USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 61
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 61
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62
In 1827, the Arabella made the first of the long voyages. She was gone three years, cruising in the Pacific, and came back laden with both oil and whale bone. Her delicate lines are forever caught in her picture carved on a whale's tooth, and displayed at the Whaling Museum in Sag Harbor among other examples of scrimshaw-carving on bone or ivory, done at sea by the sailors. Now, something new has come into the industry: ships tend to be larger; outfits heavier and costlier. It is a period of exploring. Ships poke into uncharted seas, discover unnamed islands. They push into the Indian Ocean and Japan Sea. In Sag Harbor homes are many souvenirs of the alien culture of tropical islands, such as carved ceremonial sticks of high Polynesian art. They speak of contacts, far from successful, of whalers and "heathens". Shipwreck itself came to hold less fear than the dangers encountered with vengeful island natives.
Yet whaling had not yet reached its maturity, and more typical than the long Pacific voyages, were the shorter cruises in the South Atlantic. Take the steady record of a ship like the Thames: over a period of 12 years she made 10 voyages, and averaged a $12,000 cargo each time. Her first master was Huntting Cooper, a giant of a man who once ran the length of a whale's back; her second was Capt. David Hand, son of the Capt. David Hand whom novelist Cooper observed and whose characteristics were written into the delineation of Natty Bumppo; the unusual flavor of the older Hand's personality may be guessed at from a perusal of the epitaphs he caused to be put upon the stones of his five successive wives. One of them reads, "Behold ye mortals passing by, How thick the partners of one hus- band lie.
541
THE WHALING ERA ON LONG ISLAND
Or take the voyages of Wickham S. Havens in the Thorn and the Thomas Dickason, a series of happy returnings; or, Mercator Cooper whose two annual voyages in the Phoenix brought in 34,212 pounds of whale bone. There were many like that of the Marcus, which filled up and returned in seven months from the day of departure. On the other side of the ledger, one may picture the worries of an owner who received the tidings represented in three letters that often appeared by a ship's name, as word of her was brought back to the local paper with the returning of other ships; "cln" stood for "clean". It meant-no whales, no oil and no bone. And this might be the record still, even after one or two years of cruising.
Yet the tendency toward longer voyages was unmistakable. Ara- bella, in the lead, made a four-year voyage in 1833; that same year the Daniel Webster, the Franklin and the Governor Clinton, all large ships with costly outfits, sailed out on four-year expeditions. The Daniel Webster and the Franklin returned with cargoes of the valu- able sperm oil that meant wealth, fortune and rejoicing. What of . the Governor Clinton ?- "Lost in typhoon off Japan". Not a man was saved. Captain, mates and all were drowned in the Japan Sea. What a conflict of good and bad news to thrill and harrow one small village !
During these years, the miller, Jason Beebee, set a flag flying from the top of his mill whenever he sighted a ship coming into the harbor. "Flag on the mill, ship in the bay", was a cry that sent the people of Sag Harbor in tense excitement down to the wharf. It signalled the end of a venture and the tidings, at last, of what had transpired. It might bring news of dreadful disaster, or welcome proof of the longed-for "full ship" and safe homecoming. There were enough of the latter to drive hopes and schemes constantly onward. Always a new voyage was planned, with perhaps a bigger ship, a fancier outfit and a longer journey.
To 1847
These are the ripe years. For a brief decade, sailings, arrivals, tonnage-all the fair weather signs, increase dizzily. It is a bustling clamorous, optimistic period, reaching a peak in 1847 when there are 63 vessels in the fleet and 32 sailings in one year. Nearly all the voyages reach far into the Pacific, and two new whaling grounds are added: the Kodiak Ground, called Northwest Pacific, and off Kam- chatka, referred to as the North Pacific. A two-year voyage was thought to be a short one, and a man wouldn't bother to kiss his wife good-by for such a brief trip, so folklore relates. Many ships encircled the globe before they returned, although not many of them made the record of Capt. E. P. Brown of Orient. He returned to the Long Wharf, just as he said he would, in 365 days from the day he left it! He had been around the world without stopping at a single port.
A rare and valuable relic of these splendid ships and their epic voyages is to be seen in the noble figurehead of Thomas Jefferson in the Museum. Carved in pine and painted to life in bright gay colors, it is from the whaleship Jefferson. Many seas the steady eyes
542
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
of the statesman must have scanned in his wanderings, through storms, ice fields, and tropic beauty.
