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[Ciphering book with folk watercolors, many relating to the U.S. Navy in the War of 1812.]

[Probably Waldoboro, Maine, ca. 1840.] 4to (12” x 8”), no covers. 80 pp. manuscript in ink with watercolor illus. and ornaments, including 12 full-page watercolors. CONDITION: Good, disbound, small loss to image of the USS Constitution.

A visually captivating manuscript consisting of mathematical exercises, songs, and poems, illustrated with folk watercolors, mainly depicting naval subjects, including War of 1812 sea-fights.

Two of the naval scenes carry full titles and are based on known illustrations: “The Hornet Blockading the Bonne Citoyenne,” from a wood engraving in Horace Kimball’s American Naval Battles (first published in Boston in 1831) and “Attak [sic] and Massacre of Crew of Ship Tonquin by the Savages of the Norwcoast Dec 12th 1823,” from a lithograph in Edmund Fanning’s Voyages to the South Seas, Indian and Pacific Oceans, China Sea, North-West Coast, Feejee Islands, South Shetlands, &c. &c. (NY, 1838), indicating that the anonymous student who created this manuscript had access to at least two popular works of sea adventure. Other naval scenes are either untitled or so briefly titled that identifying sources is difficult. Some of them are probably invented scenes. Perhaps the most notable of the naval illustrations depicts the USS Constitution in a sea-fight, presumably representing its victory over the Guerriere. This appears below a manuscript song titled “The Frigate Constitution, Sung Before the Corporation of the City of New York, the fourth of July 1815,” which was composed by New York lawyer Francis Arden and appeared in the Analectic Magazine. Other illustrations show a sailor and his sweetheart nimbly perched on a rose, a naval officer, a lady wearing a dress (or an apron) embroidered with flowers, a fruit tree with three upside down hearts at its base (evidently a family tree springing from love), a highland soldier, birds, flowers, etc.

This volume belongs to the tradition of illustrated ciphering books, which includes those created by students in nautical schools. In addition to the naval watercolors, there is some nautical content in the text, which is found in a number of the word problems, such as “A captain of a ship is provided with 18,000 lbs of bread for 150 seamen of which each man eats 4 lb per week, how long will it last then[?]. However, the volume does not include any of the navigational exercises typically found in nautical school workbooks, so its maritime content may be more a function of the coastal locale in which it was created and the author’s fascination with the seagoing life rather than a reflection of a specifically nautical education. Possible evidence of the locale in which it was created is found in one of the word problems: “What is the freight of 10,000 bricks from Waldoboro to Boston…[?].” Waldoboro, Maine was an important shipbuilding town in the nineteenth century.

A lovely example of the allure of the sea operating in the imagination of a student preparing for a life of work either connected with or upon the briny deep.

REFERENCES: Brenckle, Matthew. “A New Song for the Fourth of July (1815)” at USS Constitution online.

Item #10143

On Hold

Price: $9,500.00

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