research and clarification of the type of  bioluminescence Truman observed that night. And it was curiosity like his that would make it possible.

---

* Truman Papers, Rhode Island Historical Society, MSS 762.

** Spelling and punctuation have been modernized.

*** Providence Gazette, 22 December 1781 and in 1784.

**** ?

The Best Pie They Ever Tasted (Martin Page, part II)

In his cypher book, Martin Page let his artistic skills shine, but when the time came to put his life into words, Page resorted to idiosyncratic text in an idiosyncratic format.

Long before Jack Kerouac taped sheets of paper together and fed them into his typewriter to create the On the Road scroll, Martin Page decided that individual pages were too limiting for what he had to say, so he glued about a dozen sheets of individual paper into two scrolls, one measuring nearly six feet in length and the other just over four*.

The text of the scrolls is written in a spidery hand, possible indicating the shakiness of advancing age. Since no description would really do the text justice, here are a few selections:

Jokes, like this one, are common—

A young man stepped into a bookstore and said he wanted to get a young man’s companion. Well, Sir, said the book seller, here is my daughter.

Or observations on issues taken from his life (spelling and punctuation left unchanged)**—

One of my acquainces died Childleless and left his Wife by will as long as she remained his widow avaluable house and all his Personal Property, that she might live independent she made agreat take soon got married, the nexday his Brothers cam in and tooke all of her property and left her poor, her husband that maried for the property found it all gone he left her, would it not be best to give the Wife whare thare is no children such a part on of his Property free and clear of any incubrance, whare tharer is children it belongs to them after Her derth, a man has right to Prevent his widow from marying after he is didd
They come to us, we must soon go there.

Or the occasional gnomic passage that completely defies description—

What bones governs the world the cutridge bon the bull Ballet Bon and Bun et Bon, Interest is the King who Rules the world.

And for anyone planning a menu based on historic recipes, Page’s codfish and potatoes recipe sounds pretty good (you might consider pairing it with Benjamin Franklin’s milk punch)—

With the Cook I went to work pounding up dunfish Codfish and new Potatoes in the moster with a Little flour Plenty of fresh Butter a little mustard Oil Clover mau and Pepper as thisck and fine as Indian Bread dow, put in the Pan and baked a little when put on the table asked what it was I told them Fish and Potatoes, a baked Pie, they made the mount of Their dinner of 8 it was Excellent the best Pie They Ever tasted

---

* “Reminiscences,” in the Martin Page Papers, MSS 599, Box 1, Folder 14, Rhode Island Historical Society. Transcription folder 14a. www.rihs.org/mssinv/Mss599.htm

** Transcription by Harriet Sprague Doolittle Rosch, one of Page’s descendants.

Feel the Burn

As we begin the season of celebrating Gaspee Days (6 May to 13 June)—complete with children dressed as gravediggers—, here’s an item from a past celebration: a commemorative banner from the 50th anniversary of the Gaspee burning.

In 1772 the Gaspee, a British schooner focused on countering smuggling—and therefore much hated by enterprising Rhode Islanders—was lured into shallow water near Warwick, where it ran aground. Later that night a group of men rowed out from Providence and set fire to the ship in the early hours of the morning. It was one of the early acts of violence against Great Britain in the lead-up to the Revolutionary War.

This banner focuses not only on the burning of the boat, but also on the still-living (as of 1826) participants in the event: Benjamin Page, Ephraim Bowen, Turpin Smith and John Mawney, whose names are featured in scrolls surrounding the image of the Gaspee.

Anyone interested in more background on the events of 1772 can find it at Gaspee.org. Those looking for ways to celebrate can check out the events listing.

Grog O’ Clock (Martin Page, part I)

Faced with a diary or a memoir or a collection of someone’s correspondence, it’s a natural impulse to try to recreate an image of what that person might have been like. In some cases—and Martin Page is one of those cases—the picture that emerges is surprisingly colorful and complex.

