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From: "Lawrence G. More" <>
Subject: Re: [Q-R] Nantucket Island Whaling
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 21:47:50 -0500


This is interesting because I had just been looking into this tale my
self. I recently found this entry in New York records of the revolution.

"HORTON, William of Milton. Mariner. Essex. Comm. M. July 21 or 28,
1781. SP; HO; 3 p.210; 10 v.74 p. 36"

I have a Fourth Great Grandfather named William Horton who Req.
membership at Valley PM 15:10:1801, in Ulster County NY, this is the
first information I have found on him, unless of course the William
Horton mariner 1781 is the same. (Milton is a small town in between
Kingston and Marlborough, at which a meeting for worship was allowed by
Nine Partners in 1776 named New Marlborough, this later became the
Marlborough MM.)

I did some research into the whaleship Essex, and I believe there were
more than one ship named the Essex.

1) The first Essex was launched 30 September 1799 by Enos Briggs, Salem,
Mass., at cost of $139,362 subscribed by the people of Salem and Essex
County, Mass. On 17 December 1799 she was presented to the United States
and accepted by Captain Edward Preble.

2) Essex Junior, formerly the British whaler Atlantic, was captured by
the frigate Essex, Captain David Porter, USN, off the Galapagos Islands
on 29 April 1813. She was converted into a cruiser, and placed under the
command of Cdr. John Downes.

After cruising in the waters off the western coast of South America
Essex Junior accompanied Essex to the island of Nukahiva in the
Marquesas Group where repairs were made. Essex Junior returned with
Porter in Essex to the coast of Chile on 12 January 1814. There in the
neutral waters of Valparaiso Harbor they were attacked by the British
frigates, Phoebe and Cherub mounting preponderate arms. Both ships were
captured and Essex Junior was converted thereafter to a cartel to
transport paroled prisoners of war to New York.

Arriving at New York in July 1814, she was seized by the marshal of the
district, condemned, and sold on 26 August.

The voyage that this documentary was about, started in 1819 and set sail
from Nantucket and of course was attacked and sunk by a whale there were
(if I remember right) four whale boats (used for harpooning) that
escaped, one of the boats was stranded on an island and the other three
drifted for some extended time (months) the ones that drifted
experienced cannibalism. Around 1828 one of the survivors published a
book, which is supposed to be the book that inspired Moby Dick.

The most recent book published;
Nathaniel Philbrick, whose book In The Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of
the Whaleship Essex (Viking Penguin, 2000) won the 2000 National Book
Award for Nonfiction,

I've not seen or read either, there is a piece on this film on there
website.

Larry More

> H. Melville's story called Moby Dick, they tell us, was based on some events
> that actually happened to a whaling ship called the Essex that sailed from
> Nantucket Island (1815?), financed by three Quakers: Folger, Macy, and Starbuck.
> I think it was a hundred years (after the publication of Moby Dick) that an
> account/diary/manuscript by the cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, was found. His
> story gives us details about ship life and continues after the ship sank and the
> three lifeboats were filled, the details of one boat's survival (I think it was
> 93 days), and the return to Nantucket and their reception by the Quaker
> community.
> It makes an interesting story and the beginning and the end provide some
> Quaker history.

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