USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Marion > Lands of Sippican on Buzzards Bay > Part 9
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Betsy's father and brother were captains of coasters in the Southern trade. One brother, Theophilus, became a South- ern slave owner and was killed in a slave insurrection.
And so little Betsy Pitcher made her appearance in the history of Sippican.
Old ladies of the village tell of her rigid discipline, of how she rapped their heads and fingers with her thimble, show- ing the character that developed in the girl who as Elizabeth Taber later became the fairy godmother to the town.
The little schoolhouse was in existence in the '90's de- scended in use to a wood house back of the Roberta Bates house on Main Street.
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SIPPICAN, SALTWORKS AND SHIPYARDS
In those old days in Sippican everybody went to bed almost at sundown with the little whale oil lamps, with two little tubes and no chimneys, for light.
The women spun and wove and made the clothes of the family, made patch work quilts, dozens of sheets and pillow slips still in the Sippican chests, and girls and boys both, sewed seams and made samplers.
There were singing schools and quilting bees and clam- bakes.
Sometimes everybody took a holiday and sailed down to Naushon for a day's picnic. The vessel always sailed from the old wharf now almost sunk under the water back of Miss Hamlin's garden on Main St.
They owned books. Elizabeth Pitcher was presented by her brother Peleg, a copy of "Rokeby" and also "Marmion". Her mother gave her "Devout Exercises of the Heart" by Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe and also Harriet Newell's Journal, and "Lyric Poems" divided into three parts.
"Sacred I Devotion and Piety.
II to Virtue, Honour and Friendship.
III to the memory of the Dead."
Mrs. Sarah Pitcher owned "Meditations and Contempla- tions." "George Barnwall" by T. S. Surr, "Children of the Abbey", "Watts Psalms," and Theo Pitcher owned the "Arab- ian Nights," and Elizabeth "The Letters of Abelard and Hel- oise." Also in the Pitcher Library were "A guide to true peace" from Fenelon, "Lady Guion," etc., "Paradise Lost", -Dr. Edward Youngs' works-, "A treatise on self knowledge" by John Mason, Cowper's translations of "Madame Guion, Spiritual Songs." Newspapers were treasured.
Sailors were reading in the New Bedford Mercury in 1822 familiar words to the village 100 years later.
"Only twenty days remain for the disposal of the mass of business now before congress, its existence terminating with the 3rd of March-The most important business now before that body is the bill for the revision of the Tarif, which it is thought will pass with some alteration."
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It sounds quite like today.
Even if Emerson did say that from 1790-1820 there was not a book, a speech, a conversation, or a thought in the State, in the Buzzards Bay District, in 1822, the New Bed- ford Mercury was commenting on "the general intelligence, activity and enterprise, which pervades all orders and classes of people in New England" and says "it is a subject of fre- quent and just remark by candid and intelligent writers of all nations."
The Mercury goes on to give much credit to the news- papers of the state, but the general intelligence of the people of the seaside villages was because they were dwellers in no small world.
They might not travel by stage coach much, but their minds had a far horizon-the horizon of ships and sailors and the sea.
By 1816, 215 men were employed in their ship yards, and "sixty sail" were owned in Rochester Towne.
Deep rutted village roads perhaps and no sidewalks, but their long roads were made with each voyage.
As the water foamed behind the ship the Sippican sailors could look back and there was the road they had made from home, and so onward to the far islands of the seven seas.
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CHAPTER VIII
THE WHALERS AND MOBY DICK HIMSELF
"Oh poor Reuben Ranzo Ranzo boys, O Ranzo! Oh Ranzo was no sailor So they shipped him aboard a whaler Ranzo boys, O Ranzo!"
OLD SONG.
As though the tide had washed up sea weed and shells, the little brown homes clustered around the wharves at the Old Landing and the wharves at the "Lower Landing", the "Wharf village." They might be strange sea bird's nests, for their builders were of the sea.
It took more than planting and reaping, tending of flocks and herds, making salt and building ships to give these men of Rochester-Towne their tanned weather beaten faces.
It was the sun of the Tropics and the brine of three oceans.
They came and went from the "Old Landing" to the "Wharf;" they jogged up and down from "the center", but they also came and went from the islands of the Pacific.
There was the sound of the sea in their ears; there were strange scenes in far lands pictured in their eyes.
Their roads led truly as far as Cape Horn, as Zanzibar, as far as the Japan seas; for the great days of whaling were be- ginning, and these men of the Rochester villages were of the "10,000 sailors who manned the whaling fleet of the Buzzards Bay District."
