Rare 19th-century Whaling Journal

You never know what will come in the door when a library friends’ group collects items for a booksale.  Most items are mundane, an occasional rarity crosses the threshold, and once in a great while a mind-blower arrives.  Such was the case at the C. H. Booth Library in Newtown, CT, where the Friends collect for the annual summer booksale throughout the year.  A month or so ago, an item arrived with seemingly no connection to any other books in the donation, a hand-written journal of a whaling voyage.  It arrived in an otherwise unremarkable box, so unremarkable, in fact, that no one can even remember which donation it came in with.  It was passed along to the “specials” department, where it was quickly determined to be a journal of a Pacific Ocean voyage in the whale ship Samuel Wright, of Salem, MA, from 1833-1836.

The journal was kept by the second mate, William E. Percival.  Percival was a native of Sandwich, MA, 30-years old, five feet, ten inches tall, with light complexion and hair.  He did not make an entry for every day, but he did cover the entire voyage of 39 months. The ship’s owner was John Osborn of Salem, MA, and from his point of view the voyage was successful, bringing in 2,000 barrels of oil, with the first strike July 20, 1833, while still sailing in the Atlantic.  As the ship’s officers and crew would have been working on shares, a laden hold would have pleased them as well, although Percival noted on December 23, 1835, the ship had been “30 months out and only 1,800 barrels of oil, well never mind shall get more in someday.”

John Pitman, a whaler of longstanding who commanded several ships over his career, was the captain of the Samuel Wright.  Directly under Pitman was the first mate, Thomas Nickerson.  Nickerson, born on Nantucket, also had a long career as a whaler and merchant mariner, beginning at the age of 14 when he shipped out on board the ill-fated whaler Essex.  In 1820, the Essex was rammed by a giant white whale and sunk, providing the inspiration for Herman Melville’s classic story of Moby Dick.  Young Nickerson had the good fortune to be placed in the boat of first mate Owen Chase, which was rescued after an open-boat ocean voyage of 90 days.  The Samuel Wright was later wrecked on another voyage off Bunbury, Australia, and its timbers were salvaged for a building that eventually became St. Mark’s Church, the second oldest church in Western Australia, which still stands. 

As mentioned, the voyage recorded by Percival was a successful one, but it was not all an easy voyage.  Rounding Cape Horn was always difficult, and the ship lost considerable rigging and a whale boat in the transition. While patrolling the Pacific for its prey the ship also suffered frequent damage from other storms, and all sails often had to be reefed, a dangerous process requiring sailors to climb the masts, crawl out on the yardarms, and roll up and tie the sails down to prevent complete destruction, usually while the storm was raging.  However, while Percival’s penmanship leaves something to be desired, he seems to mention that only one hand was lost, a young boy who fell overboard, apparently in relatively calm waters.  In an attempt at rescue, the captain “brought the ship to the wind and lowered a boat but could not save him.”  Percival records his name, and states “he was a very interesting youth, aged about 14”; such was the boy’s memorial.  With the difficulty of communicating to the world, dependent on meeting another ship or waiting until the Wright needed supplies badly enough to put into port, it may have taken a year or more for word of the boy’s death to reach his home.

Nor were the whales waiting to be caught.  Probably as often as not, the sighting of a whale led to failure. For example, on November 19, 1833, “at 11 AM saw a school of sperm whales, lowered boats but could not come up with them,” and on September 28, 1835, “saw whales struck one irons drawed” (the harpoons pulled out).  On March 6, 1835, Percival reported he “saw nothing of consequence,” and weeks might pass between sightings.  During these dull times “all hands were employed in ships duty,” in other  words scrubbing, polishing, making minor repairs, and other tasks not worth naming, neither producing income nor relieving the boredom of being self-contained on a 133-foot, 372-ton floating island. 

But it was not all boredom or danger.  Often, other ships were sighted, and sometimes were close enough to be “spoke,” and sometimes even visited, though that privilege was usually reserved for the officers. Percival reports on October 21, 1835, “all hands gaming,” or visiting other ships.  When the ship did put into port, it was time for “all hands on shore on liberty . . . [they] will have a high time,” often with the crews from other ships in the same harbor.  Ports also posed a danger, from the captain’s point of view; it was not uncommon for a sailor to “jump ship” and desert, but on February 18, 1834, “At 4 AM the third mate two boatsteerers [harpooners] and four sailors ran away with a boat.”  Losing seven deserters at one swoop must have threatened the Samuel Wright’s efficiency, but ports were always filled with sailors to sign on, though the skills of the harpooners may have been more difficult to replace.  The crew list offered at www.mysticseaport.org gives a total of ten deserters; in addition to Percival’s “interesting youth,” another sailor is listed simply as “killed”; together with one who was discharged for unspecified reasons (Percival recorded on December 28, 1835, “discharged some men and shipped others”), making a total of 13, nearly 40% of the 33 men on the list did not finish the voyage.

