Noyes Frederick Avery

Biography

Noyes Frederick Avery was associated with the lumber industry through a business known as Robinson-Solomon & Co. He later was manager of the estate. He was a director of various industries and banks, including the Grand Rapids Savings Bank and Perkins, Avery Photo Supplies, and Worden Grocer Co.

On August 18, 1873 he enlisted in Company B, second regiment of the Michigan State Troops under Captain H. W. Calkins, and was honorably discharged on February 10, 1880 after serving six years.

Round the World Voyage

According to family oral history Noyes Frederick Avery's step brother, Frank Wilder Foster, became interested in a romantic pursuit that his family was not in support of. As a means of dissuading this interest he was sent on a "round the world" voyage from New York City to Yokohama, Japan, accompanied by his step brother Noyes Frederick Avery. The voyage departed December 12, 1882 on the 3-masted sailing schooner the "Jacob E. Ridgway", arriving in Yokohama 162 days later after rounding the Cape of Good Hope and sailing on through the Indian Ocean, through the Sunda Straight and onwards across the Java Sea then north through the China Sea finally setting anchor in Yokohama harbor at 4pm, May 22, 1883. Two hand written log books of this journey exist and remain through descent in the family and provided detailed daily entries of the voyage and subsequent return voyage to San Francisco on the steamer "SS City of Rio de Janeiro" which later sank after hitting a shoal at the entry to San Francisco Bay. 220 passengers and crew were lost. A third volume describing their exploits while in Japan is lost.

Of historical note, the daily logs of the ships latitude and longitude reveal that the Jacob E. Ridgway sailed past the volcanic island of Krakatau, or Krakatoa, approximately one month before the initial eruptions that would lead the the cataclysmic eruption of Krakatoa in August of 1883, that would kill tens of thousands and reduce the former island to a small fraction of its original size. (SAK)

The handwritten daily logs of the voyage by Noyes Frederick Avery and Frank W. Foster can be viewed here: The Yokohama Journals

From the Surviving Letters Project

1882

• Transcribed Postal Cards from Noyes Frederick Avery (1855-1915) to Annie Barstow Avery (1858-1921) dated December 12, 1882, New York. Scan of ORIGINAL POSTAL CARDS

1883

• Transcribed Letter from Noyes Latham Avery (1815-1901) to his son Noyes Frederick Avery (1855-1925), Postmarked Grand Rapids, MI, March 16, 1883. Scan of ORIGINAL LETTER.
• Transcribed Letter from Noyes Frederick Avery (1855-1915) to Annie Barstow Avery (1858-1921) dated May 25, 1883, Yokohama. Scan of ORIGINAL LETTER
• Transcribed Letter from Annie Barstow Avery (1858-1921) to Noyes Frederick Avery (1855-1915) dated July 20, 1883, Grand Rapids, MI. Scan of ORIGNIAL LETTER

1917

• Transcribed Letter from Frederick DeLano Avery (1895-1980) to his father Noyes Frederick Avery (1855-1925) Postmarked Newport, Rhode Island, October 4, 1917. Scan of ORIGINAL LETTER

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THE GROTON AVERY CLAN, Vol. I, by Elroy McKendree Avery and Catherine Hitchcock (Tilden) Avery, Cleveland, 1912. p. 467, 778