USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 60
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 60
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Old Steamboat Dock and Sea Cliff Inclined Cable Railway, Sea Cliff
centers in which, after a day's shooting, they often gathered for rest and free refreshments. This practice may have had some bearing on the government's building its own stations in 1872 when it created the U. S. Life Saving Service from what had been the Revenue Cutter Service. These stations were equipped with boats and manned by regular crews.
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THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
The new service was put to a severe test on December 11, 1876, when the 1720-ton Circassian, bound from Liverpool for New York, struck the outer bar off Bridgehampton. Captain Williams, her master, deciding that she could be saved as the weather was mild, at once began transferring her cargo to the beach to lighten the ship. Meanwhile a Merritt Wrecking Company tug arrived and a cable was passed to the stranded vessel preparatory to towing her into deep water. To facilitate operations the wrecking company engaged all available men of the Shinnecock Indian reservation which was located near at hand, as well as other local residents. For eighteen days the work went on until, by the morning of December 29, the Circassian's cargo had been transferred to the beach and from there carted to the railroad for shipment to New York.
As the lightened ship lay awaiting the next flood tide, the first gust of a northwest snow-squall struck. Government life-savers of the Bridgehampton station at once advised Captain Williams to abandon ship but he decided to remain aboard with a crew of volun- teers, among them all of the Indians employed. The wind suddenly switched to the southwest and struck with gale force. Again and again the life-savers attempted to launch a boat through the rising surf but to no avail. As darkness descended, the wind increased and soon thereafter pieces of wreckage came ashore. That night the ship was pounded apart and by morning her timbers were strewn along the beach, together with twenty-four bodies, including ten Shinnecocks each of whom left a widow and one or more offspring. Only four men of those aboard the Circassian when she broke up reached shore alive.
Despite the complete destruction of this English vessel and the great loss of life, the life-saving service was commended for its efforts. It was pointed out that had Captain Williams followed the advice of the government men and abandoned ship before the storm broke there need have been no fatalities.
When in August, 1879, there occurred a storm which, in the words of H. D. Sleight, "did incalculable damage to shipping and stranded many vessels of the menhaden fishing fleet in Gardiner's Bay," the life-saving crews performed many heroic deeds of rescue. Ten months later, however, the steamship Narragansett burned and sank on Long Island Sound, beyond the reach of shore stations, and sixty persons went to their death. Shortly thereafter the sound steamer Rhode Island was destroyed on Bonnett Point, but life-savers rescued all hands, including Quartermaster Jacob L. Valentine, a resident of Brookhaven.
In the memorable spring blizzard of 1888, the U. S. Life Saving Service, then some sixteen years old, performed yeoman work along the coast. Although this blizzard, which began on the evening of Sunday, March 11, with driving rain, followed by snow from Monday noon until late Tuesday, was accompanied by a terrific northwest gale, Sleight, in describing the blizzard of November, 1898, wrote: "The wind blew harder than in the 1888 blizzard, but the snowfall was not so heavy." The little steamer Manhansett, Captain Jim Smith, crossed the Sound from New London to Greenport two days after the blizzard
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of '88 had subsided, making first contact with the snowbound east end of Long Island. Not until two days later were railroad trains able to get through.
One of the most tragic shipwrecks of this era was that of the three-masted schooner Louis V. Place which struck the outer bar opposite Patchogue at eight o'clock in the morning of February 8, 1895. Again and again the crews of the Lone Hill and the Blue Point life-saving stations fired a line across the ship on which to launch the breeches buoy, but no attempt to secure it was made by any of the eight men clinging to the vessel's rigging. Not until it was discovered that these men were frozen where they had taken refuge from the mountainous waves, was hope of rescue abandoned. Nevertheless, on the following day when six ice-encased bodies were recovered from the surf, two showed signs of life. One of these men expired without regaining consciousness, but the other, a sailor named Stevens, sur- vived the ordeal. The body of the schooner's master, Captain Squires, was not recovered until several weeks later. It had drifted eastward some thirty miles and was found in the surf at Good Ground, a short distance from his home.
The era of sailing ships, of shipwrecks and shipbuilding on Long Island was contiguous with that of whaling as an important industry. It was the era in which the railroad was born and in which it expanded constantly, and the era which marked the greatest extension of agriculture, commercial fishing, and the shellfisheries. These industries are treated in separate chapters as integral parts of the story of Long Island during the nineteenth century.