It is the heyday of whaling. Americans are undisputed masters of the industry. Of all the whalers that sailed the seas, more than three out of every four were American. New Bedford's fleet was a third of the American total; Nantucket, New London, Sag Harbor. and Fairhaven comprised another third; a scattering of small-fleet ports made up the rest.
Sag Harbor, Greenport, Cold Spring Harbor and New Suffolk, on Long Island, are part and parcel of this great day, and they rep- resent the State of New York's claim to an honorable share in the whaling saga.
Decode the columns of Marine Intelligence in the local press of 1846 and find notice that the sails of even the smaller Long Island ports were in the harbors of the world. "At St. Helena, June 4th, bk Delta, Weeks, Greenport 25 sp 70 w". It reads like the stock market, but, being translated, it means that Greenport's bark Delta under Captain Weeks was at St. Helena on June 4th, with 25 barrels of sperm oil and 70 barrels of whale oil. This was but one of Green- port's fleet which sailed between 1833 and 1861. At the peak, eleven vessels were registered, and the best years saw an average of four arrivals yearly of ships like this one, back from many distant ports. Her ships often cleared through Sag Harbor, and there was a ready exchange of officers and men. Not far apart, Greenport and Sag Har- bor worked hand in hand.
"CSpring 19m 1200 w" after name of ship and captain, cited to be in some unpronounceable bay in the South Seas, meant that the ship hailed from Cold Spring Harbor, had been out 19 months, and had 1200 barrels of whale oil aboard. The picturesque little village of Cold Spring Harbor now possesses what is perhaps the most inter- esting harpoon in the world. It is a toggle-headed iron branded with the name Alice. It must have been thrown from a boat of the ship Alice on one of her Arctic trips. It was recovered years later still imbedded in a whale, where it had lodged for at least 28 years, perhaps 60! The Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Company had eight vessels on the seas; among them, the Sheffield was the largest of the entire Long Island fleet. From 1837 to 1862 whaleships from Cold Spring Harbor roamed the world.
New Suffolk's name too is found among foreign accents. "NZea- land, Mar. 14th, bk Noble, Sweeney, NSuffolk, 1450 w cruise". The last word means to inform her owners that the ship will cruise fur- ther before turning homeward. New Suffolk had the Noble or the Gentleman abroad in the years between '39 and '52.
Port Jefferson was renowned for her shipyards.
It is said that American whaling captains were, as a class, with- out equal in ability, seamanship, and in their skill as navigators. Fighters too, they had to be. When the cry came, "Thar she blows" the captain's boat was the first one lowered. In this battle with a dan- gerous foe, the commanding officer was in the front line. "In actual encounter with the MONSTERS of the Deep", the inscription reads in
543
THE WHALING ERA ON LONG ISLAND
Oakland Cemetery that memorializes the deaths of young officers in this profession. It is cut in marble under a beautiful shaft which is in the form of a Broken Mast. An extraordinary carving shows the typical setting for such tragedies-in mid-ocean, a stove boat and a spouting whale. The monument stands in the family lot of Stephen Howell, he who was applauded for leading the revival of whaling after the Revolution. It is his grandson, John E. Howell, who heads the list of lost captains who perished "in a daring profession".
To what extent some of the wealth of this era was acquired by undercover dealings in the slave trade is a question. It is believed that some captains and some owners did so profit. There are said to be records of changed names with lost identity of ships, suggesting the possession of unlawful cargo. But as little is known of it, as of how fared their souls.
Of honorable adventure, that of Southampton's Mercator Cooper stands high. To him, the fact that Japan was a closed country, strangers forbidden to enter on pain of death, was merely a challenge. The Manhattan entered; and they sailed deep into the harbor of Jeddo, although they were completely ringed around by almost a thousand small junks, which kept three tightly closed circles about them. Cooper's fascinating experiences in 1845 have real significance, for it is believed that the information brought home and sent to Wash- ington by this Yankee explorer, stimulated our government to send, eight years later, the official expedition of Commodore Perry to sue for an open door.
