Drake Samuel Adams
Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast
On the walls are also models of fortunate ships, neatly lettered with their names and voyages. I have seen the head and tusks of the walrus affixed to them, as the head and antlers of the stag might grace the halls of the huntsmen of the land. A strip of whalebone; maps or charts, smoke-blackened, and dotted with greasy finger-marks, indicating where ships had been spoken, or mayhap gone to Davy Jones's Locker; a South Sea javelin with barbed head, a war club and sheaf of envenomed arrows, or a paddle curiously carved, were the usual paraphernalia appropriate in such a place.
In the store-room are all the supplies necessary to a voyage. There are harpoons, lances, and cutting spades, with a rifle or two for the cabin. Coils of rigging, and lines for the boats, with a thousand other objects belonging to the ship's outfitting, are not wanting.
According to Langlet, the whale-fishery was first carried on by the Norwegians, in the ninth century. Up to the sixteenth century, Newfoundland and Iceland were the fishing-grounds. The use of bone was not known until 1578; consequently, says an old writer, "no stays were worn by the ladies." The English commenced whaling at Spitzbergen in 1598, but they had been preceded in those seas by the Dutch. As many as two thousand whales a year have been annually killed on the coast of Greenland.
Champlain says that in his time it was believed the whale was usually taken by balls fired from a cannon, and that several impudent liars had sustained this opinion to his face. The Basques, he continues, were the most skillful in this fishery. Leaving their vessels in some good harbor, they manned their shallops with good men, well provided with lines a hundred and fifty fathoms in length, of the best and strongest hemp. These were attached to the middle of the harpoons.233 In each shallop was a harpooner, the most adroit and "dispos" among them, who had the largest share after the master, inasmuch as his was the most hazardous office. The boats were provided also with a number of partisans of the length of a half-pike, shod with an iron six inches broad and very trenchant.234
When at Provincetown, I referred to the beginning of the whale-fishery of Nantucket. Ichabod Paddock, in 1690, instructed the islanders how to kill whales from the shore in boats. The Indians of the island joined in the chase, and were as dexterous as any. Early in the eighteenth century small sloops and schooners of thirty or forty tons burden were fitted out, in which the blubber, after being first cut in large square pieces, was brought home, for trying out. In a few years vessels of sixty to eighty tons, fitted with try-works, were employed.
Douglass gives some additional particulars. About 1746, he says, whaling was by sloops or schooners, each carrying two boats and thirteen men. In every boat were a harpooner, steersman, and four oarsmen, who used nooses for their oars, so that by letting them go they would trail alongside when they were fast to a whale. The "fast" was a rope of about twenty-five fathoms, attached to a drag made of plank, about two feet square, with a stick through its centre. To the end of this stick the tow-rope of fifteen fathoms was fastened.235
It passes without challenge that the isle's men were the most skillful whalemen in the world. The boys, as soon as they could talk, made use of the Indian word "townor," meaning, "I have twice seen the whale;" and as soon as able they took to the oar, becoming expert oarsmen. Language would inadequately express the triumph of the youngster who landed in his native town after having struck his first whale. The Indian who proudly exhibits his first scalp could not rival him. Thus it happens that you suppose every man in Nantucket can handle the harpoon, and every woman the oar. Nor was it in whaling battles alone that the island prowess made itself famous. Reuben Chase, midshipman of the Bonne Homme Richard in the battle with the Serapis, became, under Mr. Cooper's hand, Long Tom Coffin of "The Pilot."
The Revolution was near giving the death-blow to Nantucket. In February, 1775, Lord North brought in his famous bill to restrain the trade and commerce of New England with Great Britain and her dependencies, and to prohibit their fishery on the Banks of Newfoundland.236 It was represented to Parliament that of the population of the islands, amounting to some thousands, nine-tenths were Quakers; that the land was barren, but by astonishing industry one hundred and forty vessels were kept employed, of which all but eight were engaged in the whale-fishery.237
The inhabitants having been exempted from the restraining act of Parliament, the Continental Congress, in 1775, took steps to prevent the export of provisions to the island from the main-land, except what might be necessary for domestic use. The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts also prohibited the export of provisions until full satisfaction was given that they were not to be used for foreign consumption.238 These precautions were necessary, because the enemy's ships made the island a rendezvous.