CHAPTER XVIII The Whaling Era on Long Island
NANCY BOYD WILLEY Historian, Village of Sag Harbor
S AG HARBOR today is like a curiosity shop, or like a museum that is engagingly unorganized. Here history is jumbled together from one door to the next, and values are not displayed fairly ; as, often, some jealous dealer will keep his best pieces deceivingly dusty ! The melee is challenging. Before the doors of a surpassingly beautiful mansion are the arched jawbones of a whale. One may actually step through this strange arch, because it frames the door- way to the Whaling Museum. Thoughts are evoked: the whale is the largest animal ever known. What of the royal sport of pursuing the world's largest creature? What of the crass business, for it was known as a fishery? How are the great bleached jaws related to the house that is adorned with fleur-de-lis, rosettes, and flowering columns? Wonder and awe and a thousand questions rush to mind, but before one gets too deep in the answers, the little village meets the eye with another challenge.
At the next corner, the Civil War period is represented by a granite soldier standing watch over his little pile of cannon balls, and guarding the square; and the "gaslight period", by an old-time street lamp. Only cross the street, and lose a century. What manner of men and women built these houses of hand-hewn timber? Who were the soldiers then? What passed in the intervening years? Next along, under the roof line of a porch, a hand-turned rope course provides a clue. It is the work of shipwrights. And so one wonders about the versatile men who carved cornices, "Christian doors", Adam mantels, -- who built steeples, ships and coffins in a lifetime of resourceful creativity. Then comes the Burying Ground, which remembers to answer your thoughts about the soldiers of early wars. Here are provocative memorials of soldiers of the Revolution and privateers of 1812. And around them, their sweet ladies, and little children: "In Memory of Abigail, Relict of Silas Stuart." "In Memory of Emmeline * * * * aged 9 mos. & 25 days * * Nor youth nor tender love could save, The darling from the op'ning grave."
Behind this Burying Ground rises the sheltering body of the Whalers' Presbyterian Church, symbol of the peace years in the middle of the century; its beauty and artistry completely typical of the year 1844 when it was built, but its existence, the product of those fiercely industrious decades before, when a small vision was turned into a clamoring reality, and that which began as a three-ship enter- prise grew to the fourth largest whaling fleet in the world.
Thus the village offers tauntingly pieces of history tangible in themselves, also rich and redolent with the years of living. The
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incongruity is pleasurable, yet it rouses a longing for the full story with meaning and order.
What was this energy of many tools and many names? What is this legend of whaling that tells of the utmost in human courage and yet rouses your clenched fists against fast-rooted injustices, cruel and unfair ?
Let us call it a great energy, a flame, which at its best, we like to call American. Of all the varied episodes in the growth of our nation,
The Whalers' Presbyterian Church, Sag Harbor, since the 1938 hurricane
there are few phases that Americans are so proud of as that of the whaling era. We can rightly say it was especially ours for the Ameri- can whaling industry caught up with that of the rest of the world, the far-flung explorations of the Dutch and the crown-protected assays of the British; we surpassed them all, and actually crowded them out of the field by sheer competitive energy.
Long Island's part in this picture has a character of its own. Its special flavor can well be caught by accepting the challenge of Sag Harbor's memory of whaling days, living still in actual evidences that remain to charm us, and by staying close to all Long Island records. We shall find that Sag Harbor's story of whaling is a vig- nette, the picture on a small delicate scale like the art of its doorways, yet a complete portrayal of this great era.
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THE WHALING ERA ON LONG ISLAND
SHORE WHALING
In one of Sag Harbor's early homes, a restoration found, under seven layers of wallpaper, the original pine boards stained witlı Indian paint-pot red, a paint made from stones ground up in fish oil. This deep savage color, a fine foil for blue dishes, was an unexpected reminder of the Indian influence on Long Island destiny, which was indeed profound. The Indians hunted whales along the ocean shore, pursuing them from canoes and shooting them to death with bows and arrows. The Southampton colonists, shortly after their arrival
(Sketch by Bob Wolpert)
Long Island Whaleship
on Long Island in 1640, learned the art from the Indian, substituted a small boat for the canoe, a harpoon for the bow and arrow, and organized companies to carry on this practice. Indeed, Southampton town is the cradle of shore whaling in America. Soon, all along the ocean-side settlements of eastern Long Island, the cry "Whale off!" given by watchers set along the shore, was the signal for a small boat to be launched through the pounding surf in a pursuit that might last for days. The capture would rally the entire community to the shore, and almost everyone had some share in the ensuing labor and its rewards. It was a vastly important development, both as the fore- runner of deep-sea whaling, a school for future whalemen, and as the last survival of "the royal sport" even after the last whaling ship had sailed from New Bedford.
