Manuscripts
The collection contains 69 letters (primarily between members of the Brinley family and Edward Brinley, Jr.), 18 documents (largely relating the career of Edward Brinley, Jr.), a journal kept by Brinley on board the USS North Carolina, Oct. 1840-May. 1841, and the U.S.S. Delaware from Dec. 1843-Mar. 1844, and a portable wooden writing desk owned by Brinley. The early correspondence deals with Edward's childhood and education, his first naval appointment aboard the U.S.S. North Carolina including details about the various ports-of-call. His letters of the 1844-1845 period deal with his service on the U.S.S. Falmouth in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean during the prelude to the U.S.-Mexican War. Edward's letters of the 1846-1850 period deal with his service aboard the U.S.S. Preble during its cruise of the Pacific. Brinley's comments on the economic, ecological, and political phenomenon of the Pacific throughout these letters. The California gold rush, U.S. economic colonialism in present-day Hawaii, U.S. whaling in the Pacific, and the Chinese Opium trade are among the issues extensively discussed. His letters of 1856 were written during his service on the USS Potomac in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. They include discussions of the "filibusterer" William Walker's short-lived takeover of Nicaragua. The letters of Francis W. Brinley, Edward, Jr.'s most frequent correspondent, are dominated by family news and fatherly advice regarding the merits of hard work and respect for authority. Francis's letters do contain some interesting portraits of quotidian life as a businessman in Perth Amboy, NJ, however. The two letters of Thomas Brinley paint a dismal picture of his failed attempt at making a fortune in 1850s California. The remainder of the correspondence relates primarily to the everyday affairs of the Brinley family.
HM 74082
