Historic Nantucket
Hadwen-Satler House opens for the summer season in June.
APRIL, 1972
Published Quarterly by NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION NANTUCKET. MASSACHUSETTS
NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OFFICERS President, Henry B. Coleman Vice-Presidents, W. Ripley Nelson, George W. Jones, Alcon Chadwick, Albert F. Egan, Jr., Mrs. Edith C. Andrews, Walter Beinecke, Jr. Honorary Vice Presidents, Miss Grace*Brown Gardner, Mrs. William L. Mather Secretary, Albert G. Brook Treasurer, John N. Welch Councillors, Henry B. Coleman, Chairman: Mrs. H. Crowell Freeman, Mrs. Charles Clark Coffin, terms expire 1972: Henry Mitchell Havemeyer, David Worth, terms expire 1973; Mrs. Richard Swain, Bernard Grossman, terms expire 1974; Robert Metters, George A. Snell, terms expire 1975. Administrator, Leroy H. True Curator, Miss Dorothy Gardner Historian, Edouard A. Stackpole Honorary Curator, Mrs. William L. Mather Editor, "Historic Nantucket'', Edouard A. Stackpole; Assistant Editor, Mrs. Merle Turner Orleans.
STAFF
Oldest House Chairman Receptionist
Mrs. J. Clinton Andrews Mrs. Lawrence F. Mooney Hadwen House - Satler Memorial Alcon Chadwick Ohairman Mrs. Irving Soverino Chairman, Reception Committee Miss Rosamond Duffy Receptionists Mrs. Ethel L. Small Miss Maud Jackson The 1800 House Mrs. Roy H. Gilpatrick Chairman Mrs. John Kittila Receptionist The Old Jail Albert G. Brock Chairman The Old Mill Richard F. Swain Chairman The Whaling Museum W. Ripley Nelson Chairman Walter W. Lindquist Manager Mrs. Elizabeth Lindquist Receptionists Clarence H. Swift Mrs. Elizabeth Yerxa Jesse Dunham Robert Metters Mrs. Reginald F. Hussey Librarian Research Miss Helen E. Winslow The Peter Foulger Museum Chairman and Director Edouard A. Stackpole Mrs. Elizabeth B. Worth Receptionist and Librarian Mrs. Clara Block Receptionist Everett Finlay Assistant The Hose Cart House Irving T. Bartlett Chairman Christian House Mrs. John A. Baldwin Chairman Archeology Department Paul C. Morris, Jr. Chairman
HISTORIC NANTUCKET Published quarterly and devoted to the preservation of Nantucket's antiquity, its famed heritage and its illustrious past as a whaling port. VOLUME 19
April, 1972
No. 4
CONTENTS Nantucket Historical Association Officers and Staff
2
Editorial — Nantucket and China
5
Administrator's Report
6
The First Nantucket Yacht Club
8
American Whaling on the Chathams Grounds
10
Headstone Hunting on Nantucket 1 by William and Elisabeth Bartlett Gilbert
11
"A Semi-Romance of the Sea: "Miriam Coffin" as Precursor of "Moby-Dick," by A. Stuart Pitt
15
Green Hand on the "Susan"
32
Legacies and Bequests
35
Historic Nantucket is published quarterly at Nantucket, Massachusetts, by the Nantucket Historical Association. It is sent to Association Members. Extra copies $.50 each. Membership dues are — Annual-Active $5.00; Sustaining $25.00 ; Life — one payment $100.00, Second-class postage paid at Nantucket, Massachusetts. Copyright 1972, Nantucket Historical Association Communications pertaining to the Publication should be addressed to the Editor, Historic Nantucket, Nantucket Hstorical Association, Nantucket, Massachusetts 02554.
Nantucket and China The events of recent months which have seen the emergence of a new United States policy regarding China have brought about a great revival of interest in former relationships of this Asian nation and this country. It has been surprising to find that 19th century commercial transactions between the two nations were so far-reaching, and have supplied numerous opportunities for news articles as well as books. While Nantucket records are unfortunately scarce, due to fires and neglect, there is evidence to show that this Island port had an early connection with China. While in London in 1785, William Rotch, Sr., noted that seal skins were bringing a high price in the Canton market, and advised his sons in Nantucket to send a vessel to the Falkland Islands, where there were seals in abundance. The ship United States, under Captain Benjamin Hussey, sailed from Nantucket and, with two small tenders, gathered 10,000 seal skins and brought them home. They were sold to a New York merchant who shipped them, via Calcutta, to China, where Captain Metcalf in the Eleanora sold them at Canton — marking the first American consignment of seal pelts to China. Thereafter a number of American ships took skins and candles to the Chinese market. The Rose (built at Brant Point) sailed to Canton under Captain James Cary, and en route discov ered an Island in the Pacific Ocean; the Favourite, with Captain Paddack, brought back from Canton in 1807 two Chinese mer chants who spent several weeks on Nantucket; the Criterion, under Captain Peter Chase, had a number of successful voyages to Canton, as did the Lady Adams and the Barclay. Nantucket shipmasters brought back Chinese porcelains, cam phor wood chests, jewel cases and other pieces made by the crafts men of that nation. Ship paintings and portraits of captains and their wives were also carefully treasured by Island families. When Hong Kong became a port of entry, and Foochow and Shanghai were opened on the Chinese mainland, Nantucket men became commanders of clipper ships in the tea trade. While Nantucket never improved its early trade relations with China, being wedded to sperm whaling, this Island was in the forefront of this nation's early association with China and the Far Eastern world. At the Peter Foulger Museum there are a number of outstanding exhibits which serve as excellent remind ers of the voyages and successes of those Island mariners who made their mark in the beginnings of the China trade.
6
Administrator's Report Mrs. John A. Baldwin has consented to become chairman of our newly acquired Christian House. Being a long-time friend of Mrs. Christian she is well acquainted with the house and is exceptionally well qualified to instruct the Receptionists about the house and contents when it becomes open to the public this summer. Paul C. Morris, Jr., will be chairman of a committee consisting of John Gilbert, Richard Swain, H. Mitchell Havemeyer and John Welch for the new Archeology Department. They will have headquarters in the Old Town Building and are planning to become active as soon as the weather permits. Plans are being formulated whereby any interested member may par ticipate. Sale of the Chatham Grounds, $1.25 including tax and post age, and the Coffin Family, $10.50 including tax and postage, continues active. The latter is a beautiful 575-page, cloth bound, genealogy of the Coffin family. Many people are buying this for young children who may some day be interested in their ancestry. Should you not purchase a copy or copies while they last? The first of a series of Historic Lectures by our distinguished Historian, Edouard A. Stackpole, was held at the Peter Foulger Museum on February 17th with good attendance and great in terest. Dates for others will soon be announced. The Whaling and Peter Foulger Museums will be open every Saturday from 2-5 p.m. The exact date of opening all buildings has not been determined but presumably will be about June 12th plus special arrangements for Memorial Day and visiting groups. We are most grateful to a number of people for valuable gifts to our exhibits. Since January 1st from the Abiah Folger Franklin Chapter DAR, three dishes once owned by Benjamin Franklin's mother; from Robert Taylor, a fire hose and cart; from H. H. Kynett, whaling tools; from Miss Alice Beers, pic tures; from Bancel LaFarge, scenes of Tuckernuck and decoys; from Bernard Grossman, a large collection of carpenter's tools; from Mrs. Weston Howland, Richard Maloney, and K. S. McCann, various books; from Charles P. Kimball, eighteen rare marine books, quadrant, and shipmaster's liquor cabinet; from Mrs. Dor othy Swift, stereopticon views of Nantucket; and from George Burgess, an ice cutting saw. I cannot too strongly urge others with items of Nantucket historical importance to contribute these to us in order that they may be seen and appreciated by this and future generations.