Shore whaling was a flourishing business on Long Island by the time Nantucket entered the field in 1672. It reached a peak in terms of volume of oil sold to market, in 1707. It declined in that century, as deep-sea whaling, now led by Nantucket, created a new challenge. Yet shore whaling survived on Long Island, and after the last whaling voyage out of Sag Harbor (1871), the industry experienced a revival
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chiefly at Amagansett and chiefly because of the character and lon- gevity of a few inveterate whalemen, resident there. As late as 1918, the cry "Whale off!" sounded for the last time. Small boats lunged through the breakers, and a whale was pursued and captured with essentially the same techniques used by more than two and a half centuries of American whalers: the stealthy approach, with care to . avoid the animal's restricted area of vision; making no sound unless the animal himself created a greater noise with his churning; the boatsteerer in the bow, flinging the harpoon for a "fastening on" to the whale; the quick frenzied retreat of the boat to escape the mad lashings of the attacked creature; the exchange of positions within the boat, as the boatsteerer, taking the stern oar, directs the strategy, and the mate goes forward to do the lancing and make the kill. The boat's intricate equipment and the discipline of the crew represent a pattern of action drilled to function in moments of suspense and in any exigency from a four-hour "sleigh ride" (towed by the whale) to a split-second "stove boat!" This was whaling through the great era of long voyages, and this was shore whaling back in 1644.
But the rewards were relatively great. The early settlements grew on the wealth created by this rugged kind of fishing. Whale oil passed for currency; schools were closed during the whaling season; the town meeting passed regulations; and political troubles arose over the attempt of England to collect a tax upon the business. East Hampton's Samuel Mulford journeyed to London (fishhooks sewed into his pockets to guard against pickpockets) to make protest to the King, and argue the indignant sentiments of his fellow colonists.
In untold ways shore whaling augmented the economic and politi- cal maturity of our country in its infant years. A token of this vigor and all it accomplished is seen by thousands yearly in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It is the great skeleton of a right whale, assembled by the explorer, Roy Chapman Andrews. This awe-inspiring specimen was obtained off Amagansett. It was lanced to death by Capt. Josh Edwards in his 78th year, whaling in a manner not unlike that learned by his ancestors of the Indians. As we affectionately speak the many good names the Indian has left us for our loved pleasure spots on Long Island, let us doff our hats to his part in our heritage of whaling. From it, the hardy Hamptoners evolved a lasting story.
To 1816
"Shipped by the Grace of GOD upon the good sloop called The Portland Adventure and now Riding at Anchor in the harbour of Sagg, and by GOD's Grace bound for New York, Five Barrals of Beef, & nine Barrals of Porck, two Furking of Buther, two ditto Cranbarys *
* And so GOD send the good sloop to her desired Port in safety, AMEN."
So reads an early bill of lading dated 1731. Earlier still, the "harbour of Sagg" figures in historical records. In 1707, it was a worry to the British who held it under suspicion as a landing place
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for prohibited imports. Today it is easy to visualize earliest Sag Harbor by a stroll across the meadows to the shores of the inland Cove. The first-built "landings" were upon the juttings and recesses of the Cove; and earlier still, tracts of meadow land, highly valued as winter feed for cattle, were bought and sold by the earliest colo- nists of the ocean-side settlements. Sagaponack, six miles eastward, gave the place its name.
Wharf building began in the 1750s and '60s, at which time three vessels were engaged in short-voyage whaling. Whales were caught from small boats in the same manner as in shore-whaling, but the base of operations was the vessel cruising in the seas off Montauk and along the coast. Huge pieces of blubber were then brought home, and again, as in shore-whaling, the land was the scene of the trying- out process ; smoke filled the air, and the whole place reeked of whale. The Long Wharf, built in 1770, still stands. In these first days, try- pots were erected upon it; furnaces glowed red through the night, and by day threw a black oily smoke upon the clear blue water. In the dramatic years that were to follow, the Long Wharf was to be the chief stage for countless scenes of deepest feeling.
