These abstracts were compiled from Colonial Office records and High Court Admiralty papers in the Public Records Office in London. They were prepared in 1931-1935 under the sponsorship of the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts, with the cooperation of the Henry E. Huntington Library, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the University of Chicago, the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois, and Columbia University. The collection is available both in original paper form and on microfilm.
The abstracts are in five parts and include an entry for each ship entering or leaving the ports at Boston and Salem, 1686-1688 and 1714-1765, and the ports at Newbury and York, 1762-1763. The entries in Part I and half of Part II are typescript narratives, including a description of the abstracted record and a paragraph for each ship. The rest of the abstracts are handwritten in tabular form, apparently on worksheets completed by the compilers in the 1930s. Information about each ship includes the date entered into the record; name of vessel; type of rigging; master's name; number of tons, of guns, and of men; where and when the ship was built; where and when registered; owner's name; cargo (subdivided by type); for what place (destination) or from what place she sailed; and where and when bond was given. Parts I (1686-1717), II (1714-1756), and III (1752-1763) are loose sheets. Parts IV (1756-1765) and V (1760-1761) are in two large volumes, Part IV in the first one-and-one-half volumes and Part V in the last half of the second volume. The pages are numbered consecutively through the five parts, pages 1 to 1480.
The collection also includes two volumes of indexes. One volume contains the indexes to Parts I and II; the other has indexes to Parts III, IV, and V. Each part has separate indexes to exports and imports (or cargoes), masters and owners, ports, and names of vessels. The indexes to vessels include the name, rigging, where built, where registered, tonnage, and date (year). All indexes refer to the page of the abstract. Also included is an index by each quarter-year, compiled by Peter R. Barry in 1959 as an additional aid to the use of the collection. The page numbers are recorded on a line for each quarter under columns for Boston-Inward, Boston-Outward, Salem-Inward, and Salem-Outward; the pages for Newbury and York are also recorded.
