Series 25. Lewis Randolph Hamersly (1870, 1872, 1878; bulk, 1870)
Scope and Content
The collection consists of one volume of 289 letters received after the publication of Hamersly's 1870 and 1878 editions of "The records of living officers of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, compiled from official sources." They include orders to purchase the publications and updates to officers' records in the previous edition, sometimes annotated on clippings taken from it.
Biographical Note
Lewis Randolph Hamersly (1847-1910) served in the Navy from 1862 to 1866 and in the Marine Corps from 1866 to 1869 before entering the publishing trade. His "Records of living officers," published by J.B. Lippincott and others in seven editions from 1870 to 1902, detailed the full records of living officers in the US Navy and Marine Corps. After establishing his own publishing firm, he published later editions of this and other reference works including "A naval encyclopedia" in 1881, "List of officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900" in 1901, and "First citizens of the republic" in 1906.