Thirty-nine months at sea is a long time, and Percival expresses his homesickness more than once.  By December, 1835, he was counting the months: “we shall get home in the course of 12 months.”  Two weeks later he states, “Here we are again bound off on our last cruise, hope it will be a prosperous one and then for home that dearest of all other places.”  By June, 1836, they were well on their way, but on June 2 a sudden storm appeared, and they were struck “by a sea which carried away the larboard boat, stove the waist boat, broke a mast, did some other damage. . . . At 8 AM all hands employed in clearing wreck.”  Small wonder they were anxious to return; July 31, off the coast of Colombia, “four weeks from today am in hopes of being somewhere.”  The last entry in the journal, August 26, 1836, reports a sighting of Montauk Light 20 miles to the north; they arrived in Salem on August 30.

There is a three-year break in the journal, and then Percival began an account of another voyage, again under Captain Pitman, this time on the ship Congress.  Though the journalist does not give his own rank on this voyage, several entries reflect a concern for supplies and stores.  Casting off in late August, 1839, the voyage would end in June, 1843; according to the Nation Maritime Digital Library (www.nmdl.org), the 47-month voyage produced only 1348 barrels of oil.  One of the most notable differences in Percival’s entries for this voyage is the frequency of sighting, speaking, and even sailing in company with other ships; the competition was increasing at the same time the whale population was already suffering from the depredations. 

Four days after setting out, the Congress ran into foul weather, losing three boats and splitting some sails before “lay[ing] to under bare poles.”  In addition, their first several whale sightings ended with the familiar refrain, “could not come up with them.”  Finally they made a kill, and Percival shows another change from the journal kept three years earlier.  In the account of the first voyage, Percival makes almost no mention of the process following the capture of a whale; now, while not going into detail, he includes on several occasions enough information to give us a feel for the activities subsequent to the catch.  “November 18.  At 2 PM struck a large whale and got him.  At 4 took him alongside, commenced cutting.  November 19 commenced boiling, all hands employed in boiling.  November 20 employed in boiling in heavy gale.  November 21 all hands employed in boiling.  November 22 got through boiling and washed off.”  This four-day process may have been hampered by the weather as most entries have a three-day boiling. 

In January, 1840, the Congress began sailing in company with the bark Desdemona. On the 14th, “at 3 PM saw whales, lowered and got one large whale in company with the Desdemona; at 5 took the whale alongside and commenced cutting; At 12 midnight got the boiling in.  At 4 AM took the head [which had a reservoir of the best sperm oil] to the Desdemona.  January 16 got through boiling.”  The Congress and Desdemona continued to sail together for at least several more days.

The Congress had its own connections to Melville’s great novel.  The book Herman Melville’s Whaling Years states that on April 1, 1841, a whale towed a boat from the Congress far out of sight.  After cruising in search of the boat for two days, Captain Pitman decided the boat had been sunk and continued his voyage.  However, the boat managed to make a 1,500 mile voyage to the Marquesas Islands, where the crew were rescued some months later, shortly before Melville was at the Islands and undoubtedly heard the story.  The same book also locates Melville’s Acushnet and the Congress together with other ships at the Galapagos Islands in 1842, where they would certainly have spoken and perhaps visited with each other.

Percival inexplicably stopped writing in his journal, with his last daily entry made on January 28, 1840.  He evidently remained on board the ship, as on November 2, 1840, he gave an “Account of Slops,” or clothing for the crew, which remained on board.  Whether he simply tired of the practice or other matters were pressing to the point of causing the stoppage may never be known.  There is one excised leaf between the last daily entry and the clothing account, and perhaps that held an explanation or at least a clue.  The book was used by another hand, possibly Harriet or Hattie Percival, to record some farming entries in the 1860s.  We do know the fate of the second ship, however. As reported in the New York Times for October 4th, 1867, the Congress was frozen in the ice and crushed in the Anadir Sea on May 19th; her cargo of oil and whalebone was transferred to the bark Nautilus, and was apparently saved.

For more information about this whaling journal, please contact John Renjilian at 203-426-0864.