USA > Massachusetts > Dukes County > Marthas Vineyard > The history of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 43
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1Starbuck, "History of American Whaling"; comp. Marvin, " American Mer- chant Marine," 140.
2One of the islands of the Gilbert group is called Nantucket.
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Antarctic regions.1 The development of the business in this locality naturally opened up further penetration into the then almost unknown equatorial seas of the Pacific, and in the next thirty-five years the famous "Off-Shore Ground" of the south- ern ocean became the scene of some of the richest catches in the annals of this mighty fishery. Thence the scent led further north into the waters about the Japanese archipelago, and by 1822 there were thirty American whale ships busy among the great schools of spermaceti monsters that swam those seas. The three following decades were the golden age of our whale- men, for the ship Ganges, Folger, master, in 1835, took the first "right" whale on the Kodiak ground, and thus brought ยท the north-west fishery into prominence. It only required a few years to develop this branch of the industry, and by 1843 the first bow-head whales were captured off the coast of Kam- schatka, and in 1848 the bold and relentless Yankee whalemen pushed their adventurous prows into the narrows of Bering's straits, and gave chase to their game in the frozen waters of the Arctic. Here was found a field which appealed to the imaginative spirit of the dauntless seamen of our island. Exactly a century before their ancestors had plowed through Davis' straits into the waters of Greenland, and now they had "doubled the Horn" to enter the undiscovered waters of the Arctic on the opposite shores of the continent in pursuit of the same prey. Much of it reads like a romance, but they were born to it and could not be denied. Crevecoeur, in his visit to our island, made the following observations upon the mari- time vigor of the population, in 1782: -
The island therefore is become a great nursery which supplies with pi- lots and seamen the numerous coasters with which this extended part of America abounds. Go where you will from Nova Scotia to the Missis- sippi you will find almost every where some native of this island employed in sea-faring occupations. Here are to be found the most expert pilots, either for the great bay, there found, Nantucket shoals, or the different ports in their neighbourhood. In stormy weather they are always at sea, looking out for vessels, which they board with singular dexterity, and hardly ever fail to bring safe to their intended harbor.2
Such were the progenitors of the men who sailed into un- known seas in the next century, and continued in the waters of the Pacific the pursuits successfully followed by them in the Atlantic.
1North American Review, 1834.
2 Lettres d'un cultivateur Americain, 159.
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HAZARDS OF THE OCCUPATION.
In the fifty years covering the period 1767-1827, during which time Parsons Kingsbury and Thaxter kept a record of persons dying in Edgartown, there are entries of one hundred and thirty casualties among those who went "down to sea in ships and did their business in great waters." Of these thirteen are specifically named as occurring in whaling voy- ages, but it is certain that many of the others were engaged in that occupation when they met their deaths. The first men- tioned was Weeks, who died Oct. 2, 1769, "by a wound received from a whale." Richard Sprague was killed "by a whale" in 1772; Ansel, son of Prince Daggett, was "drowned at the Straits" in September, 1789; Sprowel Dun- ham died in August, 1807, "while on a whaling voyage in the Indian seas"; Charles Norton died April 3, 1818, drowned, "a whale stove the boat & before relief could get to him he sunk"; John Crossman died May 30, 1818, "on a whaling voyage"; and Silas, son of Zephaniah Butler, was drowned in the Pacific ocean, December, 1824.
The other six lost their lives in the ships Globe and Lady Adams, of which mention will be separately made. In 1767, Parson Kingsbury records "this year there were about 18 persons lost at sea," a loss not after equalled in one year dur- ing the half century embraced in the above account. Of the one hundred and thirty deaths, seventy-two are entered as "foundered," "lost at sea," or "drowned"; forty died in the "West Indies," probably of yellow fever, or other tropical disease; six were reported to have perished accidentally, falling from a mast, or knocked overboard by a boom, and Tristram Cleveland was "eaten up by an alligator in Batavia harbor." If the other two towns furnished an equal death roll in that same period, there were about four hundred deaths "at sea" from the Vineyard in that half century.1
In a little enclosure on the heights overlooking the harbor of Vineyard Haven, back of the U. S. Marine Hospital, is a moss-covered slate stone bearing an inscription which has amused hundreds by the quaint verbiage of the obituary poetry which concludes the epitaph: -
'The earliest gravestone recording the death at sea, in the Lambert's Cove bury- ing ground, is erected to the memory of Anthony Luce, who died March 20, 1769, aged thirty-six years.