Born in 1772, Page spent nearly half a century at sea, rising from cabin boy to captain. So it’s not surprising that his “cyphering book”* would include maps and charts like this one:

This particular map likely depicts the islands off the coast of Gotheburg, Sweden, an area also featured in other manuscript maps in the collection,** and it features details like a very nice ship:

and Monopoly-style houses at the base of what looks like a cell-phone tower:

A lesson on right triangles offers another opportunity for Page’s artistic skills to shine. The assignment involves finding the height of a steeple:

Strictly speaking, of course, most of the illustration is unnecessary; all that Page really needed was a vertical line to represent a steeple. But that’s not nearly as much fun as sketching out an entire steeple and it’s bell, tower and flag, and once it’s gone that far, he might as well put the rest of the building in too. The level of detail extends even to the clock and its inscription:

Before there was “Beer O’Clock“, there was Grog Time.

(In the next post we’ll leave Page’s artistic abilities to focus on his literary merit…)

---

* “Cyphering book” of Martin Page, 1805-15, in the Martin Page Papers, MSS 599, Box 1, Folder 15, Rhode Island Historical Society. www.rihs.org/mssinv/Mss599.htm

A ciphering book operated as a notebook in which to work out problems and also save formulas and examples for the future, as suggested in Samuel Read Hall’s Lectures on School-Keeping, published not long after this cipher book was used.

** In many of the maps (located in folder 13), Page has pasted in printed illustrations of ships, presumably cut from books.

Sanford Ross, pt. 1

The previous post offered a note on the Thanksgiving celebrations of 1812 in Rhode Island*. That it turns up in the pages of an almanac is not particularly unusual—almanacs were frequently used for that purpose, which is only natural, considering that almanacs are arranged chronologically. Nor is the customized interleaving done by this owner unusual. What makes this case particularly useful is that the almanac-diaries of a single person over the course of a fairly lengthy period of time (roughly 1806-22) are brought together in one place  and that their author signs his name (Sanford Ross).

A genealogical account** lists a Sanford Ross born on 22 March 1752 and who died on 22 April 1831. He had 11 children with his first wife, Hannah Briggs, and after her death in January of 1809, Sanford married Lydia Peck in November of the same year. Both events are recorded tersely in the diaries: January of 1809: “Hannah Ross died 4th of January half past Seven of the Clock evening” and then in November: “Married 6th November” in the margin beside the calendar. Among his 11 children with Hannah is one named William, who appears in the almanac entry for 9 January 1811:

William’s date of death is not recorded in the family Bible that lists the births and deaths of his siblings. The genealogical account does, however, mention a death notice of a William Sanford who died on a gunboat in 1813, within a year or two of  the night his father dreamed he was at home.

The image above offers a taste of the most typical concerns of the diary: Weather is far and away the most popular topic, but there are also references to things like “uncommond noises”, family members getting or leaving jobs, births, deaths, comings and goings of ships, openings of new shops, and always more weather. (The entry for 4 January will be the topic of a future blog post.)

Over the course of such entries, brief as they are, it’s possible to assemble a picture of their author. Weather, for instance, is only the beginning of Sanford’s interest in nature. The following selection hints at his interest in wildlife, as he notes  the arrival of swallows in April of 1812 not once, but twice:

(Hint: the second reference to the swallows is written vertically in the margin.)

And the bottom of the facing page is an example of the religious, political and financial issues that are frequent as well, as Sanford notes the passing of the Embargo act in April and the fact that he managed to rent half of his church pew for 7 shillings and 6 pence for the year (more information about the practice of buying pews and an example of a particularly nice pew at the website of the Old North Church in Boston). One of the entries below (6 January 1817) provides evidence that Ross was a shop owner of some kind, and the 1824 directory of Providence lists him as a grocer at 228 South Main.

