USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Marion > Lands of Sippican on Buzzards Bay > Part 10
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"Ain't the food good?" "Yea, what there is of it!"
"Aint you had enough?"
"Yea, such's tis!"
The news comes back of wrecks and deaths.
The Brig Chase is abandoned at sea, and the Shylock with Capt. Taber, agent Capt. Stephen C. Luce, on a voyage to New Zealand, is lost at Feegee Islands on May 20.
The next year the Volant, Capt. Hathaway, agent J. S. Bates, sailed to the So. Atlantic Oct. 18, and was condemned at St. Helena in February.
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THE WHALERS AND MOBY DICK
But still the ships are sent out. Hathaway & Luce agents send the Cherokee, Virginia, Erie, Capt. Luce; and the Cos- sack goes out with Capt. Delano; Stephen Luce, owner, and Dr. Robbins takes a trip over to Sippican village.
"July 5, 1840, afternoon at six o'clock we had a very in- teresting meeting aboard a barque ship soon to sail for the Indian ocean. There was a large congregation. Dr. Cobb and the Methodist Minister were with me."
It was the Indian Queen that sailed July 9, and came back May 10, 1843 with 350 bbl. sperm and 1,356 bbls. whale oil, and 11,600 lbs. bone. That same year sailed the Dryade; Lagrange; Lebaron; Pearl with Capt. Blankinship, agent J. S. Bates; the Solon with Capt. Wing, agent N. E. Bates; the Two Sisters again under Capt. Bolles.
The Richard Henry, Barden & Sons, lost a boat's crew by a whale. 1841 came in cold and bleak. On one of the cold January nights a young sailor named Melville was wandering about the water front of the great whaling port of the world. Looking, watching, rubbing elbows with those who go down to the sea in ships.
On the Acushnet he lived the life of a New Bedford whaler, and old "Mocha Dick" came alive again, real, vivid in the whaling classic of the world.
And a great whaler, the Charles W. Morgan, was built, that was to sail, now here, now there, for 84 years.
The David Paddock built at Rochester, Capt. Keen, sailed out in 1841, and we read of the Edward Cary and the Massa- chusetts and the Narragansett built in the Rochester villages.
That year six little ships came in with 2530 bbls. sperm oil, and 16 whalers were owned in the little town.
That same year the name Sippican appears on the Commis- sioner's list, for the first time.
The Bark Dryno, Capt. Hammond, Capt. Elisha Luce, agent and Dr. Robbins wrote again in his diary.
"Aug. 1, 1841 Rode to Sippican and attended a meeting on board a barque ship soon to go to sea and preached without notes on Is. IV-5-2 A large audience."
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LANDS OF SIPPICAN
On a summer day in that far away time the Sippican people were on board the Dryno listening to a sermon. The breeze coming up the bay lifted the flag, and Capt. Hammond heard "And the Lord shall create" - three years to be away from the family - "a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night" - the little girl didn't look very well- "and for a place of refuge and for a covert from storm and from rain" - The blue green water lapped the sides of the barque, and the friends and neighbors were silent as they bowed their heads.
The Dryno came back May 21, 1844 with only 600 bbls. of sperm and Capt. Elisha sold her in Fairhaven. The bark Hecla, J. S. Bates agent, had sailed a few days after the Dryno. She didn't come home until May, 1845 and only brought in 900 bbls. sperm.
But the little Two Sisters, under Capt. Bolles rolled off on another Plum Pudding trip and the Callao under Capt. Nor- ton sent home about 20,000 lbs. whalebone.
· The Pearl under Capt. Blankinship was "lost on Japan grounds, 6 of her crew lost with her" but the gamble went on.
Capt. Henry Allen sent out the Popmunnet to the Indian Ocean on Dec. 2, 1843, and she came in on July 3, 1845 with 170 bbls. sperm oil, 550 whale and 3000 lbs. bone.
The villages now owned 18 whalers.
By 1844, 400 whale ships were trading at Honolulu, and one writer calls it "as Yankee as New Bedford." By 1846 Buzzards Bay was booming. 678 ships and barks, 35 brigs, 22 schooners, and valued at $21,015,000.