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John and Lydia That lovely pair A whale killed him Her body lies here.
These lines, more fortunate in the clearness of statement than in poetic beauty, tell of the tragedy of the industry we are con- sidering. John Claghorn of Eastville, son of Thomas, the inn- keeper of that village, had married Lydia, daughter of Dr. Elisha West of Homes Hole, living just across the Lagoon, in February, 1770, he at the age of twenty-four and she one year younger. Before twelve months had passed both were dead, he a victim of the fury of one of the mighty monsters he was endeavoring to kill. When once aroused, this marine mammal knew no obstacle too great or too little to curb his rage. Sperm whales have been taken upwards of eighty feet long, and it was one of these toothed cetaceans which rammed and sank the American ship Essex in the South Pacific in 1819,- one of the most extraordinary incidents in the history of naviga- tion. This kind of whale is believed to be the most dangerous to attack, and when the Essex was cruising a thousand miles off the coast of South America, an immense specimen of the genus, estimated about ninety feet long, was sighted dead ahead. Instead of sinking, as is their habit under the circum- stances, the monster made a run for the ship and drove head- long at the bows, just forward of the fore chains. The ship trembled as if she had struck a rock, and was brought up so violently that she shook from stem to stern. The whale passed under the vessel, scraping her keel as he went. The mate set the pumps going as he found the vessel had received a death thrust. The whale in the meanwhile had rounded to about a quarter of a mile off, and was lashing the water and opening and closing his jaws with great fury. Suddenly one of the crew shouted: "Here he is! He is making for us again!" The mate turned, and saw the giant cachalot coming once more towards the injured ship with tenfold fury and vengeance in his aspect. Before any defense could be used, the mon- strous head of this monarch of the sea struck her oak-ribbed bows and crushed them in as if they were sheet iron. The officers. and crew had just time to get into small boats, when the Essex rolled over on her beam ends, full of water.1 Another
1 Marvin, " American Merchant Marine," 152. The sufferings of the crews of the three boats, shipwrecked in mid-ocean, make one of the most hideous tales of the sea. They started for the coast of South America, the last week of November, and
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ship, the Ann Alexander, in 1850, was similarly wrecked in the South Pacific, after two of her boats had been smashed by the monster in succession. The captain had been able to haul his vessel round once or twice to avert the infuriated attacks, but the third time, the captain stood on the knight- heads, determined to finish the awful contest with the iron he held in his hands. With the speed of a locomotive the whale dashed towards the ship and struck her a terrible blow abreast the fore-mast, and she began to go down by the head. Five months later the belligerent spermaceti which destroyed this vessel was killed, and the harpoon hurled by the captain was found in his mighty carcass and fragments of the ship's timbers were imbedded in his great head. These instances are recited here to show the terrible power of the marine animals which our sea-faring kinsmen have hunted for two centuries, and the dangers to which they have been subjected. But while these are isolated cases of great disaster, the destruction of small boats was a frequent and familiar occurrence. Either end of the monster was dangerous for the boatmen, for he would crush the small boats with his jaws or thrash it into splinters with his terrible tail.1
The perils and uncertainties of the whaling business, and other forms of industry connected with the sea, is well illus- trated in the case of Captain Marshall Jenkins of Edgartown, who was engaged in these hazardous occupations before the Revolutionary war. He had one remarkable venture which found record in the newspapers of the pre-Revolutionary time. This occurrence is thus described: -
We learn from Edgartown that a vessel lately arrived there from a whaling voyage; and in her voyage one Marshall Jenkins, with others, being in a boat which struck a whale, she turned and bit the boat in two, took Jenkins in her mouth and went down with him; but on her rising threw him into one part of the boat, whence he was taken on board the vessel by the crew, being much bruised; and that in about a fortnight after, he perfectly recovered. This account we have from undoubted authority."2
after the storms, hunger, thirst, and perils of the deep had reduced their numbers from thirty to eight, Captain Zimri Coffin of Nantucket rescued these living skeletons three months after the titanic combat in which the leviathan had come off victorious.
