USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > A History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, vol 2 > Part 3
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in the price of oils in the European markets." And again November 2, 1838, it is announced : "Four arrivals at this port Friday from the Pacific ocean have brought upwards of 9,500 barrels of sperm oil, valued at about $290,000."
Some of the bowhead whales yield an enormous product. Authorities differ as to the number of slabs of whalebone to be found in the jaw of the bowhead and right whales. Captain Wicks says 615 slabs in a bowhead and 420 in a right whale. Captain Earle says 514 in a bowhead, and Cap- tain George Baker says 630 in a bowhead and 430 in a right whale. Cap- tain Simeon Hawes once took a bowhead whale which made 375 barrels of oil, which is the record. The steamer "Jeanette" took a whale one cruise the bone of which weighed 3,000 pounds. Captain Willis, on one Arctic voyage, took two whales the bone of which aggregated 5,600 pounds. Cap- tain Henry Taber, in the bark "America," took a bowhead whale the bone of which weighed 3,000 pounds, the oil made 260 barrels and some of the whalebone measured seventeen feet in length. Two of the slabs of this bone were in a Honolulu shipping office for many years, and lately have been in a saloon there. A North Dartmouth man remembers the circum- stances of the taking of this whale, and saw the bone in Tom Spencer's office in Honolulu. This was almost the longest bone ever taken from a bowhead whale. The ship "Ocean" once took a freak whale with an abnormally small body, the bone of which was eighteen feet in length.
Captain Charles Brower, who spent more than twenty-five years in the Arctic, made the statement that a bowhead whale will break ice two feet thick. Upon the receipt of whalebone in port it is cleaned with scrapers and brushes, and then submitted to a softening process in water until it becomes pliable, when it is steamed and cut into strips and lengths of marketable size. Arctic whalemen figure that for every barrel of oil taken from the bowhead there will be seventeen pounds of whalebone, while in the Okhotsk sea but fourteen pounds of bone to the barrel.
New Bedford in Melville's Time .- Fifty years ago boys carried "Moby Dick" to bed and scared themselves so wide awake with Captain Ahab and his terrible foe that they couldn't get to sleep. And this classic of whaling romance, with its graphic pictures of New Bedford fifty years ago, is now so far forgotten that a lover of Herman Melville has asked fifty New Bed- ford boys if they have read "Moby Dick," and not one, he declares, had ever heard of this book.
The fascinating picture of New Bedford which Melville presented has caused many a boy and man to make a pilgrimage here. Robert J. Bur- dette confesses that he came about thirty years ago with Melville's picture in his mind, and "The Spouter Inn" was not, albeit a man showed him the long lance, "now widely elbowed," with which Nathan Swain did kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset. The fact that Melville has pre- sented to us a picture of New Bedford fifty years ago, at a time when it was one of the unique cities of the world, makes it possible for this genera- tion to appreciate how great a change the years have accomplished in the successful effort to keep up with a changing world.
It was a Saturday night in December, sixty or seventy years ago, when Melville stuffed a few shirts into his carpet bag and left New York for
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Cape Horn and the Pacific by way of New Bedford and Nantucket. He was determined to sail on a Nantucket whaler, because in the matter of whaling Nantucket was the great original-the Tyre of this Carthage-the place where the first American whale was stranded, and from whence the first adventurous sloop put forth, partly laden with imported cobble stones, the story goes, to throw at the whale in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit. As a matter of fact he sailed from New Bedford in the "Acushnet." His name may yet be seen on the crew list which reposes at the custom house. He missed the packet, and to this we are indebted for the only picture of New Bedford in those whaling times, which is preserved to us. It was a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. "Such dreary streets," writes Melville, "blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb." With halting steps Melville paced the streets. He passed the sign of "The Crossed Harpoons," which looked too expensive and jolly. So did the "Sword Fish Inn." At last he came to a dim sort of light, not far from the docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air, and looking up saw a swinging sign over the door, with a painting upon it representing a tall, straight jet of misty spray, and underneath these words, "The Spouter Inn, Peter Coffin."
