The Sinking of the Whaleship Essex

Items

• Quadrant
• My First Voyage at Sea And Subsequent Loss of the Ship Essex
• Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex
• Whaleboat
• Engraved Sperm Whale Tooth 4
  A sperm whale’s tooth, inscribed with a poem. Whereas baleen was used in the manufacture of boxes, bags, trunks, canes, umbrellas, and garments such as corsets, bodices, and skirts, whale ivory and bone and walrus ivory had no commercial value and were given to the crew, who engraved or carved them during downtime. Scrimshaw was kept as a memento or gifted to loved ones upon return home. Images were not limited to scenes of whaling voyages - women, children, eagles, and buildings were popular subjects. Frederick Myrick produced 37 known carvings while serving aboard the Susan of Nantucket from 1826 until 1829, referred to as “Susan’s Teeth.” He was the first American whaler to sign and date his scrimshaw. All three Susan’s Teeth in the Nantucket Historical Association’s collection and all four in the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s feature this poem.
• Engraved Sperm Whale Tooth 3
  A sperm whale’s tooth, inscribed with information about the ship on which it was made and her captain’s name. Whereas baleen was used in the manufacture of boxes, bags, trunks, canes, umbrellas, and garments such as corsets, bodices, and skirts, whale ivory and bone and walrus ivory had no commercial value and were given to the crew, who engraved or carved them during downtime. Scrimshaw was kept as a memento or gifted to loved ones upon return home. Images were not limited to scenes of whaling voyages - women, children, eagles, and buildings were popular subjects. Frederick Myrick produced 37 known carvings while serving aboard the Susan of Nantucket from 1826 until 1829, referred to as “Susan’s Teeth.” He was the first American whaler to sign and date his scrimshaw.
• Engraved Sperm Whale Tooth 2
  A sperm whale’s tooth, engraved with a banner with an inscription over a whaleship with all sails set. The tip of the tooth is engraved with an Admiralty Pattern anchor. Reverse of the tooth depicted in “Engraved Sperm Whale Tooth 1,” “Engraved Sperm Whale Tooth 3,” and “Engraved Sperm Whale Tooth 4.” Whereas baleen was used in the manufacture of boxes, bags, trunks, canes, umbrellas, and garments such as corsets, bodices, and skirts, whale ivory and bone and walrus ivory had no commercial value and were given to the crew, who engraved or carved them during downtime. Scrimshaw was kept as a memento or gifted to loved ones upon return home. Images were not limited to scenes of whaling voyages - women, children, eagles, and buildings were popular subjects. Frederick Myrick produced 37 known carvings while serving aboard the Susan of Nantucket from 1826 until 1829, referred to as “Susan’s Teeth.” He was the first American whaler to sign and date his scrimshaw.
• Engraved Sperm Whale Tooth 1
  A sperm whale’s tooth, engraved with a banner with an inscription over a whaleship with mizzen topsail, main topsail, and fore topsail set and fore sail furled. Three whaleboats surround a whale in the water in front of the ship’s bow, the boatsteerer/harpooner or boatheader of the whaleboat closest to the ship poised to strike. To the right of this scene is an eagle clutching seven arrows in its left talon and a branch in its right, a shield on its chest and a banner with an inscription in its beak, all of which are wreathed by a vine. The tip of the tooth is engraved with two crossed American flags. The obverse of the tooth depicted in “Engraved Sperm Whale Tooth 2,” “Engraved Sperm Whale Tooth 3,” and “Engraved Sperm Whale Tooth 4.” Engraved and/or carved whale teeth, baleen, walrus tusks, and whale bones are called “scrimshaw.” Whereas baleen was used in the manufacture of boxes, bags, trunks, canes, umbrellas, and garments such as corsets, bodices, and skirts, whale ivory and bone and walrus ivory had no commercial value and were given to the crew, who engraved or carved them during downtime. Scrimshaw was kept as a memento or gifted to loved ones upon return home. Images were not limited to scenes of whaling voyages: women, children, eagles, and buildings were popular subjects. bFrederick Myrick produced 37 known carvings while serving aboard the Susan of Nantucket from 1826 until 1829, referred to as “Susan’s Teeth.” He was the first American whaler to sign and date his scrimshaw.