ADMINSTRATOR'S REPORT
7
The Council sent a letter to the Historic Districts Commis sion, in behalf of our Association, complimenting them on their accomplishments during the past sixteen years in preserving the historic appearance in the original district and urging them to act wisely and with courage to continue to protect us against the encroachment of buildings of radical design. We have already received our supply of hand-dipped Nan tucket candles to sell in the museums this summer. These also may be obtained by mail from us at $1.50 a box plus 25c tax and postage. The spermaceti are, of course, pure white, and the cran berry and bayberry their natural color and all are about 10^2 inches long. A box of these, which carries a short legend about the candles, makes a most attractive gift. Leroy H. True
8
The First Nantucket Yacht Club The photograph used on the cover of the January issue of Historic Nantucket has aroused considerable interest, and a num ber of our readers have asked for some details. The facts are as follows: It was in the spring of 1905 that Paul G. Thebaud, for many years a well known member of Nantucket's growing sum mer resident colony, brought about the establishment of the Station later called "Nantucket Station No. 11 of the New York Yacht Club." An experienced yachtsman, Mr. Thebaud belonged to the New York Yacht Club, Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club. Larchmont Yacht Club, American and Manhasset Bay Yacht Clubs. From his home on the Cliff he had observed the numbers of yachts visiting Nantucket each summer increasing, and real ized there was a need for proper landing facilities on the water front.
After a meeting with New York Yacht Club officials, Mr. Thebaud was authorized to proceed with the establishment of the station. He purchased a small building at his own expense, had it moved to Steamboat Wharf and fitted it out. He also paid for the services of a custodian. As a result of his efforts
THE FIRST NANTUCKET YACHT CLUB
9
the "Nantucket Station No. 11, New York Yacht Club" found the harbor visited by three times the number of yachts in 1905 than in any previous year. Dredging of the main channel and around the wharf helped greatly the use of the new station, the work being performed under the direction of the U. S. Engineers and financed by the Government. Under the supervision of the New York Yacht Club, with Mr. Thebaud serving as Commodore, the little station was successful from its inception. It was equipped with a landing float, a launch or tender, telephone, postal accommodations, and other services. When the Nantucket Athletic Club was purchased and be came the Nantucket Yacht Club the little station on Steamboat Wharf had already changed its location. Purchased by William Wallace it had been moved to Old North Wharf as a boat-house. In the spring of 1915, Mr. Wallace had the little building moved again — this time to a pier which he had erected just north of the Yacht Club property. Thereafter, it became known as the Wallace Boat House.
10
"American Whaling on the Chathams Grounds" Last fall the Nantucket Historical Association published a 70-page pamphlet entitled "American Whaling on the Chathams Grounds," by Rhys Richards. The author is a young New Zealand scholar, and his account of the American whaling activities in this remote region is the first study made of this particular part of our whaling history. The Chathams are well off the southeast ern coast of New Zealand, and consist of Chatham and Pitt Is lands. They were used for provisioning whaleships, whose masters found that the waters around them comprised good whaling grounds. Among the American whalers were eleven Nantucket ships, as well as vessels from other New England ports which were commanded by Nantucket men, or with officers from this Island. Most of the ships in this area from 1830 to 1880, the period cov ered by the study, were from New Bedford and vicinity. One of the Nantucket ships provisioning at the Chathams was the Phoenix, under Captain Israel Morey, and the captain's wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Morey, in a private journal, told of going ashore at Pitt Island. This interesting pamphlet may be purchased directly from the headquarters of the Association or at the Whaling Museum or Peter Foulger Museum. The price is $1.25, tax and postage .included. It makes a fine addition to whaling literature in private or public libraries.
A whaling trypot on a farm at Pitt Island.
11
Headstone Hunting on Nantucket BY WILLIAM AND ELISABETH BARTLETT GILBERT
Some years ago we discovered the beautiful eighteenth cen tury carving tradition through a study of the work of two carvers who worked in southwestern Vermont. The intricate relief work of Zerubbabal Collins and Samuel Dwight opened our eyes to this early American art form. On our first visit to Nantucket, in June (we now wonder why we didn't take everyone's advice and visit the island years ago) we drove off the ferry, and asked the policeman at the cross walk half way up Main Street our number one question: "Where is your oldest cemetery?" At "Old North", with our rice paper and ink and wax blocks, we found what we had only dared to hope would be there — a small but extremely fine selection of all the carvers' styles since 1700. Our interest in headstones has focused on the eighteenth century. The sculptors — and they signed their work, when they signed it, Sculptor — of that century designed their own symbols, or combined known symbols in unique and individual styles. During the 1700's the oldest carving style gave way to a new, more human approach to death. Both these styles are well rep resented in "Old North". As you enter the west section of this old yard, at the central gate, you are immediately among the Bartlett family stones. They are slate stones, with very low relief carving. The prin cipal figure at the top of each stone is the single most character istic symbol of the earliest tradition — the death's head or skull with wings. This symbol of the Puritans' fear-oriented approach to memorials is found throughout early New England as a pow erful expression of the dominant religious doctrine of the seven teenth century. This stark and unadorned symbol can be found from the earliest Plymouth headstones to cuttings in the first decade of the nineteenth century. With the coming of the "great awakening", in the 1730's and 40's, and the loosening of religious strictures (the farther one gets from Boston the looser) the fear of death doctrine gave way to a happier image. The humanized head, often a real istic "portrait", with elaborately carved wings and frequently a surrounding of stylized flowers, became the message-symbol of the second half of the century. That new tradition humanized the stones and brought out some of the more remarkable sculpting of the colonial and post-revolutionary world.