A few more selections:

• Creative Spelling: 5 September 1813: “the Younited States Brigg Enterprize of 14 gun took the Brittish Brigg Boxer of 18 heavy guns”
• The 1814 almanac begins with a full-page tally of the ships of the British and American navies on Lake Ontario.
• 15 December 1814: [In large script] “This Day the Hartford Convention Meets In Hartford…Never forgit the mischef that was Intended by them”.
• 6 April 1815: “Horrid Masscre” followed by a description of the English murder of 7 American prisoners of war after the Treaty of Ghent ended the war. As an example of how importantly the War of 1812 figured into Sanford Ross’s life, the first interleaved leaf of the 1817 almanac opens by noting the beginning of the war in 1812 and its end in 1815.
• 6 January 1817: “This Day the Sun has Rose to clear the Ruff of the widdow Sheldons house & Shines in my Shop all Day.”
• 14 January 1817: “This Day and Night being the coldest that we have had for Several years this Evening a teamster froze to Death a going home from town to Smithfield, by Name James Mitchal Lindsey. Found the Next morning on the Road two miles from home…”
• 6 June 1817: “Mr Peleg Peckhams foot taken off.”
• 28 October 1817: Commenting on the repeal of an act sponsored by James B. Mason, which presumably was burdensome to retailers: “And Maide More Milde that Retailors may try to Live. Fair ye Well James. You have had them Under the hammer Long a Nuff.”
• At the end of the 1817 almanac: “A Receipt to make Spruce Beer”: “6 Gallons of warter and 2 qt of molasses put togeather & Stand in the Sun which will warm it a Nuff then Shake them well — then Put in 1 gill Essence of Spruce & Mix them well togeather — then put in 1 Large tea Spoonfull of Perlash and 1 cup full of Ginger Stir them well togeather when Setteld Put in 1/2 pint of Emptious[?] which wen Setteld will be fitt for Youse.”
• 18 January 1819: “this Day their was 4 Pirats hanged in Boston on Thirsday.”
• 5 July 1819: “A Commet maid its appearence about Nor. Nor West out of site a bout at 11 Clock in Evening and Rises a bout Day light. It plays Round the North Star.”
• 15 August 1819: “heard a Sermand prechd by a woman Mrs. Clarrissa Danforth. in the town house. Preachd from Ezeakel [33] chapter 11 Verse. Veary Good Discorse and Veary full.”
• 18 October 1822: “Whipping Day in town and cutting of Ears and Branding with the letter C as a Counterfitter of money.”

---

*Thanksgiving was a sporadic holiday at the time: http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/thanksgiving/

** Reading Room: CS 71 R825 1938. Ross Family: Sanford Ross Descendants. Copy of manuscript.

Dancing with the Caroline Islanders

RIHS Collections Assistant Delia Kovac recently came across an item that has everything a Hollywood movie script could ask for: travel, adventure, “natives”, and—of course—dancing:

The Life and Adventures of James F. O’Connell, The Tattoed Man. During a Residence of Eleven Years in New Holland and the Caroline Islands, Providence: J.F. Moore, 1846. (CT275 .O18 A3)

Here’s an outline of the story with some selected quotes:

• O’Connell realizes his mother is a circus performer
• Sails as a cabin boy on a transport ship for female convicts (“… two hundred ‘ladies’—for so I suppose we are bound to style them…”)
• Joins as a crewman on a whaler and ends up in a storm (“the sea looked…as if it was filled with white cats coming to take our vessel by storm”)
• Shipwreck, four grueling days in a lifeboat, death of companions, suggestions of cannibalism, etc., etc.
• Washes up in the Caroline Islands, eating “the flesh of the kangaroo and bandycoot”
• Plenty of racism (the “savages” are “the connecting link between apes and men…”)

So far, an exciting enough life, but it’s the next phase—with its dancing and tattooing that makes O’Connell’s story so successful:

