‹ The Hall of RecordsEntered into the record July 28, 2026
HISTORICAL RECORD · A DEMONSTRATIONThe sea1844 to 1909

Filed under

A deep-water sailing master whose trade steam had ended, handed a derelict sloop propped up in a field. [A1]Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), digitized plain-text edition, eBook number 6317, illustrated by Thomas Fogarty and George VarianProject Gutenbergclass A · read 2026-07-28

Lifted off the chart

Engraved lines plan of the sloop Spray, sheer and half-breadth, from the 1900 first edition of Sailing Alone Around the World.

[A9]Library of Congress1900The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright restrictions for this item.read 2026-07-29Rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise to upright the plate, cropped the adjacent board edge at the foot, resized to 2200px long edge, converted to WebP quality 80. No retouching, no tonal edits.

The record

Slocum rebuilt the derelict by hand and sailed her out of East Boston alone on April 24, 1895. He anchored at Newport at one in the morning on June 27, 1898, having done it without crew. [A4]The Spray will Come Back: Solo Circumnavigator Joshua Slocum, exhibition, Braitmayer Family GalleryNew Bedford Whaling Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

Joshua Slocum

The record of Joshua Slocum, master mariner, born in Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, in 1844, whose entry in the Library of Congress name authority gives his death as November 1909 and his occupation in a single word: sailors. [A7]Slocum, Joshua, 1844-1909, Library of Congress Name Authority File record n79100704, JSON-LD serialization, with the real-world-object node giving birthDate 1844-02-20, deathDate 1909-11 and occupation SailorsLibrary of Congress, Linked Data Serviceclass A · read 2026-07-28

Entries

The record in order

  1. 1892 to 1895

    The Spray rebuilt at Fairhaven

    Captain Eben Pierce presented the derelict sloop at Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Rebuilt over thirteen months of labor for five hundred fifty three dollars and sixty two cents in materials, with twelve inches added to the freeboard amidships, eighteen forward and fourteen aft. [A1]Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), digitized plain-text edition, eBook number 6317, illustrated by Thomas Fogarty and George VarianProject Gutenbergclass A · read 2026-07-28

  2. April 24, 1895

    Departure from Boston

    Anchor weighed at noon with a fair wind, sailing from Boston where the sloop had been moored all winter. A photographer on the outer pier at East Boston recorded her going. [A1]Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), digitized plain-text edition, eBook number 6317, illustrated by Thomas Fogarty and George VarianProject Gutenbergclass A · read 2026-07-28

  3. June 4, 1898

    The single-handed license returned for the last time

    The Spray cleared from the United States consulate and "her license to sail single-handed, even round the world, was returned to her for the last time." The document is recorded as lodged thereafter in the Treasury Department at Washington. [A1]Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), digitized plain-text edition, eBook number 6317, illustrated by Thomas Fogarty and George VarianProject Gutenbergclass A · read 2026-07-28

  4. June 27, 1898

    Newport, Rhode Island

    Anchored at one in the morning, closing a thirty eight month circumnavigation, the first solo voyage around the world as the New Bedford Whaling Museum files it. [A4]The Spray will Come Back: Solo Circumnavigator Joshua Slocum, exhibition, Braitmayer Family GalleryNew Bedford Whaling Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

  5. 1900

    Sailing Alone Around the World published

    Issued in New York by the Century Co. The Library of Congress name authority for Slocum cites the 1900 book as evidence for his heading. [A7]Slocum, Joshua, 1844-1909, Library of Congress Name Authority File record n79100704, JSON-LD serialization, with the real-world-object node giving birthDate 1844-02-20, deathDate 1909-11 and occupation SailorsLibrary of Congress, Linked Data Serviceclass A · read 2026-07-28

  6. November 1909

    Sailed from Vineyard Haven and did not return

    The Library of Congress name authority records the death date as November 1909 and states nothing further. The record follows it and stops there. [A7]Slocum, Joshua, 1844-1909, Library of Congress Name Authority File record n79100704, JSON-LD serialization, with the real-world-object node giving birthDate 1844-02-20, deathDate 1909-11 and occupation SailorsLibrary of Congress, Linked Data Serviceclass A · read 2026-07-28

