Melville's First Captain - Valentine Pease, Jr

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Melville's First Captain - Valentine Pease, Jr. Was Born on Nantucket in 1797

by Edouard A. Stackpole

IT WILL COME as some surprise to many lovers of Herman Melville to learn that the first whaling master, under whom Melville began his whaling career, was a native of Nantucket. Captain Valentine Pease, Jr, master of the whaleship Acushnet, which sailed from New Bedford, in January, 1841, on board of which Melville signed on as a greenhorn, has been generally called a Vineyard man, because he settled on that island following his marriage. But the house in which he was born still stands on Nantucket. Captain Pease was the son of Captain Valentine Pease and Love Daggett, and their first child was also named Valentine, but he died shortly after, and three children later, Valentine, II was born on November 22, 1797. He came to be known as Valentine Pease, Jr.

Captain Valentine Pease, Jr.'s, birthplace stands on West Chester Street and is now owned by Mrs. Joseph Woodle, and has also been called the Captain Priam Brock house. Facing the south, of lean-to design, the fine old structure has been carefully preserved over the years, with the successive owners keeping the old architecture intact over a period of over two centuries. With its front facing the Lily Pond, the house has a long sloping rear roof, in traditional Nantucket style. Its great central chimney sits on the roof top like a crown, with an ell protruding at the rear to serve as a summer kitchen.

Captain Valentine Pease, Sr., came from Martha's Vineyard to command Nantucket whaleships. In the Alliance, he made a successful voyage to Woolwich Bay on the west African coast in 1795-96. During his next voyage a fifth child was born to him and Love (Daggett) Pease in Nantucket - a second son, named Valentine Pease, Jr. - born November 22, 1797. Three brothers followed Valentine Pease, Jr., Charles F. Pease born Dec. 8,1800; Henry Pease, born Jan. 18,1802; and Tristram Daggett Pease, born Feb. 18,1805. An older brother, named Valentine, had been born in 1789 but died as an infant. Three girls, Love, Martha and Sally, were born before Valentine, Jr. came on to the scene. Two of these three sisters married whaling masters on Martha's Vineyard.

The three brothers of Valentine Pease, Jr. also became whalemen. C h a r l es F . P e a se , b o r n i n 1 8 0 0 , wa s l os t i n t he wh a l e sh ip L a d y A d a m s , of Nantucket, which disappeared on the Japan Grounds in 1823. The next brother, Henry Pease, born in 1802, became the master of the ship Catawba, of Nantucket, in 1840, completing a successful three-year voyage. A third brother, Captain Tristram Daggett Pease, was master of the ship Columbus, of New Bedford, in 1832.

Captain Valentine Pease, Jr., took his first command in the ship H o u -

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qua, of New Bedford. From this voyage he returned in 1835, after an experience which would have disheartened a less determined man. During the three and a half years at sea, the 33-year-old Captain Valentine Pease, Jr., had lost 11 men by desertions. His 1st mate, Edward Starbuck, had resigned his post after a disagreement with the Captain. A boat's crew and two mates were lost by drowning in an unsuccessful attempt to save a man who had fallen overboard. From the original crew of 25 men only three returned in the Houqua with Captain Pease. However, the ship had a successful voyage, bringing home some 1700 bbls. of oil. Captain Pease was one of the five owners of the Houqua, but sold his share upon his return home. On his next voyage, Captain Pease took out the ship Mechanic, from St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. It was a successful voyage for the owners but disastrous for the crew and officers, and was to leave an unfavorable impression on the young shipmaster.

On his next voyage whaling, Captain Valentine Pease Jr., took command of the new ship Acushnet, of Fairhaven, a new ship built in Mattapoisett, Mass., arriving at Fairhaven only a month or so before she sailed. Among the crew signing on was a young greenhorn named Herman Melville, and as Wilson Heflin aptly expressed it, the voyage of the Acushnet provided "the great flood-gates of the water-world" to swing wide open.

The ship sailed from New Bedford harbor on January 3,1841. In his third command, Captain Valentine Pease, Jr., was 43 years old. Adopting a familiar course, the Acushnet crossed the Atlantic to the Cape de Verde Islands, then crossed the South Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he put aboard a vessel bound for Boston, (and eventually reached Fairhaven) a few barrels of sperm oil. He then headed for Cape Horn, which he rounded in April, 1841. In May, he was off Massafuera Island, and then off to the coast of Peru, where they first reached a landfall at Santa late in June.

The voyage of the Acushnet was Melville's first whaling experience, and was to lay the foundation for his literary career. Typee, Omoo, Mardi, White Jacket and eventually Moby Dick were to become the beginnings, and to start the long road to his triumphs.

After sailing to the eastern perimeter of the off-shore ground, the Acushnet met and gammed the Nantucket whaleship Lima. It was on August 1,1841, and Melville was 22 years old. When they again gammed with the Lima, Melville wrote into his copy of the book, The Loss of the Ship Essex of Nantucket, that he had met the son of the book's author, Owen Chase, who had loaned him a copy of the book. The son's name was William Henry Chase, of Nantucket. Melville wrote in the margin, much later, that he first read the story - "the wondrous story, upon the landless sea, and close to the very latitude of the shipwreck, which had a surprising effect upon me."

