Whaleship: 87 feet long, 238 tons, wooden hull, complement of 20, built before 1802 |
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One of the most remarkable and gripping stories of shipwreck
concerns that of the whaleship Essex of Nantucket,
Massachusetts. This tragedy occurred in
1820; the ship had previously made four voyages, the first in 1802, to the
whaling grounds off southern Africa, for whale oil, and to the Pacific for
sperm oil. The Essex departed Nantucket on August 12, 1819, bound again for the
Pacific with a crew of twenty, George Pollard, master. Fifteen months later, on
November 20, 1820, the ship was about 2,700 miles west of Ecuador. Two boats
were out, and Captain Pollard had harpooned a whale while the boat of first
mate Owen Chase had been stove by a whale. He had just returned to the ship
when he noticed a sperm whale charging Essex. The sperm whale's massive head
struck the ship in the bows. "We looked at each other with perfect amazement,"
wrote Chase, "deprived almost of the power of speech." The whale turned and
rammed a second time, staving the bows and forcing the crew to abandon ship.
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They managed to salvage two quadrants and two sextants, some food and water, and put out in three clinker-built whaleboats before their ship sank, in 0°40S, 119°W. On December 20, they landed at Henderson's Island, which lacked either sufficient vegetation or water to sustain them, and after seven days they sailed again leaving three crew behind at their own request. The remaining three boats made first for Easter Island and then to Juan Fernández Island. On January 10, 1821, the second mate died, and two days later, Chase's boat was separated from the other two boats. A second man in his boat died on January 20, and a third on February 8. Desperate for food, they elected to eat the latter's corpse. On the 18th, the three remaining crew were picked up by the London brig Indian at 33°45S, 81°03 W, and landed at Valparaiso two days later. Meanwhile, the other two boats were separated on January 28, but not before the bodies of four deceased crew were eaten by their shipmates. On February 1, the four survivors in Pollard's boat drew lots to see who would be killed to feed the others. Pollard's cabin boy, Owen Coffin, drew the short straw and was shot. Brazilla Ray died on the 11th, and Pollard and Charles Ramsdale - Coffin's executioner - were rescued off St. Mary's Island by the Nantucket whaleship Dauphin. The three castaways who chose to remain on Henderson's Island were rescued by another ship that was at Valparaiso when their shipmates landed there. |
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The most detailed narrative of these ordeals was that of the
first mate Owen Chase, who published his account in 1821 in "the hope of
obtaining something of remuneration, by giving a short history of my suffering
to the world." Briefer accounts by George Pollard and Thomas Chapple, who
remained on Henderson's Island, were also published. In those less sensational
times, none of the authors seems to have profited from their ordeal, although
certain details of their stories, as well as those of similar wrecks of
whaleships, were incorporated by Herman Melville in his quintessential whaling
novel, Moby Dick. |