This was the whaling center of America, if not the world. Whaling!
A distant chanting down the centuries!
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A long procession of canoes coming up the Bay! A great black sea creature in tow with the briny water swashing, and astride its back a tall bronzed figure shouting in triumph!
A stranded sea monster on the Cape Cod shoals! And thin lipped, stern Pilgrim faces in Plymouth bent over laws about "oyle that Providence cast up from the sea."
Watchers along the Cape and on Menshope's Island for a hundred years scanning the horizon for the feather of fine mist that told of "oyle".
And broad brimmed Quakers, canny land owners and money makers, rolling in oily fortunes from the sea.
For two centuries the great creatures had meant cheer to the villages so why shouldn't every man and boy want to go on a "greezy voyage"!
Everybody in Rochester-Towne knew the great plates of the upper jaw of the right whale-the "baleen", through which tiny sea creatures called "brit" sifted down the small throat.
Great wide horrible mouths lying on the lap of the ocean lazily drinking in food-the Right Whales of the Atlantic.
And the huge teeth of the sperm whales!
Youngsters were thrilled to hear stories of these creatures, Burke's "gigantic game," that some times appeared one hun- dred in a school; that stuck their noses in the bottom of the ocean and tore off great chunks of the giant devil fish that lurked there.
Little boys sat up in their trundle-beds, in the darkness of a frosty paned winter night, wide eyed at frightful dreams of a great black head rearing up as high as Capt. Paul Briggs' house; horrid jaws that reached up into the sky, opened, and swung around and cracked a boat into splinters! Jaws that broke legs, killed men! Sometimes the dark head turned around and around and the big ship itself went down.
And little bodies shivered under the patchwork quilts pulled up over the small cropped heads. A frightening but fascinating adventure!
A six year older might stick his head down in the feather bed but a ten year, twelve year old lad sailed away as
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cabin boy, some times cook, and came home in two, three, four years after sailing 24,000 miles, a swaggering whaler, perhaps a mate of a great ship with tales of peaked fiery islands, and unfathomable depths of sea.
The huge creatures grow larger with every voyage. Bar- rels of oil from the tongue! Jawbones that are made into bridges on the islands! Pieces of back bone as big as the boulders that George Bonum Nye's oxen were dragging down to build his wharf opposite Ram Island.
All the people in Sippican wouldn't weigh as much as one of "the critters!"
Yes! Everybody in the village knew whaling! For it took so many to outfit the little ships after they were launched, that it seemed sometimes as though every able bodied man in the villages took a hand -- carpenters, coopers, storekeepers, sailmakers, blacksmiths, block-workers.
Seventeen, twenty-one, thirty-two men for a ship. Cooks, stewards, cabin boys, ship keeper, three spare men, and so almost every man and boy in the village did get away for at least one voyage out into the swirling, wet, oily, smoky world of whaling.
Even the sailmakers and the village blacksmith took a look at the strange mammals who seemed so human in some ways; so tender in the care of their young and such fighters when any of a school were touched.
Back breaking, cruel, brine washed days and nights with some captains. Twenty-four hours a day at work, up at day- break and all day long, the watch relieved every two hours, scanning the horizon for the spout that might mean a prize. With home folks on board, all sails furled at night, a lazy sailing cruise with not too much work, and the excitement of the best game in the world waiting some where beyond the great waves. Lands, and barns and sheep, and cattle, and fine clothes for the owners. Not much in the pockets of the sailors perhaps, but fathers and brothers and uncles were owners of the ship, and a boy had been known to come home with $400.00 in his pockets.
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Whaling! . An exciting gambling adventure on strange seas! A chance to see old Mocha Dick himself, the great fight- ing whale, the tough old "varmint" for whom every man who climbed into the "cro's nest" was on the lookout.
The thrill of the rolling long cry "Thar-she-blows!", and the careful quick putting off that the fight may begin at least a mile away from the ship!
Whalers! Whalers! of Rochester-Towne-in-New England! Alas! most of the early ones lost in the Nantucket and New- port lists, and later the New Bedford.
"It is impossible" writes Starbuck "to apportion the ves- sels among the proper ports."
The clumsy little vessels slid from the shores of the "Lands of Sippican", and were sailing, sailing after the great game for a hundred years before the "huckleberry pas- tures" of Dartmouth became the great whaling port of the world.
Ten years before the "Red Coats" felled the Nantucket In- dian on the cobbled roads of Boston, 160 Whalers were sailing from Nantucket and Cape Cod.
In 1770 Representative Ebenezer White of Rochester was sending out the schooner Desire, with a Nye as Captain of her.
