200th anniversary
of the essex sinking On November 20, 1820, an enraged sperm whale rammed and sank the Nantucket whaleship Essex in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 1,300 miles from the nearest land. Twenty sailors survived the attack and quickly outfitted their three small whaleboats to make a journey to safety. They could only carry limited food and water, and could only hope that their supplies would last them as they slowly sailed for land across miles of open water. Three months later, five emaciated survivors were picked up by passing ships, three more remained stranded on a deserted island, and twelve men were dead—seven of them eaten in desperation by their starving shipmates. Their tale of choices, survival, and leadership astonished the maritime community, eventually serving as part of the inspiration for Moby-Dick.
shipwrecks Shipwrecks sometimes ruined whaling careers. For George Pollard, Nantucket whaler and captain of the Essex, the proverbial lightning struck twice. After safely returning home in the summer of 1821, Pollard set out again that fall in command of the Two Brothers, another whaler bound back for the Pacific. The ship struck a reef in Febraury 1823 in shoals to the northwest of the Hawaiian Islands, and, although he was reluctant to abandon ship, his crew safely evacuated to the nearby whaler Martha. Pollard never received another command. In 2008, NOAA marine archeologists discovered the wreck of the Two Brothers. Working at the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawai’i, they discovered a cooking pot and anchor 15 feet down on the seabed. Further exploration led by Dr. Kelly Gleason revealed more pots, bricks, grinding stones, and harpoons—all artifacts pointing to whaling activity in the early 1800s. While the Two Brothers wreck claimed no lives, other shipwrecks involved the tragic loss of life. In these situations, marine archaeologists followed the same protocols as their land-based colleagues, respecting mariners’ watery graves.
6 Historic Nantucket | Fall 2020