The War of the Revolution hit Sag Harbor with terrific severity. All commercial progress was halted and much destruction inflicted. Of ships and sailors during these terrible years, two activities stand out sharply : whaleboat warfare and the privateers. The whaleboat, a perfected rowboat, some 28 feet long, highly manoeuverable by paddles, long oars or sail, was ideal for quick sallies upon enemy ships. Most famous of these engagements was the expedition of Col. Jonathan Return Meigs, a spectacular whaleboat raid from the main- land at Connecticut upon the British garrisons and anchored ships at Sag Harbor. Of the privateers, Willian Havens' record stands on his gravestone in the Old Burying Ground, "Captain of the Privateers Beaver, Jay and Retaliation in the War of the American Revolution". How many such solid citizens, following a patriotic pattern, thus led what was, for daring and dangers, virtually the life of a pirate!
After the Revolution-there is no better statement of what took place than that to be found on a monument under the rustling leaves of Oakland Cemetery. It reads: "Stephen Howell * *
* he took an early and decided stand for his country at the commencement of the Revolutionary War. He entered the army as a soldier in the Battle of Long Island, August 26, 1776. He shared the suffering and honor of that gloomy day in the successful and memorable retreat of the American army under General Washington. Returning peace found him among the first to revive the prostrate enterprise of the country. He engaged in the whale fishery from this port in 1785 and was one of the founders of the extensive and successful business which for a long time characterized and distinguished his native town." Indeed returning peace did find Stephen Howell and Col. Benjamin Huntting among the first to revive the prostrate enterprise of the country. They can rightly be singled out as founders of the whale fishery on Long Island, because they were outstanding among those few individ- uals who had vision enough and dared to take the risks of these
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beginning years. Risks-because it was a new kind of whaling involv- ing greater investment. Ships were now equipped with built-in try- works, and provisioned for sailings to the South Atlantic, voyages of a full winter's season. This whaling ground was known as the Brazil Banks because of a strange green and gold vegetation whose floating masses, a thousand miles from shore, turned the rolling sea into a liquid prairie. Here the little ships would rise and fall in the gentle swells of a heaving meadow, the semblance of verdant land, the reality of vast ocean. This was good whaling ground. As the great creatures were caught and slain, the trying-out process would be performed on the slippery decks of a rocking ship. The cooper would see to the barrelling of the valuable oil, which would then be stowed into the hold of the ship, until the ship could hold no more. Should an owner fail to secure skilled and faithful hands for all these duties, his. ven- ture was sure to be a failure. There were three such failures immedi- ately after the Revolution, among them the Eagle and the Hope, and remarks written into the Custom's clearing papers said plainly "hope- less venture". Therefore when the Lucy and the America, of Hunt- ting and Howell, arrived home with 360 and 300 barrels of oil, respec- tively, it raised a veritable fever of excitement and made 1785 a red- letter year. *
* beat your horses and cattle into spears, lances and harpoons", said the New London Gazette, sounding a "Go west young man" to all shipping centers around.
In the next three decades, Sag Harbor port averaged about three arrivals of whaling vessels a year. For the industry it was almost a standstill caused by the state of war that existed in fact, if not in name. Impressment of American seamen into British service was a constant cause of unrest and indignation, and led finally to actual war in 1812. Yet in spite of all difficulties the Hunttings and Howells and a few others continued to send out whaling ships. In wartime they resorted to even greater watchfulness, as Samuel Huntting did when he intercepted the returning Abigail. All unsuspecting she was head- ing into certain capture by the British patrol in wait off Block Island. From Southampton shore, her owner put off in a small boat, boarded her and reversed the course. A lucky escape, for New York harbor was still open and the full cargo could be sold.
These whaling ships were light brigs of about 215 tons, whose names were such as Hetty, Betsy, Abby, Minerva, Nancy and Lavinia. They were named for wives, daughters and sweethearts; and others like the Warren and Washington, honored heroes then living.
