Vessel Documents
Updated January 29, 2007
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Laws Regarding Vessel Documentation
- Administration of Laws Regarding Vessel Documentation and Statistics
- Records Description
- Finding Aids and Closely Related Records
- Other Records
- Vessel Documents Available on Microfilm
Certificates of registration, enrollment, and license are collectively known as vessel documents. These certificates were issued by collectors of customs, with one copy collected and maintained by the Treasury Department's Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, and its predecessors. These records are part of the Records of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, Record Group 41.
Laws Regarding Vessel Documentation
Systems for registering and measuring vessels date back to the
English Navigation Laws of Charles II in 1660. These laws required
vessels to be measured and registered to determine their national
character, provide a basis for taxation, and protect against foreign
shipping and shipbuilding. After the American Revolution, several
states adopted the English laws regarding navigation, but there was
no uniformity until the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, in which
Article I, section 8, clause 3, vested in the Federal Government the
exclusive power "[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and
among the several States."
The importance of maritime matters to the new republic is
shown by the attention given to them by the First Congress. Its
third act on July 20, 1789 (1 Stat. 27), imposed a duty on the
tonnage of vessels. An act of September 1, 1789 (1 Stat. 55),
provided for the registering and clearing of vessels and regulation
of coastwise trade. Under this law, only American-built vessels were
permitted to be registered, which had the effect of encouraging the
nascent U.S. shipbuilding industry by reducing foreign competition.
The September 1, 1789, act, as amended by acts of December 31, 1792 (1 Stat. 287); February 18, 1793 (1 Stat. 305); and March 1, 1817 (3 Stat. 35), was the foundation of the navigation laws and marine policy of the United States until 1912, when foreign-built ships were admitted to American registry. An act of June 7, 1918 (40 Stat. 602), extended the registration system by requiring the numbering and recording of every undocumented vessel propelled in whole or in part by machinery, except vessels under 16 feet using outboard motors.
Administration of Laws Regarding Vessel Documentation and Statistics
The early administration of navigation laws was placed under the
control of the Secretary of the Treasury, who delegated their
enforcement to customs officials. On January 22, 1793, supervision
of the issuance and filing of marine documents and the preparation of
navigation and tonnage statistics was turned over to the Office of
the Register of the Treasury, which retained these functions until
1866, except for the short period between March 29 and April 27,
1793.
The preparation of statistics by the Office of the Register
of the Treasury was modified and improved by an act of February 10,
1820 (3 Stat. 541), which also provided for the publication of an
annual volume on statistics and navigation. An act of July 28, 1866
(14 Stat. 31), created a Bureau of Statistics in the Treasury
Department, to which was transferred responsibility for the collection
and publication of statistics and the publication of an annual list
of American merchant vessels. The act also transferred to the Bureau
the duty of assigning official numbers to all documented merchant
vessels of American registry and signal letters to such of these
vessels as were seagoing. The Office of the Register of the
Treasury, however, still retained custody of the surrendered marine
documents and supervised the issuance by collectors of customs of
replacement documents.
The Bureau of Navigation was created by an act of July 5,
1884 (23 Stat. 118), and placed within the Department of the
Treasury. The reason for the Bureau's creation was to consolidate
responsibility for administration of the navigation laws into a
distinct service. (Administration of laws relating to lighthouses,
lifesaving, collection of revenue, and inspection of steam vessels
remained outside the Bureau's jurisdiction.) The Bureau was under
the immediate charge of a Commissioner of Navigation, appointed by
the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. It was
composed of the Register and Tonnage Division of the Office of the
Register of the Treasury; the Internal Revenue and Navigation
Division of the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury; all of the
shipping commissioners' offices; and employees from the Bureau of
Statistics concerned with the numbering of merchant vessels. The
Bureau itself and all jurisdiction over enforcement of the navigation
laws was transferred to the Department of Commerce and Labor by an
act of February 14, 1903 (32 Stat. 826), and to the Department of
Commerce by an act of March 4, 1913 (37 Stat. 736). The secretaries
of the new departments continued to assign to the Bureau the powers of the Secretary of
the Treasury with regard to the administration of navigation laws.
Customs officials were directed by law to act as the Bureau's field service in the enforcement of navigation and inspection laws. Beginning in 1911 appropriation acts authorized the Secretary of Commerce and Labor (the Secretary of Labor after 1913) to employ small vessels and inspectors to enforce motorboat laws and assure that appropriate motorboat numbers had been assigned. Supervision of these vessels and inspectors was assigned to the Bureau.