Some stigma has attached to the Nantucket Friends for their want of patriotism in the Revolution. They were perhaps in too great haste to apply for the protection of the crown to suit the temper of the day. Justice to their position requires the impartial historian to state that they were at the mercy of the enemy's fleets. They were virtually left to shift for themselves, and ought not to be censured for making the best terms possible. At the close of hostilities their commerce was, in fact, nearly destroyed. Starved by their friends, now become their enemies, and robbed by their enemies, of whom they had sought to make friends, they were in danger of being ground between the upper and nether millstones of a hard destiny.
I well enough remember the first sight I had of whale-ships on their cruising-grounds; of the watchmen in their tubs at the mast-head, where they looked like strange birds in strange nests; and of the great whales that rose to breathe, casting fountains of spray high in the air. They seemed not more animated than the black hull of a vessel drifting bottom-up, and rolling lazily from side to side, until, burying their huge heads deeper, a monster tail was lifted into view, remained an instant motionless, and then, following the rolling plunge of the unwieldy body, sunk majestically beneath the wave.
The curious interest with which, from the deck of a matter-of-fact steamship, I had watched the indolent gambols and puffings of the school, had caused me to lose sight of the whaleman, until an extraordinary commotion recalled her to my attention. Blocks were rattling, commands quick and sharp were ringing out, and I could plainly see the splash that followed the descent of the boats into the water. Away they went, the ashen blades bending like withes with the energy and vim of the stroke. Erect in the stern, his arms bared to the shoulder, his body inclined forward like a bended bow, was the boat-steerer. I fancied I could hear his voice and see his gestures as he shook his clenched fist in the faces of the boat's crew. This was the boat-steerer's speech:
"Now, boys, give it to her; lay back hard! Spring hard, I tell you! There she blows! Break your backs, you duff-eaters! Put me right on top of that whale, boys! There she is, boys – a beauty! One more lift, and hurra for Nantucket bar!"
After a weary and fruitless chase – for the whales had sounded – we were boarded by the mate's boat, and requested to report their vessel. I gazed with real curiosity at its crew. Every man had a bandana handkerchief bound tightly about his head. Faces, chests, and arms were the color of old mahogany well oiled. They were then two years out, they said, and inquired anxiously for news from the "States." They neither knew who was President, nor of the war raging between the great powers of Europe, and were thankful for the old newspapers that we tossed to them. At length they rowed off, cutting their way through the water with a powerful stroke, their boat mounting the seas like an egg-shell.
An ancient salt with whom I talked in Nantucket spoke of the disappearance of the whales, and of their turning up in new and unexpected waters. From the beginning of the century until the decline of the fishery, vessels usually made a straight course for Cape Horn; but of late years, whales, he said, had re-appeared in the Atlantic, making their way, it is believed, through the North-west Passage. Whales with harpoons sticking in them having the names of vessels that had entered the Arctic by way of Behring's Straits have been taken by other ships on the Atlantic side of the continent.
"When I first went whaling," quoth he, "you might wake up of a morning in the Sea of Japan with fifty sail of whalemen in sight. A fish darsent (durst not) show his head: some ship would take him."
"I have gone on deck off the Cape of Good Hope," he continued, "when we hadn't a bar'l of ile in the ship, an' the whales nearly blowin' on us out o' the water. We took in twelve hundred bar'ls afore we put out the fires."
Now, though they burn coal-oil in Nantucket, I believe they would prefer sperm. You could not convince an islander that the discovery of oil in the coal-fields was any thing to his advantage; nor would he waste words with you about the law of compensations. A few, I was told, still cling to the idea of a revival in the whale-fishery, but the greater number regard it as clean gone. I confess to a weakness for oil of sperm myself. There are the recollections of a shining row of brazen and pewter lamps on the mantel, the despair of house-maids. In coal-oil there is no poetry; Shakspeare and Milton did not study, nor Ben Jonson rhyme, by it. Napoleon did not dictate nor Nelson die by the light of it. Nowadays there are no lanterns, no torches, worthy the name.
