American historical shipping information sources

There are many sources of American historical shipping information on the web and many web sites pointing to them. There is no point in attempting to replicate these. This page simply attempts to document a number of major sources that deal comprehensively with American merchant ships or a major subset of them. The scope of this page is limited to sources containing detailed lists of a major category of shipping or major geographical region.

The links on the web sites listed below will lead you to many other sources.

http://www.mysticseaport.org/library/infobulletins/ib674.html

http://www.marmuseum.ca/research.html

[Note: this site was previously marmus.ca which is now a much more commercially-oriented site.]

http://www.bruzelius.info/Nautica/Links/Links.html

American shipping registers and enrolments on-line

http://www.mysticseaport.org/library/initiative/ShipRegisterList.cfm has on-line scanned copies of :

American Lloyd's Register of American and Foreign Shipping, 1859, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1865 and 1870

New-York Marine Register, 1857 and 1858

The Record of American and Foreign Shipping, 1871, 1885, 1890 and 1895

http://www.hhpl.on.ca/GreatLakes/scripts/shiplists.asp

provides on-line access to many registers and other records of ships operating on the Great Lakes in the 19th century, both American and Canadian. These include the Blue Book of American Shipping for 1897 and 1903.

For US Great Lakes’ enrolments 1815-1915 refer to the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society site at

http://www.wmhs.org/html/enroll.html

Many of the American-built ships that passed to Canadian ownership can be found in the Canadian sources documented at Canadian sources

The List of Merchant Vessels of the United States (1868- )

From 1868 onward this is the most comprehensive published record of American ships, roughly equivalent to the Mercantile Navy List coverage of British ships from 1857.

Information starts off at a fairly basic level but what the LMVUS lacks in detail it makes up for in comprehensiveness. Fuller detail is included from the mid 1880’s. By 1893, the printing style distinguishes metal-hulled vessels in italics. By 1898, the practice changed to showing the names of iron vessels in italics and of steel vessels in small capitals.

From some date prior to 1893, unrigged vessels (essentially barges, canal boats and scows) are listed separately whereas Lloyd’s Register and many other national listings of ships include such vessels as sailing ships.

Like its British counterpart, the LMVUS does not indicate the number of masts of ships, barks, schooners and barkentines which is a limitation but most of these vessels can be fairly readily checked against other listings that do make the distinction, the major gap being American Great Lakes vessels. For a period terminating some time between the 1893 and 1898 issues, the LMVUS includes a separate tabulation of those ships with an international signal code which contains additional information including the number of masts.

Very few volumes of the LMVUS are in any public library in NZ but there are some volumes in private hands.

Earlier volumes rarely appear on the international second hand book market but volumes from the early 1890’s are quite often offered for sale though typically in the US$70-150 range.

The List of Merchant Vessels of the United States on disk

A project has been established by the International Maritime Library to make a range of maritime history research materials more readily available. The IML is based in Winterport, Maine, and as at January 2004 was seeking registration as a non-profit organisation.

The IML has already released the first stage of a project to transcribe the LMVUS up to 1945 in PDF format on CD-ROM.

This initial disk covers all merchant sailing vessels from 1867 to 1885. It consolidates all information in the LMVUS for each year relating to a particular ship into a composite entry for the ship. The results may be searched for any information such as name, official number, rig, year built etc, but not through selection by multiple field (as required for efficient statistical analysis).

All entries include name, official number, signal letters, tonnage, dimensions, year built, state and city built, home ports, years listed and notes concerning fate and foreign origin. Availability of information is determined by the content of the primary source. Net tonnage was only included as well as gross from 1884 onward. Dimensions were first included in 1885.

The disk is invaluable in making the information available in a single source that can be used on any pc with a CD-ROM drive and the capacity to run a recent version of Adobe Acrobat reader. Complete sets of the LMVUS are rare – none at all is known in New Zealand and the same probably goes for many other countries too. Volumes of the LMVUS are difficult and expensive to access so for many people this resource will be the only possible means of accessing most of this information in any efficient or affordable way. The CD-ROM compares very favourably with the original documents on grounds of cost as well as convenience and availability and also provides in advance much of the linking-up that would be your first task in many queries.

The compilers hope to be able to release their transcription of steam ships for the same period by the end of 2004 and subsequently to cover both sail and steam through to 1945. Database formats permitting multiple field searches are under consideration.

Coverage of unrigged vessels is also under consideration. It is to be hoped that the project will cover these also as many ships, both sail and steam ended their days as barges. Towed barges represent a major form of marine transport in its own right that played a particular role in the process of transition from sail to steam, as worthy of documentation as anything else.

