Naval Officers Book of Entries & Clearances -
1785-87
The Naval Officers Book of Entries &
Clearances - 1785-87, which contains entries back to 1780, records the
movements of numerous vessels to and from Accomack County, Virginia, their
captains, their cargoes, the number of guns they sported, and the fees they
paid. Most of the ships were sloops or schooners with names such as the Brothers
Delight, the Friendship, the Honest Endeavour, and the Perseverance.
Most were manned by small crews, and most cargo was sugar, rum, tobacco, salt,
and similar items.
Many of these ships sailed to and from Boston,
New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, Baltimore, and Rhode Island, as well as
Accomack County ports such as Onancock, Metompkin, and Pungoteague. Some sailed
to Virginia ports in the James, Rappahannock and York Rivers. What may be
surprising is that they also sailed to ports in the Bermudas and the West
Indies. Ports mentioned in the records include Havana, St. Martins, Guadaloupe,
St. Thomas, Grenada, St. Eustatius, St. Croix, Martinique, and Haiti.
The images below are arranged not according to
their order of appearance in the book but according to page numbers added in
pencil, possibly at the time the book was being fitted with a new cover. One can
only speculate that many pages near the end had become loose and were numbered
as a means of preserving their original locations. These pages would then have
been attached at the end of the volume when the new cover--not a new
binding--was attached.
These images are large, in some cases more
than 600K, in order to provide maximum resolution.
Images Copyright © 2005-2019 by Wayne Stith
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