  7. June 1, 1911

    Given up by the mariners of New Bedford and Martha's Vineyard

    A New Bedford dispatch reported that "although the Blue Book of the United States government has not yet taken the sloop Spray from its records of American vessels, there seems to be but little doubt in the minds of the mariners of New Bedford and Martha's Vineyard" that vessel and skipper were lost. [A6]SAILOR AND SLOOP LOST FOR YEARS. No Word Received from Capt. Slocum Since He Left Port, in The Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram (Richmond, Indiana), June 1, 1911, page 8, digitized by the Indiana State LibraryLibrary of Congress, Serial and Government Publications Division, Chronicling Americaclass A · read 2026-07-28

Record boundary

What the sources establish

Sources read
9
Primary or institutional
9
Distinct sources cited on this page
8
Works of record
3

Where the sources do not settle a question, this record does not answer it. Nothing above is inferred from anything else on the page.

What the record declines

Joshua Slocum was the first person to sail around the world.

The record does not support that and does not need it. Crewed circumnavigation predates him by centuries. What the documents establish is the narrower and harder thing: alone. [A1]Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), digitized plain-text edition, eBook number 6317, illustrated by Thomas Fogarty and George VarianProject Gutenbergclass A · read 2026-07-28

Checked: The consulate paper described in his own account, cleared on June 4, 1898, is "her license to sail single-handed, even round the world." The claim on the document is single-handed, not first.

The Spray was an unseaworthy boat, and her design is what killed him.

The record refuses a settled answer. The model of the Spray was argued over while Slocum was alive, inside his own book, and no document held here closes the argument in either direction. [A1]Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), digitized plain-text edition, eBook number 6317, illustrated by Thomas Fogarty and George VarianProject Gutenbergclass A · read 2026-07-28

Checked: The appendix prints the vessel's lines and calls them the dimensions of "such a ship as I should call seaworthy in all conditions of weather and on all seas," then answers the yachtsmen who disagreed: "They have a right to their opinion, while I stick to mine." A live disagreement in 1900 is not a finding now.

There is an account of how Slocum died.

Not in this record. The last documented fact is that he sailed alone from Vineyard Haven for the West Indies and was not heard from again, and the record stops there rather than choosing among the theories. [A5]CAPT. SLOCUM LONG ABSENT. Wife Gives Up Navigator As Lost With Sloop Spray, in Daily Kennebec Journal (Augusta, Maine), July 26, 1910, page 7, digitized by the Maine State LibraryLibrary of Congress, Serial and Government Publications Division, Chronicling Americaclass A · read 2026-07-28

Checked: The New Bedford dispatch of July 26, 1910 reports only that the Spray was last seen by a passing steamship, which described her as making heavy weather, and that his wife had given him up as lost. That is filed here as what she believed in 1910, not as a cause of death.

Slocum's age and origins were settled public facts in his own lifetime.

They were not, and the press of his own time said so plainly. The birth year in this record's heading is a later cataloguing finding, and is filed as one. [A6]SAILOR AND SLOOP LOST FOR YEARS. No Word Received from Capt. Slocum Since He Left Port, in The Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram (Richmond, Indiana), June 1, 1911, page 8, digitized by the Indiana State LibraryLibrary of Congress, Serial and Government Publications Division, Chronicling Americaclass A · read 2026-07-28

Checked: The New Bedford dispatch of June 1, 1911 reported: "He has left no record of the exact year he was born, but his wife says that he would be about sixty-six years old if living today. He was born in Nova Scotia, in a township overlooking the Bay of Fundy." The 1900 narrative likewise gives only a cold February 20, with no year attached.

The record

Joshua Slocum has a source page.

The same renderer a customer's published page mounts, drawing the same facts this room holds the sources for. Everything below is its apparatus.

View the record →sourceofyou.com/joshua-slocum
One record, two views

The apparatus

What stands behind the record: the works and who holds them, the claims this record refuses, every source read and when, and the gate stack this figure passed before a page was compiled.

Works

Works of record

Each work is listed with the institution that holds it and the rights statement that institution publishes, quoted as written.