A Whaler! What difference what she was named! Desire, or the Henry, or the Gold Hunter, the James Lopez, the Napoleon, or the Julian!
A ship of adventure as she parted the shining waters of the harbor; as she cruised around Dead Men's Chest, and through the Dragon's Mouth; as she wallowed around the Horn!
Oily craft with horny handed, heavy footed farm boys climbing, swinging off into skyey depths, catching a rope to save themselves from dropping into curling foam, as they learn to be nimble sailors; with uncles roaring through ship trumpets as mates and captains; and little brothers doing ship chores, or stirring up a savory mess called "souse", or "duff" in the galley.
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While old Sippicaners were still reckoning in shillings and pence those lumbering little schooners paid well, and from those lazy voyages came whalemen that the mother country coveted.
During the Revolution many a captain, the whistling Yankee Doodle fifes in his heart, threw a weapon at the great creatures rather than at his brother.
But in February, 1783, a Yankee Captain sailed right into the teeth of a hostile, bristling mother country.
"Wall! the war wuz over, wasn't it?" Anyway, not afraid of anything in the world-those old whaling captains! And "a chance to make some money" quoth those old Quakers.
Staring eyes along the water front of Old England see a strange little flag!
What! a Rebel from America? And an English newspaper prints-
"The ship Bedford, Captain Mooers, belonging to Massa- chusetts arrived in the Downes the 3rd of February, passed Gravesend on the 4th & was reported at the Custom House the 5th instant.
She was not allowed regular entry until some consultation had taken place between the Commissioners & the Lords of Council on account of the many acts of parliament yet in force against the rebels in America. She is loaded with 487 buttes of Whale oil; is American built; manned wholly by American seamen, wears the colors & belongs to the Island of Nantucket in Massachusetts. This is the first vessel which dis- played the thirteen rebellious stripes of America in any Brit- ish port. The vessel lies at Horseley down a little below the town and is intended immediately to return to New England."
Captain Mooers, lips set, waiting for word from the Lords of Council; the mate's hoarse trumpet commands, and the sailors go about the business of the ship.
Great talk about the whalers from the little tip of the land of the Pilgrims, and envious France offers exciting in- ducements to whalemen-lands and ships-and dozens and dozens of Yankee captains man British and French ships.
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The Revolutionary muskets cool and the war worn uni- forms are put away. There is the luring sea lapping the shore and adventure and wealth in the distance.
In 1790 the whaler Amelia sailed out of Nantucket, too late for a good whaling season on the Brazilian coast, not dis- couraged, ventured around the Horn, and killed the first sperm whale in the Pacific. The harpooner was Archilus Hammond born in Rochester-Towne.
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The news filtered back, borne on little greasy craft, sloops, brigs and trim merchant men to the Cape Cod and Buzzards Bay villages, and the Rochester Towne outfitters and owners began to reckon how much in provisions, harpoons, casks, and tools a ship would need for a voyage of two, three, four years . out into that unknown world of cannibal islands.
· The owners, outfitters, captains of a century ago! Fam- iliar names stare up from the pages of the Commissioners' Re- port-Blankinships and Hammonds and Bates and Luces and Nyes. And the terse lines tell more than names.
There are crashing timbers and cries and heroism; tense muscles and stern orders of command and iron wills saving lives in danger.
"In March 1796, the ship Harmony of Rochester, Capt. George Blankinship, ran upon a whale off the coast of Brazil and was stove and sunk. The crew was saved, but the vessel and cargo was lost."
And so the story of whaling, chapter by chapter, is written in the history of the Pilgrim's land.
Deep and dark the unknown ocean depths, the sea ser- pent appearing now and then, but out they go, whalers! Whalers!
From little schooners like Capt. Blankinship's Betsy, they grow to ships that are finding it hard to get over the Nantucket bar-and Nantucketers are screwing up their faces and making plans. No use! Vessels that draw 10 ft. are too big, and over on Buzzards Bay the huckleberry pastures and farms of old Dartmouth begin to put out wharves, and the cow lanes grow cobblestones, and the meetings of broad-brimmed gentle
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voiced men who "thee" and "thou" their captains, and agents, and outfitters, are beginning to be felt in the far away ports of the world.
The tub shaped vessels put out year after year. From Rochester Towne the year after the Nimrod sunk her guns off Bird Island the little whalers are venturing round the Horn; the President, the John Adams, the Sally, the Magnolia, the George, the Hero, Ontario, Orion, Spartan, the Swift, the Zone, the Omega, the Meridian.