• In 1826, on board another whaler headed to Japan (“bowling along under easy sail”)
• The ship runs into a coral reef (“Captain Backus was, as usual, drunk on the hencoop”)
• In a lifeboat with a missionary’s wife and daughter and some other sailors. The mother and daughter die on the third day in the lifeboat and are buried at sea. Land sighted the next day.
• O’Connell captured by island residents and brought to the canoe-house, where he is poked and prodded (“My companions feared the Indians were cannibals, and that this examination  was to discover whether we were in good roasting case”)
• “In a sort of desperate feeling of recklessness, I determined to try the experiment of dancing upon our savage audience . . . I struck in to Garry Owen, and figured away in that famous jig to the best of my ability and agility.”
• The islanders are pleased. More displays of dancing.
• O’Connell’s dancing is rewarded with a free tattoo from some of the island’s women (” … with a sudden blow from a stick, drove the thorns into my flesh. One needs must when the devil drives; so I summoned all my fortitude, set my teeth, and bore it like a martyr. Between every blow my beauty dipped her thorns in the ink.”)
• O’Connell’s companion doesn’t hold up as well to the tattooing (“He swore and raved without any attention to rule; the way he did it was profane, but not syntaxical or rhetorical”)
• “In the afternoon there came a fresh supply of ladies, who continued tattooing operations on my left arm.”
• Eight full days of tattooing. A month to recover
• “To relieve our weariness, George made a flute of a reed, and fiddle of some light wood; while I, on my part had music in my sole.” (Author’s italics. Surprisingly, he wasn’t killed on the spot for that pun.)
• “The parrots squawled and the dogs howled at a distance, and the scene was romantic enough; but I was more given to dancing than sublime contemplation.”
• Married life: “At night I learned that the young lady who imprinted the last marks upon my arm and breast, was my wife! that last tattooing being part of the marriage ceremony.”
• “My wife was only about fourteen years of age–affectionate, faithful, and fond of baked dogs. During my residence on the island she presented me with two little demi-savages, a girl and a boy…”
• “Happening, however, to awake at midnight, I detected her solacing her grief with a dog’s drum stick…”
• Certain types of cannibalism really are to be expected: “…cannibalism, a practice which is unknown on Bonabee, except, perhaps, so far as tasting an enemy’s heart goes.”
• A variety of failed escape attempts
• O’Connell discovers a “large uninhabited island, upon which were stupendous ruins of a character of architecture differing altogether from the present style of of the islanders.”
• Takes part in a nautical canoe battle between two groups of islanders (prompted by his marriage) that involves deadly slingshots
• Leaves at last on a passing ship and soon gets into a fight with the captain
• Back in Manilla, the captain has O’Connell locked up in jail (“the calabozo”), but he continues to dance
• Apparently, after his return O’Connell and his tattoos were exhibited in circus-fashion.

How much of the story is actually true remains an open question. But in either case, it’s an exciting read.

“This Sanguinary Monster”*: The Pirate Gibbs, pt. 2

The recent high-profile acts of piracy in Somalia have highlighted the divide between the reality of piracy and our romanticized notions of it. But the desire to glamorize the swashbuckling while ignoring the blood and guts is nothing new**. A New York Times article of 1892 cataloging various famous pirates begins, “It cannot but be a source of regret to every true lover of the picturesque that pirates are no more and piracy has lost its popularity. What tremendous fellows they must have been!” The article includes a paragraph on Charles Gibbs, who is described as having a “soft spot for the fair sex” and being “remarkable for quoting the Bible with great frequency and fluency.” Describing Gibbs’ conversion from grocer to pirate, the author asks “who wouldn’t rather be a gallant pirate with a smart vessel and a picked crew than a grocer in Ann Street, near the Tin Pot?”

The previous post offered an overview of Gibbs’ career as offered in a single one of many published accounts of his life and death, Mutiny and Murder: Confession of Charles Gibbs. This post will highlight a few of the other versions of this popular tale that were offered to the public.***

In The Annals of Murder Thomas McDade lists 13 individual editions prior to 1900 offering an account of Gibbs’ life (Although one particular item makes the count a little difficult.). All those that are dated were published in 1831 or 1832. The Historical Society holds seven of those listed as well as two that are not recorded in Annals of Murder. The latter two imprints**** are apparently unique to the Historical Society; no other copies are listed either in OCLC or a number of international library catalogs.

