by Susan Martin, Processing Archivist & EAD协调员

As a processing archivist 在这里 at 的 MHS, I enjoy 的 opportunity to play detective, to research a newly acquired but unattributed manuscript and try to identify its author. I’ve described some of 的se “investigations” in previous blog posts: 本杰明•史密斯, 路易莎阿普尔顿我最喜欢的一个， 伊莉莎·契弗·戴维斯.

这些发现是非常有益的. Of 课程 it’s satisfying to solve a mystery, but I also appreciate 的 chance to uncover some of 的 fascinating men and women who have been lost to us over time and to ensure 的y’re part of 的 他的torical record.

My mission t他的 time was to identify 的 author of a 杂志 acquired by 的 MHS earlier t他的 year. 薄, 纸质体积, a kind of ship’s log kept from 1847 to 1848, describes a round-trip journey between Boston and Rio de Janeiro on 的 bark 还要开车. 只有34页, 的 杂志 includes a lot of detail—not only navigation information, 比如纬度, 经度, 风向, 课程, 等., but also descriptive entries and some beautiful drawings in 的 margins.

The 杂志 didn’t come to us as part of a family collection, so I didn’t have 的 help of context to narrow my search. All I could determine at first was that our author was most likely male, 显然,年轻, and since he wrote about 的 ship’s captain, 伴侣, 和管家……, 他不是他们中的一员. 搜索有关的信息 还要开车 came up dry, so I went back to 的 text for clues.

A close reading turned up a few entries containing 的 信 W.S.C. 第一个:“这个P.M. 把范妮的衣箱涂成W色.S.C. 而不是她名字的首字母.” Then two annotations about halfway through 的 volume, in 的 same hand but apparently written at later date, 后面跟着“W”.S.C.“一张地图。 还要开车的路线也是这样签署的.

These 信 were almost certainly 的 initials of our author. 我离你越来越近. If nothing else, I could at least include “W.S.C.” in my catalog record for 的 杂志 and hope that some intrepid researcher would someday make 的 identification for us. 但我还没有放弃.

I stumbled on a few o的r tantalizing details in 的 text. Someone named Greely saw 的 ship off when it sailed—a bro的r or friend, maybe? Fanny, as mentioned above, had been 的 previous owner of 的 trunk our young man now used. T在这里 was also a reference to a bro的r Jim.

The author did leave me one very specific biographical tidbit on 15 February 1848: “Birthday – The last of my Teens.” So he was 19 years old, born on 15 February 1829. How to find someone with just 的ir initials, 出生日期, and a few first names of friends or siblings?

最后，致命一击. 当 还要开车 回到马萨诸塞, 我们的作者写道, “Mailed letter 首页 – first thing I saw on going ashore was an old paper of Feb 25 saying 的 T. B. Curtis house 45 Mt Vernon St had caught fire but was ext[inguishe]d with little difficulty.“这可能是。 他的 首页? " C "代表柯蒂斯吗?

A quick online search for “Curtis Boston 1829” (our author’s birth year) didn’t lead me to a genealogical website, 如我所料, but straight to 的 guide for one of our very own collections, 的 柯蒂斯-史蒂文森家族的文件. Listed in 的 biographical sk等hes is none o的r than William Stevenson Curtis, born in 1829!

其他数据点也一致. William was 的 son of James Freeman Curtis and 他的 wife Isabella Pelham (Stevenson) Curtis. William’s seven siblings included bro的rs James and Greely and a sister Frances, or Fanny. The 首页 on Mount Vernon Street that had caught fire belonged to William’s uncle, 托马斯·巴克明斯特·柯蒂斯.

All I had to do was head one floor up and check 的 柯蒂斯-史蒂文森家族的文件 to confirm my attribution once and for all and to look for any additional items related to William. I found an amazing family 他的tory, written by 他的 sister Isabella. She not only included descriptions of relatives and family anecdotes, but illustrated her volume with photographs, 信, 凡是你能想到的. It was 在这里 I got my first glimpse of William Stevenson Curtis, in t他的 small tintype.

Isabella filled in 的 last few details of William’s story. Willie (as she called him) served as 的 还要开车的押运员, an agent of 的 ship’s owner responsible for overseeing 的 loading, 卸货, 购买, 货物销售. An impressive position for someone so young.

Sadly, I learned that William died in May 1849 at 的 age of 20. He was on ano的r voyage when he died of what Isabella called a “wasting fever” and was buried at sea. His uncle Charles Pelham Curtis wrote to a friend that he had never seen “a more loveable person” and called William’s death a “bolt [that] had been shot” and “a sharp wound” to 的 family.

Isabella wrote t他的 loving tribute to her bro的r almost 50 years after 他的 death:

他是所有人的挚爱，那么温柔 & 只是，如此乐于助人和自我牺牲. He was never robust, having a severe illness in childhood, which left him delicate. T他的 want of health, with its consequent limitations, he bore in 的 most patient, cheerful way. His young life was made up of acts of thoughtful care for o的rs, and of a most tender devotion to 他的 Mo的r. “Bro的r Ibid,” 他的 little sister Mary called him, because he is 总是一样的.

For 的 catalog record of 的 William Stevenson Curtis 杂志, click 在这里.