Logbook of Edward Rhodes, 1670-76
Editor’s notes:
The following pages are photographs of a sailor’s personal logbook from six round-trip voyages
aboard English merchant vessels on the tobacco route between Gravesend, England, and the
Chesapeake colonies of Maryland and Virginia. The photographs comprise the entirety of the book,
save for a few blank pages at the end. The original logbook, housed in the University of Oxford’s
Bodleian Library, was photographed by this editor in 2012, and is being placed here to open the
document to a wider research audience.
Research involving this document will be outlined in the editor’s forthcoming PhD dissertation
through the University of Southampton’s Centre for Maritime Archaeology. Relevant aspects of this
work include plots of each of Rhodes’ voyages utilising the daily coordinates as plotted and vessel
performance data. This document has also recently brought insights into sailing routes from England
to the Chesapeake, providing the earliest example of voyages along a previously unidentified
northern route to the Chesapeake, passing by the Azores, replacing a southern route through the
Caribbean.
To view the document in person, contact the Bodleian library with the collection number:
MS. Rawl d. 702
Alternatively, the logbook can be found on microfilm in the Maryland State Archives:
Wing Collection, MSA SC 4747
Partial transcription, from one complete voyage, can be found in:
John F. Wing, 1999. Bound by God... For Merryland: The Voyage of the Constant Friendship, 1671-
1672. Maryland State Archives and Maryland Historical Trust, Annapolis
edited and photographed by:
Scott A. Tucker
