It is a bit stomach churning and it pulls no punches but the author is not trying to glamorise characters or shock readers. Finally, after what had seemed an endless wait, Nickerson was going to sea. Never before had the division between Nantucket's whalemen and their people been so great. Maybe it just wasn't the right time for me to read this book. Almost from the very beginning, the author spins together letters, partially-written accounts and log book entries-- along with his own research-- into a tale that is difficult to put down. Unlike a right whale's vertical spout, this whale's spout arched forward. Which of these were available to the Essex? But the rise of the Pacific sperm-whale fishery had an unfortunate side effect. No other place on Nantucket offered a better opportunity for young people to meet members of the opposite sex. On the corner of Main and Pleasant Streets was the Friends' immense South Meeting House, built in 1792 from pieces of the even bigger Great Meeting House that once loomed over the stoneless field of the Quaker Burial Ground at the end of Main Street. Since Nantucket was, like any seafaring town of the period, a community obsessed with omens and signs, such a reputation counted for much. There was a problem loading your book clubs. A generation reared on Joyce and Faulkner finds the subtleties and outrages of Moby-Dick a wonderful delight. In 1820, what options did a captain have for navigating his ship? Did race have anything to do with who lived or died on the Essex? They had hoped to support themselves not as fishermen but as farmers and sheepherders on this grassy, pond-speckled crescent without wolves. Life might seem restrained and orderly as hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people made their way to meeting each Thursday and Sunday, the men in their long dark coats and wide-brimmed hats, the women in long dresses and meticulously crafted bonnets. By 1819, Nantucket was well on its way to reclaiming and, as the whalers ventured into the Pacific, even surpassing its former glory. Still, the portrait that emerges—of a community of achievers attempting to cope with a potentially devastating loneliness—makes the women's dependence on opium perhaps easier to understand. It's yet another amazing story of the sea with which modern-day Americans have lost touch. Members save with free shipping everyday! It is just an account really of a few courageous survivors of a rather unseaworthy whale ship sunk in a disastrous situation.Well worth reading! In spite of the high winds and rough seas, Hussey managed to harpoon and kill one of the whales, its blood and oil stilling the waves in an almost biblical fashion. Quakerism contributed to the women's strength. Mary Coffin and Nathaniel Starbuck had been the first English couple to be married on the island, in 1662, and had established a lucrative outpost for trading with the Wampanoag. Peleg Folger, a Nantucket whaleman turned Quaker elder, expressed it in verse: Thou didst, O Lord, create the mighty whale, That wondrous monster of a mighty length; Vast is his head and body, vast his tail, Beyond conception his unmeasured strength. He lives in Nantucket. I'm extremely glad I did. Particularly in winter, when storms were the most violent, wrecks occurred almost weekly. But it was the science, I began to realize, that made the story seem all the more real and frightening to a modern audience. Did it feel like you were writing fiction? Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. Like a veteran boatsteerer, the boy shouted, "Pay out, mother! All spring and summer there had been sightings up and down the New England coast of what the Mercury described as "an extraordinary sea animal"—a serpent with black, horselike eyes and a fifty-foot body resembling a string of barrels floating on the water. It was Mary Starbuck's conversion to Quakerism that established the unique fusion of spirituality and covetousness that would make possible Nantucket's rise as a whaling port. In old age, Nickerson still visited the graves of his parents in the Old North Burial Ground. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. For example, Nickerson reveals that Chase had had an opportunity to lance the whale after the first attack but chose not to. In 1820, the whaleship Essex was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale, leaving the desperate crew to drift for more than ninety days in three tiny boats. Owen Coffin and Charles Ramsdell had each lost a father. But after having read an article about the book in my Smithsonian Magazine, I was instantly gripped. Three other crew members were elevated to the rank of boatsteerer. No matter how much the inhabitants might try to hide it, there was a savagery about this island, a bloodlust and pride that bound every mother, father, and child in a clannish commitment to the hunt. Passions stirred beneath Nantucket's Quaker facade. But as the increasing size of the livestock herds, combined with the growing number of farms, threatened to transform the island into a wind-blown wasteland, Nantucketers inevitably looked seaward. Pollard was a first-time captain and seemed hesitant to overrule his subordinates. Pay out! What is surprising is how rarely Nantucketers, even young and adventurous Nantucketers like Nickerson and company, strayed beyond the gates of the little town. Despite the bravado of this little ditty, death was a fact of life with which all Nantucketers were thoroughly familiar. Such was not the case. Please try again. I don't think it's ever possible to plumb the depths of this island's rich history. Throughout the seventeenth century, English Nantucketers resisted all attempts to establish a church on the island, partly because a woman by the name of Mary Coffin Starbuck forbade it. His friend Barzillai Ray had also lost both his parents. Javascript is not enabled in your browser. The imprinting of a young Nantucketer began at the earliest age. Times change. Six months later, his parents moved him and his sisters across the sound to Nantucket.
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