1900

Sailing Alone Around the World [A2]Sailing alone around the world. Illustrated by Thomas Forgarty and George Varian. Pan-American ed., New York: Century Co., item sailingalonearou00slocuoftInternet Archive, scanned from Robarts Library, University of Torontoclass A · read 2026-07-28

The account of the voyage, written in the first person and published in New York by the Century Co. The Century Co. edition digitized from the Robarts Library at the University of Toronto carries copyright evidence recorded by the Internet Archive as a visible notice of copyright with a stated date of 1900.

Held by
Internet Archive, scanned from Robarts Library, University of Toronto
Rights, as published
No rights or licence statement is recorded on this item, and that absence is stated here as exactly that. The item metadata carries only a copyright status, quoted verbatim: "NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT", with the evidence field reading "Evidence reported by lajolla for item sailingalonearou00slocuoft on June 25, 2007: visible notice of copyright; stated date is 1900."

1890

Voyage of the Liberdade [A3]Joshua Slocum, Voyage of the Liberdade, Robinson and Stephenson, 1890, item voyageliberdade00slocgoogInternet Archive, digitized by Google from the Harvard University libraryclass A · read 2026-07-28

The earlier narrative: the loss of the bark Aquidneck on the coast of Brazil and the passage home with his family in a canoe built from her wreckage. The 1890 Robinson and Stephenson printing digitized from the Harvard University library.

Held by
Internet Archive, digitized by Google from the Harvard University library
Rights, as published
No rights or licence statement is recorded on this item, and that absence is stated here as exactly that. The item metadata carries only a copyright status, quoted verbatim: "NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT", with the description reading "Book digitized by Google from the library of Harvard University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb."

1892 to 1895

The sloop Spray [A1]Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), digitized plain-text edition, eBook number 6317, illustrated by Thomas Fogarty and George VarianProject Gutenbergclass A · read 2026-07-28

An object of record rather than a text. Rebuilt timber by timber from a derelict said to have served as an oysterman on the coast of Delaware, with no record of her building in the custom-house; her lines, dimensions and cabin plans are printed in the appendix of the 1900 book.

Held by
Project Gutenberg
Rights, as published
Quoted verbatim from the edition header: "This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org."
Sources

Sources

Class A is primary or institutional archival material. Class B is scholarly secondary work, cited with edition and page, and used only where class A could not be reached. Every source below was read at the URL given, on the date given.

  1. [A1]Class A

    Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), digitized plain-text edition, eBook number 6317, illustrated by Thomas Fogarty and George Varian

    Project Gutenberg

    https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6317/pg6317.txtread 2026-07-28

    Quoted verbatim from the edition header: "This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org."

  2. [A2]Class A

    Sailing alone around the world. Illustrated by Thomas Forgarty and George Varian. Pan-American ed., New York: Century Co., item sailingalonearou00slocuoft

    Internet Archive, scanned from Robarts Library, University of Toronto

    https://archive.org/details/sailingalonearou00slocuoftread 2026-07-28

    No rights or licence statement is recorded on this item, and that absence is stated here as exactly that. The item metadata carries only a copyright status, quoted verbatim: "NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT", with the evidence field reading "Evidence reported by lajolla for item sailingalonearou00slocuoft on June 25, 2007: visible notice of copyright; stated date is 1900."

  3. [A3]Class A

    Joshua Slocum, Voyage of the Liberdade, Robinson and Stephenson, 1890, item voyageliberdade00slocgoog

    Internet Archive, digitized by Google from the Harvard University library

    https://archive.org/details/voyageliberdade00slocgoogread 2026-07-28

    No rights or licence statement is recorded on this item, and that absence is stated here as exactly that. The item metadata carries only a copyright status, quoted verbatim: "NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT", with the description reading "Book digitized by Google from the library of Harvard University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb."

  4. [A4]Class A

    The Spray will Come Back: Solo Circumnavigator Joshua Slocum, exhibition, Braitmayer Family Gallery

    New Bedford Whaling Museum

    https://www.whalingmuseum.org/exhibition/the-spray-will-come-back/read 2026-07-28

    The page carries no reuse licence, and that absence is stated here as exactly that. The only rights text on it is the footer notice, quoted verbatim: "2026 New Bedford Whaling Museum", preceded by a copyright symbol.