HEADSTONE HUNTING ON NANTUCKET
13
"Old North" has two really magnificent small stones in this late eighteenth century style. They stand near the sarcophagus on the hill in the southwest section. Particularly impressive is the Bazeliel Shaw stone of 1770. This stone is tilted forward and is so small it is necessary to get down in the grass to see it. Our half-dozen rubbings of this stone do not fully reflect its superb craftsmanship. Nearby the larger Basilard stone of 1770 is more eroded, but is almost as fine an example of the "realitist" portrait. Who carved these two unique stones? The slate was imported. Was the carver a local stone-cutter? These excellent works of art survive to remind us of the high level of this little-appreciated American product. For some reason, stone carving became less individual after about 1815. From that date on for many years most stones were routine representations of urns and willows. The invention and experimentation of the eighteenth century carvers was no longer popular. "Old North" has a number of magnificent slate stones, some five feet high in which a few artists of the early nineteenth century did succeed in using the stylized patterns with imaginative individuality. In the northwest section, among many fine but unadorned marble stones and some very badly eroded sandstone ones, these elegant and intricately embossed slates are beautiful examples of creative artistry. Two of them are signed, one by Jones of New Bedford, the other by Bagley of Providence. Who can tell us about these fine "engravers of stone", these holdouts against the routinization of individualized art? With the rise of the scrimshaw art of engraving on whale ivory, it would almost have seemed likely that there would have been equal artists in stone on Nantucket. The lack of stone there is probably the greatest single reason for the disappearance of the local, talented, and imaginative stone cutters. Were all these stones imported from the mainland, precut? The last day of our visit, in September, an old map suggested that we had missed a very special yard — the "colored" cemetery. We found it, just where it had always been, behind Mill Hill Park, and were at once disappointed and amazed. Disappointed because there were no eighteenth century stones, but amazed at the black sea captains and ministers who lived and worked as members of the Nantucket community long before the Civil War. Since Quakers did not keep slaves, these free men must have been among the first American blacks to establish their individ uality in the white world of the island. Our thanks to Nantucketers past and present for preserving for us Vermonters all these wonders of the island heritage.
16
HISTORIC NANTUCKET
This is a delightful historical novel. — Pennsylvania Inquirer and Courier. These are, of course, carefully culled, and, as excerpts, wrest ed from context, but twenty ptt-ans of praise are not to be lightly disregarded in that or any age. Melville's biographer Raymond M. Weaver is of the opinion that Miriam Coffin "offers perhaps the truest and most vivid picture of life in Nantucket when whaling was at its prime," adding significantly, "It should be better known."5 As a period piece, it is an invaluable document for social history and a memor ial to the tastes and attitudes of the times. It is, not least, as Willard Thorp called it, "a readable yarn." 6 In its day, Miriam Coffin rode the crest of the wave of popu larity of sea literature, the beginnings of which Cooper confidently ascribes to his own novel The Pilot (1828) in his subsequently appended "Author's Preface" of 1849. As a result of a conversa tion with a friend who was so transparently uninformed about nautical parlance and procedures as to praise Sir Walter Scott's familiarity with the sea, as evidenced in The Pirate (1822), Cooper was taken with "a sudden determination to produce a work which, if it had no other merit, might present truer pictures of the ocean and ships than any that are to be found in The Pirate. To this unpremeditated decision, purely an impulse, is not only The Pilot due, but a tolerably numerous school of nautical romances that have succeeded it. . . . The Pilot met with a most unlooked-for success. . . . Sea-tales came into vogue as a conse quence. . . "7 But Miriam Coffin also struck the reviewers as something original, something American, or better, something originally American. Of the twenty reviewers quoted in the second edition, seven make a proud point of its being an American romance (and not a reprint or imitation of a transatlantic success) : "An Ameri can novel is not so common a publication but that we always take one up with more interest than is created by the reprint of some new fiction from the British book market. . . . . not only an original work, but an American book. . . the subject is American. . The words "original" or "originality" appear in seven of the reviews. Whatever the credibility of these reviews, or the substance, it is certainly clear that the new publisher, Harper and Brothers, was urging as particular selling points of the book that it was something excitingly new and different and that it was American in source and authorship. Hart's own description of Miriam Coffin in the preface to The Romance of Yachting seems, at first glance, a frustrating one. He calls it a "semi-roanance of the sea," which is, to say the least, ambiguous, and he affirms that "it has long been regarded as being closely historical,"8 which is rescued from untruth only
"MIRIAM COFFIN, OR THE WHALE-FISHERMAN"
- 17
by the adverb closely. A prototype for Miriam Coffin existed in the person of one of Nantucket's most famous characters, Keziah Folger Coffin; accounts of Nantucket topography, mores, charac ter, and modes of livelihood can be easily authenticated; and the whaling lore and whaling scenes, even to the fatal ramming of a ship by a whale, are essentially valid. He himself asserts in his peroration to the novel that: Fiction has but little to do with our pages. The incidents and the manners of bygone times, which we have shown up to a new generation, are faithful pictures of a past age, and are drawn from materials, which, if not altogether matters of record, still live fresh in the memory of a few persons. . . (II, 205). But apparently he took more pride in what he hoped were his ethical achievements and his skills in entertaining than in docu mentary exactitude: If we have succeeded in conveying a useful moral . . . if we have afforded the reader but a moiety of the pleasure in persuing some of the simple annals of Nantucket, that we have experienced in tracing them, — we shall be satisfied that our time has been spent to some good purpose: — for we have been both instructed and amused, while collecting and putting together the various parts of this tale (II, 205-206). Thus by these lights he would consider the designation "historical novel" wide of the mark, and "semi-romance of the sea" comes to mean a book that is only in part, or in certain parts, a romance of the sea. Yet, by design or accident, Hart employs the term romance meaningfully. Richard Chase in The American Novel and its Tradition says that the term signifies besides the more obvious qualities of the picturesque and the heroic, an assumed freedom from the ordinary novelistic requirements of verisimilitude, development, and continuity; a tendency towards melodrama and idyl; a more or less formal abstractness and, on the other hand, a tendency to plunge into the underside of consciousness;9 Perceiving a "Manichaean sensibility" in the "romancenovel", he observes that the American imagination "seems less in terested in redemption than in the melodrama of the eternal struggle of good and evil, less interested in incarnation and reconciliation than in alienation and disorder."'0 Hart is, of course, self-consciously "moral" to the point of eccentricity, es pecially about "the young and inexperienced female" and her need "properly to appreciate the butterfly acquirements of flippant dealers in mere compliments and insincere protestations"
18
HISTORIC NANTUCKET
(II, 205), and he is careful about observed details of Nantucket life and seafaring, but he is aware of the powers of darkness, and there are clearly defined struggles between good and bad, between Isaac and the "black-hearted savage" (I, 208), Quibby, for example, a good deal of abstracting and dissociating from the tale itself, suggestive of the "alienation effect" of Brecht, and a general awareness of elusive ambiguities. "The picturesque and the heroic" are characteristically inter rupted by chilling scenes which represent the brutal and the appalling. Twice the death prophecies of Judith Quary put an end to pleasant interludes, first to the impromptu tour arranged for the newcomers Grimshaw and Imbert by their hostesses Ruth and Mary (I, 132), and then to the lark of Thomas Starbuck and Harry Gardner in visiting a fortuneteller as a pastime on the eve of their sailing aboard the Leviathan (II, 117). The grim death-struggle between Quibby and Isaac, "which partook too nearly of a tragic reality" (I, 209), disrupts the proud and happy discussion of the virtues of the new design of the Grampus, which Jethro Coffin and Seth Macy have been enjoying (I, 192-199). Macy's musing contemplation of "the coral grove" which forms the reef of a Pacific island is brought to a rude halt by a vicious attack on the stranded ship by savages of "fierce and frightful aspect," a terrifying prelude to a grisly combat in which, says Macy, "We must, from necessity, kill without re morse, or be murdered and eaten by those horrid cannibals." Some of the attackers are killed by harpoons which are "secured to the ship by whaling line," so that the "bodies of some of the slain hung, upon the barbed steel, by the side of the ship," and "as the sable victims fell beneath their deadly touch, their writh ing agonies were horrifying. But humanity could not now be propitiated" (II, 132-138). Certainly here are "alienation and disorder" in this tumultuous scene, one of the most compelling in the novel. Thomas Philbrick's passage on this significant vein in Mir iam Coffin incidentally substantiates Chase's identifications also, and his trenchant explication deserves quotation at length: . . . Hart gradually reveals an attitude toward the sea that is disturbingly ambiguous. . . . The Grampus sails on an auspiciously bright day; the mood of her crew is typified by Jethro's son Isaac, who cut "antic capers" of "unbounded and boyish joy" because Jethro, by permitting the boy to make the voyage, has gratified "the strong propensity of his son for the sea." But soon the Grampus is intercepted by a French privateer, and, refusing to surrender his unarmed ship, Macy determines to ram his enemy. When the crew discover Macy's intention, they utter "a suppressed groan of horror." The Grampus strikes the French schooner, sinks