In accord with the Appropriation Act of June 30, 1932 (47 Stat. 415), the Bureau of Navigation was consolidated in August 1932 with the Steamboat Inspection Service under the title of Bureau of Navigation and Steamboat Inspection, but the records of the two agencies were not integrated until 1935. This bureau was later renamed Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation by an act of May 27, 1936 (49 Stat. 1380).
Certificates of registration, enrollment, or license were known
collectively as vessel documents. They were issued to managing
owners or masters, after proper measurement and proof of place and
date of construction were provided as evidence that vessels of 5-ton
or greater capacity were entitled to rights and privileges of
American-documented vessels. Until 1912, with few exceptions,
American-documented vessels were required to be built in the United
States; even now (2001), only American-built vessels can be
documented to engage in coastwise trade.
Vessels engaged in foreign trade were required to obtain a
certificate of registration. Vessels of 20-tons and greater capacity
in the coastal or fishing trades were required to get enrollments and
licenses while those of 5- to less than 20-tons capacity needed only
licenses. Copies of licenses were renewed yearly and filed in customhouses until 1906, when a single form for enrollment and license was
issued.
Both certificates of enrollment and registration were permanent or
temporary depending on whether they were issued at home ports or
elsewhere. A new certificate was issued and the old certificate
surrendered to the collector of customs at the nearest port if there
was a change in the type of trade, ownership, rig, tonnage,
dimensions, name, or home port of a vessel. Certificates of
registration and enrollment were made in triplicate. The master kept
one copy aboard the vessel. The issuing collector of customs kept
the second copy. The third ("reference") copy was sent to
Washington, DC, to the Office of the Register of the Treasury (or his
successors, the Commissioner of Navigation, 1884-1932; the Director of
the Bureau of Navigation and Steamboat Inspection, 1932-42;
the Commissioner of Customs, 1942-67; and the Commandant of the U.S.
Coast Guard, 1967- ). When a master surrendered his copy to the
collector of customs at the nearest port, the collector endorsed this
copy and his own with the date, place, and reason for surrender and
the number of the new document, if any, that was issued. The
collector then cancelled the master's copy and sent the surrendered
copy to Washington. If the port of surrender was different from the
port of issuance, the other collector was informed of the
surrender.
Surrendered and reference copies issued before 1815 are presumed to
have been among the records lost in the burning of Washington in
1814. In 1913, the Bureau of Navigation destroyed reference copies
for the period 1815-1913. Reference copies for the period since 1913
have not been retained.
Surrendered copies of certificates of registration were bound
chronologically in volumes until 1867. Subsequently, documents were
folded and filed by year and port until 1919. At that time the
filing system was changed again so that documents issued to a vessel
were filed together by official vessel number, and thereunder
chronologically. In 1921 some of the bound volumes were damaged by
fire and water. In 1933 the remnants were removed from many volumes
and were arranged by port, and thereunder chronologically. If a
vessel was lost at sea, or the certificate was lost before it was
surrendered, a copy was not always made for the Washington files.
The content of vessel documents varies, but a certificate usually
contains the following information:
- Certificate number.
- After 1866, the vessel's official number and call letters.
- Names and addresses of owners (usually by city and state). After 1850, each owner's fraction of ownership is included.
- Name of vessel and home port.
- Name of master of vessel on the date of issue.
- Date and place of construction.
- Name of builder (often on the first certificate issued for a vessel).
- Number, place, and date of issue of the previous certificate.
- Number of decks and masts.
- Dimensions and tonnage (capacity). The capacity formula was changed in 1864. By an act of 1882, deductions were allowed for fuel space, machinery space, and so forth, with a stated difference between gross and net tonnage.
- Type of stern, gallery (seldom after 1865), and figurehead.
- Type of rig.
- Place and date of issue of certificate.
- On the reverse side of the certificate, an endorsement giving the place, date, and reason for surrender of certificate. Sometimes, endorsements of changes of master, renewal of license, or other information.
It is frequently possible to trace a vessel's history through
the entire chain of the vessel documents with the aid of citations
and endorsements on the documents themselves and from the information
contained in abstracts and official number books. The first
certificate for a particular vessel often cites a builder's,
carpenter's, surveyor's, or admeasurer's certificate rather than a
certificate of enrollment or registration. The reverse side of many
certificates contains endorsements of surrender that either indicate
where and when the succeeding certificate was issued or state the
fate of the vessel. The master abstracts, mentioned below, are also
useful in tracing the chain of documentation. It is not always
possible, however, to determine with certainty the names of all the
masters of a given vessel or the tenure of a particular master's
service, even though the certificate indicates the master's name at
the time of issuance and endorsements may indicate changes of
masters.
