Diary of Helen Frances Cleaves Small

Diary of Helen Frances Cleaves Small

Diary of Helen Francis Cleaves Small written while accompanying her husband, Captain Walter Small, aboard his schooner ALMA in 1901 and 1902. Descriptive journal of voyages to smaller Caribbean ports like St. Lucia and Baracoa, Cuba, for fruit; from the perspective of a woman who had never left Maine before. Small describes two voyages: one from Sullivan, Maine to New York, Wilmington, North Carolina, St. Lucia, and Baracoa, Cuba; the second from Millbridge, Maine to Eluthera, Bahamas for pineapples shipped to Baltimore. These voyages were Small's first visits to the American South or the Caribbean, and she writes about her impressions of African Americans and female stevedores in St. Lucia, as well as describing life at sea, the scenery in ports, and Milbridge seafarers. MS 568 also includes a letter that Helen F. Small wrote to her sister while in Freetown, Sierra Leone on the barkentine JOHN S. EMERY in 1902, and a letter from shipbroker John S. Emery informing the family of Small's death on the return voyage from Africa.