Off to the Western Islands, voyage after voyage; around the Horn to the Japan grounds, the Indian ocean.
As time went on the wharf village, and Mattapoisett grew more lively.
There was so much for a whaling outfitter to pack on board one of the broad craft.
Hundreds of oak barrels for the oil, extra sails and spars, tar, ropes, harpoons, tools, bricks, paint.
In May 1844 Capt. Hammond is busy on the Zoroaster. Barrels of beef, and pork, and flour, and bread, sugar, apples,
--
HOPE
Scrimshaw Work - "Lazy days on a Whaler" Hinsdale Collection
"The Sail-Loft and the Look-Out Attic"
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THE WHALERS AND MOBY DICK
coffee, molasses; and the carpenter reports "water on board", and the mate writes with a firm hand:
"In After Hold five Cask
885 gallons 90 out
795
In Fore Hold
2965
Making Altogether
3760 gallons
These were busy days on Buzzards Bay.
Starbuck describes the scene
"the ring of the black smith's hammer and anvil made cheery music; the coopers with their hammers and drivers kept time to the tramp of their feet as round and round the casks they marched tightening more and more the boards that bound together the vessels which should hold their precious oil: and the creaking of blocks as the vessels unloaded their freight, or the riggers fitted them anew for fresh conquests, and the rattling of the hurrying teams as they carried off the product of the last voyage or brought the necessarys for the future one lent their portion of animation to the scene. Everywhere was hurry and bustle; everywhere all were employed - on all sides were thrift and happiness."
In Sippican the cooper and sailmaker shops were on the Sherman wharf at the foot of the Main St. and the Wittet wharf; and up the lane, back of the Major Luce house, now Hiller Street, was the blacksmith's shop where a small boy might watch horses being shod, iron wagon tires fixed, and a harpoon head made. Sailors got their clothes from outfitters, the agents paid the outfitters from the sailor's share at the end of a voyage. No wonder that they sometimes walked home from New Bedford with only a few cents in their pockets.
For alas, it is only the little whalers that put out from the home ports!
The great New Bedford, the famous whaling port of the world swallows up the larger ones. Starbuck writes "of latc years many whalers belonging to Westport, Marion, Dart-
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LANDS OF SIPPICAN
mouth, Provincetown and Boston have discharged at New Bed- ford and cargoes conditioned to that port."
In 1807 only a whaler a year from New Bedford; from 1840 to 1850, a whaler a day.
The Buzzards Bay District with its 10,000 sailors!
Suddenly a strange romantic name appears on the pages of the Commissioner's Report. It is the year 1849!
"California! California!"
"Withdrawn for California!"
"Voyage broken up by crew deserting to California!" The news seeped in at the end of '48. Strange news of 16 whale ships deserted on the California coast, known as a Spanish shore where men sent hides out to ships lying off the wild coast line.
But have you heard?
"Carpenters are getting $12 to $14 a day! Laborers, $5 to $8!" But the whaler Annawan! Another Brig called the "Annawan," on Apr. 5, 1848, before the news came, sailed out again down the South Atlantic, wallowing along towards the River La Plate, speaking the Barclay, Waverly, Doctor Frank- lin, Exchange, Parker Cook, Cortes, Nye, Chase, Mattapoisett, Governor Hopkins, Susan, Rainbow.
Great days of whaling.
Not much luck, but the Annawan keeps on sailing, "March 9, 1849 with strong gales from the East with fine rain at 10 A.M. Saw Sperm at 2 P.M. took 2 whales to the ship. So ends with a gale of wind."
Wet, brine soaked, faces hard set; and whaling goes on.
It is the Annawan that is buying 300 oranges at Brava for $1.50, three quarters of a century ago. It is the Annawan that on April 17, 1849 in Pernambuco pays $24.00 for 4000 oranges and "6 water millions", but it might have been the Philip, or the Hero, or any other of the hundreds that sailed out of Buzzards Bay.
It was Charles M. Thompson, stranded sailor waiting for a whaler to touch, who had handed to him from the slop chest of the Annawan that far away April 27.