Some of the certificates were lost by fire, accident at sea,
or other hazards. Additional certificates for the years after 1871
may have been withdrawn from the "port" file and might now be found
among those documents arranged by official numbers assigned to
individual vessels.
Finding Aids and Closely Related
Records
There are four major additional sources of information which may
assist researchers in locating records relating to a specific vessel.
The first three are available at the National Archives and Records
Administration.
- The master abstract of enrollments, registers, and licenses, kept
in the Office of the Register of the Treasury (Commissioner of
Navigation after 1884). These abstracts, dated 1815 to 1911, are
arranged chronologically and thereunder by port of issue, and contain
the following information: number and date of document; rig
and name of vessel; name of managing owner or ship's
husband; name of master at the time the document was issued;
the reason the previous document was surrendered (or "new" if it was
a new vessel); the date, type, number, and place the previous
document was issued; the vessel's measured tonnage; the date and
place that the current document was surrendered; and the reason for
the surrender.
- The official number books kept in the same office. These books
were used to update the List of Merchant Vessels of the
United States, published annually since 1868. (After
1925 it was entitled Merchant Vessels of the United
States). These books are often available at U.S.
Government depository libraries or large university or maritime
libraries.
- The abstracts and indexes prepared in the offices of the local
collectors of customs. These records contain the same information as
the master abstracts.
- The Record of American and Foreign Shipping ("American Lloyds") (New York: American Bureau of Shipping). This publication can be found at maritime libraries or the Library of Congress.
There are also other series, such as listings of losses and changes
in vessel name, that either aid in the use of vessel documents or
supplement information contained therein.
A variety of other records were created by the collectors of
customs in the performance of the vessel documentation function, such
as master carpenter certificates, certificates of tonnage
admeasurement, bonds and oaths of owners and masters of vessels, and
bills of sale, mortgages, and certificates of conveyance.
The Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation and its predecessors
had responsibility for the enforcement of various other laws relating
to marine safety, the welfare of seamen and passengers, and related
matters. For more information about records created in the
performance of these functions, see Guide to Federal
Records in the National Archives of the United States
(National Archives and Records Administration, 1995), or Douglas
Stein, American Maritime Documents,
1776-1860 (Mystic, CT: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1992).
Official number files for vessels issued such numbers
after February 1942 and removed from documentation by June 1958 are
in Record Group 36, Records of the Bureau of Customs. Official
number files for vessels issued such numbers, July 1958 to the mid-1970s are in RG 26, Records of the U.S. Coast Guard. Official number files for vessels issued such numbers after the mid-1970s are
currently (2001) in the custody of the U.S. Coast Guard. Access to
these records may be obtained by contacting the U.S. Coast Guard,
National Vessel Documentation Center, 2039 Stonewall Jackson Drive,
Falling Water, WV 25419-9502.
Vessel Documents Available on Microfilm
Thirteen NARA microfilm publications reproduce vessel documents:
CALIFORNIA
M1867. Indexes to Certificates of Registration and Enrollment Issued for Merchant Vessels at San Francisco, California, 1850-1877 (1 roll).
ILLINOIS
M1800, Certificates of Enrollment Issued for Merchant Vessels at Chicago, Illinois, 1847-1866, and Related Master Abstracts of Enrollments, 1847-1911. (5 rolls).
M2099, Cetificates of Registration Issued for Merchant Vessels at Great Lakes Ports, 1815-1872, and Related Master Abstracts of Registers, 1815-1910 (3 rolls) includes the Illinois-related records listed below. For more details, read the free online descriptive pamphlet available in the Microfilm Catalog online.
MARYLAND
M1873, Selected Vessel Documents Issued for Merchant Vessels at Baltimore, Maryland, 1789-1912. (11 rolls).
MASSACHUSETTS
M1866. Indexes to Certificates of Registration and Enrollment Issued for Merchant Vessels at Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1827-1868. (1 roll).
Indexes to Certificates of Enrollment
- Volume 1, Certificates Issued from 1836 to 1849, plus entries for those certificates still valid in January 1836
- Volume 2, Certificates issued from 1850 to 1868, plus entries for those certificates still valid in January 1850
Indexes to Certificates of Registration
- Volume 1, Certificates Issued from 1836 to 1849, plus entries for those certificates still valid in January 1836
- Volume 2, Certificates issued from 1850 to 1868, plus entries for those certificates still valid in January 1850
M130. Certificates of Registry, Enrollment, and License Issued at Edgartown, Massachusetts, 1815-1913. (9 rolls).
