A new addition to our digital collection is the Log book of the ship Mirage : a shipboard diary kept by C.E.D. Goff, 1864.
The Mirage was a 718 tonne "magnificent clipper". The ship's log tells the story of its journey from London that began on 6 May 1864.
By page 43 of the log book (p.26 in the digitised log book) they are crossing the Equator - there are antics involving a red, white, and blue pole, a doctor, a bottle, and throwing water on everyone.
And on Monday 5 September 1864
Here we are thank God safe after being out 122 days from docks - only 1 day short of 4 months -
After this trip, the Mirage went to Japan (according to this advert in The Lyttelton Times, 20 October 1864)
Papers Past can be used to track down more about the Mirage and its passengers. On 1 November 1864, James Davis was charged with desertion from the ship and sentenced to 21 weeks hard labour.
Some people who settled here from the Mirage:
Log book of the ship Mirage : a shipboard diary kept by C.E.D. Goff, 1864.
The diary includes biographical information, a passenger list and information about the crew. Charles Edward Davis Goff (also called Davis-Goff) was born in Ireland in 1844. He came out to Canterbury on the Mirage in 1864 at the age of twenty. In 1868 he married Elizabeth Brydon in Marlborough. They lived first in Renwick, then in Picton, where Charles Goff died in 1879, aged thirty-five.
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