Manchester lost at sea list, 1895 town history

A line-by-line transcription of the list of Manchester people lost at sea printed in D. F. Lamson's 1895 History of the Town of Manchester, with the printed page for every entry.

Type: Dataset (downloadable files)
Towns: Manchester-by-the-Sea
Topics: History, Maritime, Remembrance
Geographic coverage: Manchester-by-the-Sea (as listed by the town history; residence is not stated for each person)
Time coverage: Entries dated 1717 to 1890s as printed
Version: Data release 1.0.0
Last released: 2026-10-05
Expected updates: Fixed historical source; corrected when an error is found
Rights: Public domain source (1895). Our transcription is offered under our Free Access and Attribution Policy.
Policy: Cape Ann Current Free Access and Attribution Policy, version 1.0

Preview of the data

First 8 rows of the entries table (131 rows in all), first 6 columns.

Sample rows
entry_id	year	date_as_printed	date_precision	name_as_printed
MBTS-0001	1717	1717	year	John Peirce
MBTS-0002	1719	1719	year	Ezekiel Knowlton
MBTS-0003	1748	1748	year	Benjamin Allen
MBTS-0004	1748	1748	year	William Hassam
MBTS-0005		1749 or 1750	range	Benjamin Hassam
MBTS-0006		1749 or 1750	range	William Lee
MBTS-0007		1749 or 1750	range	Isaac Presson
MBTS-0008	1752	1752	year	Ezekiel Allen

Download

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JSON (everything)CSV files (ZIP with notes)Excel workbook README (methods and fields)NOTICE (credit and source rules)Schema Changelog

Single CSV tables

entries.csv (131 rows)
sources.csv (1 rows)

Each CSV is plain UTF-8 with one header row. Missing values are empty cells. Read README.txt for the fields and NOTICE.txt for credit and source rules; both are in the ZIP.

Stable addresses

Always the newest release: https://capeanncurrent.com/datasets/manchester-lost-at-sea-1895/latest/manchester-lost-at-sea-1895.json
Fixed version 1.0.0: https://capeanncurrent.com/datasets/manchester-lost-at-sea-1895/1.0.0/manchester-lost-at-sea-1895.json

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Source: Cape Ann Current. Link: https://capeanncurrent.com/data-tools/manchester-lost-at-sea-1895/

If you change it: Adapted from Cape Ann Current. Changes made by [organization name].

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Methodology

Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of the 1895 book, printed pages 359 to 361, and checked against the page images. Each line keeps the name, date and note exactly as printed. Two group entries (five others; ten others) are kept as printed and count more than one person. Corrections are logged with the original transcription.

Definitions

people represented: How many people the printed line stands for; 1 for a single name.
note: A note printed with the entry, or a transcriber's caveat about it (for example a repeated name). Corrections are listed in correction_note.
date precision: year, range (for example 1749 or 1750) or unknown, as printed.

Limitations

An entry is a line in an 1895 book, not a verified death record. Individual entries are not independently corroborated.
The list does not give residence, age or full crews, and the author warned it was incomplete.
The number of entries is not the number of unique people; a few names repeat.

Sources and their rules

External sources. This resource includes data from external sources. Reusers must comply with all applicable source licenses, terms of use, policies, attribution requirements, and redistribution restrictions. Cape Ann Current's reuse policy does not override those requirements or grant rights held by others.

Our policy and each source's own conditions both apply. Where they differ, the source's conditions govern the source's material. Underlying facts are not owned by anyone; we never claim them.

Sources, rights and required credits
Source	Rights and terms	Required source credit	Not covered by our policy	Retrieved / rights reviewed
History of the Town of Manchester, Essex County, Massachusetts, 1645-1895 D. F. Lamson (Manchester: published by the town, 1895); digitized by the Internet Archive	public domain Published 1895; public domain in the United States. Source terms	D. F. Lamson, History of the Town of Manchester (1895), via the Internet Archive	Nothing restricted; we do not claim the Internet Archive scan as ours.	2026-10-04 2026-10-05

Restricted components

None.

Rights and reuse

Public domain source (1895). Our transcription is offered under our Free Access and Attribution Policy.

Free under our Free Access and Attribution Policy for websites, businesses, news organizations, government agencies, schools, libraries and nonprofits whose website or publication does not run a paywall for news or informational content. School systems that require logins for student privacy qualify.

Report a correction

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