Photographic Portrait of Benjamin Lawrence
Item
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Identifier
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GPN971
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Title
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Photographic Portrait of Benjamin Lawrence
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Creator
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Unknown
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Measurements
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7.6 x 11.4 cm (3 x 4 1/2 inches)
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Date Created
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ca. 1860
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Description
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A photograph of Benjamin Lawrence in which he is seated at a small table. Lawrence, who was born on Nantucket, served aboard the “Essex” as a boatsteerer/harpooner in first mate Owen Chase’s whaleboat on her fateful voyage. He was twenty years old. As boatsteerer/harpooner, Lawrence was responsible for pulling the oar at the bow of the whaleboat and for harpooning the whale. However, on the first hunt, three months into the “Essex”’s voyage, Lawrence, a novice boatsteerer/harpooner, hesitated to harpoon the whale that he and his crewmates in Chase’s whaleboat had rowed over a mile to reach. In that instant, another whale crushed, or “stove in,” one side of the whaleboat with its tail and both animals escaped. It is unclear whether Lawrence ever succeeded at harpooning a whale before the “Essex” reached the Offshore Ground and Chase relegated him to pulling the steering oar. When a leak was discovered in Lawrence’s, Chase’s, and Nickerson’s whaleboat a little over three weeks after the wreck of the “Essex,” it was Lawrence’s idea to repair it by tying a rope around his waist, swimming underneath the whaleboat, and holding the flat side of the blade against the loose plank so that as Chase hammered a nail from inside the whaleboat, the nail bent back into the wood. Lawrence, Chase, and Nickerson were rescued by the “Indian” of London after 91 days, on February 18, 1821.