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THE WHALERS AND MOBY DICK
119
2 prs. of duck pants
$2.50
tin pot and pan
.50
Pr. gloves
1.00
6 lbs. tobacco
1.50
Linnen thread
.40
Knife and sheath
.50
one thick shirt
1.50
one thick pants
1.50
one thick shoes
1.00
Cash at Fayal
1.50
Sea Chest
2.00
Jack knife
.30
Sheath knife
.25
His wages vanishing like smoke, but once more he is a man, a sailor, not a derelict.
It was Charles M. Thompson, but it might have been John Jones or Peter Smith.
James Luce and all the other boys have cash at Fayal.
And on one yellowed page stares the astonishing item- "Josephine to Asaph P. Taber, Dr.
To one French hat-$1.50
An oily whaler, a yellowed log book, and "one French hat!"
On Sept. 1, 1849 the Annawan is paying cash to "Sol- diers at Fayal for apprehending men. $4.80 and one Manuel Porcira gets a chance to go to New Bedford.
He stands very patiently, barefooted in his thin pants, and receives his outfit; while the marks go down in the book that mean he will land in New Bedford not very well able to cope with the brisk life of the Whaling town waterfront.
"Sept. 4, 1849
To duck frock
$1.00
To jean pants
1.00
To thick shirt
1.50
To Gurnsey frock
1.00
Blanket and undershirt
1.50
.
.
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LANDS OF SIPPICAN
one shirt, cap, Stockins, comforter, etc. 1.50
Monkey jacket 4.75
Sea chest 1.50
one striped shirt 1.00
one matras .75
$15.80
And one suspects that the shirt, caps, "stockins", "com- forter", and "matras", are the deserted property of a whaler either bored or gay.
Anyway one who preferred to stay in Fayal.
Thompson stays with the ship and on July 23 the next year, a monkey jacket at $4.75 to go ashore in, is added to his list.
The Annawan comes in to Mattapoisett harbor July 25, 1850, and Thompson's account is totaled up as $22.85. Not much cash in his pocket probably, but he is on the homeland again, and over to New Bedford where he can touch all sorts and kinds of sailors from all over the world.
French, Dutch, Portuguese, English and black savages from the South Seas "gam" with Thompson until his money is gone, and away he goes again "shipped aboard a whaler."
Stained brown pages of the old logs.
A glimpse of the Annawan, the next year with the Barclay. "Saw sperm whales."
The Brig Annawan's boats "fast to one whale, the rest went off" but on "Monday, Sept. 20, 1851 at 8 A. M. saw sperm whales-at 12 meridian took six whales to the ship," "one waist cut in two."
The scene is a blur of boiling blubber and slippery decks and red fires at night, and sharks, and smoky figures showing in the glare. Three quarters of a century later, the six little ink whales look startlingly black on the edge of the yellowed page of the log. The seventh is disappearing off the page labelled "lost."
But $500 a month is being paid to Captains in Cali- fornia!
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THE WHALERS AND MOBY DICK
And a whaler by the familiar name of Popmunnet is the first one to sail from San Francisco, the port, in 1850. It is the beginning of a new act. Slowly the scene shifts; and the great whaling day of the greatest whaling district in the world has almost reached its noon.
Golden California is calling the whalers, and they will remain away ten, twenty years from the home port!
Sippican's little whalers kept on bringing in wealth. Capt. Ben Handy, of the Tavern, sails out in the Admiral Blake year after year.
In 1853 he comes around Charles Neck Point. Oct. 5, been out four months, has 140 bbls. sperm and 6 bbls. whale oil.
A most profitable business whaling! Better than inn keeping Capt. Ben finds.
In 1854 about 7000 whales are taken, worth $10,802,- 594.20; and Capt. Ben has helped swell that sum, for that year he made one of the best of his voyages. He leaves the wharf May 12, 1854, and comes in Sept. 8, jubilant. The square hummed with excitement.
156 bbls. of sperm oil and 10 bbls. whale, and the Cap- tain had already sent home 100 bbls. of sperm.
Only gone from home four months. Two months of whaling, $11,000!