The wealth of the whaling industry spread through Long Island, and reached into all phases of its life. It left a lasting record in the Greek Revival architecture of the '40s. Sag Harbor houses offer a wealth of examples of hand-wrought detail, ornamental cornice and other decoration of classical inspiration. Benjamin Huntting, 2nd, son of pioneer Col. Huntting, built for his home the Greek Temple house that is now the Suffolk County Whaling Museum in Sag Har- bor, where entrance is through the arched jaws of a whale. Of like architectural inspiration is the Whalers' Presbyterian Church, whose steeple, destroyed in the 1938 hurricane, was built slender and tall to be a beacon and landmark to mariners. The whole community united to build it; shipwrights gave their work to complete the extensive carving. Many traveled in from the Hamptons to do their share in building this house of God, whose faith later found voice in a well- loved hymn, written by one of its pastors, "Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me, Over Life's Tempestuous Sea".
Another skill reached a high point in this period, that of clock- making. Outstanding in this line was Ephraim Byram, builder of famous clocks. Among them is the Tower Clock at West Point Academy. Small wonder it is honored. Faithfully it has been keeping time over embryo officers for 90 years, and it is still the leading time- piece on the campus. Byram clocks, ingeniously made, their intricate works cut out of wood, still throw their voices on the air in modern Sag Harbor. In whaling days Byram sold sextants, quadrants, charts, and wound chronometers for the whalers.
544
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
It is clear the whaling era had many facets. The full meaning cannot be stated briefly. But we can move a little closer on the lives of the men who sailed the ships. Let us send off a voyage. Let us draw up a sort of all-American whaling team, and let us choose its membership from the annals of Sag Harbor.
Fire Island Lighthouse, Town of Islip, Suffolk County
For the captain, take Wickham Sayre Havens, "three foot across the shoulder", * "with sea-blue eyes and bright", * a kind * man but "tougher than a spar". Thus his grandson, the poet George Sterling, described him in The Ballad of the Swabs. One can scarcely doubt it is a true tale. Incoming from South American waters on the ship Thomas Dickason, with a hold filled with 1800 casks of oil, the gain of a voyage that had lasted for two years, the crew, overjoyed at the sight of the home port, "in sight of dune and spire", threw their swabs overboard. Though "as hot for home as any", the "bull-
545
THE WHALING ERA ON LONG ISLAND
necked grandsire" ordered his ship turned about and headed for sea. New swabs were made, and then:
"Three full days they swabbed the deck With most painstaking care 'Til Dolly Madison herself Could ha' eat her supper there."
Then they pointed back once more toward the spire and home. Ah, there is a captain for you! Some were kind, some were brutal. The life was rugged; toughness was required; but above all, an indomitable will.
In conquering a whale, it is not the harpooning that makes the kill but the lancing. This is done by the officers: the captain and his mates; one officer, for each whaleboat. A good first mate must also be equal to full responsibility in any emergency. There are rare in- stances in the annals of whaling when a ship is known to have been sunk by the head-on assault of an infuriated whale. If this ever occurred to a Sag Harbor ship, no survivor ever lived to tell of it. Perhaps credit should be given to "Mr. Reeves, first mate", that the Camillus does not belong on this list of harrowing disasters. Off the Island of St. Helena, the Camillus was struck a terrific blow just at "wind and water" by Mr. Reeves' whale, thrashing about in his "flurry" of death. The captain and all the rest of the company were far off, their boats fastened on to other whales. The shipkeeper was in a panic, for water was rushing into the hold. Mr. Reeves boarded the vessel, coolly shifted barrels until the ship partly heeled over; then he quickly caulked and sheathed over the broken planking. This saved the ship from sinking.
Leaking badly, the Camillus was worked into the harbor of St. Helena. There the captain refused a survey and made up his mind to take the risk himself of sailing home in the damaged ship with her valuable cargo. He called the men together and gave every one of them a chance to leave the cruise and wait for passage on another vessel. Not a man accepted this offer, and it is given as a reason that "the captain and the mates were popular with the crew"! So we shall take for the second and third mates of our honorary crew, the officers of the Camillus, for they must have been admirable men! (St. Helena, in mid-Atlantic, was often visited by whalers, and Sag Harbor has many a tree brought back from that island, notably a picturesque willow at the foot of Main Street.)