• Ship Spermo Trying With Boats Among Whales On California 1821
  A painting of a black whaleship in choppy water, fires burning at the front, or “fore,” and back, or “aft,” of her deck. Towards the bottom right corner, one or two whale carcasses with lances in them float in the water. In the background are two green whale boats among a pod of thrashing sperm whales. The process of rendering blubber into oil was referred to as “trying out.” Once aboard the ship, blanket pieces were further divided into “horse pieces,” about six feet long and one foot wide, and then minced into slices about an inch thick to increase surface area and speed up rendering. A minced horse piece was called “Bible leaves” due to its resemblance to a book. Bible leaves were then rendered in cast-iron pots, called “trypots,” in a brick furnace at the fore of the deck. Together, the trypots and the furnace were called “tryworks.”
• American Double-Flued Whaling Harpoon
  The iron head of a harpoon, one end a flared socket where it would have been attached to a wooden shaft and one end shaped like an arrow with two barbs. This design was typical prior to the popularization of the toggle iron in the 1850s, a harpoon with a toggling head designed by Lewis Temple, an African-American blacksmith in New Bedford, Massachusetts. A length of line is tied to the shaft. Harpoons, referred to as “whale irons,” were used to attach a whaleboat to a whale. When a whaleboat got close enough to a whale, the boatsteerer would stab the animal with a harpoon tied to about 1,800 feet, or 300 “fathoms,” of line so that the boat would not be dragged down should the whale dive. The line was stored coiled in two tubs, one small and one large, and wrapped around a wooden post called a “loggerhead” at the whaleboat’s stern to slow the line as it ran out. The whaleboat was then taken on a “Nantucket sleighride” as the whale fled.
• Bent American Double-Flued Whaling Harpoon
  The iron head of a harpoon, one end a flared socket where it would have been attached to a wooden shaft and one end shaped like an arrow with two barbs. There is a tight twist in the middle of the shaft. The boatsteerer was not always successful at attaching the whaleboat to the whale: the contact between a soft iron harpoon and a whale’s thick blubber could cause the harpoon to bend.
• Photographic Portrait of Benjamin Lawrence
  A photograph of Benjamin Lawrence in which he is seated at a small table. Lawrence served aboard the Essex as a boatsteerer/harpooner in first mate Owen Chase’s whaleboat on her fateful voyage. As a boatsteerer, Lawrence was responsible for pulling the oar at the front, or “bow,” of the whaleboat and for harpooning the whale. However, during the first hunt three months into the Essex’s voyage, Lawrence, a novice boatsteerer/harpooner, hesitated to harpoon a whale, during which time another whale surfaced underneath Chase’s whaleboat, badly damaging it and allowing both whales to escape. It is unclear whether Lawrence ever succeeded at harpooning a whale before Chase relegated him to pulling the steering oar when the Essex reached the Offshore Ground.
• Photographic Portrait of Owen Chase
  A photograph of Owen Chase in which he is seated, his left hand resting on a box on a table beside him. Chase, who was born on Nantucket, served aboard the Essex twice before her fateful voyage: first as a sailor in 1815-1816 and then as a boatsteerer/harpooner in 1817-1819, both times under Captain Daniel Russell. Chase was promoted to first mate of the Essex when Russell was given command of the newly-built Aurora of Nantucket and Russell’s first mate, twenty-eight-year-old George Pollard, Jr., was promoted to captain of the Essex. Chase was twenty-one years old. As first mate, Chase was responsible for keeping the crew in line and recording information about the ship, the crew, and the hunt in the ship’s logbook. He also commanded one of Essex’s whaleboats as its boatheader, with Benjamin Lawrence as his boatsteerer/harpooner and Thomas Nickerson as his after oarsman. As boatheader, he was responsible for steering the whaleboat and directing his oarsmen, whose backs were to the front, or “bow” of the whaleboat. After the wreck of the Essex, Chase, along with second mate Joy, convinced Captain Pollard to attempt to South America rather than to French Polynesia. Chase, Lawrence, and Nickerson were rescued by the Indian of London after 91 days, on February 18, 1821. Upon returning to Nantucket, Chase published "Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex."
