Illness
Joseph Reynolds Luce. Journal of a Voyage from Nantucket to Cape Horn, July 12, 1832 Aboard the ship Young Eagle (1832)
Illness was inevitable on every ship due to poor rations, vermin, and viruses. Off the coast of Maui (spelled here “Mowee”), Joseph Reynolds Luce described how the ship Young Eagle “had the scurvy aboard. Gave them some potatoes. 3 men dye with the Scurvy.” Scurvy was caused by a vitamin C deficiency, leading to bleeding gums, blackened sore-covered skin, limbs seizing up, and as Luce noted, death from bleeding or infection.
Thaddeus Crosby. Log of the Ship Siam (1858-1859)
Dozens of sailors packed together in a floating wooden box did not always get along. Thaddeus Crosby on the ship Siam, while off the coast of Thailand, recorded a murder on January 25, 1859. Here he wrote: “At 7:30 PM Henry Clair, Seaman and Rains, Ordinary Seaman got in a quarrel when Rains stabbed Clair in 3 places one in the right breast one in the pitt of the stomach and one in the left thigh. Clair lived till 8 O Clock and expired. Buried him at 7:30 AM.”
Absalom Wagner. Logbook kept by Absalom Wagner on the U.S.S. North Carolina (1837-1839)
Captains often tried and punished seaborn crime swiftly and harshly as an example for the rest of the crew. Absalom Wagner, crew member of the U.S.S. North Carolina of the U.S. Pacific Squadron, described a court martial of Charles Field “for the murder of a boy aboard of the Boxer” (another American vessel). Field was found guilty and sentenced to be hung in front of the whole crew. Wagner noted how Commodore Henry E. Ballard “addressed the crew on the heinous nature of his crime.” Wagner was desolate observing “the poor man standing on the brink of eternity deprived of making a declaration or perhaps a confession of his crime or addressing the crew.”
Albert W. Whish. Manuscript journal kept by British naval officer aboard twelve different ships during worldwide sea voyages (1864-1873)
Albert Whish maintained a logbook for twelve different British Royal Navy vessels sailing to China and Japan. He described fights on shore, a court martial, cholera, yellow fever and smallpox outbreaks, men falling overboard, crew falling to their death from the yards, and numerous floggings. Here Whish decided to include a careful pencil drawing of the paymaster perhaps out of gratitude for receiving compensation after such a violence filled voyage.