Capt. Charles Hammond, lucky Capt. Charles, had sailed in the schooner Altamaha owned by Capt. Stephen Luce that same day, and he came in Nov. 4, not quite so fortunate, but the next voyage he too was a winner.
Whaling at its peak! The New Bedford Customs District owned 169,986 tonnage of shipping. Buzzards Bay owned 426 vessels, and out of 183 ships arriving at N. B. 132 were whalers. Sperm was quoted at $1.77 whale oil .79 and whale- bone 97c 1b.
There is a difference of opinion about which oil craft of all the whalers has the record of the best voyage.
The Pioneer of New London valued at $35,000 went out June 4, 1864 and came in Sept. 18, 1865 with a catch valued
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LANDS OF SIPPICAN
at $150,060, but Rochester Towne has its place in the whaling history of America.
The two or three lines in the Commissioner's Report on the voyages of the Admiral Blake and the Altamaha, become paragraphs in Starbuck's book on whaling.
"There are reported as making extraordinary voyages the following small vessels: The schooner Admiral Blake of Sippican, Capt. B. B. Handy in a voyage of two months and nine days (in 1854) took 250 barrels of sperm oil and 10 barrels of black fish oil worth in all $11,000. The schooner Altamaha, of the same port, Capt. Coinsider Fisher, sailed in 1855, was gone six months and nine days and returned with a cargo of 240 barrels of sperm and 8 barrels of black fish oil, valued at $13,000. She was worth with her outfit $2,200. and after paying off her crew and outfitting her for another voyage, the owners divided $8,000."
The schooner James, also of Sippican, he reports did well.
In 1858 there were twenty-five whalers owned by the Rochester villages.
Small gambling ventures of the clipper ship captains.
Out past Bird Island sail the Altamaha, the James, Ros- well King, the Retrieve, the Hopeton, the Admiral Blake, gone for three, four months and come in with one hundred and fifty or more barrels of sperm oil, and a few barrels of blackfish oil.
But there are tragic, tragic endings to voyages of both big and little whalers!
One reads of the fate of the big game hunters and their little ships condemned on foreign shores.
A brave and strong crew leaving their ship, so alive to them, a creature that has buffeted winds and waves, to break slowly to splinters on a far off shore, so far from the Rochester woods where she was masted, and where her bow-sprit grew.
Stories in the Commissioner's List!
"Condemned at Honolulu" "Seized by cannibles" "Badly burned."
Some romantic stories, as the one of Philip Ist: Bark built at Rochester in 1825. She sailed and sailed far from home on many voyages.
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THE WHALERS AND MOBY DICK
In 1853 she was new topped and left Greenport in 1854 for the North Pacific, picked up a dismantled Japanese Junk with 27 people on board, carried her into Loo Choo. The story is not ended yet as the tie made then between Americans and Japanese is still strong in this day three quarters of a century later.
On New Years day 1854 Capt. Dexter of the R. L. Bar- stow of Mattapoisett village was killed by a whale and Dr. Robbins is writing in his diary again of a sad little village. Ships come in leaking, men missing, washed overboard in great gales!
In 1859 the Osceola is condemned at Pernambuco and the next year the Superior was burned in Solomon Islands by natives; all but six of crew massacred. Had sent home 200 bbls. of sperm oil and 3,225 lbs. bone.
Amelia of Mattapoisett sailed, came back leaking 500 strokes an hour, withdrawn 1861; out again; wrecked and abandoned in 1863.
And so the stories go!
There are war drums sounding; but something is happen- ing in Pennsylvania that will draw the whalers from the sea more than drums.
Oil from the earth!
"Black gold" they call it!
Petroleum! 500,000 barrels gushing!
In 1861 there are 508 whalers out for the big game, but Pennsylvania is flowing with 2,000,000 barrels of oil!
The little Retrieve goes out and brings in as many barrels of sperm as she has tons to her name, but brother brings home from Wareham a new lamp.
There it shines on the best room table.
The family gather!
Father who used to read with his candle set on his news- paper, Mother who had welcomed the new whale oil lamp with its neat little wick, little sisters and brothers welcoming the brilliance with staring eyes, all crowded around.
