General shipyard page. Ice sections now completed.

[AvastMH]

The basic principle of OldWeather Whaling....
The reason for this project is that it is very hard to automatically sort the navigation and ice (and other specific items) from blocks of text in the hand-written log books. Having those details pulled out and associated by line with date/time/position and page url offers the most effective means of turning text into actionable data that can be sorted in all kinds of ways.


If you have a doubt about an entry you can always come back to this principle, and/or ask for help in this Shipyard page.

Additional information found can typically include the following which are entered on the remarks worksheet.
natural phenomena (volcanoes, kelp, sun spots, auroras)

• the names of other ships seen or visited and which must be recorded
• crew names
• reports of ice from other ships
• whaling details
• other animals seen

Where to start then?

• Transcribing: capturing the log details, and information resources which is a 'must read' before you start transcribing
• Transcribing: managing your recording workbook

Have fun while you work and please do enjoy the help that is always available here from the moderators, in fact from everyone. And do also feel welcome to join in some of the lighter hearted side of OldWeather in the forum found in the Dockside Cafe under Shore Leave.

You will also bump into the OldWeather Arctic project which also extracts weather and ice details from the ships of the US Navy and Coast Guard. Your help with OldWeather Arctic would also be most welcome!

[AvastMH]

The ice sections of the voyage of the Mary and Helen from 9 September 1879 to 12 October 1880 have been completed. Thank you all!

Once all ice sections of the log list have been completed we will return to the non-ice sections.

You can find more ships in this listing: Find your ship, & the full list of ships logbooks for OWW Your help will be very much appreciated. If you need help in choosing a journey please do leave message here or contact AvastMH.

---

Welcome on board the 'Mary and Helen' for her 9 September 1879 to 12 October 1880 voyage
Steam bark of New Bedford, mastered by M. Millard and Leander C. Owen

Here you will find an example transcription of details
This is also a place to ask questions and request help with oddities in the log
You can bring the ship to life by sharing interesting finds from the log pages and other information about the ship

General help with marking and transcribing whaling logs
Weather and ice records from the whaling ships of the USA which contains the following 'must read' topics...

• START HERE. General outline, the project and how to help
• Transcribing: capturing the log details, and information resources
• Transcribing: managing your recording workbook

Tip: use ctrl+Pgup or ctrl+PgDn to quickly swap between the different worksheets as you move through start, primary, weather, and remarks worksheets to record your findings

Treasure trove of information in the Library
Over the years this forum has accumulated a broad spectrum of detailed information which is kept in the Library
Please do take time to visit the Library because it will afford you a great deal of help. However, do feel welcome to ask questions at any time.

Help with images

• If you want to query some text please supply the page reference (the reference changes as you view the middle of a page), and an image of the text if you wish. Help for manipulating/posting images can be found in Posting Links and Images (A Guide). If you have any problems with imaging this is the board to post that question.
• Accessing pale images. The example page used below, opened through the 'Irfan' program, 'color correction' and adjust the brightness, saturation, and gamma correction. You may have your own program for adjusting brightness and contrast. Here are the before and after images using Irfan. Click to see them at full size.
  

To find the shipyard pages for other whalers
Link: Find your ship, & the full list of ships logbooks for OWW


Select 'view single page':
When the log book image opens you will see two pages. It is easier to read the details accessing one page at a time. Use the icons at the bottom of the screen:


You can walk through Mary and Helen's log pages in chronological order. All you have to do is increment the number at the end of the link: page/2/mode/1up, page/3/mode/1up, page/4/mode/1up etc.

---

Here is a log page that has been transcribed to help you to be familiar with the writing. Click to view logbook.
July 17th to July 20th 1880


Here is a transcription of the above log page.
Steamer Mary & Helen L.C. Owens Master.

Saturday July 17th 1880.
Commenced with thick rainy weather
and calms got steam at 3.30 and steamed
to the NE. at 10 PM lowered for 2 whales set in
thick and came on board Middle Part thick
fog lying aback Latter Part fine and light Southerly
winds steering to the SW all hands boling and
stowing oil Thus ends

Sunday July 18th 1880.
Commenced with fine weather and light
SW winds steering N by W. all hands stowing
down Middle Part Strong SW winds ship under
short sail boiling Latter Part got steam and
steamed in to the land and made the
ship fast to the Ice all hands employed in
boiling & scraping bone and other

Monday July 19th 1880.
Commenced with fresh gales from NW
let go of the ice and stood out side Employed
in boiling. stowing down and scraping
bone. Middle Part strong breezes from
the NW. ship close hauled under steam &
sail working to Westward Employed in
trying out latter Part much the same
ship working ice all hands scraping bone
and trying out Thus ends

Tuesday July 20th 1880.
Commenced with fine weather and
light Westerly winds ship working in
to Cape Lisburne anchored at 5.30 in
5 fathoms water 30 faths chain Middle Part
fine and calm all hands scraping bone and
trying out Latter Part fine and calm all hands
stowing oil trying out and scraping bone. Thus
ends

