Collection Highlights Case: The Voyage of the Schooner Smuggler
September 3 – September 28, 2025
CAM Green Campus
13 Poplar Street, Gloucester, MA
As a companion display to Down to the Sea: The Photographs of Ernest L. Blatchford, this small collections highlight showcased an account book kept by the Gloucester fishing firm David B. Smith & Co. at the turn of the 20th century. The book was open to a page summarizing a 1906 trip of the schooner Smuggler—one of over 20 vessels owned by the firm—tracking the distribution of fish and funds at the end of the voyage. Account books like this one played an important role in the fishery business during Blatchford’s time, and allow modern audiences to better understand the financial realities of fishing in the age of sail.
Image Credit: Detail of an account book kept by the fishing firm David B. Smith & Co., 1904-1907. Collection of the Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, MA. Gift of Walter O. Davis, 1970 (2007).