Captain William Driver (1803-1886) was born Salem, Massachusetts, USA. He went to sea aged 14, and made his first voyage to Fiji in quest of beche-de-mer in September, 1872, in the ship Clay under Captain Benjamin Vanderford. He spent 49 months in the South Seas beche-de-mer trade before returning to Salem. Given command of the Charles Doggett, he sailed for the Pacific again in January, 1831. He remained at sea until 1837 when he retired to Nashville, Tennessee.

The logbook is for the voyage of the Charles Doggett. It begins on January 30, 1831, when the ship was 2,098 sea miles from Salem en route to New Zealand, and ends in March, 1832, when the ship was gathering a cargo of beche-de-mer in Fiji. In the interval, calls were made at Tubuai, Tahiti (French Polynesia), Pitcairn Island, Samoa, Tahiti and Niuatoputapu (Tonga). Driver's visit to Pitcairn Island from Tahiti was for the purpose of returning 65 descendants of the Bounty mutineers, who had been moved from Pitcairn to Tahiti four months earlier as it was feared that their island was becoming overpopulated. Driver describes this episode in some detail in an 1871 memoir accompanying his logbook of the Charles Doggett.
See also the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, December 1969:17.

John Chauner Williams (1819-1874) was a son of the noted missionary to the Pacific, employed by the London Missionary Society, Rev. John Williams. From 1857 to 1873, J.C. Williams was British Consul in Samoa. Other journals kept by Williams, and by his wife Amelia, have been microfilmed as PMB MS 24.

A daily journal covering the period from February 24, 1868, to March 20, 1872, describing events in Apia, Western Samoa. Also on the microfilm is Williams' letter of appointment as consul, dated September 28, 1857, and signed by the British Foreign Minister, Lord Clarendon.
See also the Bureau's newsletter, Pambu, August 1969:13 pp.6-8.