Correspondence of (28) letters, most in pencil, one with soldiers ARTWORK, (114 pp. of hand written text), some on illustrated
letterheads from Howard Fox, a ship's engineer, who was serving in the US Navy steam/sail training ship USS HARTFORD, 1900-04, to
his mother, Mrs. Annie L. Fox, Rochester, New Hampshire. The letters, many of which have excellent multi page content, were written
from ports in the U.S., Europe, North Africa and the West Indies. Some have the original stamped and postmarked envelopes. Excerpts
the letters follow: [St. Lucia, B.W.I., Feb 12 1900] "suppose I told you that I was a boy kicker. I have to send men to the [steering] wheel
every half hour and to the reel every 15 min., and on the lookout in the fore riggin' on the topgallant yard ... We have 4 on 4 off when we
are at sea. We get school 2[x] a day ... there is too much foolish work done. The time goes quick here. Our [clothing] outfit is 2 suits of
blue, 2 pairs shoes, 5 white suits, 4 suits underwear, 3 pair stockings, 3 white hats, watch cap, 1 mattress, 2 mattress covers, 2 blankets,
1 hammock, 1 [sea] bag ... 17th Feb. Left St. Lucia ... got in Guadeloupe [F.W.I.] 16th. There is lots of square rigged ships in here ..."
[Trinidad, B.W.I., Jan 14 1901] "went ashore yesterday and it is a hot place ... the coolies they ain't half dressed . I paid a ---- [racial slur] 3
pence to show us around the place ... I wash my clothes every morning, so I keep good and clean ... We get a bucket of fresh water [for
four men] every day to wash ourselves and ... our clothes ... it is very nice going up in the rigging bare footed and go out on the yardarms
and stand on the ropes for a little while [Trinidad, Jan 20 1901] "there is a fight here most every night about something ... we have been
sailing around Trinidad bay for training and it is training [with] all the ropes you ever heard in your life. The boatswain is whistling all the
time. Every time he blows his whistle it means a different order ... We had school ... knots and wigwag signals ... you can't have a spot on
your clothes Sunday when the captain inspects ..." [Port Royal, Jamaica, May 5 1901] "We coaled ship yesterday .. .the coal dust and heat
isn't very nice ... [he includes four pen & ink drawings of receiving the coal via a "shoot" {chute} into the coal bunker; see scan] ... May
16th ... [nearly missed] the [drifting] wrecked schooner ISAAC N. KULLIN of Bridgetown, N.J. ..." [Plymouth, England, May 31 1901] "had a
very good trip across the Atlantic ... didn't have much rough weather ... one of the boys off the TOPEKA gave me a little watch charm -some of the lava from Mt. Vesuvius ... it is a skeleton's head ... " [Leith, Scotland, Jun 3 1901] "There is 2 in the brig and 10 outside in
double irons ... you can't sleep for the noise they make with their irons and talking ..." They visited Christiana, Norway next. [Stockholm,
Sweden, Jul 18 1901] "had to go up a river, and you could throw a stone to either side of the bank ... Lawson got 5 days [in the brig] when
we were in Copenhagen and went home ... he is pretty old ... about 20 years ... when I get a chance I will get a little book on marine
boilers. I want to get all I can get out of the Navy. I might get ... on some ferry or tug ... [or] on the railroad ... large steam yacht in here ...
belongs to the New York [Yacht] Club ... barber has got the best job in the ship. There are about 200 men in the ship and he gets 50c a
month from each one ... here 9 months and carried $900 away with him ... I hear there is some hard feelings between Germany and
America. What is it all about? .." [Christiana, Jun 25 1901] "This captain ... hasn't got any use for the engineers force. He has got them
down as a lot of bums, and they are the cleanest men in the ship ... I think 4 years will hold me for a while ..." [Kiel, Germany, Aug 2 1901]
"Germany is not a very nice place. The people ... have no use for us ... They soak a fellow for all they are worth if you don't know the
money ..." He makes a few anti-Semitic remarks at this point. [At Sea, Aug 12 1901] "I wish I could catch the [USS] OLYMPIA, because
she is a nice ship. There are lots of crew on here that have been on her during the [Spanish-American] War and they say she is all right ...