"MIRIAM COFFIN, OR THE WHALE-FISHERMAN"
19
her, and despite Macy's efforts to save them, all her crew were drowned. The chapter which began in a mood of ex hilaration ends with Hart's gloomy observation: "Thy ship and cargo were dearly ransomed, Jethro Coffin: — and Seth! — thou didst sacrifice a hecatomb of human beings for thy preservation!" In sharp contrast to the departure of the Grampus her sister ship the Leviathan sails under a prophecy of doom, for a fortuneteller has warned two of her crew, Henry Gardner and Thomas Starbuck, that the voyage will end in calamity. Two years later Seth Macy, who sailed with a fair breeze in the proud new Grampus, returns in the Levia than from his "accursed" voyage in the dead of night, bear ing news of the death of Starbuck and of the sinking of the Grampus, and bringing home the body of the murdered Gardner: "It was thus, sadly and disastrously, that the voy age of the young men terminated; and thus, that the high hopes of Jethro Coffin, and his captains, were blasted. The predictions of Judith, the half-breed fortuneteller, were fear fully realized." 1' At the end of the novel Isaac fulfills his ambition of be coming an admiral in the Royal Navy, and Jonathan "again put to sea, and mended his fortunes among the whales. His light heart, and buoyant mind — always looking to the bright side of the future, — carried him happily through the world." But to the more intelligent, more perceptive Macy, a person who sees that the coin of existence has two sides, the ocean seems, if not actually malignant, at least a force that so exceeds the capabilities of man that he should not challenge it. So Macy "would go to sea no more. He was frequently offered the choice of the ships in the harbour; but he could not be tempted." ... In Miriam Coffin, then, the sea moves vaguely and often clumsily in the direction of symbol. To Hart's characters it becomes a clue to the bias of reality, and to the most understanding of them it defines the limits of man's abilities and teaches him to cultivate his garden.12 Miriam Coffin also qualifies as romance in terms of John C. Stubb's perceptive elucidations: The primary goal of the romance is artistic distance. . . . The romancer's aim is to order the raw stuff of human ex perience into the clearer mode of artifice so that the reader may comprehend the experience emotionally and intellec tually. The romance, then, is an approach much more ordered, much more arranged than the reader s chaotic meeting with it in his daily life. ... In order for the romancers to get their distance exactly right, they worked with balances of opposites. The three interrelated opposites that 1 ecur con-
20
HISTORIC NANTUCKET
stantlv in their discussions of the form are: verisimilitude and ideality; the natural and the marvelous; and history and fiction.13 These balances are struck repeatedly throughout Miriam Coffin; indeed, the fiction of the "Introduction" that the tale is the only slightly edited printing of "a ponderous roll of papers, carefully tied up with a piece of tarred rope-yarn," the manu script of a retired whaleman, encompasses all three "interrelated opposites": "There!" said our host of the monkey-jacket, "take it, friend Tinker . . . and mend it if thou wilt: — Peradventure some pestilent printer, like him at the town, may use his types upon it, instead of printing essays upon schools and temperance, as he hath done ('ad rat him!) to make chil dren wiser and better than their fathers. There is truth in every page of that manuscript, my friend; and moreover something about the perils of the whale-fishery, which I have been a matter of twenty winters in putting together, after an experience and observation of more than sixty years: — and I have hoped the while, that it might some day be instrumental in bringing back to the people of my native island, the recollection of the golden days of their ancient customs, from which, alas! they have greatly departed of late, to cleave unto the fashions and vanities of the great cities. . . ." But we can assure our indulgent friends that we have left the essence of the matter entire — having only dared to place a few. scraps of poetry, by way of finger-posts, at the tops of the chapters, and otherwise to take upon ourself the office of the lapidary, who grinds away the rough corners of the diamond, that the superficial polish he bestows may the better show forth the inherent qualities of the brilliant (I, xxvi-xxviii). In the story proper there is, furthermore, a precise and striking illustration of ordering "the raw stuff of human exper ience into the clearer mode of artifice" in the Quibby episodes. An actual Nathan Quibbey was known to Hart. The real Quibbey, a Nantucket Indian and a seaman on the whaling schooner Sally, was sentenced to be hanged on May 26, 1768, for a se quence of gory and particularly violent murders, a "tragical affair" that shocked the island.'4 Transfigured into the attack on Isaac and the murder of Harry Gardner in Miriam Coffin, the brute truths attain humane significance for the emotions and the intellect, after the true fashion of romance. Consider also the figure of Miriam Coffin as the stuff of romance. Miriam Coffin was a "real person," though the accounts of her life that survived and that Hart knew are doubtless rather
"MIRIAM COFFIN, OR THE WHALE-FISHERMAN"
21
heavily embroidered with the inevitable excesses of legend and oral tradition. Yet it would seem that what she says, does, and is in Hart's tale is something like the truth. The real name of Hart's prototype was Keziah Folger Coffin, and she was born October 9, 1723. Hart's reason for altering her name to Miriam is not clear, since he was not averse to using real names elsewhere in his story (Jethro Coffin, for example, or Isaac Coffin). Keziah married John (apparently not Jethro) Coffin, and had a daughter also named Keziah. The junior Keziah married one Phineas Fanning, a lawyer and the reputed author of the mildly satirical doggerel about established Nantucket families which appears in bowdlerized form in the novel (I, 62). These two are presumably the models of Ruth and Grimshaw. Crevecoeur mentions her admiringly in Letter VIII of the Nantucket section of Letters from an American Farmer: The richest person now in the island owes all his present prosperity and success to the ingenuity of his wife: this is a known fact which is well recorded; for while he was per forming his first cruises, she traded with pins and needles, and kept school. Afterward she purchased more considerable articles, which she sold with so much judgment, that she laid the foundation of a system of business, that she has ever since prosecuted with equal dexterity and success. She wrote to London, formed connections, and, in short, became the only ostensible instrument of that house, both at home and abroad. Who is he in this country and who is a citizen of Nantucket or Boston, who does not know Aunt Kesiah ? I must tell you that she is the wife of Mr. C—n, a very respectable man, who, well pleased with all her schemes, trusts to her judgment, and relies on her sagacity, with so entire a confidence, as to be altogether passive to the concerns of his family. They have the best country seat on the island, at Quayes, where they live with hospitality, and in perfect union. He seems to be altogether the contempla tive man. Such was the contemporary legend of "Miriam" Coffin. However, her self-centered and often ruthless activities during the American Revolution seem to have been much as Hart accounts them. She was early "set aside by the Quakers, we are told for various unconventional acts, such as introducing* a spinet into'her house and wearing bright clothes. For her outrageous commercial exploits during the war she was arrested m 1780 and tried for high treason before the General Court at Boston; she served as her own attorney, and was acquitted. She left Nan tucket after her ruin, but returned to die on March 29, 1790, of a broken neck occasioned by a fall down the stairs.15 Her story accommodates virtually all of the characteristics of romance developed by Professors Chase and Stubbs.