1In the "Nimrod of the Sea" the author records a lively battle with a sperm whale of fighting instincts, encountered off the Rio de la Plata, in which four whale boats in succession were crushed in the jaws of the monster, and finished with the deadly blows of his tail.
2Boston Post Boy, Oct. 14, 1771. It is stated that the marks of the whale's teeth were borne for the rest of his life, a veritable evidence of the truth of this remarkable tale of the deep. (Vineyard Gazette, July 20, 1888.) This story was told the author of this history fifteen years ago by an "old salt" of Edgartown.
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Associated in business with him were his elder brother, Lemuel Jenkins, and his brothers-in-law, John Pease and Ephraim Pease. There seems to have been no lack of energy and vigorous enterprise on the part of the owners. Still for- tune did not favor them. Disaster followed disaster. After the whaling season was over, one of their vessels, a schooner of seventy-five tons, was sent to the eastward, under the charge of Abraham Preble and Beriah Pease. They loaded the vessel with lumber, but in coming home the men, vessel, and cargo were all lost. Ephraim Pease, in one of their vessels in the West India trade, got on the rocks and lost vessel and cargo. The men were saved. Cornelius Marchant was in charge of a brig of theirs to the West Indias. The brig was taken, and vessel and cargo condemned. Some of the men got home. Thomas Coffin, in one of their vessels, the brig Sea Horse, loaded with salt from the West Indies, when in sight of Long Island, was taken by the English. The brig and cargo were condemned; a total loss. Another of their vessels which had a valuable cargo on board, bound to the West Indies, was taken the second day after sailing from the Vineyard. To these severe disasters another was added; a brig of theirs, ly- ing in Edgartown harbor, was burnt by the British. It is no wonder that after such repeated losses, they should seek their fortune in another direction, and relinquish forever all interests in navigation. Accordingly, in the month of October, 1786, Lemuel Jenkins and his brother Marshall Jenkins, with their families, removed from Edgartown to Hudson, New York.1
TRAGEDIES OF THE SEA.
These were the special perils of the occupation itself, to which came in the nature of events the ordinary perils of the deep, - storms, collision, founderings, hidden reefs, wrecks on savage isles, and the innumerable dangers of navigation. But in addition to this there happened mutinies and murders which are directly attributable to the business of whaling, as it had to be carried on during weary voyages, with no diver- sions in port, the crew fed on monotonous diet, and the absence of wholesome recreation. In January, 1824, the history of the whale fishery was blotted by one awful tragedy, in which several Vineyard men lost their lives. The Globe of Nan- tucket, commanded by Captain Thomas Worth, was in the
1Vineyard Gazette, May 11, 1888.
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History of Martha's Vineyard
South Pacific ocean on a whaling voyage, with Thomas Beetle as mate, while among the crew were Nathaniel Fisher, son of Amaziah of Edgartown, Gilbert, son of John Smith, Jr., and a son of Abishai Lambert of Chilmark. Samuel B. Comstock of Nantucket, one of the crew, became engaged in a friendly wrestling match with Fisher, who was third mate, and being readily defeated, swore revenge. Comstock led the crew to mutiny against the officers, and after killing Captain Worth and First Mate Beetle, they threw Lambert and Fisher over- board, took charge and steered for a secluded island to strip and destroy her. The ringleader, Comstock, was killed by his first assistant, one Silas Payne, after a disagreement. Parson Thaxter says: "Gilbert Smith, when the mutineers were on shore, cut the cable, put to sea with six of the crew, and got safe to Valparaiso." Of the ten mutineers left on the island eight were massacred by the natives. From the simple cause detailed above grew the most revolting tragedy that ever stained the decks of one of our whalers. But while this ter- rible catastrophe took place under the auspices of men of our own kindred, there were instances of treachery and bloodshed attributable to the passions of foreigners occasionally shipped with our crews. At first the only alien on board these ships was the Indian of our island, but towards the middle of the last century, as the whales became scarce, and the "shares" less profitable, the owners were obliged to fill the forecastle with the "floaters" along the docks. "The Portuguese of the Western Islands, the negroes of the Cape Verdes, and even the savages of the Pacific archipelagoes were drawn into our service," says one writer, "until an American whaleship was a kaleidoscope of colors, as well as a Babel of tongues."
