This collection contains four letters written by Henry Colby, a fisherman based in East Gloucester, Massachusetts, to a friend, George McIntosh of Hallowell, Maine. Colby frequently inquired of his family and friends in Maine, and described his life as a fisherman, traveling along the Atlantic Coast and into the Arctic Ocean (October 8, 1869). Though brief, his letters provided several detailed descriptions of his work, including the size of the boats he worked on, his wages as a chief mate, the amount of fish caught and their value, and how the weather affected his journeys. He often apologized for the delay in his letters, as his work frequently kept him at sea for several weeks at a time, and he occasionally provided updates on his personal life, which included a new daughter in the fall of 1869. In 1870, he reported selling his boat to work on the John Fannie R (June 10, 1870).
Henry Colby was born in Maine in December 1835, and left his family in Hallowell to move to East Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he worked as a fisherman and, later, as a house painter. He and his wife, Rosie May, had several children: Edith, Florence, Henry (b. 1874), Lillian, Rinalda (b. 1888), and Laurence (b. 1883). Rosie, born in 1858 and a native of French Canada, worked as a "shoe-stitcher" in 1900.