"MIRIAM COFFIN, OR THE WHALE-FISHERMAN"
23
The currently known facts of Hart's biography are sparse, possibly because the first two editions of Miriam Coffin appeared anonymously, and he was identified as author on the title page only in the reprint of 1872, when he had been dead for seventeen years. Thus, no compiler of bio graphical notices of authors had had a chance to write him up. Indeed it seems clear that Melville did not know who the author of Miriam Coffin was. Joseph C. Hart was born in 1798, the son of Mary Coleman, daughter of John Coleman of Nantucket.16 He became a New Yorker, a lawyer, a writer, and ultimately a diplomat. He visited Nantucket, apparently in or about the year 1828, as his references in the Introduction to Miriam Coffin to the petition of the Nan tucket people to Congress in that year indicate. He died July 23, 1855, at Santa Cruz, in the Canary Islands, while serving as American Consul.17 His connection with Melville was insistent and intriguing. In addition to the honor of having his novel serve as a precursor of Moby-Dick, his quite incredible miscellany, The Romance of Yachting: Voyage the First, published in 1848 and aptly de scribed by James D. Hart as "a farrago of travel and literary essays," 18 was the instigation of a splendidly indignant and witty piece of epistolary mockery by Melville, who was asked to review it by Evert Duyckinck, editor of the New York Literary World. What the deuce does it mean? — Here's a book positively turned wrong side out, the title page on the cover, an index to the whole in more ways than one. — I open at the begin ning & find myself in the middle of the Blue Laws & Dr. O'Callaghan. Then proceeding, find several extracts from the Log Book of Noah's Ark You have been horribly imposed upon, My Dear Sir. The book is no book, but a compact bundle of wrapping paper. And as for Mr. Hart, pen & ink, should instantly be taken away from that unfortunate man, upon the same principle that pistols are withdrawn from the wight bent upon suicide. — What has Mr. Hart done that I should publicly devour him? — I bear that hapless man no malice. Then why smite him? — And as for glossing over his book with a few common places, — that I can not do. — The book deserves to be burnt in a fire of asafetida, & by the hand that wrote it. Seriously again, & on my conscience, the book is an abor tion, the mere trunk of a book, minus head arm or leg. — Take it back, I beseech, & get some one to cart it back to the author. Yours Sincerely, H. M.19
24
Two ironies are latent in this letter. Melville gives no indi cation of recognizing Hart as the author of Miriam Coffin. (In 1851 in Moby-Dick Melville nowhere calls Hart by name; in a list of names of men who have "written of the whale," in Chapter XXXII, he refers only to "the Author of Miriam Coffin.") And in effect he did review The Romance of Yachting, since the author of the notice which did appear in the Literary World plagiarized shamelessly from Melville's letter.20 Scholars have been interested in Melville's debt to Miriam Coffin for half a century. As already indicated, he obviously knew the tale since he cites a passage from it in the "Extracts" prefaced to Moby-Dick and lists "the Author of Miriam Coffin" among the "Whale authors" in the "Cetology" chapter (XXXII). In addition, various analogues suggest Melville's conscious or subconscious recollection of Hart's novel or likely use of it as prototype. There are Pelegs and Starbucks in both novels, and ships named the Grampus, and Tashima in Miriam Coffin may have suggested the name for Melville's Tashtego. Both authors men tion Mary Morrel (Hart has it Morriel) Folger, "one of the old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress of a long line of Folgers and harpooners," as the grandmother (Hart has it greatgrandmother) of Benjamin Franklin, and thus pretending to "good blood in their veins." 21 Hart makes a good deal of clams and chowder as characteristic Nantucket sustenance (I, XX, 8688) as did Melville later in "Chowder" (chapter XV)). The "Nantucket" chapter (XIV), with its recapitulation of jokes about the island's sandy barrenness, echoes Hart's com ments about "the little sandy island" with its "unqualified aridity" "few trees," and likeness to "scrapings of the great African Desei"+" (I, 30). Father Mapple's salty employment of a rope sea ladder for mounting his pulpit parallels a similar means of ascent in a Siasconset cottage described in the Introduction to Miriam Coffin (I, xix). Finally, two of the "Extracts" appear also in Hart's novel, the first quotation from Milton (I, xxiv), and the one from Falconer (II, 78), though both citations are all but inevitable, and Melville would hardly need a precedent for either. More substantial connection seems indicated by the insistence of both writers on "the honor and glory of whaling," their com mon use of dire prophecies uttered by Indian squaws (Tistig and Judith Quary), and the climactic destruction of a ship by an in furiated whale in both novels. Ruth Coffin, incensed at her mother's championing of the "spiritless fortune-hunter" Lawyer Grimshaw as Ruth's prospec tive husband over the local product, extols the whale-fisherman as "he that, in noble daring, challenges the world in emulation,
"MIRIAM COFFIN, OR THE WHALE-FISHERMAN
25
and braves the dangers of the deep," outstripping "in the hazard of grappling with the giant of the seas . . . the vaunted, fabled champions of olden time . . . thou doest wrong to their hard-earned reputation, by comparing the gallant whale-fisherman . . . with such a crawling thing as Grimshaw. He must first try his prowess upon the seas, before he may dare to mate himself with them in honour or attainments!" (II, 25-26). These, and other like senti ments, may well foreshadow Melville's recurrent exposition of the "great honorableness" of whaling in "The Advocate" and "The Honor and Glory of Whaling" (chapters XXIV and LXXXII). Squaw Tistig, so Captain Peleg tells us, had said that Ahab's name "would somehow prove prophetic" 22 of violent death in battle. So also Judith Quary, the half-breed fortuneteller, fore tells that the "loved one" (Thomas Starbuck) is doomed where the monster's gaping jaws Show a deed of blood, Far, — far o'er the flood! and that another (Harry Gardner) will be murdered (I, 132; II, 119). But the most striking, and certainly the most extended, parallel is between the final catastrophes in which the Grampus and the Pequod are sunk by frenzied whales. Prior to the final hunt in Miriam Coffin the harpooner of one of the boats, arrestingly named Thomas Starbuck, worried by the fortune teller's pronouncement of doom, finds that he cannot "partake of the cheerfulness of his fellows" or participate in "the animated bustle" which precedes an attack upon a school of whales . . ." There was a determined soberness in his face and demean our . . . There was a deep gloom preying upon his spirits, and while all others seemed to be in high good humour, and "eager for the fray," — he was listless and desponding . . . Starbuck . . . was ashamed to show the white feather . . . but the words of Judith rang in his ears, and he felt that he could not lightly disregard the omen. Explaining his "unaccountable presentiment" to Captain Jon athan Coleman, he asks to be excused from the hunt for the day and retires "with a heavy heart" (II, 150-151). Here is a "fall of valor" 23 indeed (though later redeemed), as in Melville's Starbuck, and the brief interview with the captain is a tiny hint of the tremendous encounter between Ahab and Starbuck in "The Symphony" (chapter CXXXII), where the latter in vain urges his captain to "fly these deadly waters" and similarly retires "blanched to a corpse's hue with despair." The pursuit ultimately focuses on one whale — "of prodig ious size" — which, after leading Starbuck "a tiresome chase," sounds, and then rises, to create "a moment of indescribable anxiety." The whale turns over on its back to bring its teeth