Aug 13th. We had target practice this morning, but my division was the first relief, so we had to stand by on the berth deck ... didn't see
any of the shooting ... they fired 5 in. guns ... [the deck] gives 3 quarters of one inch every time they fired. The old tub will get jarred to
pieces some day ... Aug 14th. We had a [sea] bag inspection this morning and I got a call down because I didn't have a couple of old
pieces of old truck marked [with name]. I had to mark them and show them to the chief, before I could put them away ... One of the snipes
[engineers] got a summary court martial this afternoon and lost 3 months pay and 3 months restriction [aboard ship]. It was 3 or 4 months
ago he got the same thing. He wants them to throw him out of the Navy, but they rather take his money away ... Aug 17. Graves End
[England] "the current of the Thames River is fierce and the water is so muddy, you could cut it with a knife. The rise and fall of the tide
here is 18 feet. ... The Navy is made up of ... crook[s] and bums ... it is pretty hard for a young fellow to get along, unless he can take care
of himself and when they get to walking over you, thump the life out of them. That [is] how I get along. I would never let anybody run me
down. Either one or the other of us will get our head punched off, but I don't have much trouble so far ... you don't want to take any back
talk from anybody ..." [La Rochelle, France, Aug 28 1901] "the Bay of Biscay [is difficult place to enter]. We had three boilers on and it was
very hot and half the engineers' gang got seasick and I was making regular trips to the head with lots of more, some of the sail makers
and lots of the seagoing dogs. It rolled so bad, that it threw one of the snipes right out of his hammock and he was fast asleep .. he didn't
know wher we was for a few minutes ... took my corking mat and laying on the deck, but every time she rolled I went sliding from one side
to the other ... our watertender ... Bearden .. as tall a he is wide and got a big pot belly layed on the deck ... and got a rope and tied it
around his waist and lashed himself to the machine shop, so he wouldn't roll around. Old pans. chests and everything else was pounding
around ... We had a hard time getting in here, because we had to go into a basin inside the sea wall, because it is so rough that vessels
can't lay at anchor outside of the wall ... places ... all look alike to a sailor, because he don't have time to see very much ...Lisbon 5th. "we
had a very good trip. This place ... is kind of hilly and the houses are as you see them in books with bars on the windows and the
people are black, dirty looking ... I hear they shot the President [William McKinley]. Pretty soon they will have to have a squad of cavalry to
guard him wherever he goes ..." [Funchal, Madeira, Sep 24 1901] "This place is noted for wines. It is all mountains and the tops of the
mountains run clean up above the clouds. Between the grape vines they have planted sugar cane ... they soak a fellow for the fruit ..
.worse than ... in the States ..." [At sea, Feb 4 1902] "started for sea ... only steamed half an hour when we were pitching and rolling
something fierce, all the boys got sick and layed right down on the wet deck. The water was a foot or so deep on the deck, and it would
splash all over the poor kids, but they were too sick to move ... spewing all over the deck and on each other ... how it stank ... the eaves
went right over the smokestack ... and ... would come right down in the fireroom ..." One of the coal passers, a lad from Virginia, had never
been with a "tough crowd" before, and the old sea dogs had a grand time watching him. "we just cleaned the stations in the engine room
and they have just lit a boiler in case of a storm. That's just the way. You stop and get all cleaned up and and then start steaming and fill
the place full of full of oil and dirt ... Sighted water spout about 6 miles ahead ... Feb 15th ... arrived in Barbados [B.W.I.] ... fired 21 guns at
6 o'clock just before we come in ..." [Off Trinidad, Mar 4 1902] "There isn't much news to write about down here in this country of n-----s
[racial slur] ... March 6th. We had target practice yesterday and today. The ship is getting to be a home now. We can't go on deck unless
we are in white clothes and we have to muster 4 times a day and we have to shift and wash ourselves as many times ... I think when my
time is out I will have enough of the sea ... we ... dropped anchor about 5 o'clock. There are two Germans [warships] in here. One a
gunboat and one cruiser ..." [Port of Spain, Trinidad, Mar 20 1902] "We have been sailing around and haven't been in port much. There
are four of our ships in here, MASSACHUSETTS, KEARSARGE, ALABAMA [&] ILLINOIS. ... If I keep it up, I will have a good record when
I come home ..." [At Sea, Apr 11 1902] "just before we left Trinidad, one of the bandsmen got a fever adn they had to take him to the
Hospital ... I am just longing for some good fried fish. You get too much meat here. I am sick of meat ... Arrived St. Kitts [B.W.I. Apr] 13th
... It is a beautiful place. It looks so green and nice. It is mostly all sugar cane. It is more level than the other places ... I will have pretty
near 2 years in [the Navy] ... [Havana, Cuba, Jun 24 1902] "They won't even let us go and look at the wreck of the [USS] MAINE, so we
can't see much of Cuba. The Gunboat VIXEN is in here ..." [At sea, Jun 20 1902] "I couldn't get anything in Pensacola, because they didn't
give us any liberty ... had target practice all the time ..." [Villefranche, France, Dec 19 1902] "We had a very nice trip from Athens here ...
