Manuscript logbook of the whale ship Henry Clay, Captain Samuel P. Skinner

Various places, 1852. 24 pages on lined paper, in ink in legible hand. 4to. Half buff-patterned calf and marbled boards. Several pages removed, wear to head of spine. 24 pages on lined paper, in ink in legible hand. 4to. The manuscript log book of the third and final voyage of the 385-ton whaler Henry Clay out of Nantucket. The voyage began in October 1847, but the first entry in the log is for January 5, 1849, for disbursements at the Marquesas Islands (several leaves are removed from the front, and in a few other places following). Other disbursments and sales are recorded at Paita, Tahiti, Pitcairn Island, Tumbes, Talcahuano, and Rio de Janeiro, where she was condemned on the homeward-bound leg. Records for supplies bought and sold include coconuts, pineapples, breadfruit, hogs, tobacco, muskets, flints, gunpowder, soap, cloth, whale oil, etc. Desertions are recorded on August 8, 1849 at Paita, and January 25, 1850 at Tahiti. The balance sheet for the entire voyage, signed at the end by Captain Skinner, shows $515.16 and a half cents owed the captain, and $1,626.30 in sales of oil.