| Summary: | There are 52 letters total in the collection spanning from 1862-1874. The bulk of the letters are written by Hiram most of which are to his father, mother Mary Sparks. However, there are a couple to another member of the Sparks family and a few other friends. Six are letters written to Hiram from his friends and the collection also includes 12 handwritten and printed reports on the construction of the gunboat Tacony. Hiram’s letters are very detailed (some of his letters are over a dozen pages), and he wrote to people very often even adding on to some letters after he originally finished writing them. Many of the letters still have their original envelopes with them. During his Civil War service Hiram recounts rebel activity in North Carolina including the evacuation and burning of Washington, NC by the Union soldiers in April 1864 after Confederate forces attacked, however most of his letters are post war and he goes into detail of his travels with the South Pacific Squadron on the South American coast. He gives accounts of life on the boats, the cities he visits (including Rio de Janerio, Brazil; the Falkland Islands; Valparaiso, Chile; and Montevideo, Uruguay), and observations on the culture, among other things the Russian Grand Duke Alexei arriving in Brazil with his fleet in 1872, the Patagonian Indians, and a Chilean Penal Settlement. There is also a printed broadside with the services, including ship maintenance and supplies such as food, at Stanley Harbor in the Falkland Islands and a hand drawn floor plan of part of a ship with a manuscript note on the back. Hiram Parker, Jr. was born on October 4, 1841 in Pottsville, PA, where he was educated until he took an apprenticeship as a machinist for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad shops. In 1861, he enlisted in the Navy as an assistant engineer. For a year, he was assigned to the West Gulf Squadron on the gunboat Kanawha then reassigned to the North Atlantic Squadron on the gunboat Louisiana. He completed his Civil War service on the gunboat Tacony, ...
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