The problem with Charles Best is that there are so many online and local resources about his family that I can actually dig in to him personally in a way that I can't with most sailors from Europe, and I've become a little obsessed.
I've just requested scans from a box of his family's letters at Stanford and on one hand I can't wait to get my hands on them and on the other hand it's like "Oh fuck no this means I have to read more old handwriting"
Big thanks to Katherine Ryan, the managing director of the Randall House, for the tour!
Prior to this trip I'd done all my research on a laptop at home, so it was a thrill to be able to tour the house and walk through a home that Charles' family, and likely also himself, had stood in.