The Friends of the Georgetown Peabody Library and the Boxford Town Library are pleased to host author Stephen Puleo and hear him discuss his latest book, Voyage of Mercy.

About the Author: Stephen Puleo is an author, historian, teacher, public speaker, and communications professional. He has published seven narrative history books, including his most recent: Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission, published in March 2020. He is at work on his eighth book, which will also be published by St. Martins. Learn more about Puleo HERE.

About the Book: More than 5,000 ships left Ireland during the great potato famine in the last 1840s, transporting the starving and the destitute away from their stricken homeland. The first vessel to sail in the other direction, to help the millions unable to escape, was the USS Jamestown, a converted warship, which left Boston in March 1847 loaded with precious food for Ireland.

Captain Robert Bennet Forbes and the crew of the USS Jamestown began a massive eighteen-month demonstration of soaring goodwill against the backdrop of unfathomable despair – one nations’ struggle to survive, and another’s effort to provide a lifeline. Forbes’ undertaking inspired a nationwide outpouring of relief that was unprecedented in size and scope, the first instance of an entire nation extending a hand to a foreign neighbor for purely humanitarian reasons. It showed the world that national generosity and brotherhood were not signs of weakness, but displays of quiet strength and moral certitude.