A tragic experience growing out of these conditions befell the ship Sharon, commanded by Captain Howes Norris of Eastville. On Sunday, Nov. 6, 1842, while the crew of the ship was busily engaged in the small boats chasing whales several miles off, three Kingsmill islanders who, with the cap- tain and a boy, were the only persons aboard, murdered Captain Norris in their usual treacherous manner. They had stolen upon him from behind and decapitated him with one swift blow of that terrible weapon, the cutting spade. The captain's headless trunk lay on the deck, and the boy had hid- den himself in the rigging aloft for refuge when the boats returned. Three howling savages, thirsting for more blood, met their astonished sight. Armed with harpoons, cutting
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spades, axes, hammers, and belaying pins these wild-eyed savages, now aroused to the highest pitch of frenzy, dared them to come aboard. It was a situation that appalled the bravest, and the officers and men lost their nerve. Not one would lead them, except the brave third mate, young Benjamin Clough, who volunteered to board the ship single handed. Under cover of darkness, he managed to climb into a cabin window, found the dead captain's cutlasses and muskets, and was loading the firearms, when he was discovered by one of the savages. A terrible hand-to-hand conflict followed, during which Clough received a severe wound, but managed to dis- able his foe. A second savage, aroused by the struggle, rushed to the scene and hurled a cutting spade at Clough, almost severing his arm, while at the same moment Clough shot his new assailant through the heart. The third savage, seeing the fate of the other two, leaped overboard, but swam back and climbing aboard, secreted himself in the forehold. The cautious crew, now assured of the safety of the decks, boarded the ship and joined the intrepid third mate. The last savage was soon secured and all further danger was ended. It is gratifying to record that Mate Clough sailed on her next voyage as Captain Clough, and that he became one of the most suc- cessful of the masters sailing out of New Bedford.
Under date of April, 1825, Parson Thaxter records the deaths of Fordam Pease aged twenty-two and Charles Coffin aged nineteen years, and in the remarks which usually follow his entries, occurs the comment: "They sailed in the ship Lady Adams. She has long been despaired of; it is thought they were lost about midsummer, 1823. They were very promising young men." This is all that was ever known of this whaler. She was last spoken off the coast of Japan, which at that time was a forbidden, as well as a forbidding shore.1
The first ship from Edgartown to engage in whaling was the Apollo, which sailed on July 5, 1816, under the command of Captain Jethro Daggett, bound for the Pacific. The ship Hector was under several Vineyard masters, and was called the "luckiest whaleship afloat." From 1826 to 1853 she brought into port 19,697 barrels of sperm oil. She was suc-
1In the year 1860 there were the following whaling craft hailing from Edgartown: Ships Almira, Champion, Europa, Mary, Navigator, Ocmulgee, Omega, Richard Mitchell, Splendid, Vineyard, Walter Scott; Barks American, Ellen, Eureka, Louisa Sears, Rose Pool; Schooners E. A. Luce, Washington.
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cessively commanded by Captains Clement Norton, John O. Morse, Thomas A. Norton, James Gray, George Manter, Peter Smith and Henry Norton. Clement Norton was credited with having assisted in taking, during his sea service, 30,040 barrels of oil. He had sailed over a million miles, went twelve voyages as master, and never lost a spar larger than a topsail yard. An Edgartown man, Captain Charles W. Fisher, is credited with the distinction of capturing the largest sperm whale ever killed, which yielded 168 barrels of oil, while mas- ter of the Alaska in 1884.1
The great disaster to the whaling fleet, which has remained in the memories of the people of the Vineyard since its occur- rence, happened in September, 1871, in the Arctic ocean. Thirty-one ships were lost, but the crews were saved after suffering great privations from hunger and cold and exposure. Edgartown lost two ships, the Mary and Champion, in this wholesale wrecking of the industry. The Europa of Edgar- town, Captain Thomas Mellen, aided in bringing the crews down from their perilous position.
EDMUND BURKE'S TRIBUTE TO OUR WHALERS.
The eloquent tribute of Edmund Burke to the early whalemen of New England, in his famous speech before the House of Commons, in behalf of the American Colonies, has often been quoted; but it may here fittingly close our review of an industry which engaged the activities and enterprise of our island from its first beginnings.