26
HISTORIC NANTUCKET
into destructive play; the bow of the boat strikes the jaw of the whale, and Starbuck, standing in the bow with harpoon poised, is pitched "headlong into a living tomb . . (much as was Radney in "The Town-Ho's Story").24 Thereafter struck deep by a lance, the infuriated whale destroys the boat: "In an instant the boat and the crew were driven into the air, by a stroke of the animal's tail. The frail barque was shivered into a thousand pieces; and the men, bruised and lacerated, fell into the broad ocean." The whale, now "blind with rage," circles the ships. "Suddenly, a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up perpendicularly, with inconceivable velocity, into the air." (Melville's citation in the "Extracts.") ". . . the effort was his last expiring throe ... in his descent, he pitched headlong across the bows of the Grampus, and, in one fell swoop, carried away the entire forepart of the vessel! .. . The gallant ship instantly filled with water, and settled away from their sight" (11,154-156). The coincidences here are numerous, and comparison with the conclusion of Moby-Dick is irresistible. In fact all of chapter X of volume II merits close correlation with the three chapters of "The Chase," which conclude MobyDick. Even the word symphony could have been picked up (II, 145) for the title of chapter CXXXII of Moby-Dick,25 Perceiving more significant relationships Philbrick notes in passing that "broader, but equally striking, similarities" also exist between the two novels "in characterization and tone." 26 Without presuming upon this general but valid statement, the reader who has both novels freshly in mind may pursue the amiable and revealing game of analogy-chasing a good deal further than it has been pursued in the studies listed in footnote 25. The neighborly friction between the Quakers Jethro Coffin and Peleg Folger in the second chapter of Miriam Coffin antici pates the friendly bickering between two other Quakers, Mel ville's Peleg and Bildad.27 Chapter VI in the second volume of Hart's novel, in which Seth Macy kills a right whale, reminds one at once of chapter LXI "Stubb Kills a Whale" and chapter LXXIII "Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale . . ." and the coin cidences are once again astounding: the international competition, Seth's exhortations to his crew, the sequence of events in the process of whale-taking, the commands given. Jonathan Cole man's crew of "strong and muscular" Indians, "chosen by Cole man to man the first whale-boat," are irregular members of the ship's company aboard the Leviathan and form "a mess by them selves" (II, 109), thus prefiguring the "tiger-yellow crew" who man Ahab's boat.28
"MIRIAM COFFIN, OR THE WHALE-FISHERMAN"
27
The vicious Quibby, "that infernal Indian," a "Jonah aboard" the Leviathan, is discussed in tones as ominous as those employed by the derisive Elijah, and causes as much anxiety as Fedallah (II, 123). Hart's novel also offers a miniature "Cetology," a suggestion for Aunt Charity — "The women . . . are ever watch ful of the comfort of the crews ... a thousand little nicknacks and keepsakes are stowed away in chests and clothesbags, that betray the tender consideration of woman for her sailor-kindred" — an attack of savages on a whaler, references to the Season on the Line, even a cow on the beach (I, 7,8-79, 103; II, 107,128, 136142). These, and a myriad of other diversified materials, observa tions, strictures, allusions, quotations, historical references, and what not, are tumbled into the tale quite according to the Melvillian pronouncement that "a careful disorderliness is the true method." 29 But the pursuit of sources and analogues has its limits of significance; after all, a grand climax in which the whaleship is sunk by the whale is a natural for a whaling novel, not to speak of its validity as a matter of recurrent fact in the actual fishery itself. And duplicate Pelegs and prophetic squaws are hardly fundamental to the two long novels. What is intriguing is that Hart's novel and its obviously successful reception may well have reassured Melville of the plaus ibilities and malleabilities of his whaling materials and exper iences. As Philbrick puts it: "For all its formlessness Miriam Coffin mav well have given the author of Moby-Dick an indication of "the potentialities of his material." 3° The reviewers cited in the second edition of Miriam Coffin are much taken with Hart's discovery of the creative possibilities latent in such (to the point) unpromising stuff as remote and sandy Nantucket and the business of fishing for whales: "Few would have thought of selecting the barren sands of isolated Nantucket on which to build a novel . . ."; "We have long since been convinced that it requires no stinted portion of literary tact to succeed in embroid ering the light, gay flowers of fiction on the strong, heavy, oldfashioned arras of matter-of-fact history . . . The work before us is a new and, as we think, successful specimen of this same species of writing." Elsewhere: "It is a novel of Nantucket, and seems likely to invest that region, hitherto supposed so unpropitious to the Muses, with interesting associations of imagination, and perhaps of fact 'strange than fiction.' The whale-fishermen appeal to be taking their place in the romantic literature of the day,_ and in the present instance under the most favorable auspices." Perhaps to Hart, as to Hawthorne, Melville owed a measure of gratitude for having "dropped germinous seeds into my soul".3' Miriam Coffin does not, however, need to lean on Moby-Dick for either recognition or identity. In its day it was a popular and
28
HISTORIC NANTUCKET
respected novel, and in ours it deserves a historical acceptance and a critical evaluation of its own. It is a period piece, perhaps, in some ways, but it tells an engaging story, it does justice to some striking scenes and episodes, it is a splendid example of an important genre, romance, and it is still eminently readable, despite some pedantries of style (as they seem to us) and some pontification. It is obvious of value as a literary and social doc ument. It is a valid part of American cultural and literary tradi tion. It merits being recalled to life.
