The Letters, Humor, and Art of Old Weather Logbooks

[Randi]

Craig:

Caro: http://daily.zooniverse.org/2014/11/17/ ... nd-at-sea/



Zovacor:

[Randi]

Speaking of art - here is a lovely narrative painting from 1883 of the last day of the USS Jeannette. Vallejo Gallery has been kind enough to give us permission to use this image, and thanks to Hampton Sides for providing the digital file.

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http://www.vallejogallery.com/item.php? ... ER&id=2818

[Randi]

bluemuffin78 :

Kevin: I wonder if he oops'd the k? No cutting out the page and starting over there...

[Randi]

Randi:
Here is an old one that I rediscovered. Look at the top right corner...

[Randi]

jil:

[Randi]

The crew of USS Atka don't seem to have been enjoying their stay in Boston, MA on 1 Jan 1953:

Once again it comes to pass
This lass of ours in mass
is made fast to South Jetty
Shipyard Annex, Boston, Mass.

With standard mooring lanes from one to six
And if we weren't it'd be an awful fix.
A regulation watch we're standing too
All dressed up in snow covered Navy Blue.

The services we're getting from the dock
Won't come as any great shock:
Phone, power, water, and stuff they call steam,
The later so wet it's more like cream.

COMDRUDIV4 & SOPA are one and the same,
RADM H.B. JARRETT they call him by name,
In the U.S.S. Warchester (CL 114)
You call this poetry? God, but it's poor!

But what's more part of the U.S. Lant Fleet
Is tied up here real trim and neat.
Not to mention those vessels of smaller draft
Sometimes referred to as yard and district craft.

No use griping but still a hell of a way
To Welcome in the year, wet as a fish and cold as the day.
But into every life some rain must fall
Nothing else to report, so that's all.

R.E. DRAMER, LT., USN

https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 1-0005.jpg

From Atka
1 January 1952, 0-4 AM

Here we lie in seven fathoms of water,
Moored to the North Jetty pier,
Which is in South Boston Annex
At Boston Naval Shipyard here.

On the port side are six cables
Lines one and six are made of wire.
The other lines are six-inch fiber,
All six are doubled for weather dire.

To the starboard is our sister,
Soon to head for ice and snow.
As is known by everybody,
She is the good ship Edisto.

We are receiving from the dock
Most every service known to man.
Steam and water, 'lectric power,
And telephone are in the plan.

Num'rous other ships are present
Members of the Atlantic Fleet.
Yard and District Craft are here, too;
Those are all that you will meet.

The SOPA is a Captain:
F. B. Warder, U.S.N.
He commands the ship Columbus,
CA seven four, again.

Nothing's happened yet this morning,
For last night was New Years Eve,
So this ends the mid report:
The morning watch did us relieve.

At last, a bit of fun on New Years Day.

[Randi]

Randi:

[Randi]

Kevin:

The F. S. BROWN (in Oneida) appears to refer to the Master
https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorag ... 01-004.JPG

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BROWN, FRANCIS S. Acting Midshipman, 24 September, 1856. Midshipman, 15 June, 1860. Master 19 September, 1861. Lieutenant, 16 July, 1862. Lieutenant-Commander, 25 July 1866. Resigned 12 October, 1869.

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/h ... da-ii.html

https://www.historycentral.com/navy/MISC/oneidaII.html

https://shipsofscale.com/sosforums/thre ... post-51649

https://newspapers.library.in.gov/?a=d& ... xIN-------

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Th ... frontcover

[AvastMH]

Well here's an odd thing. You do find the most amazing curios in the Whaling logs. Captain Aaron Dean wrote a synopsis of Virgil's Aeneid in the John Wells log of 1869-1871.
So I always check the last pages in a book because you never know what might turn up. I was just finishing my list of old ships logs from OWW phase 1 (Panoptes forum for those who recall that time) and was double checking the log of the Frances A Barstow for her voyages of 1891 to 1893 when I came across the following on page 292 (click image to enlarge).



It's a melancholic ditty that I tracked down as 'You'll be sorry when I am gone' by Monroe H Rosenfeld 'The most beautiful pathetic ballad of the period' (click image to enlarge):



The sheet music follows on from this image. Sadly I couldn't access a recording of it.

[studentforever]

Another example of an ornate list of officers of USS Jamestown



http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/ ... _003_1.jpg

Another example of art from USS Jamestown



http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/ ... _002_1.jpg

If you look carefully at the top of the fish you will see JS Davis script written in tiny letters. The same appears on the page with the fish posted earlier by Craig so I assume that is the Naval writer who produced the images.

[arboggs]

The logbook for the Thrasher (1894-1895) was kept by the captain's wife, Amy Weeks. One of her hobbies on the journey, particularly during the months at Herschel Island, was collecting wild flowers. In the blank pages in the latter part of the logbook you can see these dried flowers that have been pressed into the pages:

[Randi]

Neat!

[AvastMH]

Oh that's very cool indeed! What a great find and thank you for posting it April. What makes me take a breath is that you see the ghostly imprint of where they sat for decades, the scanner technician must have had to place them back onto the pages to capture them. Ethereal.
What a shame she didn't fill the log book with them! They look like poppies.

https://archive.org/details/logbookofth ... 5/mode/2up

[Michael]

They look like Arctic Poppies to me. I've seen them all over the north.

[AvastMH]

Oh! Fantastic - thank you Michael They are very pretty.

[studentforever]

Jamestown's logkeeper is getting less ambitious but still an elaborate title page.

http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/ ... _002_1.jpg

or

https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 67_002.jpg

[Randi]

Wow!!!

[Michael]

[AvastMH]

I have such an untidy hand that it's difficult to even imagine how this can be achieved. It's beautiful

[Randi]