Ella Howard Read's House
404 County Street
New Bedford, MA

Ella Howrd Read ( top Right)
Clara Anne Read (bottom Left)

The Read Family Shell Collection: Evolution of A Passion
The story of this extraordinary shell collection begins in Herman Melville’s New Bedford during the mid-Nineteenth Century, at the peak of the Atlantic whaling industry. For the residents of the Massachussetts port town, the tireless succession of returning ships, laden with all manner of exotic treasure, were a constant reminder of the world beyond New England shores.

For Ella Howard Read and Clara Ann Read, the young daughters of a well-to-do merchant family, the ships in the harbor inspired a wonder and restlessness for which there was little outlet, as proper Victorian girls and women were strictly barred from the seafaring life. Seeking to satisfy some part of his daughters’ curiosity, the girls’ father, Joseph Rogers Read, a textile merchant and capitalist-entrepreneur, made the girls a present of few pockets full of seashells. Culled from distant shores, the shells nurtured the girls’ imagination and eventually fueled a lifelong passion for both the natural world and the art of collecting.

What began as a simple gift of seashells was to evolve into an intricately organized collection of some 30,000 sea, land and freshwater shells gathered from all parts of the globe, including all coastlines of the U.S. (including Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico), Mexico and South America, the Mediterranean, East and South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, and many islands along the Pacific Rim. Each shell, preserved in it’s original state, was individually labled and catalogued according to its family, Latin classification, place of origin preserved in its original state. The shells were then stored in small spool-and-thread boxes manufactured by Joseph Reades textile mill, which were then organized into fifty-two 16’’x24’’ mahogany drawers.Having remained completely in tact for over a century, The Read Family Shell Collection provides a rare view of the intersection of natural history and human history as seen through the fascinated eyes of two Victorian women.

Family History
Ella Howard Read (B. 12-13-1850 in New Bedford , Ma. / D. 12-12 1928 in New Bedford , Ma)
Clara Ann Read (B.9-28-1845 New Bedford , Ma. / 7-9-1914 Scotland )
Cynthia Ann Potter (Mother) (B.9-30-1823 New Bedford , Ma. / D.1-19-1913 NB, MA. / M.11-17-1844)
Joseph Rogers Read (Father) (B.7-5-1810 Somerset, MA./ D.9-12-1879 New Bedford , Ma.)

In addition to his business interests in whaling, Joseph Rogers Read was also a partner in the textile company Taber, Read and Co. in New Bedford, Ma. during the early to mid-1800’s (the small boxes in which the shells are stored were packaging for spool-and-thread). See below for a list of whaling ships in which Read was vested. All ships were registered in New Bedford, MA.

The Benjamin Franklin (Reg. 1863)
Cleone (Reg. 1852)
Lagoda (Reg. 1860)
Northern Lights (Reg. 1861)
Pacific (Reg. 1858)
Parachute (Reg. 1855)
President (Reg. 1865)
St George (Reg. 1865)
Sea Breeze (Reg. 1853)
William Badger (Reg. 1853)
William Wirt (Reg. 1853)
Lydia (Reg. 1851)
Joseph Maxwell (Reg. 1868)
Robert Edward (Reg. 1867)

Brother- William Francis Read (B.10-14-1848 New Bedford , Ma. / D.3-27-1930 New Bedford , Ma.)
Wife- Eleanor Augusta Masters (B.6-21-1851 / D.5-21-1908 New Bedford , Ma. / M.10-22-1879)

Brother- Charles Warren Read (B.1-19-1852 New Bedford , Ma. / D. 10-26-1922 New Bedford , Ma.)
Wife-Elizbeth Williams