This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

"A Medium in Which I Seek Relief": Manuscripts of American Sailors 1919-1940

Sailors' Snug Harbor

Sailors' Snug Harbor Library

In The View from the Masthead Hester Blum makes the case that sailors "were a class of workers who attained an above-average degree of literacy and who participated in a robust culture of reading and writing" (25). In making this case, Blum relies on the findings of Harry Skallerup, who used signature estimates, charitable organizations' surveys, naval library records, and mechanics' library histories to quantify sailor literacy (see Books Afloat & Ashore: a History of Books, Libraries, and Reading Among Seamen During the Age of Sail, 1974). Blum expanded on Skallerup's research by examining sailor writings, which provide further evidence of their literary interests and ambitions.

SUNY Maritime College is home to an additional, largely unexplored, treasure trove of data on sailors' reading habits: library records in the Sailors' Snug Harbor archives. Sailors Snug Harbor was the first home for retired seamen in the United States, dedicated to the welfare of “aged, decrepit, and worn out” mariners. Established through through the 1801 will of Robert Richard Randall (son of wealthy privateer Thomas Randall), the home opened on Staten Island in 1833. According to the Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, "by the turn of the century, Sailors’ Snug Harbor was reputedly the richest charitable institution in the United States and a self-sustaining community with farms, a dairy, a bakery, workshops, a power plant, a chapel, a sanatorium, a hospital, a concert hall, dormitories, recreation areas, gardens, and a cemetery." Omitted from this list of amenities was the library, which was used extensively by the residents.

Six library borrowing registers are among the 375 linear feet of records, photographs, and bound volumes that comprise the Sailors' Snug Harbor archival collection at the Stephen B. Luce Library. These borrowing registers list books and magazines circulated to the residents from 1884 through 1909. A sample page, selected at random from the 1884-1886 volume, is provided here. Items checked out from October 8 through October 10, 1884, included:

Novels and Tales (probably this book by Goethe )
Two Years Ago (probably this book by Charles Kingsley - the Epub is for a 1901 edition, but Kingsley died in 1875)
Harper's
Scribner's
Court of London (probably The mysteries of the court of London by George W M Reynolds)
Camp and Field (probably Volunteers' Camp and Field Book: Containing Useful and General Information on the Art and Science of War, for the Leisure Moments of the Soldier by John P. Curry )
Lady of Lyndon (probably The Lady of Lyndon by Louise Pilkington Blake)
Seaside Library (probably related to the Seaside Library editions of popular titles published by George Munro)
Our Saturday Nights (probably this book by Mark Mills Pomeroy)
Three Spaniards (probably Three Spaniards: A Romance By George Walker)
Hidden Perils (probably this book by Mary Cecil Hay)
King's Own (probably this book by Frederick Marryat)
Arabian Nights (of which there are many versions)
Christina North (probably this book by Eleanor A. Towle)
Brave Old Salt (probably Brave Old Salt, Or, Life on the Quarter Deck, A Story of the Great Rebellion by Oliver Optic)

Transcribing and analyzing a larger data sample from the registers would be an extremely time consuming process, one that I wasn't prepared to undertake for this capstone. Nonetheless, exploring even this single page was fascinating. The diverse reading material included news, classics, and popular fiction, as well as first-hand narratives of sailors and soldiers.

Herman Melville and Sailors' Snug Harbor

In a tantalizing twist, Herman Melville was intimately connected to Sailors' Snug Harbor and its library through his brother, Captain Thomas Melville, who ran the institution from 1867-1884. According to John Rocco, "Thomas Melville has been called one of the most important leaders of Snug Harbor for modernizing the record keeping and expanding the population. Herman Melville and the Melville family spent many holidays at Sailors’ Snug Harbor during Thomas Melville’s tenure as Governor from 1867-1884." As a young man Thomas Melville went to sea as a whaler, eventually commanding a clipper ship for seven years. After taking the helm of Snug Harbor at age 37 he married Catherine Bogart, daughter of the institution's Chief Physician (Barry 96-98; Shepherd, 22-25). (Learn more about Thomas Melville and other governors of Sailors' Snug Harbor in this embedded timeline).

About 20 books from the Snug Harbor Library are preserved in the SUNY Maritime Archives. Among these, at least one was once owned by Herman Melville: an 1813 edition of John Turnbull's A voyage round the world, in the years 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803, and 1804. The title page is inscribed "Herman Melville April 10th 1847 New York." Presumably, Melville purchased the book in New York in 1847.

In 1847 Melville was an up and coming novelist in the New York literary scene. His first two books, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), based on his own journey to the South Seas on a whaling ship earlier in the decade, were extremely popular, if controversial. In contrast, by 1867, when Thomas Melville became head of Sailors' Snug Harbor, Herman Melville's had faded into obscurity. His more experimental works -- including his monumental masterpiece, Moby-Dick - were not well received. In 1866 he took a monotonous day job at a New York Customhouse, where he worked until 1885.

Ned Myers

Even the romantic father of sea fiction James Fenimore Cooper responded to these developments in his later years with the publication of Ned Myers: A Life Before the Mast. Myers was Cooper's friend from the Sterling; Cooper collaborated with Myers to tell his story. (Myers retired to Sailors' Snug Harbor on Staten Island; perhaps they worked together in its illustrious reading room.

This page references:

Sailors' Snug Harbor Library Register Page October 8-10 1884
A voyage round the world, in the years 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803, and 1804 by John Turnbull NO COPYRIGHT - UNITED STATES. The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. Original is the property of the Trustees of the Sailors' Snug Harbor.
Sailors' Snug Harbor Library label NO COPYRIGHT - UNITED STATES. The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. Original is the property of the Trustees of the Sailors' Snug Harbor.