As there is not enough depth of water on Nantucket bar for large ships, Edgartown Harbor was formerly resorted to by the whalemen of this island, to obtain fresh water and fit their ships for sea. If they returned from a voyage in winter, they were obliged to discharge their cargoes into lighters at Edgartown before they could enter Nantucket Harbor. One of the Nantucket steeples was constructed with a lookout commanding the whole island, from which the watchman might, it is said, with a glass, distinguish vessels belonging here that occasionally came to anchor at Martha's Vineyard.
In time a huge floating dock that could be submerged, called a camel, was employed to bring vessels over the bar. After going on its knees and taking the ship on its back, the camel was pumped free of water, when both came into port. These machines are not of Yankee invention. They were originated by the celebrated De Witt, for the purpose of conveying large vessels from Amsterdam over the Pampus. They were also introduced into Russia by Peter the Great, who had obtained their model while working as a common shipwright in Holland. As invented, the camel was composed of two separate parts, each having a concave side to embrace the ship's hull, to which it was fastened with strong cables.
The harbors of Edgartown, New London, and New Bedford, not being subject to the inconvenience of a bar before them, flourished to some extent at the expense of Nantucket; but all these ports have shared a common fate. The gold fever of 1849 broke out when whaling was at its ebb, and then scores of whale-ships for the last time doubled Cape Horn. Officers and men drifted into other employments, or continued to follow the sea in some less dangerous service. They were considered the best sailors in the world. I remember one athletic Islesman, a second-mate, who quelled a mutiny single-handed with sledge-hammer blows of his fist. When his captain appeared on deck with a brace of pistols, the affray was over. The ringleader bore the marks of a terrible punishment. "You've a heavy hand, Mr. Blank," said Captain G – . "I'm a Nantucket whaleman, and used to a long dart."
At the Nantucket Athenæum are exhibited some relics of whales and whaling, of which all true islanders love so well to talk. The jaw-bone of a sperm-whale may there be seen. It would have made Samson a better weapon than the one he used with such effect against the Philistines. This whale stores the spermaceti in his cheek. You can compress the oil from it with the hand, as from honey-comb. What is called the "case" is contained in the reservoir he carries in his head, from which barrels of it are sometimes dipped. What does he want with it? Or is it, mayhap, a softening of his great, sluggish brain?
The tremendous power the whale is able to put forth when enraged is illustrated by the tale of a collision with one that resulted in the loss of the ship Essex, of Nantucket. On the 13th of November, 1820, the ship was among whales, and three boats were lowered. A young whale was taken. Shortly after, another of great size, supposed to have been the dam of the one just killed, came against the ship with such violence as to tear away part of the false keel. It then remained some time alongside, endeavoring to grip the ship in its jaws; but, failing to make any impression, swam off about a quarter of a mile, when, suddenly turning about, it came with tremendous velocity toward the Essex. The concussion not only stopped the vessel's way, but actually forced her astern. Every man on deck was knocked down. The bows were completely stove. In a few minutes the vessel filled and went on her beam-ends.
Near one of the principal wharves is the Custom-house. It is situated at the bottom of the square already referred to, of which the Pacific Bank, established in 1805, occupies the upper end, the sides being bordered by shops. The first-floor of the Custom-house is used by a club of retired ship-masters, in which they meet to recount the perils and recall the spoils of whaling battles.
We are told by Macy, the historian of the island, that "the inhabitants live together like one great family. They not only know their nearest neighbors, but each one knows the rest. If you wish to see any man, you need but ask the first inhabitant you meet, and he will be able to conduct you to his residence, to tell you what occupation he is of, etc., etc." If one house entertained a stranger, the neighbors would send in whatever luxuries they might have. After a lapse of nearly forty years, I found Macy's account still true. All questionings were answered with civility and directness, and, as if that were not enough, persons volunteered to go out of their way to conduct me. In a whaling port there is no cod-fish aristocracy. Thackeray could not have found materials for his "Book of Snobs" in Nantucket, though, if rumor may be believed, a few of the genus are dropping in from the main-land.
