A Seafaring Life: Ship journals of a clipper captain in the aftermath of the California Gold Rush
By Captain George C. Cumming
Edited with commentary by Rosalind Charney Kaye

 
Captain George C. Cumming was 54 when he began writing ship journals and letters to 18-year-old Emma Bray.  Seven years later, in 1884, Emma married Alfred Cohen and the couple moved into their new home—the Cohen Bray House—taking the captain’s papers with them. Tucked away and cherished for nearly 150 years, they’re presented here for the first time.   
 
Written when Cumming commanded two famous clipper ships, the record-breaking Young America, and the legendary Three Brothers ("the largest sailing ship in the world”), the manuscripts are engagingly personal and peppered with humor. 
 
With his intrepid wife always on board, the Scotsman wrote of his feelings towards Emma, his longing for a home of his own, his disdain for the shipowner and even greater disdain for England, as well as his experiences with ferocious storms, violent sailors, an arrogant passenger he agreed to take along,  his visit to Pitcairn Island, and his capture by a Confederate raider ship during the Civil War. 
 
Historical notes and over 100 illustrations and maps set his writings within the broader context of post-Gold Rush wealth, where merchants enjoyed their new prosperity, and Fruitvale thrived as an enclave of grand country estates.