A number of internet book dealers offer the CD-ROM at US$100 as “Merchant Sailing Vessels 1867 thru 1885” with the author as Jon B. Johansen or it may be obtained from the compiler at IGMATATS@aol.com Make a point of indicating the title clearly in the subject line. The postal address is Jon B. Johansen, Maine Coastal News, P.O. Box 710, Winterport, Maine. 04496-0710

Merchant Steam Vessels of the United States 1790-1868. (The “Lytle-Holdcamper List”)

The “Lytle-Holdcamper List” was published by the Steamship Historical Society of America in 1975 and distributed by the University of Baltimore Press, Baltimore, Maryland. It updates and expands a 1952 version published with the short title of “The Lytle List”. It totals 322 pages. Three supplements were also issued by the Steamship Historical Society of America in 1978, 1982 and 1984.

Copies can still be obtained through internet-based second hand book dealers at prices ranging from US$25 up to three or four times that price. Care is required to ensure that the supplements are included but if omitted they would not represent a major photocopying task.

This publication is of wider interest than its title suggests, including to students of British ships and those of merchant sail. The list identifies a number of early steam ships as assembled in the USA from kitsets supplied by British shipbuilders, it identifies a considerable number of British ships that came under the American flag as blockade-runner war prizes or for breaches of other laws or as rebuilt wrecks. It identifies a significant number of steam ships converted either from or to sail propulsion or barges.

The primary tabulation in this version (the 1952 version is compiled differently) provides rig, name, tonnage, year and place built, first home port and fate. It also provides official numbers for those ships which survived long enough to be issued one. Extensive footnotes provide details of foreign origin and names, conversion to or from other means of propulsion or barges, war and other seizures and other information.

A second tabulation gives fuller details of losses and third provides a compound name index.

While some information is indicated as unknown and the authors acknowledge that there is still more information to be found and incorporated by future researchers, the list constitutes a remarkably comprehensive record that can only ever be added to rather than independently rivalled. Combined eventually with the International Maritime Library’s project to computerise the LMVUS through to 1945 it will provide a remarkably complete basic record of all American steam ships up to that date.

Vessels registered at New York 1789 to 1867 (the “Holdcamper List”)

The full title is The List of American-Flag merchant vessels that received certificates of enrolment or registry at the port of New York, 1789-1867, Special Lists Number 22, The National Archives and Record Service, General Services Administration, Compiled by Forrest R. Holdcamper, Washington,1968, 2 volumes, 801 pages. It is sometimes referred to as the Holdcamper List (as distinct from the Lytle-Holdcamper List [of steam ships] see above).

This listing covers exactly what its comprehensive title indicates. While New York was a major shipbuilding centre in this period, the majority of listed ships were built elsewhere on the eastern seaboard but registered in New York at some stage of their careers.

To put the coverage in context, New York represented 17 percent of all US merchant vessels and 26 percent of the total tonnage in 1868 (Annual Report of the Deputy Special Commissioner of the Revenue in Charge of the Bureau of Statistics, on the Commerce and Navigation of the United States for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30 1868, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1869, Part III pp 46-53). Massachusetts ports collectively registered more ships than did New York for many years but New York registrations pulled ahead of them during the 1840’s (The Maritime History of Massachusetts 1783-1860, Samuel Eliot Morrison, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1979, p 398).

The particular value of the list is in its comprehensiveness. Only limited information is provided for each ship in one-ship-per-line format; specifically, name, tons, rig (including type of steam vessel), year and place built, and date and type of first New York enrolment. Footnotes identify renamings and some ships as rebuilt from earlier ships but it is noticeable that the footnotes cover steam ships disproportionately.

The format is capable of being scanned to disk (subject to the legalities of copyright).

Copies are sometimes available on the international web-based second hand book market. Prices vary widely.

I understand that some similar lists of registrations at other American ports have been compiled. Any covering any of the other major ship-building and ship-owning ports of New England before 1868 would greatly enhance the coverage of pre-1868 Sail. I do not have the references and would appreciate advice of them for addition to this site, especially any that have been published or can be photocopied or have been computerised.

Log Chips magazine

Log Chips magazine includes many listings of categories of American ships, mostly but not solely merchant sail. Click here for further details.

Foreign-going American ships 1859-63

Listings of signal codes of American ships identify the majority of foreign-going ships and a substantial proportion of the total. A listing is contained in the [British] Mercantile Navy List from 1860 to 1864, by implication covering the 1859 to 1863 period. For details click here The utility of this list will be greatly increased if a list of ships can be identified which lists ship’s pre-1865 and post-1865 signal codes side by side.

Philippine and Puerto Rican vessels in 1901

After annexation by the United States, ships of the Philippines came under American protection, but like those of Hawaii, were not immediately enrolled and documented. The Report of the Commissioner of Navigation*, for 1901 pp 444-54 individually lists the Philippine vessels of 50 or more tons and gives details of the regulations. The Report anticipates that 70,000 tons of these vessels would eventually be added to the US documented fleet (p. 11). Details provided are name, tons, when built, where built, date of US certificate and former flag. It therefore provides a record of these ships before they appear in the usual US records and an interesting record of the trail (or at least part of it) by which they came under the American flag. Examples are the Spanish barquentine Emelio built in Germany in 1877 and the former Belgian schooner Clementina built in England in 1875. Many are former American vessels so this record indicates what happened to them after they dropped out of the LMVUS and that this is where they were during a gap in a sequence of listings in the LMVUS.