Saw Mt. Stomboli and it was in action as we went by. We went within five thousand years of it ... in the evening. You could see a little light
and all at once it would shoot up, then the lava would roll down the mountain ... And Mt. Etna is smoking, but it doesn't throw out nothing
..." Says that the tiny village at the foot of Stromboli was abandoned. "We got paid here. I am going over to Monte Carlo. I have heard lots
of that place. You have heard of the man that broke the bank ... [there] haven't you? ..." [Algiers, Algeria, Nov 22 1902] "I went ashore ...
the place is all laid out in little alleys ... I bought a pair of slippers that the women wear here and a lizard stuffed. They have lots of
tablecloths and things, but I didn't have the money to buy them ... It is hard going ashore in these places, because ... there are not many
who speak English ... There is two French men-of-war in here; one three stacker and one one stack, and they are the dirtiest ships I ever
saw. There are lots of Arabs here and they dress very funny. The pants they wear here are so baggy in the seat that they almost touch the
ground ... all the ... women wear veils over their face, except their eyes ..." [Gibraltar, Jan 16 1903] "We left Villefranche on Jan 7th and
arrived in Marseilles on the following morning and ... coaled ship and it was the dustiest coal I ever saw. Everything was dirty ... I didn't get
ashore ... some of the boys stole something out of the Sailor's Rest, while they were there ... I am on the ice machine all the time when we
are not steaming, and the heaviest work you do is discharge six cakes of ice once a day. They are about two feet long [one] foot wide and
two or three inches thick ..." [Funchal, Madeira, Jan 23 1903] "We left Gibraltar Jan 19th. The day before we left there was a bad storm
and it blew one of the German Lloyd steamers ashore. She is a mail boat, and this skipper thought he would go and pull him off. There
were half dozen tugs pulling at her, when we got over there, so the skipper said to one of the captains of the tugs ... to take out line and
take it to the steamer, but ... he wouldn't take it, because .. .that was a big prize for them and they didn't want us ... one of our whaleboats
took the line, but ... the skipper .. rang down to go four bells ahead [and] he didn't take in the slack at all, so when it set taught it snapped
the seven inch hawser and he ... made a fool of himself ..." Fox chuckles about HARTFORD's captain repositioning the ship's anchor just
a few yards three times in one day. [Funchal, Madeira, Jan 28 1903] "I have just got through scrubbing my hammock, and it was pretty
dirty ... nice to tet a clean hammock once in a while. I don't believe I have ever seen the ship so dirty since I have been one here. Nobody
seems to care whether she is clean or not, because about have of them go out as soon as we get back ..." [Kingston, Jamaica, Feb 19
1903] "The mountains run pretty high here. The town is at the bottom, and it looks to be a pretty place ... I am going to try to get some seabeans while I am ashore, adn they have rings, so I think that I will get a couple ... They have taken me off the ice machine. Now I am
standing watch tending water in the fireroom; it is just as easy ..." [Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia, May 17 1904] "I am having a fine time since
we have been here. There are three of us standing cold-iron [boilers shut down] watch and it only takes one on a watch and there isn't
nothing to watch, only make a round and see al lthe sea valves are closed, in case thre should be any leak or anything gives way in the
gate of the drydock. I made up my mind not to do much work while in here, because I am a short timer ... I will be glad when my time is out
..." USS HARTFORD, a 2,900 ton steam sloop, was an old ship launched in 1858. She is best known for her Civil War service, as flagship
of COM David G. Farragut, serving in the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, where she took part in the capture of Confederate held New
Orleans in Apr 1862. When these letters were written, HARTFORD was a training and cruise ship for midshipmen. Most letters are in very
good-excellent condition, stamped envelopes have mostly minor defects.