Melville mention in 1878 letter from China by Francis Morgan Barber

Found on Newspaperarchive.com

From the "Letter from China" signed Frank M. Barber, written on July 29, 1878 from Amoy [Xiamen] aboard the U. S. Steamer Alert, and published in the Sandusky Daily Register on September 16, 1878:

In our mess for instance, we have three standing conundrums which we always ask any European who has lived in the country and appears to know anything. These are--
What is Fung-shue? What are Pagodas for? and what is the signification of the Tree Dragon and the White Tiger that one always sees in Joss houses, and frequently in other places? Fung-shue is to me something like what Herman Melville calls "Taboo" or in Typee and Emor, but that is all we have been able to find out.  The others are equally unanswerable.

As printed in the Ohio newspaper, "Emor" looks like a typo for Omoo. Then Lieutenant Commander Francis Morgan Barber was born in Ohio, which would explain why the letter home, addressed "Dear Father," found its way into the Sandusky Register.



In 1875 Barber delivered a pioneering lecture on submarines that included the first published illustration of the American Turtle. In 1889 he commanded the Monocacy on another cruise to China.

via NavSource Online

In 1900 Commander Barber published The Mechanical Triumphs of the Ancient Egyptians. As naval attache in Europe, Barber later tangled with Marconi over control of wireless radio technology, as discussed by Susan J. Douglas in The Navy Adopts the Radio, 1899-1919, chapter 3 in Military Enterprise and Technological Change, ed. Merritt Roe Smith (M. I. T. Press, 1985).
Retired Rear Admiral William Wirt Kimball surveyed Commander Barber's professional accomplishments  and character in the Army-Navy-Air Force Register and Defense Times:

"Barber's wide reading and deep learning did not, as is often the case, prevent him from obtaining wisdom and knowledge or from retaining well-balanced judgment and common sense. He was always alive to the application of the principles of the algebraic sum to men and affairs, and he was blessed by the possession of a keen sense of humor. He was a gentleman in the highest sense of the term, a most delightful companion, the most sympathetic, helpful and faithful of friends and the truest of shipmates."

According to the New York Times (January 30, 1922), Barber committed suicide after learning of the death of a close friend in the tragic collapse of the Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington, D. C.
Later reports (New York Evening World, January 30, 1922) identified the friend as Baron Roman Rosen, the former Russian ambassador. Baron Rosen had in fact died recently--on New Year's Eve, in New York City, following a traffic accident there. In his memoir of Barber, Admiral Kimball implicitly tempered the more sensational newspaper reports by attributing a serious change in Barber's physical and emotional health to the effects of an accidental fall at the University Club in New York, months before.

Fragments from a Writing Desk: 1912 Report of a Conversation Melville had with C....

Hershel Parker's fine find (linked below) is another printing of the 1912 article by E. J. Edwards which circulated under different headings in different newspapers. The Raleigh News and Observer (February 8, 1912) published it under the heading, "The Classic that Inspired a Famous Romance." George Monteiro in Resources for American Literary Study Volume 33 (2008; AMS Press, 2010) cites the same article from the Columbia, South Carolina newspaper The State, published there as "Dana's Book and 'Typee,'" also on February 8, 1912. Professor Monteiro's large 2008 inventory of Fugitive References only excerpts the first paragraph, without mentioning Briggs or anything of  Briggs's Melville anecdote as reported by Edwards.

Fragments from a Writing Desk: 1912 Report of a Conversation Melville had with C....: There is plenty of evidence that young EJE knew CFB well. presumably in the early or mid 1870s. So the story could be true, in substance,...

Found on Newspapers.com

Related post:

• Parke Godwin on Melville and Typee

"The Kennebecker" identified!

Sketches of nautical adventure in the Boston Journal reveal "The Kennebecker" as a friend and former shipmate of Thomas Melville, Herman's youngest brother.

Citing materials at the Maine Historical Society, Worldcat identifies the journalist "Kennebecker" as
John H. Drew (1834-1890)

Ship captain and later correspondent of the Boston Journal; b. in Chelsea, Me.; d. in Farmingdale, Me.; lived in Hallowell and Gardiner and commanded many of the ships sailing from Boston, including the Fearless, Sea Witch, and Franklin. One of the series he wrote for the Boston Journal was "The Cruise of the Sea Witch." 

Scrapbook of newspaper clippings pasted over a Portland & Rumford Falls Railway train orders book, chiefly consisting of letters (1890) by John H. Drew, the "Kennebecker" correspondent of the Boston Journal. Also includes "A tribute from his native place" (1890) and "Notes" (1924). Compiler is unknown.  (Worldcat)

As noted previously here, The Kennebecker also wrote for the Boston Journal about cruises of The Reward and The Pathfinder.

Herman's brother Tom Melville remembered as "the rollicking, dare-devil sort"

Next in the list came Capt. Thomas Melville, Governor of the Sailors’ Snug Harbor at Staten Island. We met as mates of Boston Indiamen in the far East. I have mentioned him in earlier letters. He was one of the rollicking, dare-devil sort in his youth, and you could not help admiring him. He afterward commanded the Boston ships Meteor and Bengal. Then he settled down as staid Governor of the Snug Harbor, a glorious institution. He was the youngest brother of Herman Melville, the author who dedicated his fascinating book, “Redburn,” to him, then a young sailor on board the Celestial en voyage for China.

-- "Cruise of the Ship Pathfinder / Home from the Land of the Rising Sun," Number 28, by"The Kennebecker," Boston Journal, December 27, 1887; accessible at genealogybank.com

This "Kennebecker" mentioned Herman and Thomas Melville in previous series for the Boston Journal, "From the Pine to the Palm, or the Cruise of the Reward." Herman Melville is mentioned in the June 9, 1881 and February 10, 1882 issues of the Boston Journal; the May 27, 1882 number involves Thomas Melville in a long yarn titled "The Chief Mate's Story."
For updates see Tom Melville Yarn and Kennebecker identified!