Then follows the description of "The Spouter Inn," typical of the sailor boarding house which disappeared but a few years ago. There was a wide, low, straggling entry, with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some old condemned craft. On one side hung a painting representing a Cape Horner in a hurricane, the half foundered ship welter- ing with three dismantled masts alone visible, and an exasperated whale purposing to spring clean over the craft in the seemingly enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mastheads. On the opposite wall was hung a heathenish array of clubs and spears, some set with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons, broken and deformed. Then there were divers specimens of skirmishander.
This was all typical only a few years ago, and the description would have applied to scores of sailor boarding houses on Water street and "The Marsh," but now they are not. Nor is the prototype of Queequeg, that awful harpooner, "He never eats dumplings; he don't. He eats nothing but steaks, and likes 'em rare."
Of all the institutions connected with whaling mentioned by Melville, there is but one which can be pointed out to the seeker of literary land- marks. That is the Seaman's Bethel. The New Bedford Port Society was established over seventy years ago, and in 1831 a chapel was built. It was dedicated May 2, 1832, "Father" Taylor, of Boston, officiating. Then the Bethel flag was unfurled, and from that time to the present has never failed on every Sabbath morning to signal to the sailor that there is a temple peculiarly his own, where he is welcomed on his return from his voyage, and where he can listen to the words of Gospel. The chapel that Melville attended and described was destroyed by fire in 1866, but a feature that attracted the writer's attention is still the wonder of the visitor. The walls are covered with marble cenotaphs, masoned into the walls, reading to the sailor about to go down to the sea the fate of the whalemen who
GREY HOUNES
BARK "GREYHOUND"
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HUMPHREYS
COLD
STORAGE
BARK "BERTHA"
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have gone before him. Delightful inducements to embark, fine chance for promotion, it seems, for a stove boat will make him more immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling-a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into eternity. The tablets were often placed in the walls by the shipmates of the sailors lost at sea. Occasionally they were provided by a mother, wife or sister. Some of them bear weep- ing willows; others, more appropriately, ships; and nearly all are bordered by heavy black frames. Here is a sample cenotaph :
In the Memory of CAPT. WM. SWAIN, Associate Master of the Christopher Mitchell of Nantucket. This worthy man, after fastening to a whale, was carried overboard by the line and drowned May 19th, 1844, in the 49th year of his age. "Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the son of man cometh."
There is one which tells of the tragic death of Charles Petty, who was bitten by a shark while bathing near the ship, and died in nine hours. He was buried by his shipmates on the Island of De Loss, near the coast of Africa. Some of the tablets are inscribed with a verse, like this one-of one who fell from aloft and was drowned :
The sea curls over him and the foaming billow As his head now rests upon a watery pillow, But the spirit divine has ascended to rest, To mingle with those who are ransomed and blest.
The officers and crew of the "Emily Morgan" have erected a stone to the memory of Lewis Ayshire, and this verse is engraved on the tablet:
The ship's bell-deep-toned moaning sound- Boomed o'er the quiet air, To call the crew in the sadness round To attend the funeral prayer. In his coral grave he's left to rest, With no urn or willow tree; His tablet is in the sailor's breast, This token of which you see.
The following inscription on a tablet shows how generally the men in a family followed the sea in the old days, and how often they were bereaved :
To the Memory of WILLIAM S. JAY, Chief mate of bark Gov. Carver, who died on board at sea, Feb. 7, 1863. Aged 29 years. Also his Uncles, GILBERT JAY,
Of the ship Peru of Nantucket, was lost from a boat while in pursuit of a whale, 1822, aged 27 years;
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FRANKLIN JAY, Mate of ship Pioneer, was lost from his boat while in pursuit of a whale, Nov. 22, 1832, aged 19 years; .
WILLIAM H. SWASEY, Of schooner T. Cash of Fairhaven, Conn., was lost at sea with all her crew, April, 1850, aged 39 years.
Melville's reflections upon these tablets will serve today. "Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among the flowers can say, 'Here, here lies my beloved; ye know. not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those black-bor- dered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines which seem to gnaw upon all faith and refuse resurrection to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well might these tablets stand in the grave of Elephanta as here. But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.'"