— References — 1. "Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water and shot up perpendicularly [with inconceivable velocity.] into the air. It was the whale . . ." Joseph C. Hart, Miriam Coffin, or The Whale-Fishermen: a Tale (New York, 1834), II, 156. The bracketed phrase is omitted by Melville, who also indi cates a full stop after "whale." All page references to Mir iam Coffin, including the preceding one, are to the first edition, now available as a facsimile reprint (Garrett Press, Inc., New York, 1969). 2. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 65. 3. The three editions of Miriam Coffin were: Miriam Coffin, or The Whale-Fishermen: A Tale ... In Two Volumes . . . New York: G. & C. & H. Carvill, 108 Broadway: Carey & Hart.'Philadelphia: and Allen & Ticknor, Boston, 1834. Miriam Coffin, or The Whale-Fishermen. A Tale ... In two Volumes . . . Second Edition. New York: Published by Harper & Brothers . . . 1835. Miriam Coffin, or The Whale-Fisherman: A Tale By Col. Joseph C. Hart. . . . New Edition. Two Volumes in One. . . . San Francisco: Republished by H. R. Coleman. A. L. Ban croft & Co., Printers. 1,872. The three editions are identical in text, though each was sep arately set, and the pagination varies. 4. As pp. [1] -iv. 5. R. M. Weaver, Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic (New York: George H. Doran, 1921), p. 145. 6. Willard Thorp, ed., Herman Melville: Representative Selec tions. (New York: American Book Company, 1938), p. 429. 7. Great Illustrated Classics edition (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1947), pp. vii, ix. 8. The Romance of Yachting: Voijage the First (New York: Harper, 1848), Preface, p. 7.
"MIRIAM COFFIN, OR THE WHALE-FISHERMAN"
29
9. Richard Chase, The American Novel and Its Tradition (Gar den City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1957), p. ix. 10. Ibid., pp x, 11, 12. 11. Philbrick, pp. 98-99. 12. Ibid., p. 100. 18. J. C. Stubbs, "Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter: The Theory of the Romance and the Use of the New England Situation." PMLA, 83 (1968), 1439-1440. 14. E. F. Guba, "The Trial and Execution of Nathan Quibbey," Historic Nantucket, 15, No. 2 (October 1967), pp. 12-16. 15. Convenient accounts of her life appear in F. B. Gilbreth, Of Whales and Women (New York: Crowell, 1956), pp. 61-65; E. K. Godfrey, The Island of Nantucket (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1882), pp. 100-102;'and W. O. Stevens, Nantucket, The Far-Away Island (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1936), pp. 96-101. 16. Information in a letter to the author from Mr. Edouard A. Stackpole, Nantucket, Mass., Sept. 22, 1967. 17. F. S. Drake, Dictionary of American Biography (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1874*), p. 413; J. D. Hart, The Oxford Companion to American Literature (New York: Oxford Uni versity Press, 1941), p. 309; M. J. Herzberg, ed., The Read er's Encyclopedia of American Literature (New York: Crow ell, 1962), p. 434. 18. The Oxford Companion to American Literature, p. 309. 19. M. R. Davis and W. H. Gilman, eds., The Letters of Herman Melville (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960), pp. 7375. See also Thorp, pp. 369-370. 20. Thorp, p. 429. 21. Moby-Dick, chapter XXIV, "The Advocate." 22. Moby-Dick, chapter XVI, "The Ship." 23. Moby-Dick, chapter XXVI, "Knights and Squires." 24. Moby-Dick, chapter LIV. 25. The details and significance of the Hart-Melville relationship previously observed are principally indicated in the follow ing: C. R. Anderson, Melville in the South Seas (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), pp. 24-25, 54-56, 448; M. R. Davis and W. H. Gilman, eds., The Letters of Herman Mel ville (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960), pp. 73-75; Leon Howard, "A Predecessor of Moby-Dick," Modern Lan guage Notes, 49 (May, 1934), 310-311; Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or the Whale, ed. L. S. Mansfield and H. P. Vin cent (New York: Hendricks House, 1952), pp. 583, 584, 586, 606 628, 636, 653, 661; Perry Miller, The Raven and the Whale
30
26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.
HISTORIC NANTUCKET
(New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1956), pp. 64-67; Thomas Philbrick, James Fenimore Cooper and the Develop ment of American Sea Fiction (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 302; Willard Thorp, ed., Herman Melville: Representative Selections (New York: American Book Company, 193,8), pp. 369-370, 429; H. P. Vincent, The Trying-Out of Moby-Dick (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949), pp." 57, 87, 100, 123; and R. M. Weaver, Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic (New York: George H. Doran, 1921), p. 145. Philbrick, p. 302. Moby-Dick, chapter XVI, "The Ship." Moby-Dick, chapter XLVIII, "The First Lowering." Moby-Dick, chapter LXXXII, "The Honor and Glory of Whal ing." Philbrick, p. 100. "Hawthorne and His Mosses," The Literary World (August 17 and 24, 1850) ; Thorp, p. 341.
32
Green Hand on the "Susan", 1841-1846 BY EDGAR L. MCCORMACK
(Continued from the April, 1971, Issue) IX (continued) Into the Mid-Pacific On Saturday, October 12, the Susan's boats towed her into the anchorage at Maui where she joined "41 sail of whalers of American, English, French, Dutch colours, 1 American merchant man, 1 American trading brig, 2 native Brigs and 4 native schoon ers." The Susan, out 34 months with only 950 barrels, anchored among a "N. West fleet" that averaged about 2000 barrels a ship. Meader, ashore on Sunday, found the place much improved, and necessarily so, he thought, since it accommodated as many as forty ships at a time with as many as 800 men on liberty simultan eously. The Susan spent six days in port, each watch having one day's liberty. There were a few letters for her and she "recruited" 10 barrels of Irish potatoes, and some fresh beef. One black man, apparently Henry Halsey, deserted, prompting Meader to re mark " 'good riddance to him' as the girls say." The third mate, George W. Macy, 2nd, and three boatsteerers, Jack Russell, John Wood, and David Osborn asked to be discharged, and Captain Russell reluctantly assented. Mr. Macy's decision, Meader explained, was "on account of having ill luck so long, and Mr. Wood, 'the colored gernman' on aQcount of poor living & Mr. Osborne the same. It has always been a grievous thing to them that they were not allowed to eat at the table with the Captain and officers, but had they tried harder to preserve discipline and order, instead of being the means of having the rules violated, perhaps they would now enjoy that privilege." Captain Russell promoted the fourth mate, John B. Starbuck to third, and shipped Wm. A. Gardner as fourth mate and two American White boatsteerers, one Indian, three white men, and four natives. Leaving Maui on October 19, bound to the Line, Meader noted that the Susan passed "within ships length of the William Hamilton . . . (full and bound home). They gave us three hearty cheers to which we answered three times three." It seemed as if they were beginning a new voyage with more than half the crew, three boatsteerers, and two officers just appointed. "So that with so many new things I hope the one thing needful (goodluck) will be added," he concluded.
