CW/1afin9 GWzves1 Sister Sai{ors by Joan Druett ~e tradition that the average ~halÂ
ing master was a pompous, pious, righteous citizen at home and a tough hard-userof hi s men once safely at sea, is an enduring one. In old Sag Harbor, for instance, when visitors commented that it always seemed as if the homecoming Pacifi c whalers took four days to beat in from first soundings to Gardiner's Bay, the townsfo lk used to nod wisely and say that it was because the whalemen needed a whole four days to get their consciences back into shape. This was mostly a colorful fable , for there were many whaling captains who did not fit the flamboyant pattern. Every now and then a manuscript comes to light, however, which points out that in some cases the myth was not too far from the truth . One such is the journal kept by Nathaniel Morgan, who served as steerage boy- the cabin boy for boatsteerers, carpenter, boatswa in , cook and sa il maker--0n the whaleship Hannibal of New London in the years 1849 and 1850. The master of the Hannibal was Captain Solomon L. Gray of Liberty Hill , Connecticut-35 years old, five foot six inches tall , possessing, it seems, an impressive vocabulary. As young Nathaniel testified , Captain Gray could "curse and swear beyond anythink in Webster's Dictionary .... The worst and most profane language I ever heard from mortal lips flows from his," the boy elaborated later. "Son of b---h and Iike elegant expressions are hi s common address ... even in the presence of hi s'wife." And that- in that year of 1850-is where Captain Solomon Gray was strikingly different from most of hi s whaling brethren. Cursing was to be ex pected in a tough whaling skipper, but carry ing a wife to sea a-whaling was a most uncommon practice. That voyage on the Hannibal was not hi s wife 's maiden excursion, e ither. Mrs. Gray was one of the trail-blazers , for she first sa iled in June 1844, on the whaleship Newbu ryport of Stonington, Connecticut. Early as she was , however, Mrs. Gray was by no means the first American whaling wife. The earliest fully documented petticoat whaler voyage was heralded on a long summer's day in 1824, when a lonely twenty-seven-yearold woman whose husband had only just rece n~ly come home from a thirty-threemonth Pacific whaling voyage picked up hi s old logbook and penned a short entry on the flyleaf, at th e back. 20
Mary Brewster, pastel portrait, unknown artist, c. 1856 (Stonington Historical Society). Born on 22 September 1822, Mary Burtch of Stonington, Connecticut , married wha ling captain William Brewster in March 1841. Three months later he sailed on a voyage to New Zealand, not returning until May 1843. After only two months at home he sailed again, not returning until April 1845, by which time Mary had made up her mind that she could not bear another separation, and so she sailed with him on 4 November 1845.
"Matti tuck, June 13th, 1824," she wrote. "Sabbath day all alone upstairs very dull day . Husband Gone to New york." Then she signed the entry with her name, Polly H. Gardiner, and added her husband's name, Henry. Polly 's name had appeared several times already in the logbook, written in the marg ins in Captai n Gardiner 's flowing script during moments of ev ident homesickness. Not yet forty, Captain " Harry" Gardiner had already spent 24 years at sea, far removed from friends and loved ones back home in the Long Island village of Quogue, and so it seems no surpri se that when the Dawn departed from the Port of New York for another Pacific voyage, sailing on Chri stmas Day, 1826, Polly went along too. She left an enduring memento of thi s remarkable excursion, for her hobby was embroidering samplers. Polly headed each piece of fabric with the alphabet and numerals and then added a religious verse. After that, if room allowed, she filled in the spare space at the bottom by crossstitching a personal message. "Polly H. Gardiner, March 6, 1828," she stitched on one of the several samplers that are now held by her descendants in Long Island. Evidently she had mistaken the date and disliked to unpick her embroidery, for she
amended the year by inserting the embroidered numeral "27," and then went on in large silken letters, "Bound to the Pacific Ocean in the ship Dawn." Her deci sion to sail was as extraordinary as the "document" itself. Whaling crews were notoriously rough and ready , the hard-drinking complement of the whaleship Dawn bei ng no exception, as a journal kept by the carpenter, Will Latimer, testifies. The ships themselves were small and utilitarian , most of them rated at less than 500 tons, but nevertheless heav ily manned. Four or five boats were kept out on the davits at all times on the whaling ground , ready to be lowered all together in the whale-chase, and each one of these had to be crewed by a mate and five oarsmen. Extra men were required to keep the ship while the boats were down , along with carpenter, cooper, cook , and steward, and so the average whaling crew numbered more than thirty-and thirty men took up a lot of space on a ship. While the captain 's wife lived in quarters that were rather more extensive than those of a man before the mast, by the standards of homes as hore Polly's space was very limited indeed. Unless she had her own small room on deck, the only private area Polly Gardiner possessed was the narrow stateroom she shared wi th her husband, along with a tin y transom si tting room, which was crowded by a heavy sofa, chart table and chairs. Meals were eaten in the " forward cabin," which was taken up with a massive table that had to be shared with the three or four mates, se ldom very cu lti vated men. The food itself was not very appetizing, being based on hard sea-bread ("bi scuit"), salt beef, sa lt pork, dried beans, onions and potatoes, enlivened only occasionally by fresh food picked up along the way. And , if that daily existence was not suffic ientl y daunting, there was always the depressing reminder that Pacific whalers were not supposed to steer for home until each and every barrel in the capacious hold was full, a process that could take more than five years. On a voyage of that length, there was the added ri sk that vital provisions cou ld run out, as indeed happened on the 1826 voyage of the Dawn, when so many of the crew were laid low with scurvy that the ship could not be worked. Luckily this happe ned in the South China Sea, where fertile islands abounded, but when the ship 's boat was rowed by the few SEA HISTORY 74, SUMMER 1995