Notes:
As with many whaler logs, punctuation is rare. So take time to check what is written.
For example, lines 3-5 of Saturday July 17th 1880. appear as:
'..... at 10 PM lowered for 2 whales set in [here 'lowered' means to lower the whaling boats]
thick and came on board Middle Part thick
fog lying aback Latter Part fine and light Southerly
winds'
The facts are:
- at 10 PM lowered for 2 whales
- set in thick [refers to the weather]
- and came on board [they gave up the chase and returned to the ship]
- Middle Part thick fog
- lying aback [They are laid aback, when this is purposely effected to deaden her way by rounding in the weather-braces. This is not the same as taken aback. The Sailor's Word-Book: An alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms
- Latter Part fine and light Southerly winds

---

Here is a transcription of the above log page. Click on the worksheet images below to see them at full size

Start worksheet (top section)
If you discover any metadata in the logbook please enter it on this page. Metadata means 'data about data', barometer readings or temperature readings. See under 'Weather' at rows 32 and 33. For example, if you see that the temperature is in Celsius or Centigrade, that fact should be transcribed as metadata.


Primary worksheet


Weather worksheet


Remarks worksheet


Links to useful logbook pages
Crew list
Whale oil totals for the season

Here's a link back to the list of Mary and Helen's Log Pages for Transcribing - apply here!.

---

Warning: AUTOFILL function between worksheets.
Do not drag and drop the date or time on any of the worksheets because you may disrupt the autofill function.
If you are unsure that the autofill is in proper order you can check by pressing two keys on your keyboard.
You are certainly welcome to ask for help with this action.

---

The remainder of this topic is for you. Ask questions and share interesting discoveries with us to make these logs live.

[AvastMH]

Just came across this picture :
"Port Clarence, Alaska", Robert Swain Gifford


Apparently an Inuit family waiting to barter with the Mary and Helen.

[Michael]

[Randi]

See page 115 or search on Clarence
https://www.whalingmuseum.org/sites/def ... 202013.pdf

[AvastMH]

to

See page 115 or search on Clarence
https://www.whalingmuseum.org/sites/def ... 202013.pdf

Oh rock on!!! Randi you are magical. What a story!! I had no idea that Mary and Helen (the 2nd) turned into Beluga.

OK - We've worked on the Mary and Helen log of 1879 to 1880 in this Shipyard. She was the first steam whaler. After one year she was sold to the US Navy, under the name Rogers, to find the lost Jeannette Expedition. She burned down sadly. The picture above celebrates the second Mary and Helen, a slightly bigger ship, which suffered the same fate in 1886 but was retrieved and rebuilt as the Beluga. We are very familiar with Beluga too. We've covered her logs for 1892 to 1903 (except 1894). The description of the painting (see the link above) mentions:

'The R.S. Gifford auction catalogue and Gifford himself must have been referring to the former steam-bark Mary and Helen, now rebuilt as Beluga, 508 tons, which was whaling out of San Francisco in the 1890s, was a regular fixture in the Western Arctic, and was on the Alaska coast in 1899, commanded by the celebrated Captain Hartson Hartlett Bodfish of Martha’s Vineyard.'

And the theory is that the picture is of the Mary and Helen, but under the name Beluga in 1899.

All that said, the article also mentions that the picture was made during the Harriman Alaska expedition where it was up to artists R.S. Gifford, Fred S. Dellenbaugh, and Louis Agassiz Fuertes, and photographers Edward S. Curtis and D.G. Inverarity, to chronicle the scenery, topography, Eskimo life, and ornithology. The results were published in the multi-volume Harriman Alaska Expedition (New York, 1901), with a text by John Burroughs, John
Muir, and George Bird Grinnell. Gifford’s haunting portrait of Port Clarence was a more private result of his extraordinary experience, echoed in Grinnell’s remarks about this particular landfall:

At Port Clarence ... a large number of Eskimos were found encamped on the beach, having come there to trade with the whalers and to hire out for them for the coming cruise to the Arctic ... some clad in skins and some wearing red or blue shirts.... Most of the Eskimo had set up ordinary wall tents of canvas or muslin.... There were a few oval frames of willow twigs covered with canvas; and in two or three cases an umiak [skin boat] propped up on its side supported the upper edge of a sheet of canvas which was pinned to the ground below ...
The outlook for the immediate future for these Eskimo is gloomy. Hitherto they have been well cut off from civilization, meeting only the whalers, who are few in number and are under a certain rude discipline. But a change has come for the Eskimo … White men, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, already swarm over the Alaska coast, and are overwhelming the Eskimo. They have taken away their women, and debauched their men with liquor; they have brought them strange new diseases that they never knew before, and in a very short time they will ruin and disperse the wholesome, hearty, merry people whom we saw at Port Clarence and Plover Bay.

I find this story of the Inuit so sad. I found the picture quite melancholic.