MICHIGAN
M2099, Cetificates of Registration Issued for Merchant Vessels at Great Lakes Ports, 1815-1872, and Related Master Abstracts of Registers, 1815-1910 (3 rolls) includes the Michigan-related records listed below. For more details, read the free online descriptive pamphlet available in the Microfilm Catalog online.
M2101, Certificates of Enrollment Issued for Merchant Vessels at Detroit, Michilimackinac, and Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, 1818-1898, and Certificates of Registration Issued for Merchant Vessels at Detroit, Michigan, 1818-1831 (8 rolls). These records are partially indexed; for more details, read the free online descriptive pamphlet available in the Microfilm Catalog online.
MISSOURI
M1340, Vessel Licenses and Enrollments from the Port of St. Louis, Missouri, 1835-1944. (26 rolls).
M2106. Master Abstracts of Certificates of Enrollment Issued for Merchant Vessels at Saint Louis, Missouri, 1846-1870 (1 roll). 35mm.
NEW YORK
M1861. Certificates of Enrollment Issued for Merchant Vessels at Buffalo, New York, May 1816-November 1896 (13 rolls).
M1864. Certificates of Enrollment Issued for Merchant Vessels at Oswego, New York, 1815-1911 (6 rolls).
M2099, Cetificates of Registration Issued for Merchant Vessels at Great Lakes Ports, 1815-1872, and Related Master Abstracts of Registers, 1815-1910 (3 rolls) includes the New York-related records listed below. For more details, read the free online descriptive pamphlet available in the Microfilm Catalog online.
M2105. Certificates of Enrollment Issued for Merchant Vessels at Cape Vincent, Dunkirk, French Creek, Genesee, Lewiston, Ogdensburg, Pultneyville, Rochester, Sackets Harbor, and Suspension Bridge (Niagara Falls), New York, 1816-1867 (3 rolls).
NORTH CAROLINA
M1863. Master Abstracts of Registers and Enrollments Issued for Merchant Vessels at North Carolina Ports, January 1815-June 1911 (2 rolls) serves as the finding aid for records reproduced in M2034.
M2034. Certificates of Registration and Enrollment Issued at Beaufort, Edenton, Elizabeth City, New Bern, Ocracoke, Plymouth, Washington, and Wilmington, North Carolina, 1815-1902 (31 rolls). In addition, there is one certificate of enrollment issued at New Bern, North Carolina, in 1809.
NORTH DAKOTA
M1339. Vessel Documentation Records from the Port of Pembina, North Dakota, 1885-1959 (10 rolls).
OHIO
M1862. Certificates of Enrollment Issued for Merchant Vessels at Cleveland, Ohio, April 1829-May 1915 (14 rolls).
M2099, Cetificates of Registration Issued for Merchant Vessels at Great Lakes Ports, 1815-1872, and Related Master Abstracts of Registers, 1815-1910 (3 rolls) includes the Ohio-related records listed below. For more details, read the free online descriptive pamphlet available in the Microfilm Catalog online.
PENNSYLVANIA
M2099, Cetificates of Registration Issued for Merchant Vessels at Great Lakes Ports, 1815-1872, and Related Master Abstracts of Registers, 1815-1910 (3 rolls) includes the Pennsylvania-related records listed below. For more details, read the free online descriptive pamphlet available in the Microfilm Catalog online.
TEXAS
M1857. Certificates of Enrollment Issued for Merchant Vessels at Galveston, Texas, 1846-1860 and 1865-1870, and Master Abstracts of Enrollments Issued for Merchant Vessels at All Texas Ports, 1846-1860 and 1865-June 1911 (2 rolls).
WISCONSIN
M2099, Cetificates of Registration Issued for Merchant Vessels at Great Lakes Ports, 1815-1872, and Related Master Abstracts of Registers, 1815-1910 (3 rolls) includes the Wisconsin-related records listed below. For more details, read the free online descriptive pamphlet available in the Microfilm Catalog online.
M2100, Certificates of Enrollment Issued for Merchant Vessels at Green Bay, Manitowoc, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1851-1868 (1 roll) includes the Wisconsin-related records listed below. For more details, read the free online descriptive pamphlet available in the Microfilm Catalog online.
Green Bay, 1858-1862
Manitowoc, 1863
Milwaukee: Washington Office copies, Apr. 12, 1851-May 27, 1853
Milwaukee: Customhouse copies, June 10, 1853-Sept. 4, 1868