The chaplain whom Melville heard undoubtedly was Father Mudge. The author calls him Father Mapple in the book. The old pulpit was fur- nished with a side ladder and man ropes, which Melville affirms the chap- lain mounted hand over hand, with reverential dexterity, as if ascending to the main top of his vessel. After gaining the height he stooped over and drew the ladder, leaving him impregnable. The paneled front of that old pul- pit was in the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Bible rested on a pro- jecting piece of scroll-work fashioned after a ship's fiddle-headed beak. The service had a nautical flavor which has now departed. The present chaplain is a faithful worker among the sailors, but he would not be expected to instruct his congregation to gather about him in the vernacular which Mel- ville attributes to Father Mapple: "Starboard gangway there! Side away to starboard-larboard gangway to starboard! Midships." The sermon on Jonah reported in the book is declared by those who remember Father Mudge not to bear much resemblance to his style. It is probably the ser- mon which Melville considered should have been preached to sailor folk.
There is a final description of the New Bedford which Melville saw when he left the harpooners, cannibals, sailors with beaver hats, swallow- tailed coats girdled with sailor belt and sheath knives, or wearing sou'- westers and bombazine cloaks, who infested Water street in the whaling days, which will serve for a description of New Bedford today :
The town itself is perhaps the dearest place in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough; but not like Canaan, a land also of corn and wine. The streets do not run milk, nor in the springtime do they pave them with fresh eggs; yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses, parks and gardens, more opulent than in New Bedford. Whence came they? How planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country? Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes, all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. One and all they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea.
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Whaling Disasters .- When the Civil War broke out much of the wealth tied up in whalers was afloat on various seas. Twenty-five New Bedford whalers, with 2,742 barrels sperm and 4,150 barrels whale oil, were burned by Confederate cruisers. The value of the "Alabama" and "Shenandoah" vessels destroyed is given at $1,150,000, of the oil at $500,000, making a total of $1,650,000. This was a crushing blow to the citizens, because it was a climax to a series of events which made the people of New Bedford apprehensive of the future.
The whaling industry was doomed by the discovery of petroleum, and the citizens knew it. The business men had made an attempt to stem the tide by forming an association to extend the uses of sperm oil and persist in its superiority, but they realized the hopelessness of the undertaking.
On Thanksgiving Day, less than a year before, the citizens had seen "The Stone Fleet," two proud squadrons, the pick of whalers, sail forth to be sunk at the mouth of southern harbors. It was as if the cotton mills which line the shore today were one day loaded aboard scows and carried to sea to be sunk. It was visible evidence of the destruction of the most unique industry which ever created the wealth of a city. And, following upon such a catastrophe, came the news that the few surviving whaleships on the seas were being picked off one by one, burned with their cargoes, and the officers and crews made prisoners. And the war was upon the land to add to the encircling gloom.
The news which created such a sensation fifty years ago came from a group of officers and men who had been paroled aboard the "Alabama," put aboard a passing ship and landed in New York. One or two of the owners were wise in their generation and had 'secured insurance a few days before. The owners of the bark "Virginia," for instance, Captain Frederick Tilton, which was valued at $24,000, took out insurance for $11,500 at noon of the very day on which the news was received. The owners of the bark "Elisha Dunbar," Captain David R. Gifford, took out insurance upon her for $4,250 only two days before; her value was $21,250.