I observed nothing peculiar about the principal centre of trade, except the manner of selling meat, vegetables, etc. When the butchers accumulate an overstock of any article they dispose of it by auction, the town-crier being dispatched to summon the inhabitants, greeting.
This functionary I met, swelling with importance, but a trifle blown from the frequent sounding of his clarion, to wit, a japanned fish-horn. Met him, did I say? I beg the indulgence of the reader. Wherever I wandered in my rambles, he was sure to turn the corner just ahead of me, or to spring from the covert of some blind alley. He was one of those who, Macy says, knew all the other inhabitants of the island; me he knew for a stranger. He stopped short. First he wound a terrific blast of his horn. Toot, toot, toot, it echoed down the street, like the discordant braying of a donkey. This he followed with lusty ringing of a large dinner-bell, peal on peal, until I was ready to exclaim with the Moor,
"Silence that dreadful bell! it frights the isle
From her propriety."
Then, placing the fish-horn under his arm, and taking the bell by the tongue, he delivered himself of his formula. I am not likely to forget it: "Two boats a day! Burgess's meat auction this evening! Corned beef! Boston Theatre, positively last night this evening!"
He was gone, and I heard bell and horn in the next street. He was the life of Nantucket while I was there; the only inhabitant I saw moving faster than a moderate walk. They said he had been a soldier, discharged, by his own account, for being "non compos," or something of the sort. I doubt there is any thing the matter with his lungs, or that his wits are, "like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;" yet of his fish-horn I would say,
"O would I might turn poet for an houre,
To satirize with a vindictive powere
Against the blower!"
The history of Nantucket is not involved in obscurity, though Dr. Morse, in his Gazetteer, printed in 1793, says no mention is made of the discovery and settlement of the island, under its present name, by any of our historians. Its settlement by English goes no further back than 1659, when Thomas Macy239 removed from Salisbury, in Massachusetts, to the west end of the island, called by the Indians Maddequet, a name still retained by the harbor and fishing hamlet there. Edward Starbuck, James Coffin, and another of the name of Daget, or Daggett, came over from Martha's Vineyard, it is said, for the sake of the gunning, and lived with Macy. At that time there were nearly three thousand Indians on the island.
Nantucket annals show what kind of sailors may be made of Quakers. The illustration is not unique. In the same year that Macy came to the island a ship wholly manned by them went from Newfoundland to Lisbon with fish. Some of them much affronted the Portuguese whom they met in the streets by not taking off their hats to salute them. If the gravity of the matter had not been the subject of a state paper I should not have known it.240
Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard were not included in either of the four New England governments. All the islands between Cape Cod and Hudson River were claimed by the Earl of Sterling. In 1641 a deed was passed to Thomas Mayhew, of Martha's Vineyard, by James Forett, agent of the earl, and Richard Vines, the steward of Sir F. Gorges. The island, until the accession of William and Mary, was considered within the jurisdiction of New York, though we find the deed to Mayhew reciting that the government to be there established by him and his associates should be such as was then existing in Massachusetts, with the same privileges granted by the patent of that colony. In 1659 Mayhew conveyed to the associates mentioned in his deed, nine in number, equal portions of his grant, after reserving to himself Masquetuck Neck, or Quaise.241 The consideration was thirty pounds of lawful money and two beaver hats, one for himself, and one for his wife. The first meeting of the proprietors was held at Salisbury, Massachusetts, in September of the same year (1659), at which time ten other persons were admitted partners,242 enlarging the whole number of proprietors to nineteen. After the removal to the island, the number was further increased to twenty-seven by the admission of Richard and Joseph Gardiner, Joseph Coleman, William Worth, Peter and Eleazer Folger, Samuel Stretor, and Nathaniel Wier.
