16-gun brig captain's cabin furniture

[haru940]

Dear new friends,

I need your help about the topic subject: how was fitted the captain's cabin of a 16-gun brig both Americam and British at the end of the XVIII c. or in the Napoleonic Era? I know the french style of furnishing but I do not find pics or drawings as regards the American/British styles.

Sorry for my english and meny thanks for just a bit of attention.

haru940

Italy

[druxey]

The captain supplied his own furniture: so there was no 'standard' issue. The only things in a brig's cabin might be a rudder trunk, or casing with a top for a chart table, if the rudder di not go up through the deck above.

[haru940]

Many many thanks druxey!

haru940

[uss frolick]

In researching my biography of Captain Johnston Blakeley, USN, 1781-1814 - Shameless plug: "Blakeley and the Wasp: The Cruise of 1814", Stephen W. H. Duffy, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2001, I came across this little gem.

 

 

The following enclosure was in a letter dated March 27, 1811 from the Washington Yard Commander, Captain Thomas Tingey, to the Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton, Washington Navy Yard:

 

"Sir, I have the honor to enclose a requisition, of Lieut. J. Blakeley [Commander] of Cabin Furniture of the [uSS] Enterprize.

 

In submitting this indent for your consideration, I feel it is my duty to state that, when this vessel was fitted from the Yard in 1808, she was furnished with silver table spoons, tea spoons, and other usual plate, with chairs, table clothes, and all the customary articles for the cabin: Not one single material of which was returned with her."

 

I consider it also incumbent to inform you, that all the vessels equipped from this yard have been furnished with bosun's calls, of silver, very few of which have ever been returned."

 

[Note: Lieut. Johnston Blakeley, was just then assuming command of the newly repaired Enterprise. Blakeley would immediately set about re-rigging her as a brig.]

 

"One dozen dishes

Ditto Soup Plates

Ditto shallow plates

Ditto small plates

Ditton tureens - one of tin

2 bowels

2 sugar dishes

1 dozen wine glasses

1 dozen tumblers

2 quart decanters

2 pint decanters

2 salt cellars

1 looking glass

2 tea kettles

2 sugar canisters

1 tea tray

2 waiters

12 table spoons

12 tea spoons

6 iron table spoons

1 set casters

1 soup ladle

1 dozen large knives

1 dozen large forks

1 dozen small knives

1 dozen small forks

12 table clothes

2 ditto covers

12 towels

2 brooms

2 candel sticks

2 pair steel snuffers

1 cork screw

6 chairs

1 coffee mill

1 pepper mill

2 brass cocks

2 brass canisters

1 mattress and [1]pillow.

 

The above  is a list of the furniture wanted for the use of the US schooner Enterprize, washington, 25th March, 1811, J. Blakeley approved and submitted."

 

Blakeley was, or course, to go on to glory in the second corvette named the USS Wasp. But he found it very difficult to procure these items for his Wasp in 1813 using, as he stated, this very list, due to wartime shortages in Newburyport, Mass, and Portsmouth, NH. But by this time, the stressed Navy Department was not so picky. The official indent, dated Baltimore, 1813, for use in all the six new corvettes then building [Wasp, Frolick, Peacock, Erie, Ontario and Argus] contained but one word: "discretionary".

[uss frolick]

Note: The ward room chairs supplied to the Frigate Essex, fitted out in Salem, Mass, in 1799, were described as "Windsor-backed chairs". They were lightweight, but very strong. I suspect that this was a standard, so the Enterprise's six chairs listed above were certainly Windsors too.

[haru940]

Great!

I'am happy and proud to be a member of such a community.

haru940 

Italy

[samueljr]

Haru

 

To follow Frolick's post if you can take a look at the ESSEX PAPERS book. There is an entire indent of what Her Captain (Edward Prebble) had brought on board as his personal stores as well as what was "provided". 

 

You'll probably find similar (records / stores) for most of the era you're researching

 

Sam