Captain Tilton told a story which shows that the sending of the stone fleet from New Bedford was a matter of resentment to the privateers and blockade runners, whom the closing of the southern harbor channels was designed to annoy. When taken aboard the "Alabama," Captain Tilton asked to be released, as he was doing no one harm. "You Northerners are destroying our property," retorted Captain Semmes, "and New Bedford people are holding war meetings offering $200 bounty for volunteers, and sending out stone fleet to blockade our harbors, and I am going to retaliate." Captain Tilton described the personal appearance of Captain Semmes in an interesting way. "He does everything in white kid gloves," he said, "and wears a heavy moustache, which he has waxed by his servant every morn- ing." Captain Tilton told his fellow-citizens that Captain Semmes said he had burned the "Osceola" and nine other whalers before taking the "Vir- ginia." Semmes, according to Captain Tilton, was very short in his re- marks, and quick tempered, treating the prisoners brutally and unfeelingly. The under officers were of different dispositions, and some of them con- fessed to Captain Tilton they wished they were out of the business. Cap- tain Tilton related the story of his capture as follows :
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The pirate ship overtook us in lat. 39-100, long. 34-20. She first showed British colors, but when a quarter of a mile from the "Virginia" she set Confederate colors and sent an armed boat's crew aboard. I was informed the vessel was a prize to the "Alabama," and ordered to take my papers and go aboard the steamer. The pirates then stripped the ship of all valuable articles, and at 4 p. m. set fire to her. I went on the quarterdeck of the "Alabama" with my son, when they sent us into the lee waist with the crew. All were ironed except two boys, the cook and the steward. I asked if I was to be ironed, and the reply was that the vessel's purser had been in irons aboard the United States vessel and his head shaved. He proposed to retaliate. We were put in the lee waist with an old mattress and a few blankets upon which to lie. The steamer's guns were run out the side and the ports could not be shut. So when the sea was rough and the vessel rolled the water washed the decks and we were wet all of the time. Often we would wake at night with a sea pouring over us. Our food consisted of beef, pork, rice, ham, tea, coffee and bread. Only one of our irons was taken off at a time. We were always under guard. On October 3d we fell in with the schooner "Emily Farnham," to which we were transferred after signing a parole.
Many years after, another generation, in many instances, received a windfall from the payment of the "Alabama" claims. There were many survivors also living who profited at a time when they were in need of money, and, as it turned out, the men were amply compensated for all they lost and suffered. The testimony before the Court of Claims is a marvel in the revelations of the outfits which the sailors carried in their chests. Captain Semmes may have been a dandy, but the humblest sailor could have put him in the shade, as far as clothes were concerned, if the schedule of the outfits as sworn to at court were honest.
Another terrible disaster followed in September, 1871, when one day thirty-three New Bedford ships, crushed or frozen, were abandoned in the Arctic ocean. Twelve hundred men were there shipwrecked, but all of them were ultimately rescued. With the oil and bone which the ships had on board they were valued at $1,090,000. In 1876 twelve whalers were aban- doned in the Arctic, and in 1888 five more were lost.
Steam whaling prospered for a time, whalebone selling at fancy prices, but there is no longer a market for whalebone. A group of men cornered all the whalebone in the country and shipped it to New Bedford, which is the world's market place for Arctic bone, and held it at five dollars a pound. They held it. The use of whalebone had finally become restricted to corset manufacture and to some extent in dresses. In the old days when whalebone was cheap and hoopskirts were in vogue it was commonly used in the latter, as well as in dresses and stays and corsets. Whips were made of it, and it was used for umbrella frames. Steel was employed later as a substitute for most of these uses, but for a long time after the wider utility had disappeared it was employed by the best corset and dressmakers, and there was a large market abroad, particularly in France. But when the price was put up to five dollars a pound the corsetmakers declared it pro- hibitive and turned to substitutes. Now "bones" for corsets and dresses are made of a celluloid substance which is said to be quite as good, if not superior. The whalemen blame "the Trust" for the ruin of the industry, but while the high price may have hastened the day of substitutes the substitutes would have been produced in any event. Moreover, the owners of the whalebone supply declare that in order to make any profit bone must command five dollars a pound. This does not represent cost, they say, if
INTERIOR OF SEAMEN'S BETHEL, SHOWING THE CENOTAPHS
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the risks of the business and the loss of vessels engaged in the Arctic industry are considered. Arctic whaling scarcely gave the owner of the ship a gambler's chance. A ship might encounter one closed season after another when the ships could not get to the eastward, and vessels were so frequently caught and crushed in the ice floes that the industry as a whole was seldom profitable. Still there was always the chance that a vessel might make a catch worth a hundred thousand dollars in a sum- mer's work, and this was sufficient incentive for the daring whalemen.
Whalebone requires constant attention. It must be scraped every few months or it loses its virtue. So the value of it constantly deteriorates, and that is one reason, maybe, why "the Trust" finds it difficult to dispose of its bone. "The Trust" does not send ships into the Arctic now. The few vessels that go are largely old vessels, bought cheap by old whaling captains, who finance their own voyages. The opportunities for trading kept the industry alive longer than otherwise, but the natives prefer to trade for rum, and the revenue cutters prevent the whalers from engaging in trade on that basis. So most of the Eskimo trade now goes to the shore traders, who are under less close surveillance.