• Essex on November 23 1820 at Noon
  A drawing of a whaleship without sails, rigging, or masts, most of her hull underwater. After a day and a half salvaging food, water, materials, and tools from the Essex, the whaleship broke apart and her crew was forced to set sail in their whaleboats, which had been modified to have higher sides, two masts (made from the Essex’s spars), two trapezium-like spritsails and a triangular jib (made from the Essex’s sails). Each boat was given two hundred pounds of dense crackers made of flour and water called “hardtack,” sixty-five gallons of fresh water, two tortoises (caught during a stop to the Galapagos Islands on the way to the Offshore Ground to collect tortoises and repair the Essex), a gun and gunpowder, a hatchet, a lantern, and a tinderbox. To make the bread and water last the two months they estimated it would take to reach South America, the men would have to subsist on six ounces of hardtack - about five hundred calories - and half a pint of water a day. However, only Captain Pollard’s and mate Chase’s boat were given a hog (purchased during a provisioning stop in Cape Verde), a compass, a quadrant, and a copy of Bowditch’s "New American Practical Navigator." Captain Pollard’s crew included Obed Hendricks, his cousin Owen Coffin, Charles Ramsdell, Barzillai Ray, Samuel Reed, and Seth Weeks; mate Chase’s crew included Benjamin Lawrence, Thomas Nickerson, Isaac Cole, Richard Peterson, and William Wright; and mate Joy’s crew included Thomas Chappel, William Bond, Isaiah Shepherd, Charles Shorter, Lawson Thomas, and Joseph West.
• Photographic Portrait of Thomas Nickerson
  A photograph of Thomas Nickerson in which he seems to be seated. Nickerson served aboard the Essex as the cabin boy and as the after oarsman in first mate Owen Chase’s whaleboat on her fateful voyage. As after oarsman, Nickerson was responsible for pulling the oar at the back, or “stern” of the whaleboat. Nickerson wrote his own account of the Essex in 1976, published as The Loss of the Ship Essex Sunk by a Whale and the Ordeal of the Crew in Open Boats in 1984.
• Essex at 9.30 AM November 20th
  A drawing of a whaleship with cut masts laying almost on her side, her deck facing away from the viewer. Within ten minutes of the second strike, the Essex’s lower decks filled with water and she capsized. However, because she sank bow-first, William Bond, the ship’s steward and one of its six Black crewmembers, was able to rescue Captain Pollard’s and first mate Chase’s trunks, the latter of which contained a jack knife, whetstone, pencil, ten sheets of writing paper, three small fish hooks, soap, and clothing, and the navigational equipment - two compasses, two quadrants, and two copies of Nathaniel Bowditch’s "New American Practical Navigator" - from their cabins at the stern of the ship. To salvage additional supplies, Captain Pollard ordered that the ship’s rigging and masts be cut so that she could turn upright, or, simply, “right.”
• Essex on November 20th 1820 at 8 1/2 AM
  A drawing of a sperm whale and a sailing ship, the whale’s head facing the ship’s bow. While hunting whales almost two thousand miles off the coast of Peru in the “Offshore Ground” in November 1820, the Essex was attacked twice within ten minutes by an unusually large bull sperm whale. Nickerson, who was fifteen years old at the time, was steering the Essex when the attacks occurred. The whale is estimated to have struck the Essex at three knots (3.4 miles per hour/5.5 kilometres per hour) the first time and between six knots (6.9 miles per hour/11.1 kilometres per hour) and nine knots (10.3 miles per hour/16.6 kilometres per hour) the second time, puncturing the ship’s bow. It is unclear which strike is depicted in Nickerson's drawing.
• Spermo Cutting In Whales On Japan, 1822
  A painting of a black whaleship in choppy water red with blood, two whale carcasses floating along the ship’s right, or “starboard,” side. A strip of blubber has been cut from the carcass closest to the ship and hangs from its rigging. The process of breaking down a whale carcass was referred to as “cutting in.” Using 15-foot-long cutting spades, a whale’s blubber was removed in strips called “blanket pieces,” each of which weighed about a ton, and hoisted onto the ship for “trying out,” rendering it into oil primarily for use in candlemaking and lamps. The ship depicted in this painting, Spermo of Nantucket, provides a reference for what Essex looked like, as she was typical of whaleships of the early 1800s.
• Twine
  A coil of twine sewn to a brown backing. The twine encircles handwritten-text and hand-written text encircles the twine. Per the inscription, Benjamin Lawrence made this twine while in the whaleboat after the wreck of the Essex. After his passing in 1879, it was given to Nantucket’s historian, Alexander Starbuck, who donated it to the Nantucket Historical Association in 1914.