For three, four years they sail away! By 1819 whalers are off the coast of Japan; by 1822, whalemen touching the "cannible islands", Honolulu. By 1829 many Rochester whal- ers were clearing at the New Bedford custom house.
The Herald, Hope, Pocahontus, Dryade, Franklin, Lex- ington, Indian Queen, Shylock, Emerald, Young Eagle, Mary Ann.
Call them any names you wish. From names of favorite daughters to names of constellations, from battles to Greek letters!
They were fond of the name "Annawan", those builders of whale ships.
Annawan! that splendid Indian chief who stood by Philip in those dark days; who called "Iatoosh! Iatoosh!" "Stand firm! Stand firm!" as the curtain rang down on the last act of the tragedy.
The story of the Annawan, a whaler, is the story of the whalers of America.
Richard Halliburton tells in one of his adventures of the story of the whaler Annawan from Nantucket that in 1831 is the scene of a revolt of Chilian convicts on Alexander Sel- kirk's island with the savages taking the ship and the frightened white lipped captain's wife below.
In a brown stained log book bought in New Bedford Dec. 13, 1836 we read 'Journal of an Intended voyage to the West Indies and Elsewhere."
"Brig Annawan, Friday Dec. 16, 1836. Charles B. Ham- mond writes "got away at Mattapoisett." The old brown log tells a story of cruising about the islands off St. Vincents.
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The tubby little brig goes through the Dragon's Mouth, and then lumbers off down the Spanish Main like all the others in company.
Speaks brig Elizabeth and Bark Popomonett, so soon to be wrecked.
They are constantly sighting humpbacks, and boiling black fish, but the real whales are scarce.
"Could not get any, almost discouraged" writes the mate "cruising off Dead Men's Chest."
On Feb. 23 "Cruising off Porto Rico at 9 A.M. saw a dead whale, lowered a boat and took him alongside. The Elizabeth's boat came and claimed him." Disgust written in the lines "Cast him off and made sail. So ends."
Discouragement written in the lines, and then suddenly the little black ink whales begin to appear on the pages op- posite the fortunate days.
On Mar. 4, 1837, Jubilant, the mate writes:
"4 P.M. Saw whales, got two, at 6 took them alongside and got supper-after supper got up the tackles and cut one in and hooked onto the other and tore out-giving up cutting till morning, at 6 A.M. hooked on."
Then boiling, boiling, boiling, until "Monday 2 P. M. finished and by 4 P.M. finished stowing down oil. Strong gales and squally. Under Double Reefed Topsails. Sprung the Fore Spensor Mast. Spoke the Sarah Louise, Captain Tay- lor, 60 bbls, 4 months out. So ends." So the logs read.
Sometimes late at night the little figures work in the red glow of the boiling blubber.
"At 10 P.M. a large ship run down to us and hailed us and thought we were on fire. At 12 midnight finished boiling."
Day after day they sail, with tails of whales disappearing off the pages, until on May 9 he writes
"at 5 A.M. saw whales, lowered and struck one and drawed from him. Came on board and took up the boat. At 10 saw whales again, lowered and got one at Noon took him alongside and took a stiff horn all round and got Dinner." Most of the days "Saw nothing of the whale kind. So ends."
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The next year Charles Hammond is writing in the same brown book.
"Log of the Brig Solon of Rochester" and is cruising with the Orion and getting a whale with her, and jotting down a sea tragedy in two lines, "On Oct. 5, at 2 P.M. Saw whale, lowered and got two at 7, took one to each vessel. The Orion got one boat stove and lost John Christian."
No further comment but they got to the business of boiling.
Then Blackfish! Blackfish! Blackfish! Blackfish! Real whaling captains snort at blackfish "Come around the Horn and get a real whale!" So the log ends "Saw nothing remark- able. So ends," with the crew fixing rigging and the last page "Brig Solon. Homeward Bound." A real plum pudding voyage!
But the Annawan! What happened that the young mate put his sea chest aboard the Solon?
Superstition sometimes shattered the nerves of a ship. Something, anything suspected must go overboard or it cast a spell of terror over a voyage.
Sometimes a man died.
"And never since that moment Save a shudder through the sea
Saw we or heard the creature that had
followed in our lee!"
The brig Annawan was doomed!
Not until months after the tragedy did Dr. Robbins write in his diary-
"Apr. 4, 1839 news came that the brig Annawan of this place, coming home with a valuable cargo was wrecked near Bermuda and the crew are reported missing. Several families are much distressed."
