Finding Aid for the Charles W. Moss Diary Biomed.0709

Contributing Institution: UCLA Library Special Collections

Title: Charles W. Moss diary

Creator: Moss, Charles W.

source: Johnson, Russell A.

Identifier/Call Number: Biomed.0709

Physical Description: 1 unknown (1 diary)

Date (inclusive): 1900 March 8-1900 May 19

Physical Location: Held at UCLA Library Special Collections. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Language of Material: Materials are in English.

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Gift of Russell A. Johnson, 2009.

UCLA Catalog Record ID: 8337065 

[Identification of item], Charles W. Moss diary (Collection 709). Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections for the Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles.

Quartermaster and commissary clerk Charles W. Moss intended to keep a daily diary aboard the British cattle steamer Lennox, under contract to the United States to transport 457 horses from Portland, Oregon to Manila Bay, Philippine Islands, from 8 March through 19 May 1900. He writes with the intention that his diary will be read by others, so he addresses his unseen reader. He begins with handwritten entries in a bound ledger with numbered pages, but switches to pasted-in typewritten pages after hitting open seas. Moss, who hailed immediately from New York City and originally from Clinton, Kentucky, describes his sailing companions (p.13); the captain calling attention to a "lunar rain-bow" (a "moonbow" or "white rainbow", p.15); vaccination of the entire crew against smallpox (p. 18); being compelled to take mustard plasters for his head-ache and neuralgia (p.19); settling accounts for his government transport ship (p.36); fretting about how to pay men who lost a day's possible labor by crossing the "Meridian Line" (International Date Line) (p.41-43); and eventually-futile efforts to save a single ailing horse and thus set a record buy delivering a cargo of horses intact and healthy (p.38). Other crew include Captain Butt, Dr. J. ("Jay Gould") McOwen, veterinary surgeon; Dr. John P. Kelley ("The Dr."), assistant surgeon, U.S. Army; and John H. ("Bronco John") Sullivan, also called the "Freak" and the "Wonder", in charge of the transportation of the horses and men attending them, a teller of tall tales. Moss reports arriving at "Hilo, Hawaiian Islands, U.S.A." on March 23rd to disembark and rest the horses and replenish water and fresh food; he traces a map of the island from sailing master Captain Williamson's chart and labels volcanoes, lava courses, and sugar mills; 9 "Kodaks" from the layover are laid-in. The Lennox arrived in Manila Bay on April 19; the diary concludes with an entry on May 19, summarizing the previous month's activities. The diary describes a voyage of 7,300 miles with calm seas, no storms, no accidents, and no other vessels sighted at sea.

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