(Letters): Six Letters About Job Prospects For Schooner Captains In The North East And Virginia In 1873 Grant, Captain John Ida Ephemera

A collection of six letters and ephemera from 1873 addressed by sailors to the captain of a schooner looking for work collecting and delivering oysters to various places along the East Coast and Virginia. Very good with small tears and some staining, one with loss. An archive of six letters written to Captain John Ida Grant from sailors looking for work in distributing oysters in 1873. The letters are from different locations including: Toms River, New Jersey; Brooklyn, New York; Chuckatuck, Virginia; and Baltimore, Maryland. Two of the letters are from men writing to Grant for a job, one letter reads, "If you don't like your captain, I want the job." The other letters mention locations and updates with the oysters shipments, "Mr. Grant I now rite you a few lines to in form you were I am we are loading oysters here and if we hav good wether we will be loaded by satterday night." Most of the letters are brief with updates about shipments from Chuckatuck, Virginia, a well-known harvesting location for oysters. Other ephemera includes one business check, a handwritten documentation of a check written by Grant, and a list of expenses purchased at a general commission merchant. An interesting archive of letters from schooner captains about oyster shipments from New Jersey, New York, and Virginia in 1873.