An important autograph letter signed by Nathaniel Kinsman (1798–1847), the Salem merchant mariner and later China trader, written aboard the ship Zenobia during an Atlantic crossing between July 3 and July 16, 1839. Addressed to his wife, Rebecca Chase Kinsman, the four-page manuscript retains its original address panel and is accompanied by a framed mid-twentieth-century hand-tinted photographic reproduction of the Fanny of Salem, the vessel commanded by Captain Kinsman after the celebrated marine painting by Michel Felice Corné.

Opening, “On board Ship Zenobia at Sea, Lat. 26° N., Long. 44° W., July 3rd, 1839,” the letter serves as both a voyage journal and an intimate family correspondence. Kinsman recounts the Zenobia’s slow progress through light winds, encounters with passing vessels, the difficulty of forwarding mail across the Atlantic, and the improvement of his health at sea. More compelling are the deeply personal passages in which he describes discovering a note Rebecca had hidden inside his Bible before his departure and recalls hearing the imagined voices of his children, Willie and young Rebecca. His reflections on home and family reveal the private emotions behind the commercial world of nineteenth-century American maritime trade.

Only four years later, Kinsman entered into partnership with Wetmore & Company and departed with his family for Macao and Canton to establish the firm’s China operations. The correspondence exchanged by Nathaniel and Rebecca in Macao and Canton between 1843 and 1847 is today preserved in the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum, where it forms one of the most significant surviving family archives documenting the American China Trade. Portions of the Kinsman family papers entered the Essex Institute in 1908, with additional business correspondence donated by descendants in 1952. The present manuscript, however, remained in direct family descent and was never included in those institutional gifts, making it a previously unpublished companion to the archive.

Accompanying the manuscript is a hand-tinted photographic reproduction of the Fanny of Salem, inscribed “The Fanny of Salem commanded by Capt. Kinsman.” Produced in the mid-twentieth century after the known watercolor copy by Murdock MacPherson following the original marine painting by Michel Felice Corné, it remained with the family as a visual record of the vessel associated with Nathaniel Kinsman’s early maritime career.

Together, the letter and photograph descended through successive generations of the Kinsman family. Their significance is further reinforced by the family’s well-documented place in American China Trade history. Related Kinsman papers are preserved in the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum, while the companion pair of Lam Qua paintings depicting Nathaniel Kinsman’s residence at Macao were sold at Christie’s London in the Topographical Pictures sale on December 15, 2016, realizing $77,635 (including buyer’s premium), underscoring the enduring historical importance of the Kinsman family’s role in nineteenth-century American commerce with China.

Dimensions: Letter (unfolded): 9.75 x 15.75 in. Photograph: 12.25 x 19 in. Framed: 13 x 19.75 in.

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The letter retains its original folds with scattered toning, handling wear, and minor separations at several fold intersections. Ink remains dark and highly legible throughout. The hand-tinted photograph exhibits light age toning and minor surface wear, housed in an older frame with expected wear consistent with age.