The English settlers in 1660 obtained a confirmation of their title from the sachems Wanackmamack and Nickanoose, with certain reservations to the Indian inhabitants, driving, as usual, a hard, ungenerous bargain, as the Indians learned when too late. In 1700 their grievances were communicated by the Earl of Bellomont, then governor, to the crown. Their greatest complaint was, that the English had by calculation stripped them of the means of keeping cattle or live stock of any kind, even on their reserved lands, by means of concessions they did not comprehend. At that time the Indians had been decimated, numbering fewer than four hundred, while the whites had increased to eight hundred souls. The mortality of 1763 wasted the few remaining Indians to a handful.243 In 1791 there were but four males and sixteen females. Abraham Quady, the last survivor, died within a few years.
The choice of the island by Macy is accounted for by the foregoing facts, doubtless within his knowledge, as many of the original proprietors were his townsmen.
Thomas Mayhew ought to be considered one of the fathers of English settlement in New England. He was of Watertown, in Massachusetts, and I presume the same person mentioned by Drake, in his "Founders," as desirous of passing, in 1637, into "fforaigne partes." He is styled Mr. Thomas Mayhew, Gent., a title raising him above the rank of tradesmen, artificers, and the like, who were not then considered gentlemen; nor is this distinction much weakened at the present day in England. Mayhew received his grant of Nantucket and two small islands adjoining in October, 1641, and on the 23d of the same month, of Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. The younger Mayhew, who, Mather says, settled at the Vineyard in 1642, seems to have devoted himself to the conversion of the Indians with the zeal of a missionary.244 In 1657 he was drowned at sea, the ship in which he had sailed for England never having been heard from. He was taking with him one of the Vineyard Indians, with the hope of awakening an interest in their progress toward Christianity. Jonathan Mayhew, the celebrated divine, was of this stock.
The first settlement at Maddequet Harbor was abandoned after a more thorough knowledge of the island and the accession of white inhabitants. The south side of the present harbor was first selected; but its inconvenience being soon felt, the town was located where it now is. By instruction of Governor Francis Lovelace it received, in 1673, the name of Sherburne, changed in 1795 to the more familiar one of Nantucket.
The town stands near the centre of the island, the place having formerly been known by the Indian name of "Wesko," signifying White Stone. This stone, which lay, like the rock of the Pilgrims, on the harbor shore, was in time covered by a wharf. The bluff at the west of the town still retains the name of Sherburne. I found the oldest houses at the extremities of the town.
Another of the original proprietors is remembered with honor by the islanders. Peter Folger was looked up to as a superior sort of man. He was so well versed in the Indian tongue that his name is often found on the deeds from the natives. The mother of Benjamin Franklin was the daughter of Folger. They do not forget it. The name of Peter Folger is still continued, and family relics of interest are preserved by the descendants of the first Peter.
Any account of Nantucket must be incomplete that omits mention of Sir Isaac Coffin. Sir Isaac was a Bostonian. His family were out-and-out Tories in the Revolution, with more talent than in general falls to the share of one household. He was descended from an ancient family in the northern part of Devonshire, England. In 1773 Isaac Coffin was taken to sea by Lieutenant Hunter, of the Gaspee, at the recommendation of Admiral John Montague. His commanding officer said he never knew any young man acquire so much nautical knowledge in so short a time. After reaching the grade of post-captain, Coffin, for a breach of the regulations of the service, was deprived of his vessel, and Earl Howe struck his name from the list of post-captains. This act being illegal, he was reinstated in 1790. In 1804 he was made a baronet, and in 1814 became a full admiral in the British navy. One of his brothers was a British general.
On a visit to the United States, in 1826, Sir Isaac came to Nantucket. Finding that many of the inhabitants claimed descent from his own genealogical tree, he authorized the purchase of a building, and endowed it with a fund of twenty-five hundred pounds sterling, for the establishment of a school to which all descendants of Tristram Coffin, one of the first settlers, should be admitted. On one of his voyages to America the admiral suffered shipwreck.
During the war of 1812, it is related that the admiral made a visit to Dartmoor prison, for the purpose of releasing any American prisoners of his family name. Among others who presented themselves was a negro. "Ah," said the admiral, "you a Coffin too?" "Yes, massa." "How old are you?" "Me thirty years, massa." "Well, then, you are not one of the Coffins, for they never turn black until forty."