While not unique, one item—Confessions and Execution of the Pirates, Gibbs & Wansley—is by far the most graphically and bibliographically unusual. This is how McDade describes the book’s physical construction*****:

1 p.l., [2]-32 [i.e. 8] p.; 16, 32 [i.e. 8] p.: total 32p.

“I.e.” usually indicates something out of the ordinary, and this publication offers plenty of that. The item appears to be a sammelband made up of three separate publications, as indicated in the collational formula above, but even that is uncertain.

The first eight pages offer a blow-by-blow account of the execution itself, with a strong emphasis on the penitent attitude of the pirates as they faced their death. Thomas Wansley, Gibbs companion and clearly described and depicted as a black pirate in this publication, had apparently been writing poetry in his cell:

On the verso of the poem is the following illustration, just in case we’ve begun to sympathize with the penitent and poetic buccaneers:

These eight pages function as a self-contained, coherent unit, and this is echoed in their physical makeup: they are a single four-leaf gathering.

The next gathering begins with the image used at the beginning of this post, a title page with vertical text and a full-length portrait of Gibbs. As you can see from the image, this copy was published after the execution, as it describes Gibbs as the pirate “who was executed on the 22nd of April”. Another variant state of the work also in the Library’s holdings is composed of a nearly identical text (the first and last words of each page match) and a slightly, but significantly, different title page. Rather than “Who was executed,” this title page reads “To be Executed.” The only other significant difference is that the publisher’s name is misspelled as “Christitn Brown” rather than “Christian Brown,” possibly providing evidence that the pre-execution version was offered with a hastily put-together title page. In either case, the two variants bracket the moment of execution in a concrete way (Gibbs is alive for the first and not for the second.).

The third and final gathering is a work titled “A Visit to the Condemned Criminals, Gibbs and Wansley, By a Layman.” (It’s unclear whether “layman” in this context indicates that the author is not a professional pirate or not a professional jail-visitor.). Like the first gathering, it is of 4 leaves, and like the first gathering it includes poetry and an image on a page incorrectly numbered “32″:******

And on the preceding page, this illustration of the ultimate end for pirates (or, perhaps, vampires):

---

* The description of Gibbs used at the beginning of the narration of his execution in Horrible Confessions of the Pirate and Murderer.

** A recent New Yorker article reviews the legitimate economic and political aspects behind a favorable view of piracy: Caleb Crain, “Bootylicious: What Do the Pirates of Yore Tell Us about Their Modern Counterparts?”  The New Yorker, 2 September 2009.

***Call numbers and titles:

• Vault F 2162 .G44 H8: Horrible Confessions of the Pirate and Murderer; Charles Gibbs, alias James Jeffreys. [s.l.]: Printed for the Purchasers, April 1831.
• Vault F 2161 .G44 C74:  Confession of Charles Gibbs the Pirate. To Be Executed the 22d of April, 1831. New York: Printed and Sold by Christitn [Christian] Brown, n.d.
• Vault F 2161 .G44 L34: The Confessions of Charles Gibbs, the Pirate, Who Acknowledges that He Has Assisted in the Murder of Four Hundred Human Beings! [s.l.]: Printed for the Purchasers, 1831.
  bound with:
  Last Dying Words and Confession of Charles Gibbs, The Pirate. [s.l.]: [s.n.], 1831.
• Vault F 2161 .G44 C748: Confessions and Execution of the Pirates, Gibbs & Wansley. New York: Printed and Sold by Christian Brown, [n.d.]. Includes McDade nos. 337, 342 / 345.

**** Horrible Confessions and The Confession of Charles Gibbs, the Pirate, Who Acknowledges . . . are the unique copies. Oddly, both copies’ imprints state, “Printed for the Purchasers,” a curious attribution that seems, based on searches in WorldCat and the ESTC, to have been used solely in the US during a period from 1775-1831.

***** McDade’s response: “This kind of publication taxes the resources of the bibliographer.”

****** For the numerologico-bibliographers out there, yes, this is a 32-page (16 leaf) item with a central gathering of 8 leaves surrounded by two 4 leaf gatherings, pages 8 and 32 both marked “32″, even though the preceding pages are “5″ and “7″.

