A fact from Polly (brig) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 27 September 2008, and was viewed approximately 3,704 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that the damaged and demasted brig Polly drifted over six months and more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km) across the Atlantic with its surviving crew?
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Footnotes should go after punctuation, not before.
It is unlikely that the displacement of the vessel was 131 tons. Merchant ships were measured by tonnage, which is not displacement. Check if the measure here was gross tonnage or tons burthen, both measures of volume. These are often confused with displacement, in web and even print sources, but are not the same. If a contemporary source for a merchant ship simply lists "tons" or "tonnage" it almost certainly refers to tonnage and not displacement. Template:Infobox Ship Begin/doc supports a tonnage field.
The google books url for the Poe book goes to the Howe book.
Footnote formatting and the wrong link have been fixed. The Poe citation is a dilemma for me though. The Pym book is fiction, but Poe references the Polly tale as a citation to an actual incident. So I'm wondering if this is considered a work of literature is considered a valid reference for an actual event. Tradermort (talk) 21 September 2008, 17:05 (UTC)
It seems that Poe's description is factual and was intended as such. It's set apart in a footnote from the fictional parts of the book, and is consistent with the other sources you cite. Kablammo (talk) 17:44, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