The ship would carry four boatsteerers, or as many as the num- ber of whaleboats it carried. For a boatsteerer's berth, let us take Bridgehampton's splendid Jim Huntting, man enough for four. He is described by William M. Davis, in Nimrod of the Sea, * a young * giant, seventy-eight inches in his stocking feet, two hundred and fifty pounds in weight, and not an ounce of fat to cut his wind-proportions of Hercules, and the face of man". How often a whaleman had need for such a physique is made plain by the ensuing narrative. "He * all tangled in the line that was coiled in the stern- came up *
L. I .- I-35
546
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
sheets of the boat. He fought like a giant to throw off the deadly coil. It was about his body, his arms and his neck. * *
* He got rid of the line, as he thought, and had got a breath of the blessed air and a glance at God's sunlight, when he was jerked out of the sight of his horrified shipmates. A bight of line, yet attached to the sounding whale, was around his ankle, and he bid good-bye to this world as he was plunging into the deep sea. Yet he was alert to take instant advantage of a slack in the speed of the whale. Drawing himself for- ward by the line, with his sheath-knife he severed the cord beyond the entangled foot, and rose to the surface .. . " Thus one whale- ship was spared the loss of a promising harpooner, who quickly rose to the rank of master.
The cooper on a whaleship was not only barrelmaker, and often shipkeeper too, but he was constantly grinding aand sharpening the ships' irons and all the cutting tools. We know of one cooper who jumped the coop and got rich thereby. Harry Graham discovered after several voyages to the Pacific that more money was to be made being a cooper in Honolulu than by being a ship's cooper. He set up shop in the islands, and coopered for the hundreds of vessels that stopped there. All went well until Graham tripped up on matrimony. His Sag Harbor bride changed his mind about having a business in Hono- lulu, and he gave it up. But why not? He was already a rich man.
Boatsteerer, cooper, cabin boy and steward lived amidships in the steerage, ahead of the officers who had staterooms in the stern of. the ship, but not as far forward as the crowded dark quarters of the "fo'c'sle", where the plain seamen lived.
For a steward, take Edwin Field and dress him up with a bit of folklore right out of Sag Harbor's own rocking-chair wisdom. "Shipped at 19, was three years at sea. When he got back, he sure missed the slosh of water slapping 'gainst his bunk. Why, he'd make his mother go 'round and throw a bucketful on his windowpane, so he could get to sleep."
Our crew must have an Indian. Southamptoners know that their whaling captain grandfathers would rather have had a Shinnecock Indian than anyone else, so reliable and skillful were they. Daniel Oliver Kells must have been about 12 years old when he left the Shinnecock reservation and sailed from Sag Harbor as a cabin boy or apprentice whaleman. It was the first step in learning his trade, and the usual expectation was for a gradual advancement up to the rank of boatsteerer. Just how Kells got to Penrhyn Island is not known, but there he was discovered at the age of nearly 90, magistrate of the island! The years had rolled by since 1871. The fellow Long Islander, whose South Pacific wanderings of World War II brought him to that remote place, probably looked into the eyes of the last living person who sailed in a Sag Harbor whaler.
Nor would a crew be complete without at least one Portuguese sailor. Theirs was a wandering lot. In the Sag Harbor cemetery, a stone marks the grave of Favico Maeceaia. On it, is this plaintive epitaph :
547
THE WHALING ERA ON LONG ISLAND
"Tho Boreas' winds and Neptune's waves Have tossed me to and fro
You plainly see, by God's decree, I'm harbor'd here below."
For a South Sea Islander, we could do no better than choose one from so famous and truthful a piece of fiction as "Moby Dick". Queequeg forced himself upon a Sag Harbor whaler in a fanatical determination to see Christendom. Arrived in port, the kindly dis- posed captain gave Queequeg a wheelbarrow to carry his trunk to the boarding house. Not knowing how to use it, Queequeg strapped the trunk to the wheelbarrow and hoisted them both to his tattooed shoulders. So, we may picture the lovable savage striding up the Long Wharf with a wheelbarrow on his back, and, in his noble heart, wondering greatly-about Christendom.
In the conglomerate assortment that comprised a crew, there was apt to be one fellow of more than usual attainments who shipped on the cruise for "education and experience". Such a one was Prentice Mulford who shipped as a cook on a whaler. A strange preparation for his later work-thirty-six volumes of philosophical writings on the power of thought!