“400 Human Beings!”: The Pirate Gibbs, pt. 1

This, the second of the summer’s pirate-themed blog posts, centers on the brutal pirate, Charles Gibbs. A Rhode Island native, Gibbs started out on a life of crime early (he “became addicted to vices uncommon to youths of his age”) and then never let up. After an impressive career with the US Navy (or so claimed Gibbs; doubt has been cast on much of his story), Gibbs tried his hand at the grocery business in Boston. After failing at that occupation, he returned to the sea and soon found himself engaged in a mutiny, which led without much delay into a life of piracy. Eventually captured, Gibbs was hung in New York on 22 April 1831.*

The story was a popular one from the outset: OCLC lists dozens of editions of Gibbs’ narrative published within a few years of the hanging, most following a similar pattern and reprinting practically identical texts. Many now survive in only a few copies; some are unique. The RIHS Library holds a number of these imprints, some of which will be discussed in the next post, but this post centers on Mutiny and Murder: Confession of Charles Gibbs, published by Israel Smith in 1831.** The first image below is of the book’s title page and frontispiece (disposing of a body overboard):

The lengthy subtitle offers a convenient overview of Gibbs’ story–which included an interlude of marriage and  living “like a gentleman”–and rises to the crescendo of “the murder of nearly 400 human beings!”

Below is a depiction of one of the more barbarous moments in a barbarous life: the pirates dropping a woman who had been treated brutally over the rail:

This image has a lot to recommend it: the stylized, scalloped waves set against the patterns of the sky and sails; the nautically- and perspectivally-challenged depiction of the ship; and the pathos of the (apparently foot-less) victim of the “horrid transaction”. But its greatest virtue might be the faces of the villains. First, a man who seems—if it’s not reading too much into a dozen or so lines cut into a woodblock to depict a face—hardened to the life of killing women and dropping them overboard:

His partner, on the other hand, doesn’t display the same sangfroid about the deed. (Gibbs himself claimed to have interceded on the woman’s behalf; perhaps the illustrator is attempting to capture that ambivalence.):

Mutiny and Murder, as is the case with many of the accounts, is clear to offer a moral to the story, which is made explicit in this case through an “Address to Youth,” which is dramatically placed between the account of Gibbs’ sentencing and his execution. (Another edition*** features an “Addenda, by a Lady,” which does the same job.) The book traces the seeds of Gibbs’ development to his youth (“he was refractory, ungovernable, and disobedient to his parents!”) and finds him penitent in his final moments. Considering his sins Gibbs says “I thought of my good and affectionate parents and of their Godlike advice” (p. 10). Though the narrative is made up mostly of violence and various other forms of anti-social behavior, it’s also scattered with notes of remorse, much in the manner of Hollywood gangster movies that end with the bad guys dead or in jail. Under the guise of “learning from their mistakes” we’re allowed to enjoy the violence and bad behavior.

In its moralizing and publication of confession, this account of Gibbs’ life and death hearkens back to the earlier tradition of the published accounts of the Ordinary of Newgate in England in the 17th and 18th centuries (available through the fantastic Proceedings of the Old Bailey website****).

The next post will take a look at some of the many other publications of the story of Gibbs’ life.

---

* Read the full narrative online at  http://books.google.com/books?id=BJQqAAAAMAAJ (or stop by the library to view a real copy).

** Vault F 2161 .G44 M99 c.2

*** Last Dying Words and Confession . . . (Vault F 2161 .G44 L34, item 2)

**** The advanced search, which allows one to search by crime or by punishment provides hours of entertainment. Ever wanted to find the stories of people branded on the cheek for the crime of pocket picking? Now you can. (Martha Bromley seems to have been the only one so unfortunate in that particular manner.) And for more true crime stories, see the Harvard Law School’s Dying Speeches & Bloody Murder website, which makes digital copies of crime broadsides available.