Details

Owner

Phillips Library (Peabody Essex Museum) [Browse]

FaST Subject(s)

• Betsey (Ship)
• Bills of lading
• Commerce
• Commercial products
• Finance
• Freight and freightage
• Hides and skins
• Invoices
• Shipping
• Ships
• Silk
• Sugar
• Voyages and travels
• China
• Massachusetts
• Nepal
• New York (State)

Summary note

Assorted correspondence, accounts and lists of sales for four ships owned, mastered and chartered by Benjamin Shreve.

Notes

• AMDigital Reference: MH-20, box 1, folder 2
• Benjamin Shreve (1780-1839) was born in Winchester, Virginia to Benjamin and Hannah Shreve. Details of his personal life are sparse, however it is known that his brother Isaac moved to Salem in 1794 to take up an apprenticeship in leather tanning. Subsequently, Isaac probably introduced Benjamin to Mary Goodhue of Salem, and the couple were soon married and settled in the city. Shreve was apparently involved in shipping before he arrived in Salem, as he was declared bankrupt in Alexandria, Virginia, and his papers suggest a relationship between his financial difficulties and an 1804 voyage of the schooner Betsey. Once in Salem Shreve acted as supercargo on a number of voyages, and bought the Four Sons, which he renamed Dawn, and the Catherine from Joseph Peabody and Gideon Tucker. In the 1820s he invested in voyages to South America by his own vessels and those of other merchants. He arranged to build the brig Washington in 1823. He died in 1839, leaving no children.Please note that some of the metadata for this document has been drawn from the Peabody Essex Museum catalogue.
• Collection: Benjamin Shreve Papers (1793-1848)
• Title from publisher's website.

Location of originals

Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum

Copyright note

Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum

Source of description

Description based on publisher metadata (viewed October 30, 2024).

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