Quint Books LLC

Mediterranean Bound, Letters by Moses S. Beach

As mentioned in other posts, Mark Twain was not the only correspondent writing articles from the Quaker City (see Twain’s articles here). While Twain’s 50+ letters to the Daily Alta California formed the foundation of his book The Innocents Abroad, many other passengers were also writing to newspapers across the United States. The person who wrote the most letters to their paper, after Twain, was Moses S. Beach. Beach was the owner of the New York Sun, and he wrote thirty-seven letters to the newspaper during the trip.

Beach titled his series of letters Mediterranean Bound, and he published the first two on June 10, 1867, two days after the Quaker City left the pier in New York. The reason there were two was that the Quaker City anchored itself in the harbor to wait out a major storm. While they were waiting, Beach left the ship on a boat, and even attended a sermon by his preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, before returning to the ship. While in the city he delivered his second letter, which was published on page 4 of his paper the next day, along with his original letter from the day before which was published on page 2.

Below is a list of the letters he sent, including the locations they were sent from, the dates they were written, and the day they were published. The publication date is a link to open a clipping of the actual newspaper article. Note that the letters were not published in order, presumably due to delays in the mail from different locations. For example, you can see that letters 7-9 were written before letters 5-6, letters 24-25 were written before letter 23, and letters 33-27 were all written before letter 29.

NewspaperTitleLocationWrittenPublished
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 1New York, NY1867-06-081867-06-10
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 2New York, NY1867-06-091867-06-10
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 3At Sea1867-06-151867-07-18
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 4At Sea1867-06-171867-07-19
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 5Spain1867-07-011867-07-25
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 6Spain1867-07-011867-07-26
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 7Fayal, Azores1867-06-211867-07-29
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 8At Sea1867-06-241867-07-31
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 9At Sea1867-06-251867-08-02
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 10Loja, Spain1867-07-041867-08-08
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 11Madrid1867-07-091867-08-12
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 12Madrid1867-07-091867-08-13
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 13Paris1867-07-121867-08-14
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 14Gornergrat1867-07-201867-08-16
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 15Riffelberg1867-07-201867-08-20
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 16Mediterranean Sea1867-08-151867-09-16
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 17Bosphorus1867-08-171867-09-18
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 18Constantinople1867-08-181867-09-19
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 19Constantinople1867-08-261867-09-23
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 20Beirut, Syria1867-09-141867-11-05
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 21At Sea, Off Beirut1867-09-161867-11-08
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 22Jaffa1867-09-301867-11-09
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 23Jaffa1867-09-301867-11-11
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 24Shechem1867-09-211867-11-14
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 25Jerusalem1867-09-251867-11-15
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 26Jaffa1867-09-301867-11-16
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 27Cairo, Egypt1867-10-031867-11-18
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 28Alexandria, Egypt1867-10-051867-11-19
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 29Gibraltar1867-10-191867-11-20
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 30At Sea1867-11-091867-11-20
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 31St. Georges, Bermuda1867-11-111867-11-21
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 32Sun Office1867-11-211867-11-22
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 33At Sea1867-10-261867-11-23
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 34At Sea1867-11-031867-11-25
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 35Gibraltar1867-10-211867-11-26
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 36Gibraltar1867-10-211867-11-27
New York SunMediterranean Bound, No. 37Gibraltar1867-10-221867-11-28

List of publication dates came from “Appendix D: Itinerary of the Quaker City Excursion”. Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 2, 1867–1868. Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith, Richard Bucci, and Lin Salamo. University of California Press, 1990. The letters were then located in an online newspaper archive, the additional details added, the digital clippings created, and links added to them.

Posted

in

,

by

philip

Tags:

, ,

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *