Restoring an Icon-Preparing the Whaleship by Matthew Stackpole
"A fine warm day, but very dry. This morning at 10 o'clock my elegant new ship was launched beautifully from Messrs Hillman's Yard-and in the presence of about half the town and a great show of ladies. She looks beautifully on the water-she was copper bottomed on the stocks. She is to be commanded by Captain Thomas A. Norton." -whaling merchant Charles W Morgan, 2 1 July 1841 1 ccording to the Master Carpenrer's Certificate signed by "J &Z Hillman," the new ship measured " 106 fr 6 inches in length, 27 fr 2 and 1/2 inches in breadth, and ... her draft was 17 fr 6 inches, [and was) of35 l tons burthen."2 Little could Morgan, or anyone else there that morning, have known that his ship, built to join the American whaling fleet of more than 400 vessels in the 1840s, was also beginning her voyage into American history and would alone still be at work, in a different capacity, 17 0 years later. Today the story of the American whale fishery, spanning more than 200 years, is an epi c chapter in our nation's histo ry that is largely forgotten by those outside of the maritime heritage community o r beyond coastal New England. According to Judith Lund in her book, Whaling Masters And Whaling Voyages Sailing From American Ports, just over 2,700 ships ca rri ed out 14,864 documented whaling voyages during this period. In addition to its role in the
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economic and technological develop menr of the country, the history ofwhaling reflects the importam social and political changes that were go ing on during the nineteenth century. Before we had gas li ghts or the electric light bulb, whale oil illuminated the wo rld and prov ided lubrication for the mac hin ery that wo uld drive the Industrial Revolmion. Not o nly was the search for whales global, so was the market for whale products. Whale o il lamps and spermace ti ca ndl es, made from the "h ead m atter" of sperm whales, lit the homes and streets of England, Europe, and Am erica. Oil from sperm whales was kept separate from the oil of any of the other species of whale captured because it was of much better quality and demanded a prem ium price . Whale "bone," the flexible baleen found in the mouths of Mysticeti (as opposed to Odontoceti, or toothed whales), was used in ways we use plastic today. In addition to lubricating the Industrial Revolutio n, profits from whaling helped to capitali ze it. While the whaling industry involved
In the final year ofher whaling career, the C harles W Morgan under sail in 1920.
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the physical and economic risk of multi-year ocean voyages to often uncharted wate rs, it also required an active in volve ment in the global trade and political system s of the times. Fo r exampl e, while the Boston Tea Parry is a well -remembered event in Ame ri ca n history, few know that two of the ships carrying the tea we re o n a return voyage from London , where they had first deli vered a cargo of sperm oil. In what might be considered an ironic side note to histo ry, it was a whaleship, the Bedford from Namucket with a cargo of whale and sperm oil, that o n 3 February 1783 first flew the new Ame rican flag in the port ofLondon. 3 The pursuit of whales rook whalemen across the oceans aro und the globe, resulting in the "discovery" and charting of vas t reaches of the Pacific, Arctic, and Antarctic. W halers-the crews from the Charles W Morgan amo ng them-were often the first conract Pacific islanders had with Western civilizatio n. In a letter of support for the Morgan restoration project, maritime histor ian Joan Druett stated: "The Charles W Morgan is a time capsule of immense value ... it is a testament to a time when the arrival of a whaler was, fo r uncounted thousands of Pacific Islanders, the first introduction to Ame ricans and their culture." The Morgan sailed on her first voyage
SEA HISTORY 134, SPRING 2011