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SS George Law (SS Central America) 1856 Invoices from Hull's Safe [143198]

Currency:USD Category:Artifacts / Shipwreck Artifacts Start Price:100.00 USD Estimated At:200.00 - 2,000.00 USD
SS George Law (SS Central America)  1856 Invoices from Hull's Safe [143198]
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Group of eleven manuscript invoices from the Purser's safe dated April to August, 1856 that as a group, tell an important story. This is an important group of documents that refer to Edward Hull as purser for the SS George Law, at the very least in April, 1856. All of the documents are partial, restored by the Northeast Document Conservation Service in Andover, Mass. Most of these documents can be at least partially read, Two contain the addressee as "purser Edward Hull, George Law." Some of these are invoices of some form indicating an amount paid, and in one instance mentions gold. One appears to be a request for passage of some sort. It was commonplace in the 1850s to render hand written (manuscript) invoices for payment to the purser or to a merchant. In this case, Edward Hull acted as purser for this specific group of documents, and he was known to be purser on several other US Mail Steamship Co. steamers, though not as many as his brother William. In fact, there is a good chance that the two brothers worked in harmony together on many voyages, with William as the (chief) purser and Ed as the storekeeper, a form of assistant purser. On the voyages where Edward was purser, he may have taken William's place. A chart of the brother's US Mail Steamship Co. steamer activities is contained in an article with this catalog. This group of 1856 documents must have sat relatively unnoticed in the safe, and probably should have been "turned in" to the USMSSC well before year-end in 1856.

Provenance: SS Central America Collection