This is the memoir written by Captain Bethuel G. Handy of Cotuit, Massachusetts as transcribed by his descendant James G. Russell in February 2020. Russell notes he found the document “which in an envelope mailed in February 1951 from Marion C. Smith to her brother Clarence Gifford Smith (my grandfather). I am sure Marion typed the 1951 version since she typed a number of other historical documents. I have fixed a few obvious typos, but otherwise left the text as previously transcribed. The original would have been written sometime prior to Bethuel’s death in 1903, so he is describing his memory of events from about 50 years earlier.”
This was a vital source for my book, THE LOST WHALERS: Shipwreck and Survival on Siberia’s Sea of Okhotsk, to be published by Pegasus Books in the fall of 2027.