Sale Nets Library Rare Papers

A "treasure trove" of documents relating to Sag Harbor's mid-19th century whaling industry will soon be added to the Pennypacker Long Island Collection at the East Hampton Library, courtesy of the East Hampton Rare Book and Map Society, which purchased them last month at a Manhattan auction.

Among the four sets of papers is a comprehensive account of the activities of a fleet of whaling vessels owned by Charles T. Dering, including crew lists, sailing dates, and money earned from each voyage. The manuscript forms an unusually complete record covering the years 1828 to 1855.

Whaling Economics

Also being donated to the library are several letters home from captains at sea, the 1830s notebook and account book of a Sag Harbor attorney, William H. Nelson, and business records of Loper & Co., Sag Harbor oil merchants.

"These are archival materials that will in future years help amateur historians and scholars alike understand what it was like to live in the heyday of Sag Harbor's whaling industry," said Thomas Twomey, an East Hampton lawyer and member of the Rare Book and Map Society.

Besides providing insight into life on board ship, said Mr. Twomey, the documents give information as to "the economics of operating a large whaling fleet, and profiting from the whale oil itself, and also the legal work. Taken as a whole, the four items become a treasure trove."

Spirited Bidding

The documents were part of a collection owned by Barbara Johnson of New Jersey. They were auctioned last month at the Swann Galleries in New York City, specialists in rare books, maps, and manuscripts.

Mr. Twomey bid against three and sometimes four others in a competitive session. The Map Society spent a total of $8,495 to obtain the four lots.

Three of them went for well under estimate. The society won the Dering manuscript, the most significant of its acquisitions, for $6,000, half of what Swann had thought it might bring.

Mr. Nelson's notebook, which was estimated to go for as high as $350, was another bargain, at $175, while the Loper & Co. archives sold for $700, $200 below the estimated high.

The whaling captains' letters home were a different story. The auction house anticipated receiving $300 to $400 for them, but after spirited bidding they were purchased for the Pennypacker Collection for $900.

Dering Company Voyage

Money for the purchases was donated by members of the society, said Mr. Twomey, after a look at the auction catalogue revealed the opportunity to obtain the documents.

In addition to Mr. Twomey, those who contributed, all local business people, were Robert Denny, Frank Duffy, Bruce Bozzi, Arthur Dodge, Bernie Kiembock, Frank Newbold, George Yates, Charles Bullock, Rudy DeSanti, Stuart Epstein, and Peter Hallock.

Two couples, Patty and Jeff Kenner and Elizabeth and Patrick Gerschel, all of East Hampton, joined the group and provided additional funds.

The important Dering Company material lists the entire crew embarking on 60 voyages taken by the whaling ships Henry, Nimrod, Franklin, Camillus, Hamilton, Barbara, Helen, Niantic, Noble, Sabrina, Gentleman, and Mary Gardner, all owned by Charles Dering and based in Sag Harbor.

The library already has logbooks from some of those voyages, said Dorothy King, the librarian of the Pennypacker Long Island collection. The logbooks provide a day-by-day accounting of the ship's location, bearings, and weather, as well as sightings and take.

Crew Manifest

The logs, however, do not customarily give a crew manifest, which, said Mr. Twomey, is "a tremendous genealogical resource."

"It's great to have that," agreed Miss King.

Researchers from as far away as Australia and South Africa, where one Sag Harbor whaleman went ashore and set down roots, have come to East Hampton to do genealogical research, she said.

Sag Harbor vessels commonly journeyed not only to the South Atlantic but to far-flung fishing grounds in the South Seas, the Pacific, and the Southern Hemisphere as well, on trips as long as three years.

Unknown Journeys

Along with the names, the records, probably compiled by Dering clerks as ships set sail and returned, indicate the dates of departure and return, crew members' "lays" (their jobs and responsibilities, upon which depended their percentage of the profits), and the number of barrels of whale oil yielded by the catch.

The document also provides information on journeys that were omitted from a 19th-century volume which is considered a bible of the whaling industry, Alexander Starbuck's "History of the American Whale Fishery From Its Earliest Inception to the Year 1876."

The auction catalogue described the Dering papers as "a virtually complete record of the sailings and crew for Sag Harbor's largest whaling concern."

The Business Side

Invoices and receipts detailing purchases of oil made by Loper & Co., as well as letters from the company's New York City agent describing oil sales there, are part of a 24-piece archive that provides information about the business side of whaling.

Miss King said the Long Island Collection does not have a great deal of material on that aspect, "especially in manuscript form," and called the papers "a great addition." An early receipt, from 1765, is signed by Aron Loper, the founder of the firm.

The account book of the attorney William H. Nelson contains financial records related to his purchase of shares in two whaling ships, the Franklin and the Nimrod. The balance sheet shows profits that prove Mr. Nelson's a wise investment.

The attorney's notebook contains a record of his debtors as well as the will of one Nancy Beebe of "South Hampton."

Three letters, two written by a son, David Hand, captain of a whaling ship, to his father, Robert F. Hand, and an earlier one sent home by Robert Hand when he himself was at sea on a whaler, give a glimpse of the personal.

Father And Son

David Hand sailed from Sag Harbor aboard the Hamilton 2nd on June 17, 1839, on a journey that was to last just over a year. Shortly after leaving port, he wrote home with news that one sperm whale had been taken, and asked his father to take care of his health. In 1833, as captain of the Cadmus, the younger Mr. Hand reported home that the ship's chronometer, a timepeice used as an early navigational device, had broken.

R.F. Hand's letter, sent from the "Cape Deberd" Islands while he was on board the Octavia in 1821, imparts only the discouraging news that no whales have yet been seen. R.F. Hand went on to become master of the Columbia in 1829.

The documents, described by the gallery as in "very good" condition, will be shipped here in a few weeks, said Mr. Twomey. Archival preservation cases will be made for them before they are presented to the library.