Look at the manner in which the people of New England have carried on the whale-fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling moun- tains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis' Strait - whilst we are looking for them beneath the Arctic Circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold - that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is the equatorial heat more discouraging to them than the accumulated win- ter of both the poles. We know that whilst some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, and pursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No ocean but
1One of the most successful whaling voyages on record is that of ship Gladiator, of New Bedford, which arrived in April, 1854, having taken 6200 barrels of oil and 95,000 pounds of bone in forty-four months.
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what is vexed with their fisheries; no climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this perilous mode of hardy enterprise to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people, - a people who are still, as it were, in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.1
1Speech in Parliament on Conciliation with America, March 22, 1775.
E
-
A CRITICAL MOMENT.
HARPOONING THE "RIGHT" WHALE.
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History of Martha's Vineyard
CHAPTER XXIX. TRAVEL AND TAVERNS.
BY FERRY, PACKET, AND STEAMBOAT.
The necessities of travel in the early days, between the island and the mainland, found but little that was convenient for the wayfarer either in taverns or transportation. Those intending journeys to or from the island had to await some "convenient opportunity" of a coastwise vessel to take him as a chance passenger, for there was no regular communication between the Vineyard and the nearest point of the cape for many years after the settlement of the island. In 1665 we get the first glimpse of the increased travel back and forth, when the townsmen of Falmouth licensed an inn-holder, "in regard that it doth appear that there is great recourse to & fro by travelers to Marthas Vineyard."1 Nothing further ap- pears upon our records to show that this increased travel was given the accommodation of a stated ferry, and if any existed it was operated by some person at Wood's Hole. That such an one was in use in 1700 is shown in our court records of that date, when "the fery at homes hole" is mentioned, and it is probable that it was licensed by the people of the cape town. Doubtless this was unsatisfactory, because not under the jurisdiction of our authorities, for early in 1703 the follow- ing action was taken to provide for a regular service: -
Leift Isaac Chase is appoynted by this Courte to keepe a publike fery for the transporting of man and beast from Marthas Vineyard to Sickanesset alias falmouth and the fees allowed for said ferriage viz: - six shillings for a man and a hors or three shillings for each person or hors forew'd to s'd Suckanesset: but if he doth cary but one hors over sd ferriage that he shall have the sume of five shillings.2
For many years Isaac Chase had been keeping a tavern at Homes Hole, and he was the most natural person to combine the two functions. How long he exercised this dual public duty is not known, but in 1716 his son-in-law, Benjamin Weeks of Falmouth, is called "ferryman" and it may be inferred that Chase gave the business over to the younger man.3 It is how-
1Freeman, " History of Cape Cod."
2County Court Records, Vol. I.
3Deeds, III, 148.
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ever more probable that ferries were operated from both sides of the Sound, owing to the distance and the difficulty of com- munication. In 1726, a year before the death of Chase, Samuel Barker of Falmouth was licensed by our County Court as ferryman between "homses hole & woodses hole," and the following fees were allowed: "Every man or woman, 3s; Every horse, 3s; Ox, 5s; Every other beast, 4s; Every sheep or goat, 4d."1
In 1729 Lieut. Joseph Parker of Wood's Hole was licensed as ferryman by that town.2
In 1741 another ferry was established by our county authorities, to run from Lambert's Cove to Wood's Hole, and John Cottle was appointed the first ferryman. How long this additional line was operated is not known.3
In 1742 Abraham Chase was given the license to run the old ferry from Homes Hole, and the following fee table was adopted: "one man or woman, 5s; one man and horse, &s; two men or women & horse, IIS; I man or woman, 2 horses, IIS; More persons at 4s each; Sheep &d; Pair of Oxen, IS., 6d. & prorata; Cowes, 7s."4 It will be seen that this is a considerable increase over the previous schedule, and it is probable from subsequent events that this tariff was not suf- ficient to reimburse the operator. Chase did not keep up his franchise regularly, and by 1750 the service was practically abandoned to the actual necessities of travel, rather than a regular routine of trips across. To remedy this state of affairs twenty-three of the leading men in the three towns addressed a memorial to Governor William Shirley, the Council, and the House of Representatives, setting forth their grievances, and asking aid of the province for providing a remedy. This petition is as follows: -
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