Not too near, but watching with awe, the steady blaze!
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LANDS OF SIPPICAN
A wonderful light, this oil from Pennsylvania! And the whale oil lamps are put away with the spinning wheels and pewter cups.
Theodore Tripp, the last of the old whalemen of Sippican tells of his first voyage.
"You know" he says "I'd never seen a whale until I was in the boat pullin' an' one of them ugly critters come right up along side of me. I jumped and Jarvis sez - you know Jarvis Blankinship he's the mate I told you weighed me and said I didn't weigh more'n a dried codfish - well, Jarvis, he hollered, 'What's the matter, Tripp, what you 'fraid of?'" The old man shook his head "You know a green horn flopped sometimes and he didn't want me keeling over there. 'Next time he comes up that way, Tripp' Jarvis sez, 'You spit in his eye! Don't you' be afraid till you see my gills whiten.'"
The old man's silences were long.
"When the line you're sittin' in flies out an you have to bail to keep it from smokin' I tell you there's more truth than po'try in the sayin' 'a dead whale or a stove boat.' The ugly critter ararin' and a tarin' and the Altamaha a mile away. Yes, it was the Altamaha, 1861. Course the whale boat is big - twenty-five, thirty feet; oars, fourteen, fifteen feet long, and it has took the boys half a day to coil the line in the boat so there's no kinks in it. When the critter is struck and dashing ahead, with the boat flying through the foam, there's some says you better not change your quid nor breathe or you'll upset her. A fightin' whale can pull out a powerful lot of line - miles - and all the harpoons you can stick in him!
When you git him you are sometimes six miles from the ship, and then alongside! And sharks! The water's full of 'em!
And then cuttin' in! Blubber peeled off in strips, and try her out like your Ma used to try out lard when the hog is killed in the fall. An' then the oil in the cooler, and run through to the casks. Used to use leather hose. Then, it's clean up the ship. Some captains throw the tryworks overboard, and every- body is set to paintin'. If the ship's full, we sing the old Altamaha song."
A Sperm Whale - "How the critter looked to a greenhorn!"
.
Figure head of the Admiral Blake - "The little whaler that cleared $8,000 in two months"
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THE WHALERS AND MOBY DICK
His eyes twinkled. .
"It's when you see those New Bedford girls
Good By, fare you well; Good By, fare you well With their bright blue eyes and flowing curls
Hurrah my boys, we're homeward bound."
He nodded his head as he hummed the tune. "Did you go to hear MacMillan? Humph! I wintered in the Artic before he was born." Hc shrugged his shoulders. "I told him so! And we didn't have no radio, neither" he added. "Oh, we had a good time up there, gamming and scrimshawing. We made lots of pie crimpers, and canes, and boxes that winter. It was the next voyage we went to the Artic. We was gone 20 months. Had 30 tons of coal and wintered within 70° of the Pole. Nigh enough, I should say". He smiled and then his voice grew grave. "We lost two men, one drowned off the coast of Labrador.
The 3rd mate was a French Canadian. He married an Esquimoux and had two children. We left him there. The captain that trip was Captain George Tyson. His next voyage he commanded the Polaris expedition.
We gammed with the Admiral Blake. Two Captains aboard, sailing captain and whaling captain, one didn't know navigation but he sure did know whales."
He went on.
"Capt. Ben - you know Capt. Ben Handy. He kept tavern until the railroad come in. Course the tavern didn't pay then. No travel in the stage coach!
Capt. Ben went up and kept the deepo, and the stage driver was conductor-then Capt. Ben went to sea!
Tim Briggs was ship keeper that voyage. You know, Josephine's husband, he was lost on the Emerald. No! No- body knows. Never heard from after she left the harbor. No- body knows!"
The long pauses held great grey wastes of water, a sunken ship and lost whalers.
"George Handy, a little feller, was cabin boy. He was Capt. Ben's nevew. Jim Blankinship was mate, and Art.
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LANDS OF SIPPICAN
Hammond, 2nd mate and Bill Handy, 3rd mate - all captains afterwards."