Two weeks later he writes-
Apr. 15 Painful news received here this morning from the Brig Annawan, wrecked, of 21 of the crew, 14 including the captain and mates are lost; 7 are saved. 7 from this place; 4 lost, the cargo worth about $20,000."
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Apr. 20, the doctor writes "Saw a seaman, Chase, who was wrecked in the Annawan, his story is very affecting. Four promising youths of this place were lost."
In the Records we find "Charles S. Bates lost at sea Feb. 27, 1839, 26 years old."
Young Captain Charles, of Sippican.
"Alexander Leach lost in the Brig Annawan." "James Delano, 3rd officer of Whaleship Frederick of New Bedford was carried down with the line while taking a whale and was lost."
Another Sippican boy that year of 1839.
News from the whalers was so slow coming. Months with no news at all.
Time for the whalers to come home! Eager, restless mothers, wives, watching from the lookouts on the houses; women who have had the painful waiting during the long winter storms when perhaps father was off on a merchant ship, a son, a husband on a whaler.
It is said that the little houses on Main St. were built close to the road and each other, that the women might have near neighbors when the men folks were away on long voyages. The day comes when a motionless rider on Charles Neck Point suddenly jerks his rein, turns his rearing horse, and spurring up the sandy road clears the bars that keep the cattle in, and galloping, galloping comes on to the main road to the gather- ing place where the well is at the head of "the wharf", one arm waving, calling "Flag's up! Flag's up!"
A tubby, lumbering whaler with the flag flying at the mast head, showing all's well on board is showing up around the Point, and before the slow craft can come into the vision of the watchers in the Mendell attic, "the lookout" for old Sippican, the breathless rider is talking to the excited crowd surrounding him.
They are all there; the old whalemen, the captains of mer- chantmen, the saltmakers, the ship builders, the outfitters and store keepers popping out from behind their desks on the
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corner, the inn keeper, the postmaster, because that is the busi- ness center of Sippican village.
Sometimes before the rider has slipped from his horse the South West breeze has brought the brig, all sails set, round the Point, and the watchers in the attic have caught a first glimpse through the telescope and the news goes through the crowd-"It's the Persia! The Persia! She'll come up to Sherman's wharf! All's well! All's well!" Everybody is crowding down to welcome the bearded men folks home.
But if the flag is at half mast, how slowly the rider turns towards the village.
Sometimes timid women with husbands, sons on other whalers hardly dare to go down to see their old friends and neighbors come ashore; hardly dare ask "What news of the Rainbow? the Omega? the Shylock?" "Any news of Jim, of John, of Obed?"
The whalers bring letters and reports of meetings at sea, this ship and that, and have news of this one and another.
The joy of meeting a ship at sea!
"Ship ahoy! ship ahoy! What cheer! What cheer!" the sailors sing.
But often, too often, a death of a neighbor is reported. Davis in the Nimrod of the Sea writes "In one voyage one might speak 30 ships, on each one a death of a whaler, some- times three."
So it is a little timidly, with hands clutching the shawl over the heart, that some women of the village go down to the wharf to welcome the Persia.
The stones in the village graveyards tell the story "Died at sea," "Lost at sea", and the town records the same sad tale.
But nothing daunts the young sailors.
Young Captain Charles Bates is gone, but on July 30, 1839 off sails Charles Hammond in the brig Two Sisters of Rochester, agent Noble Bates. It was bought in Boston, and is a lucky ship. A good voyage, with whales plentiful, literally frisking about the horizon.
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A jolly hunting voyage! Constantly meeting friends and relatives on Rochester and New Bedford ships - The Willis, the Agate, the Zoroaster.
Nov. 26 they have just finished boiling one good catch when they spoke the Solon.
"At 7 A.M. saw a large whale. Lowered and got him and mated with the Solon, at noon took him alongside from the Solon."
The next day "At 9 commenced baling case. At 10 com- menced boiling. All hands Boiling. Account of oil In comp- any with Solon. Head 680."
By March 23 "people employed in heaving tryworks over- board" and the Two Sisters comes home from a seven months voyage with a full ship. 1500 bbls. Another "Plum Pud- ding" voyage, and some sailor had time to scratch a picture of the Two Sisters on a "busk" for a "fair ladye" of Rochester Towne.
Rochester now owned 15 whalers, 5 ships and 10 brigs and schooners. So many ships going out from the Buzzards Bay, sailors, and whalers swarming along the little wharves of the Buzzards Bay towns.
Climbing aboard for a three year's trip around the Horn; to a pan of hard tack, water, "Scouse", boiled meat, cran- berry and dried apple duff. Always grumbling. Every sailor grins as he tells the old story
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