  5. [A5]Class A

    CAPT. SLOCUM LONG ABSENT. Wife Gives Up Navigator As Lost With Sloop Spray, in Daily Kennebec Journal (Augusta, Maine), July 26, 1910, page 7, digitized by the Maine State Library

    Library of Congress, Serial and Government Publications Division, Chronicling America

    https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82014248/1910-07-26/ed-1/?sp=7read 2026-07-28

    Quoted verbatim from the item's rights statement: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety."

  6. [A6]Class A

    SAILOR AND SLOOP LOST FOR YEARS. No Word Received from Capt. Slocum Since He Left Port, in The Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram (Richmond, Indiana), June 1, 1911, page 8, digitized by the Indiana State Library

    Library of Congress, Serial and Government Publications Division, Chronicling America

    https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86058226/1911-06-01/ed-1/?sp=8read 2026-07-28

    Quoted verbatim from the item's rights statement: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety."

  7. [A7]Class A

    Slocum, Joshua, 1844-1909, Library of Congress Name Authority File record n79100704, JSON-LD serialization, with the real-world-object node giving birthDate 1844-02-20, deathDate 1909-11 and occupation Sailors

    Library of Congress, Linked Data Service

    https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79100704.jsonread 2026-07-28

    No rights or licence statement is served with this authority record, and that absence is stated here as exactly that. The record carries only cataloguing metadata: record status, content source, and the cited evidence for the heading.

  8. [A8]Class A

    MSS 131: Walter Magnus Teller Papers, 1872-1988, collection finding aid, whose abstract records 3.5 linear feet of research material on the life and voyages of Captain Joshua Slocum (1844-1909)

    New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library

    https://www.whalingmuseum.org/research/research-resources/manuscripts/mss-131/read 2026-07-28

    Quoted verbatim from the finding aid: "Permission to publish, exhibit, perform, reproduce, prepare derivative works from, sell, or otherwise distribute the item must be obtained separately in writing from the holder of the original copyright."

  9. [A9]Class A

    Sailing alone around the world

    Library of Congress

    https://archive.org/details/sailingalonearou00slocread 2026-07-29

    The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright restrictions for this item.

Clearance

How this record was cleared

Every record in the Hall passes the same gate stack before a page is compiled, and the result is published rather than merely filed.

Died
1909
Public domain basis
Every quotation on this page comes from one of four public-domain artifacts. Sailing Alone Around the World was published in New York in 1900 and Voyage of the Liberdade in 1890; the Internet Archive scans of both record the copyright status NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT, and the 1900 text is served by Project Gutenberg under its own licence. The two newspaper pages quoted are Chronicling America pages of 1910 and 1911, which the Library of Congress states are in the public domain in their entirety, being more than 95 years old.
Estate and licensing screen
Screened 2026-07-28. No enforcing estate, literary executor, or licensing agent for Joshua Slocum appears on any institution fetched for this record. The New Bedford Whaling Museum routes manuscript permissions to the holder of the original copyright in each item rather than to any Slocum estate, and names no such holder for Slocum's own writing. No permission was sought or needed, because nothing quoted here is under copyright.
Trademark screen
Screened 2026-07-28. No live United States trademark registration on the name was found from any source reachable in this session; the USPTO trademark search endpoints returned no usable result, which is recorded as a gap in the screen rather than as a clean result. The Joshua Slocum Society International publishes at joshuaslocumsocietyintl.org and asserts copyright in its own site content for 2026, with no trademark symbol beside the name and no claim to rights in the name Joshua Slocum anywhere on the page fetched, so no collision is recorded and no no-affiliation line is rendered.
Dignity screen
The loss of the Spray is a fact of this record, placed in its dated row and stated once in the standing description, never used as the hook and never dramatized. No theory of how he died is entertained; the beliefs his family and the New Bedford mariners held in 1910 and 1911 are filed as their beliefs, with their dates. The wreck of the Aquidneck appears only as the origin of the Liberdade voyage, and his first wife is not made an anecdote. The joke about the gift of the Spray is quoted from his own book, where he is the one telling it.
Gate stack run
2026-07-28

The machine record

The structured representation this page is built from, printed field by field.