Since the great war, prices of sperm oil have gone up and a fleet of schooners is making handsome profits on Atlantic voyages. These are short voyages of a duration of a year or two. In the old days, voyages usually lasted four or five years, which gives point to an old whaleman's story : A New Bedford captain had spent a jolly night with his companions, and at daylight started to go aboard his ship. One of his companions grabbed him by the arm as he was about to leave the dock in a small boat. "I say, captain, you've forgotten to kiss your wife good-bye." "Hell!" said the captain, "I'm only going to be gone two years !"
A few of the old ships are still engaged. The whaling bark "Charles W. Morgan" is receiving special consideration in these days, since she is the only typical old whaling square-rigger in port, and there will never be any more of them. One or two remnants of the fleet are at sea, and put in an occasional appearance here, but none are so picturesque and typical of old whaling models as the "Morgan." The "Morgan" is seventy-seven years old, and is still in commission. She was built in 1841 by the man for whom she was named. Her first captain was named Norton, and she sailed September 4, 1841, and arrived back April 1, 1845, with 1,600 barrels of sperm oil, 800 barrels of whale oil, and 10,000 pounds of whalebone. She sailed again on January 19, 1846, under command of Captain J. D. Sampson, and returned December 9, 1848, with 2,100 barrels of sperm oil and 100 barrels of whale oil, having sent home seventy barrels of sperm oil. Her ownership was then transferred to Edward Mott Robinson, the father of Hetty Green. Captain Sampson still commanded her on a voyage to the Pacific, which started on June 5, 1849. In May, 1853, she returned with 1,121 barrels of oil. The firm of I. Howland, Jr., & Company owned her when she sailed the following September for the North Pacific in command of Captain Tristam P. Ripley. She returned in 1856 with 12,000 pounds of whalebone, having sent home 10,000 pounds of bone, 1,958 barrels of whale oil and 268 barrels of sperm. Captain Thomas J. Fisher commanded her in 1856, when she again sailed for the North Pacific, returning three years
Bristol-34
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later with 28,700 pounds of whalebone, 18,000 barrels of whale oil, and 135 barrels of sperm. Next she sailed on a four years' voyage in command of James A. Hamilton, returning from the North Pacific in 1863 with 28,834 pounds of whalebone, 4,080 barrels of whale oil, and 135 barrels of sperm. In December, 1863, the "Morgan" came into the ownership of J. & W. R. Wing. Captain Thomas C. Landers took her to the North Pacific, once more in command of Captain George Athearn, when she took 3,000 pounds of bone; and in 1871 she went to the Indian ocean in command of Captain John M. Tinkhai, and took 1,600 pounds of bone. On a later occasion she went to Desolation islands on a sea elephant expedition. The "Morgan" repeatedly rounded Cape Horn, but these experiences never weakened her, and she has continued making long voyages to the stormiest seas in her career.
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CHAPTER IV.
PERIOD FROM 1778 UNTIL 1812
There seems to be but little to record after the British raid on New Bedford until the close of the Revolution. In 1783 signs of improvement there were on every hand; men of capital began to rebuild the waste places ; shops, warehouses and wharves went up here and there; new vessels were constructed and launched, and it was only a few years before the New Bedford fleet was strong. But the advent of the Napoleonic wars of the early part of the nineteenth century, abridging American rights on the seas, made the intervening years between 1789 and 1812 a period of Ameri- can uncertainty to the floating commerce of the newly created nation. This, with the impressment of American seamen, was the prime cause for the second war with Great Britain, and the confiscation of American ships and cargoes by the French government led to the French spoilation claims, paid by France to the United States. New Bedford suffered much from these conditions, her merchants and vessel owners losing both ships and goods. The village was almost prostrate again after having so well recov- ered after the close of the Revolution. In 1787 smallpox visited the town, its effects being so serious that public action was taken. A pest house was erected upon land belonging to Ebenezer Willis, who was allowed six shillings for every person taken into the house. In 1781 the smallpox again broke out, with far more fatal results than before. More than one hundred persons died from this epidemic.
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