We should have in our list at least one of our favorite ship masters, for they all came through the ranks, serving in turn as cabin boy, seaman, boatsteerer, mate and captain. Jacob Havens ("Capt. Jakey"), born in the tiniest house in Sag Harbor, a thimble-sized cottage of straggling angles and sagging eaves on Hampton Street, was the youngest of Long Island captains and master of his own vessel at 23. He never got over his pride in that office. He had many adven- tures and lived long. On the parlor table of his home, there always lay handy the tooth of a whale, ready to illustrate the story of the scar on his head. He would have his grandchildren put their little fingers in the mark over the trephining operation which had been performed in Rio. Perhaps it was as a plain seaman before the mast that he received the glancing blow from a whale's tooth. He had escaped literally from the jaws of a whale.
Let's add Tom Seaman who deserted and lived long as a beach- comber, with his native wives, children and grandchildren on the languid shores of Upola. And Edwin Bill of countless adventures, who deserted the Marion when he discovered, far off at the Congo, that she had been sold to a slave-trader.
Boys who didn't come back-the Fowler boys were of their num- ber. Charles, the eldest, fell from a rotten rope on the mast while he was straining to see if his whale, the one he had "raised" with his cry of "Thar she blows", was being caught. He would have received an extra allowance. When the ship finally returned, the lad's parents were there at the wharf to meet him, only then to learn how the boy had died. Some years later, William Fowler shipped as 2nd mate on the Ocean, and Ed, a lad in his teens, had a berth as boatsteerer. This time the sea was even more cruel than before. No ship returned ;
548 .
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
no comrades, ever, to tell any kind of story, even a sad one. Just nothing.
Leonard A. Curtis, who shipped from New York, led the mutiny of the Oscar at Ilha Grande. The Museum possesses a rare color print portraying this tragedy. The detail is extremely interesting. The ship Oscar is carefully drawn, and the fracas aboard is depicted by small figures running about with axes in hand, sailors, shot and falling over the sides of the ship. Curtis had led the insurgents up the ladder to take the ship. He was shot instantly. Curtis' tragedy must represent two tendencies that increased steadily in the later years of whaling: the deteriorating character of the men in the fore- castle, and the increasing grievances of their situation, which had been called the lowest level to which American free labor has ever sunk. Be that as it may, it is certain that no militant labor leader was on the scene in that day and age, or he would have made some- thing of the situations about to be related.
There was John Mulligan who later became a Justice in East Hampton. He went to sea once. He shipped on a 106th lay in the bark Union. That was according to nautical custom; sailors were not paid in wages, but each one made a bargain for a set share in the profits, if any. It was known as a lay. Seamen shipped on "long lays" or small fractions, while an officer took a "shorter lay", that is, a larger share. Of course, if there were no profits, it made no difference! By his own testimony, John Mulligan labored before the mast for three years and received as his grand reward, the total suni of twenty-eight dollars.
Less resentful of his state was George Dorsey, who shipped on a 108th lay of the Henry Lee in 1845. They sailed around the foot of Africa, Australia and New Zealand; visited Pitcairn Island, taking a look at the town created by the mutineers of the Bounty, and crossed the Pacific to the waters off Kamchatka. Arrived back in Sag Harbor he drew $20 on his wages and started for home. He said he never got home that trip, nor ever got the rest of his wages. It is to be assumed that George fell a-spreeing on his way home, and while still in that state when both wages and home were forgotten, George must have shipped again, with no grudges saved up. But the most amazing part of his story is the whaling scene that occurred way off in the waters of Kamchatka. There was nothing unusual about an angry whale and a stove boat, and eight men thrown into the sea. Nor was George's broken and splintered arm unusual at all. As a matter of fact, while floundering around in the water, George had found a broken spar and a piece of sail to lie on. The captain in his own boat came up and asked how they were fixed. They all answered that they were all right, sir. The captain said, "I will go and kill the whale." This he did. It took only a couple of hours. The men could swim and they were all right, sir, and everything turned out extremely well --- the whale was caught and the men were picked up-in the sequence mentioned !
Such was the calibre of the men and officers who manned the whaling fleet !
549
THE WHALING ERA ON LONG ISLAND
Now, let us crowd the historic Long Wharf, and, with prayers and tears, wave wildly, as the good ship Jefferson raises her sails to the wind. She is alive with power and the prow cuts the blue water and throws back a swirling crested wave.
Such departures were always a stirring and majestic sight. In the hearts of those who witnessed them, there must have been thoughts not far removed from the piety of 1731, "God send the good sloop to her desired port in safety, Amen."
Then the village would settle back into its routine for awhile. The editor would go back to his shop, and set up the live-wire adver- tisements of George B. Brown.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.