Every row below is a field of this figure's module, printed with its value and the citation key that settles it. Nothing here is summarised or inferred. It is shown as text for a reader: this page emits no machine-readable metadata, and it is excluded from the sitemap, from llms.txt, and from search indexes.

identity

slugjoshua-slocum
handlejoshua-slocum
nameJoshua Slocum
disciplineThe sea
entered2026-07-28
accent#16495E

claims

labelA deep-water sailing master whose trade steam had ended, handed a derelict sloop propped up in a field. [A1]
turnSlocum rebuilt the derelict by hand and sailed her out of East Boston alone on April 24, 1895. He anchored at Newport at one in the morning on June 27, 1898, having done it without crew. [A4]
lifespan1844 to 1909 [A7]
statementThe record of Joshua Slocum, master mariner, born in Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, in 1844, whose entry in the Library of Congress name authority gives his death as November 1909 and his occupation in a single word: sailors. [A7]

story[7]

story[0]Slocum went to sea as a boy, came up through the forecastle rather than the cabin, commanded the ship Northern Light in the eighteen eighties as part owner, and had been nearly twenty years a shipmaster when the bark Aquidneck was wrecked on the coast of Brazil; the passage home to New York was made in a canoe he built from her wreckage, the Liberdade. [A1]
story[1]One midwinter day of 1892 he was out of a command in Boston, in a trade steam had closed behind him: "Nearly all our tall vessels had been cut down for coal-barges, and were being ignominiously towed by the nose from port to port, while many worthy captains addressed themselves to Sailors' Snug Harbor." An old whaling-captain then offered him a ship at Fairhaven, and the offer turned out to be a joke: "The next day I landed at Fairhaven, opposite New Bedford, and found that my friend had something of a joke on me. For seven years the joke had been on him." [A1]
story[2]The ship was the sloop Spray, propped in a field under canvas at the end of her natural life, a vessel that "tradition said, had first served as an oysterman, about a hundred years ago, on the coast of Delaware," and of whose building there was no record in the custom-house. [A1]
story[3]He felled a stout oak near by for a keel, steamed saplings into ribs, and rebuilt her timber by timber and plank by plank, at a cost of five hundred fifty three dollars and sixty two cents in materials and thirteen months of his own labor. [A1]
story[4]The New Bedford Whaling Museum records the voyage as a thirty eight month circumnavigation, begun when Slocum cast off his dock lines in East Boston on April 24, 1895 and ended when he ghosted into Newport, Rhode Island at one in the morning on June 27, 1898. [A4]
story[5]His own closing account of the arrival reads: "At last she reached port in safety, and there at 1 a.m. on June 27, 1898, cast anchor, after the cruise of more than forty-six thousand miles round the world, during an absence of three years and two months, with two days over for coming up." [A1]
story[6]He sailed alone from Vineyard Haven for the West Indies and was not heard from again; a New Bedford dispatch of July 26, 1910 reported that the Spray had last been seen by a passing steamship, which described her as making heavy weather, and that his wife had given him up as lost. [A5]

schedule[7]

schedule[0] [A1]

span1892 to 1895
titleThe Spray rebuilt at Fairhaven
detailCaptain Eben Pierce presented the derelict sloop at Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Rebuilt over thirteen months of labor for five hundred fifty three dollars and sixty two cents in materials, with twelve inches added to the freeboard amidships, eighteen forward and fourteen aft.

schedule[1] [A1]

spanApril 24, 1895
titleDeparture from Boston
detailAnchor weighed at noon with a fair wind, sailing from Boston where the sloop had been moored all winter. A photographer on the outer pier at East Boston recorded her going.

schedule[2] [A1]

spanJune 4, 1898
titleThe single-handed license returned for the last time
detailThe Spray cleared from the United States consulate and "her license to sail single-handed, even round the world, was returned to her for the last time." The document is recorded as lodged thereafter in the Treasury Department at Washington.

schedule[3] [A4]

spanJune 27, 1898
titleNewport, Rhode Island
detailAnchored at one in the morning, closing a thirty eight month circumnavigation, the first solo voyage around the world as the New Bedford Whaling Museum files it.