These were years not spectacular in themselves, but in them the seeds of future greatness were laid down. This may be highlighted by a few dates. In 1789, the first Congress of the United States named Sag Harbor a port of entry thus establishing the Customs House that was to record the activity of the dazzling years to come. In 1791, the first newspaper on Long Island was established in Sag Harbor by David Frothingham, who took for his motto * to catch the * manners living as they rise". So began a venerable line of news- papers, faithfully reflecting the background of whaling and the little community of Sag Harbor down to the present day. In 1812 the
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Argonaut was built. Like Moses, the Argonaut started life as a new- born, hidden away in a river. There were other vessels too, moored uselessly yet lucky to be safe, in the Connecticut River until the war should be over. But the Argonaut was destined, when peace did come, to be the first of Long Island whalers to sail around treacherous Cape Horn into the whaling grounds of the Pacific, in 1819. Expansion was to lead to more expansion, until the farthest seas were reached.
And what of "the manners living as they rise?" What did the newspapers mirror in those years when the germ of a new industry was hardly more than the tenacious vision of a few men? The yellowed pages of the Suffolk Gazette of 1804, treasured now in the John Jermain Memorial Library, show that "Ladies skirts are getting shorter *
*" at least * "no longer may they be used in place of brooms!" John Jermain "informs the Public" of a great assort- ment of nails and other hardware. Asa Partridge advertises "Cali-
coes, dimities, humhums. * *
*", What in the world is a humhum ? What of the infant industry and its leading spirits? Could one of them be the butt of this slur found when the toasts went around on the occasion of the 4th of July celebration? "To Col. Blubber * *
* whose political friends were satirized to say, "Give us of your oil for our lamps are gone out." It was none other than Col. Benjamin Huntting himself, his politics unpopular and his wealth resented. But an editorial shows that Editor Alden Spooner had a more long-time appraisal of the contribution of "a few individuals", and understood with prophetic clarity the events of his times: "To the enterprise of a few individuals in the fisheries is this vicinity indebted for a great portion of its wealth, and the employment of a large number of its citizens. * *
* Policy points to the fisheries as the source of our riches, and with these must our country grow or decline."
To 1837
"Returning peace" in 1816 meant a real peace that was to last for nearly half a century. A release of blocked up forces ensued. Not even the great fire of 1817 could present more than a temporary set- back. Ships were built, voyages planned and new firms came into the field. The zest of expanding enterprise was a dynamo that drew other dynamic forces unto it. Craftsmen, merchants and owners took up residence in Sag Harbor; among them were men like William Cooper from Southampton who established himself as a builder of whale- boats, and he in turn drew around him, year after year, numbers of vonng apprentices. Not only families and ships migrated to Sag Har- bor, but houses also, hitched up to several spans of oxen, rumbled in from other villages and settled down in "the Harbour", there to stay. The multifarious needs of ships brought craftsmen and laborers with- out number. Among the lesser talents, might be sighted, one such as J. W. Wentworth who, in the Corrector, "Informs the Masters and Owners of Whaling Vessels, that * *for the modest sum of 50¢ *
* he will paint the names of their vessels on their sterns"! * *
Master carpenters such as Benjamin Glover and Pardon Tabor began to build those, beautiful doorways that are found on many of
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the simplest as well as the more elaborate houses; so fine and delicate, they have been compared to fine jewelry. Sailors and captains did not need to change their residence in order to follow their calling and so in the annals of whaling are many illustrious names of men of the Hamptons and other Long Island communities.
Each success attracted others to try their chances. The fear of loss but added fire to the hope of gain. Among those so attracted to this speculative enterprise was James Fenimore Cooper. He came to Sag Harbor in 1819 and gave himself conscientiously to the task of planning a voyage, choosing its officers, supervising its outfit. In partnership with others, he worked out a way to finance the invest- ment, spreading the risk and rewards more widely over the com- munity; in this way, the blacksmith might own a 1/52nd share in the ship Fair Helen whose irons he had laboriously forged. Cooper lived at the Inn, observed carefully the colorful seaport town, wrote a little on his novel Precaution, and waited for his ship Union to come in. It came in safely, but it was a financial failure, and a second attempt, likewise. This business failure coincided with Cooper's first success as a story writer and decided the course of his career. Had luck been otherwise America might never have had its first successful novelist writing about American scenes. This happy-ending story but focuses on the true nature of whaling. It was then, and continued to be, increasingly, an extreme gamble !
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