Food for Thought: Book Talk, She Calls Herself Betsey Stockton with Constance Killian Escher

This talk will feature author Constance Escher, who will discuss the book she recently published about a formerly enslaved woman named Betsey Stockton circumnavigating the globe in 1826 and the research that shaped the book, including several research trips to the NHA Research Library. Specifically, Escher was examining early portraits of missionaries and details on the captain of Stockton’s ship, Reuben Clasby, from Nantucket. While examining material from the NHA archive, Connie discovered cool findings on the Essex survivor Charles Ramsdell, who served as boat-steerer on Stockton’s ship. These visits to the Research Library, made over twenty years, allowed Escher to unravel another important puzzle of Nantucket’s history and to publish her book on Betsey Stockton titled She Calls Herself Betsey Stockton: The Illustrated Odyssey of Princeton Slave.