"Yer, five whalers put out 'bout the time we did. Capt. Keen on the Herald was one. Gus Atwood and Henry Dexter was Boat Steerers." Seventy years after the voyage of the boy of long ago the names came rolling out.
"Let me see, Sam Swift and Jim Caswell and Alph Has- kins and Clif Keen, Charlie Leonard, Warren Atwood, Mark Atwood - and John Meak, and Phil Sisson, and Toby Rob- inson, and. Len and Charlie Covell, and Tom Hatch."
His boyhood friends and neighbors. "Queer, I remember it all better than I do what happened last week. I'm gettin' forgetful." Silence, then "Mark! Mark, he was killed in the army!"
He suddenly remembered the date of his first voyage.
"It was May 16, 1861 when we sailed out of Sippican Harbor in the Altamaha."
Slowly the words came.
"Four weeks out I lost my cousin - overboard in a gale of wind. The water was full of ice. Heavy clothes, no chance! Boat cut away and got overboard, but he went down."
"Got his hat" he added, and his faded blue eyes had a far away look as though he saw the lad's hat there before him.
He shook his head, remembering.
Whaling!
Forests of masts in New Bedford, and wharves covered with casks of oil!
Off they rolled out of the Buzzards Bay villages to find an ear ring with which to dazzle their home folks!
And only too true it was that for "every drop of oil burned there was a drop of blood spilt."
"The Orion got one boat stove and lost John Christian." A lad's hat floating in an icy Labrador sea!
"And so ends."
--
9
CHAPTER IX. THE GOOD OLD WAYS OF THE CAPTAIN'S DAYS.
"Human voices, long hushed, and the subtler speech
That steals from the dumb, dead walls, and whispers and thrills From the shadowy chimney-places, and haunted nook."
GILDER.
From harpooning, scrimshawing, scrubbing white the oily decks of the lazy, blunt whalers, the Rochester-Towne boys moved to officer's quarters, and soon came home as mates of schooners in the Liverpool and Southern trade, and then as dictators of the shining queens of the "seven seas", the clipper ships of America.
The boys often sailed before the mast on a coaster; but on the Liverpool packets they didn't remain long in the fo'c'stle. If they weren't of the stuff of which officers were made, they drifted back among the home folks on a whaler.
As the young men of the villages rose to be mates and then captains - forty, fifty, one hundred of them - they became men of intense individuality. The sea took the lads and with ice and brine, winds and human blows, fashioned strong men alike in many ways, and yet figures of great distinction.
He could be himself - a Captain!
It was as though the sea washed away all unnecessary trappings down to the soul, and the man stood stark, just as he really was - god like or a devil.
As mates they learned to know and discipline men; watching the rough specimens of the town water fronts as they stowed away; knowing many a sailor by the slant of his shiney hat or his stumbling feet.
As captains they had to learn also to transact business. Melville writes in Moby Dick that "a sea captain is a man who
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LANDS OF SIPPICAN
has been led to think untraditionally and independently." These boy captains, often but twenty-one years old, retiring sometimes at thirty-five, dealt in their small sea kingdoms with perilous situations in strange waters in the uttermost parts of the earth. Only men of a strong type could face the contact, not only with the baffling winds of the oceans, but with the baf- fling moods of the squint eyed, suave traders of the ports of the continents. It was sometimes a respectful opinion, some- times an instant decision, sometimes a grave silence, that was imperative to make the voyage a successful one.
The Captains! Grave gentlemen! The aristocrats of the towns by the sea!
It seemed as though at the beginning of the century all the men of the three villages were captains ("mariners") and ship builders.
Of course there were the saltmakers and a few other "gentlemen", Deacon Jesse Haskell of the Center, for instance.
"This is to certify that Jesse Haskell, of the Town of Rochester, in the County of Plymouth and District of Massa- chusetts, Gentleman, hath paid the duty of Three 75/100 dollars upon a two wheel carriage, called a Chaise, owned by himself
- having a top, to be drawn by one horfe, for the convey- ance of two perfon; for the year to end on the 30th of Sep- tember, 1800.
Wm. Goodwin, Collector of the Revenue 9 Divifion, Survey, No. 3 Maffachufetts.
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