schedule[4] [A7]

span1900
titleSailing Alone Around the World published
detailIssued in New York by the Century Co. The Library of Congress name authority for Slocum cites the 1900 book as evidence for his heading.

schedule[5] [A7]

spanNovember 1909
titleSailed from Vineyard Haven and did not return
detailThe Library of Congress name authority records the death date as November 1909 and states nothing further. The record follows it and stops there.

schedule[6] [A6]

spanJune 1, 1911
titleGiven up by the mariners of New Bedford and Martha's Vineyard
detailA New Bedford dispatch reported that "although the Blue Book of the United States government has not yet taken the sloop Spray from its records of American vessels, there seems to be but little doubt in the minds of the mariners of New Bedford and Martha's Vineyard" that vessel and skipper were lost.

figures[5]

figures[0] [A1]

label0
detailCrew. The paper the United States consulate handed back on June 4, 1898 was a license to sail single-handed, even round the world.

figures[1] [A1]

label46,000+ miles
detailSailed round the world. His own closing chapter reckons the cruise at "more than forty-six thousand miles."

figures[2] [A1]

label3 years, 2 months
detailAlone at sea between the Boston anchorage and the Newport one, with two days over for coming up.

figures[3] [A1]

label36 ft 9 in
detailThe Spray's length over all: fourteen feet two inches wide, four feet two inches deep in the hold, nine tons net and twelve and seventy-one hundredths tons gross.

figures[4] [A1]

label$553.62
detailMaterials for the rebuild, against thirteen months of the rebuilder's own labor.

works[3]

works[0] [A2]

titleSailing Alone Around the World
year1900
noteThe account of the voyage, written in the first person and published in New York by the Century Co. The Century Co. edition digitized from the Robarts Library at the University of Toronto carries copyright evidence recorded by the Internet Archive as a visible notice of copyright with a stated date of 1900.
urlhttps://archive.org/details/sailingalonearou00slocuoft

works[1] [A3]

titleVoyage of the Liberdade
year1890
noteThe earlier narrative: the loss of the bark Aquidneck on the coast of Brazil and the passage home with his family in a canoe built from her wreckage. The 1890 Robinson and Stephenson printing digitized from the Harvard University library.
urlhttps://archive.org/details/voyageliberdade00slocgoog

works[2] [A1]

titleThe sloop Spray
year1892 to 1895
noteAn object of record rather than a text. Rebuilt timber by timber from a derelict said to have served as an oysterman on the coast of Delaware, with no record of her building in the custom-house; her lines, dimensions and cabin plans are printed in the appendix of the 1900 book.
urlhttps://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6317/pg6317.txt

answers[5]

answers[0] [A4]

qWhat is Joshua Slocum on record for?
aSailing around the world alone in a rebuilt sloop: out of East Boston on April 24, 1895, into Newport, Rhode Island at one in the morning on June 27, 1898, a thirty eight month circumnavigation the New Bedford Whaling Museum files as the first solo voyage around the world.

answers[1] [A1]

qWhere did the Spray come from?
aCaptain Eben Pierce gave her to Slocum at Fairhaven, Massachusetts, at the end of her natural life, propped up in a field under canvas. Tradition held she had served as an oysterman on the coast of Delaware about a hundred years earlier; her lines were supposed to be those of a North Sea fisherman; and the custom-house held no record of where she was built.

answers[2] [A1]

qCould Slocum swim?
aNo, and the book says so in passing rather than as a boast. Laying out an anchor in surf, his dory rolled: "I grasped her gunwale and held on as she turned bottom up, for I suddenly remembered that I could not swim."

answers[3] [A7]

qHow long did the book stay in circulation?
aThe Library of Congress name authority record for Slocum names, as its own evidence, the 1900 book, a 1981 printing of a 1954 edition, and a 2015 edition. Editions of the same narrative are still being catalogued more than a century after the voyage.

answers[4] [A8]

qWhere is the record held, apart from the books?
aThe New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library holds MSS 131, the Walter Magnus Teller Papers, three and a half linear feet of correspondence, documents and photographs gathered while researching the life and voyages of Captain Joshua Slocum, whom the finding aid dates 1844 to 1909.