A similar list of Puerto Rican vessels is on page 496 of the same report. Only 25 vessels totalling 5,297 tons are involved. However, they include two fair-sized barquentines (Kremlin and Nannie Swan), a brig (M.C. Haskell) and four medium-sized schooners built in the United States and a British-built steel steamer (the Vasco of 298 tons, formerly the British Cromer, built in Newcastle, U.K. in 1893, later given the US official number 161879).

* Bureau of Navigation, Treasury Department, Government Printing Office, Washington.

Books containing substantial listings of categories of American sailing ships

Please advise any omissions of any books with substantial similar listings (as distinct from books on a theme, which are better listed separately by those with better access to them).

Albion, Robert G., Square-Riggers of Schedule; The New York Sailing Packets to England, France, and the Cotton Ports, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1938. Includes twenty appendices. Particularly useful are:

App. II. (20 pages) “Individual Packet Records 1818-1858” Lists vessels by operators including tonnage, length, breadth, depth, builders and location, year built, year began and ended service with line, voyage data westbound (shortest, longest, average), and subsequent service or fate. App. III. (2 pages) Same information, aside from voyage data, for the last active packets up to 1878. App. V. (2 pages) List of packets ships converted to whalers. [with acknowledgment to Norman Brouwer.]

Baker, Willam A., A Maritime History of Bath, Maine and the Kennbec River Region, Marine Research Society of Bath, Portland, 1973, 2 vols.

Bowker, Francis E., Three masted schooners: A compilation of three masted schooners built on the American East Coast, Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic CT, 1991, 42 pp.

Briggs, L.V., 1889, History of Shipbuilding on North River, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, ... 1640 to 1872, republished in the Macdonald Maritime History Series 1970 and 1974. Includes a list of more than 1,000 vessels built on North River and at Scituate Harbor (pp 393-407).

Brouwer, Norman (ed), The "Log Chips" Lists, Part I; Barkentines and schooners built or owned in North America with four to seven masts, revised and updated by Norman Brouwer from material originally compiled by John Lyman, 2003.

Cutler, Carl C., 1961, Queens of the Western Ocean, United States Naval Institute, Annapolis. pp 371 to 548 list ships owned by merchants operating in the foreign and coastal passenger lines. pp 551 to 562 list schooners of 300 tons and above built 1850-1860.

Fairburn, William Armstrong, Merchant Sail, Fairburn Marine Educational Foundation, Center Lovell, Maine, six volumes, 1945-1955. Reprinted by Ten Pound Island Book Co., Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1992. Rare and difficult to access. Volume 3 includes a 12 page list of American clipper ships, and a 26 page list of “downeasters” (post-clipper ship era square rig). [with acknowledgment to Norman Brouwer.]

Gibbs, Jim, 1968, West Coast Windjammers, Superior Publishing Company, Seattle. pp 136-170 provide a comprehensive list of commercial sailing vessels over 100 tons constructed on the Pacific coast from which lists of Pacific coast three, four, five and six-masted schooners and barkentines can be derived.

Gibbs, Jim, 1977, Pacific Coast Square-riggers, Bonanza Books, New York (originally Superior Publishing Company, Seattle, 1969). pp 153-163 list commercial sailing vessels over 100 tons built elsewhere but owned on the Pacific coast 1900-1969 (refer pp 183-193 in the 1987 revised edition published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd, West Chester, Pennsylvania).

Lubbock, Basil, The Down Easters. American Deep-water Sailing Ships 1869-1928, Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, 1929. pp 253-259 list them.

Morris, Paul C., 1973, American Sailing Coasters of the North Atlantic, Bloch and Osborn Publishing Co., Chardon, Ohio. pp 196-204 list all five, six and seven masted schooners on the Atlantic Coast and identify those five masted schooners which transferred from operating on the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast and vice versa.

Morris, Paul C., 1975, Four Masted Schooners of the East Coast, Lower Cape Publishing, Orleans, Mass. pp 97-177 list them all.

Morris, Paul C., 1984, Schooners and Schooner Barges, Lower Cape Publishing, Orleans, Mass. A rare coverage of a neglected theme. pp 126 to 143 list around 560 or so of them.

Parker, Lt. W. J., 1948, The Great Coal Schooners of New England, The Marine Historical Association.

http://www.bruzelius.info/Nautica/Ships/Schooners/Schooners.html includes lists of five and six masted schooners and the only seven masted schooner.

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