Historical information

This book is a 19th Century treatise on aids to navigation. It belonged to John Cowtan who held land near the Cassady's Bridge area in Caramut Road today (he was related to the Cassady family) and who is mainly important in the history of Port Fairy. Captain John Cowtan was a ship's master for John Griffiths and a Launceston entrepreneur and ship owner between 1839 and 1844. In 1847 he went into partnership with John Bland, establishing a merchant's business with riverside buildings at the Port Fairy wharf. He left Port Fairy in the 1860s. The date of John Cowtan's signature in this book is 1849 (certainly a very early one in our history) and inside the front cover he has written notes about the local weather, mainly as it affected sailing conditions in late 1849 and early 1850. These notes are of great historical interest

Significance

This book is of great interest because it belonged to a Port Fairy historical figure and because of the hand written weather notes inside the front cover.

Physical description

This is a hard covered,leather bound book of 680 pages. It contains printed text, illustrations, tables, maps and sketches.One page is torn Some pages are stained. .

Inscriptions & markings

J Cowtan 1849