declines[4]

declines[0] [A1]

mythJoshua Slocum was the first person to sail around the world.
refusalThe record does not support that and does not need it. Crewed circumnavigation predates him by centuries. What the documents establish is the narrower and harder thing: alone.
checkedThe consulate paper described in his own account, cleared on June 4, 1898, is "her license to sail single-handed, even round the world." The claim on the document is single-handed, not first.

declines[1] [A1]

mythThe Spray was an unseaworthy boat, and her design is what killed him.
refusalThe record refuses a settled answer. The model of the Spray was argued over while Slocum was alive, inside his own book, and no document held here closes the argument in either direction.
checkedThe appendix prints the vessel's lines and calls them the dimensions of "such a ship as I should call seaworthy in all conditions of weather and on all seas," then answers the yachtsmen who disagreed: "They have a right to their opinion, while I stick to mine." A live disagreement in 1900 is not a finding now.

declines[2] [A5]

mythThere is an account of how Slocum died.
refusalNot in this record. The last documented fact is that he sailed alone from Vineyard Haven for the West Indies and was not heard from again, and the record stops there rather than choosing among the theories.
checkedThe New Bedford dispatch of July 26, 1910 reports only that the Spray was last seen by a passing steamship, which described her as making heavy weather, and that his wife had given him up as lost. That is filed here as what she believed in 1910, not as a cause of death.

declines[3] [A6]

mythSlocum's age and origins were settled public facts in his own lifetime.
refusalThey were not, and the press of his own time said so plainly. The birth year in this record's heading is a later cataloguing finding, and is filed as one.
checkedThe New Bedford dispatch of June 1, 1911 reported: "He has left no record of the exact year he was born, but his wife says that he would be about sixty-six years old if living today. He was born in Nova Scotia, in a township overlooking the Bay of Fundy." The 1900 narrative likewise gives only a cold February 20, with no year attached.

sources[9]

sources.A1 [A1]

clsA
institutionProject Gutenberg
titleJoshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), digitized plain-text edition, eBook number 6317, illustrated by Thomas Fogarty and George Varian
urlhttps://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6317/pg6317.txt
accessed2026-07-28
rightsQuoted verbatim from the edition header: "This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org."

sources.A2 [A2]

clsA
institutionInternet Archive, scanned from Robarts Library, University of Toronto
titleSailing alone around the world. Illustrated by Thomas Forgarty and George Varian. Pan-American ed., New York: Century Co., item sailingalonearou00slocuoft
urlhttps://archive.org/details/sailingalonearou00slocuoft
accessed2026-07-28
rightsNo rights or licence statement is recorded on this item, and that absence is stated here as exactly that. The item metadata carries only a copyright status, quoted verbatim: "NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT", with the evidence field reading "Evidence reported by lajolla for item sailingalonearou00slocuoft on June 25, 2007: visible notice of copyright; stated date is 1900."

sources.A3 [A3]

clsA
institutionInternet Archive, digitized by Google from the Harvard University library
titleJoshua Slocum, Voyage of the Liberdade, Robinson and Stephenson, 1890, item voyageliberdade00slocgoog
urlhttps://archive.org/details/voyageliberdade00slocgoog
accessed2026-07-28
rightsNo rights or licence statement is recorded on this item, and that absence is stated here as exactly that. The item metadata carries only a copyright status, quoted verbatim: "NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT", with the description reading "Book digitized by Google from the library of Harvard University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb."

sources.A4 [A4]

clsA
institutionNew Bedford Whaling Museum
titleThe Spray will Come Back: Solo Circumnavigator Joshua Slocum, exhibition, Braitmayer Family Gallery
urlhttps://www.whalingmuseum.org/exhibition/the-spray-will-come-back/
accessed2026-07-28
rightsThe page carries no reuse licence, and that absence is stated here as exactly that. The only rights text on it is the footer notice, quoted verbatim: "2026 New Bedford Whaling Museum", preceded by a copyright symbol.