After speaking several ships, the Acushnet continued her cruisings, and during September, 1841, stove down 720 bbls. of sperm oil, as a result

Captain Valentine Pease, Jr.

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HISTORIC NANTUCKET

of 10 months' voyaging. At this time the crew was mutinous, and continued to refuse duty, and seven crew members were given two dozen lashes, and confined to irons in the ship's blubber room - and 3 ringleaders were discharged when the ship put in at Callao.

During the early months of 1842, the ship cruised near the Galapagos Islands, where they once gammed with the ship Columbus, of Nantucket, Captain William B. Gardner, of Nantucket, and where she took terrapin. During January and February, 1842, the Acushnet spoke four Nantucket

whaleships — the Aurora, the Congress, the Ganges, and the Ocean — as well as the ship James Maury, of Salem, under Capt. Benjamin Hussey. They put in at Tombez, and sailed again for the mid-Pacific.

In June, 1842, the Acushnet spoke the Enterprise, of Nantucket, and the Columbus, of New Bedford, under command of Captain Pease's brother, Captain Tristram Daggett Pease, his younger brother. The fortunes of the First Mate, Frederick Raymond, and the Third Mate, James Galvan, had reached a low ebb, and both officers obtained their discharge from the vessel by the time she ended her next cruise to the west coast of South America. But what happened during their cruising to the Marquesas Islands became an important milestone in lives of two "greenhorns" who went ashore as deserters. The stories of Herman Melville and Richard Greene - later called "Toby" - at Nukuhiva, in the Marquesas, on July 6, 1842, became the vital parts of the entire voyage.

The Acushnet had put into Taiohai Bay, at Nukuhiva in the Marquesas Islands, which has been so properly described by Sir Edward Belcher, in his "Narrative of a Voyage Round The World," and described thus:

"The view of the entrance of the bay is beautiful, far surpassing anything I have noticed in these seas; and altogether rugged, isolated masses of rock....to add to their sombre effect to the otherwise brilliant tints of the landscape, still the luxuriant of the slopes and valleys....produces a sensation which cannot be justly entrusted to pen or pencil. If one did not associate gentley slopes and levels with our idea of Paradise, I should say this is it."

Three weeks before, the French fleet, under Rear Admiral Du Petit Thouars, sailed into the island and claimed the territory for the French nation. The Acushnet sailed into the anchorage, and Melville went ashore with a boat's crew, and with Richard Greene, "Toby", promptly deserted the ship. As Melville described the scene:

"How shall I describe the scenery that met my eyes as I looked out from the verdant season. The narrow valley, with its steep and close adjoining sides draped with vines, and arched overhead with a fretwork of interlacing boughs, nearly hidden from view....from where I stood like an immense arbour disclosing its

CAPTAIN VALENTINE PEASE, JR. 11

vista to the eye, which as I advanced it widened into the loveliest vale eye ever beheld."

Into his description in Typee ventured the two runaways on that early July morning, and became deserters to live with the natives in the valley of the Typees. The Acushnet lay off and on, for a few days, returning to the harbor to search for the runaways, and did recapture three of the missing men, although Melville and his friend "Toby" Greene remained hidden in their island fastness. Three other whaleships came into port in Taiohai Bay, the whaleships Potomac, of Nantucket, Captain Isaac Hussey, who left one deserter when he sailed, and the Charles and Margaret Scott, both of New Bedford.

A week later, July 14, "Toby" Greene decided to leave Melville in Typee Valley, (where he was recovering slowly from an infected leg), and to go aboard the newly arrived New Bedford whaler London Packet, where he signed on as'a greenhorn. Melville watched his companion sail away, and stayed hidden with the natives until August of 1842, when he signed on aboard the Australian whaler Lucy Ann, to make his way to Tahiti, where he left the ship, to be eventually one of the men engaged to sail aboard the whaleship Charles and Henry, of Nantucket.

The Acushnet continued to sail with a dissatisfied crew, with Captain Valentine Pease, Jr., in command. After crossing the Pacific again, the ship put into Payta, Peru, for refreshments, and it was at this port that First Officer Frederick Raymond parted with his command. The abstract log of the Acushnet gives the bare details, and Captain Pease lost the services of a good mate. Third Officer James Galvin left the vessel soon after this incident. John Hall, an Englishman, who had sailed with Captain Owen Chase on the ship Charles Carroll, stayed with Captain Pease.

When the ship returned on May 13,1845, she had obtained a successful voyage, with 850 bbls. of sperm oil, 1,350 bbls. of whale oil, and 13, 500 lbs. of whalebone. Captain Pease never went again on a whaling voyage, being content to live in his new home on South Water Street in Edgartown. He did not give up the sea entirely, being in business in a small way buying coal by schooners, unloading it and distributing it to those who placed their orders with him.

His nephew Alex Pease once said to a questioner: "No, I don't recall Uncle Valentine as a harsh man. I should say he was an upright man, but at times quite profane."

Melville's third captain was Captain John B. Coleman, master of the whaleship Charles and Henry of Nantucket, on which Melville signed aboard in early November, 1842, after his stay ashore at Papeete in the Society Islands. He was honorably discharged from the Nantucket craft at Lahaina in the Hawaiian Islands six months later.

Captain Valentine Pease, Jr., died in Edgartown on Sept. 9,1870, aged 72 years, 9 months and 11 days, and is buried in an Edgartown cemetery.