GREEN HAND ON THE "SUSAN"
33 But the new cruise began with rainy, squally weather. As October drew to a close, strong trades sent the Susan under closereefed topsails SSE towards the Line. On November 2 she spoke the Levi Starbuck, 42 mos., 800 spm, 800 whale, bound home. Captain Nye came aboard for dinner and tea. The next day, Sunday, Captain Russell gam'd on the Levi Starbuck and its mate on the Susan. November 10 brought a brief encounter with the Bark George and Martha Smalley of New Bedford whose captain refused an invitation to gam, keeping to a S by E Course "probably bound to New Zealand." On the 19th all four boats lowered in vain for blackfish. The Susan cruised as far as 5 degrees 47 minutes south and then steered for the Line again, without having seen a spout "of any kind." "The same old luck," lamented Meader, as the ship headed towards Jarvis Island. There they lowered two boats and went ashore for fish. They came off at sundown, "having got but a few fish and plenty of Man-of-War hawks eggs which are quite good. They also brought some large shells and parts of a wreck long since drifted upon this low sand 'heap.' This time the boats landed on the North side; the Captain and 2nd mate then walked over to see the cocoanuts which they planted near 2 years (before), Jan'.v 20, 1843, and they found them on top the ground having been either hauled up by birds or been washed out by the rains." At 10 A.M. on November 22 at 4 degrees, 51 minutes south and 161 and 18 west, the Susan lowered all four boats and chased whales until 5:30 P.M. without success. A new boatsteerer, Rouse ("old 'Roscoe' " as the captain called him) missed his first whale with both irons which "sailed" over their target. It was the first miss of the voyage, Meader noted. The weather during the next few days was the best kind for whaling, "but we poor devils haven't got the critters yet." On December 3 the water was "quite lively with fish, sharks, porpoises, cowfish, blackfish and one large turtle ... the first I ever saw from land." Two days later they raised land, Phoenix Island, at 3 p.m., "a white sand heap." V/o miles by i/2 with plenty of fish but no sea fowl, eggs, or shells as Mr. Pitman learned on a brief excursion ashore. Since entries for December 6 through January 3 are missing from Meader's journal, it is from the Susan's log that we learn of her encounters then with whales, natives, and death. On December 11 with Clarence Island bearing South about 10 or 15 miles, the Susan lowered three boats for whales off the weather bow. They struck two but "the larboard boat got stove . . . got the men on board . . . Mr. Pitman took the Starboard boat & went after the fast whale . . . (and) while waiting for the whale to come up received a blow from the whale's head directly under the bottom of the boat which stove her & upset her. Sent the bow boat & at noon we got one whale alongside & took in one stoven boat.
34
HISTORIC NANTUCKET
Heavy showers the next day interfered with boiling, but they retrieved the other damaged boat and managed to lower two when two sperm whales appeared close by. But a heavy squall of rain hid the escaping whales. Boiling was over on Friday, December 13, as the ship passed west of Clarence Island. The Captain recorded the encounter that ensued with nine native canoes which he allowed to come alongside, while denying per mission to the 50 or so men and boys to come aboard. "They were fine looking natives," he noted, "and appeared very civil & honest. They brought for trade mats, shells, coconut bowls & many other native curiosities. We gave in exchange Iron hoops, old files, scraps, fish hooks, knives, etc. At noon we dismissed them all & sent them on shore. They told us there were three white men on shore. The above Island is low & wooded but divided into several small Islands connected by rocks or low land covered partly by water. The Islands form a lagoon from appearances. The natives could not be very numerous." On December 15 the Susan tacked South to avoid running on Quivas Island. On the 17th she approached the Navigator Islands (Samoa), sighted Savoy (Savaii), the most western of those islands. The ship was "dull" with a foul bottom, and the chron ometer on December 21 seemed about 38 miles too far East. Christmas brought squalls "hanging all around the horizon." On New Year's Day, 1845, the log noted that "we are now near the spot where Vasques Island is layed down on the chart but it does not exist, as many ships have passed over the ground without seeing it." On January 2 came a gam with the Rodman, Newcomb, New Bedford, 16 mos., 700 bbls sperm. At 6 A.M. the next morning "we were visited with dispensations of Providence in taking from us one of our crew, a native of the Cape de Verdes, a lad about 19 years of age. He had been up turning a reef from the main topsail, descending . . . missed his hold . . . fell & struck his head foremost on the main hatches & expired instantaneously without a struggle or groan . . . thus in the midst of life we are in death . . . At 6 P.M.," the Captain continued, "we committed the body of George de Borge to the deep. ... I read part of the funeral service from the Episcopal Prayer Book taken from the 15th Chapter of Corinthinians & a corresponding prayer from the same book. The service was performed with great solemnity & some were much affected, even to tears." The Susan at 25 degrees, 55 minutes south latitude and 175 degrees, 5 minutes west longitude continued her cruise, and ap proached Sunday Island (Raoul), off New Zealand. END PART IX
(to be continued)
Legacies and Bequests Membership in our Association proves that you are interested in its program for the preservation of Nantucket's famed heritage and its illustrious past, which so profoundly affected the develop ment of our country. You can perpetuate that interest by giving to the Association a legacy under your will, which will help to insure the Association's carrying on. Counsel advises that legacies to the Nantucket Historical Association are allowable deductions under the Federal Estate Tax Law. Legacies will be used for general or specific purposes as directed by the donor. A sample form may read as follows: "I give, devise, and bequeath to the Nantucket Historical Association, a corporation duly or ganized under the laws of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and located in the Town of Nantucket, in said Commonwealth, the sum of .*. dollars."
Legacies may be made also in real estate, bonds, stocks, books, paintings, or any objects having historical value, in which event a brief description of the same should be inserted instead of a sum of money. Please send all communications to the Secretary, Box 1016, Nantucket, Massachusetts 02554. Office, Union Street.
Friends Meeting House and Fair Street Rooms.