sources.A5 [A5]

clsA
institutionLibrary of Congress, Serial and Government Publications Division, Chronicling America
titleCAPT. SLOCUM LONG ABSENT. Wife Gives Up Navigator As Lost With Sloop Spray, in Daily Kennebec Journal (Augusta, Maine), July 26, 1910, page 7, digitized by the Maine State Library
urlhttps://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82014248/1910-07-26/ed-1/?sp=7
accessed2026-07-28
rightsQuoted verbatim from the item's rights statement: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety."

sources.A6 [A6]

clsA
institutionLibrary of Congress, Serial and Government Publications Division, Chronicling America
titleSAILOR AND SLOOP LOST FOR YEARS. No Word Received from Capt. Slocum Since He Left Port, in The Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram (Richmond, Indiana), June 1, 1911, page 8, digitized by the Indiana State Library
urlhttps://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86058226/1911-06-01/ed-1/?sp=8
accessed2026-07-28
rightsQuoted verbatim from the item's rights statement: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety."

sources.A7 [A7]

clsA
institutionLibrary of Congress, Linked Data Service
titleSlocum, Joshua, 1844-1909, Library of Congress Name Authority File record n79100704, JSON-LD serialization, with the real-world-object node giving birthDate 1844-02-20, deathDate 1909-11 and occupation Sailors
urlhttps://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79100704.json
accessed2026-07-28
rightsNo rights or licence statement is served with this authority record, and that absence is stated here as exactly that. The record carries only cataloguing metadata: record status, content source, and the cited evidence for the heading.

sources.A8 [A8]

clsA
institutionNew Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library
titleMSS 131: Walter Magnus Teller Papers, 1872-1988, collection finding aid, whose abstract records 3.5 linear feet of research material on the life and voyages of Captain Joshua Slocum (1844-1909)
urlhttps://www.whalingmuseum.org/research/research-resources/manuscripts/mss-131/
accessed2026-07-28
rightsQuoted verbatim from the finding aid: "Permission to publish, exhibit, perform, reproduce, prepare derivative works from, sell, or otherwise distribute the item must be obtained separately in writing from the holder of the original copyright."

sources.A9 [A9]

clsA
institutionLibrary of Congress
titleSailing alone around the world
urlhttps://archive.org/details/sailingalonearou00sloc
accessed2026-07-29
rightsThe Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright restrictions for this item.

clearance

died1909
diedSrcA7
pdBasisEvery quotation on this page comes from one of four public-domain artifacts. Sailing Alone Around the World was published in New York in 1900 and Voyage of the Liberdade in 1890; the Internet Archive scans of both record the copyright status NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT, and the 1900 text is served by Project Gutenberg under its own licence. The two newspaper pages quoted are Chronicling America pages of 1910 and 1911, which the Library of Congress states are in the public domain in their entirety, being more than 95 years old.
estateScreened 2026-07-28. No enforcing estate, literary executor, or licensing agent for Joshua Slocum appears on any institution fetched for this record. The New Bedford Whaling Museum routes manuscript permissions to the holder of the original copyright in each item rather than to any Slocum estate, and names no such holder for Slocum's own writing. No permission was sought or needed, because nothing quoted here is under copyright.
trademarkScreened 2026-07-28. No live United States trademark registration on the name was found from any source reachable in this session; the USPTO trademark search endpoints returned no usable result, which is recorded as a gap in the screen rather than as a clean result. The Joshua Slocum Society International publishes at joshuaslocumsocietyintl.org and asserts copyright in its own site content for 2026, with no trademark symbol beside the name and no claim to rights in the name Joshua Slocum anywhere on the page fetched, so no collision is recorded and no no-affiliation line is rendered.
dignityThe loss of the Spray is a fact of this record, placed in its dated row and stated once in the standing description, never used as the hook and never dramatized. No theory of how he died is entertained; the beliefs his family and the New Bedford mariners held in 1910 and 1911 are filed as their beliefs, with their dates. The wreck of the Aquidneck appears only as the origin of the Liberdade voyage, and his first wife is not made an anecdote. The joke about the gift of the Spray is quoted from his own book, where he is the one telling it.
checkedAt2026-07-28

HISTORICAL RECORD · A DEMONSTRATION

A demonstration record, compiled from public archives. Every line on this page carries its source. Joshua Slocum did not write it; the institutions cited here did.

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