Whaleship Essex
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| Sketch of the Whaleship Essex being struck by a whale 20 November 1820. Sketched by Thomas Nickerson.
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Crew of the Essex |
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First Mate Second Mate Matthew Joy Boatsteerers Benjamin Lawrence • Obed Hendricks Steward William Bond Sailors Owen Coffin • Isaac Cole • Henry De Witt Cabin Boy |
The whaling ship Essex left Nantucket, Massachusetts in 1819 on a two-and-a-half-year voyage in the whaling grounds of the South Pacific to hunt sperm whales. On November 20, 1820, the Essex was struck by a sperm whale and sank 2,000 miles (3,700 km) off South America. The twenty sailors set out in three small whaleboats, with wholly inadequate supplies of food and water, and landed on uninhabited Henderson Island, within the modern-day British territory of the Pitcairn Islands.
Excessive sodium in the sailors’ diets and malnutrition led to diarrhea, blackouts, enfeeblement, boils, edema, and magnesium deficiency which caused bizarre and violent behavior. Furthermore, sailors suffered withdrawal from severe tobacco addiction. As conditions worsened, the sailors resorted to drinking their own urine and stealing and mismanaging their food. Faced with no more rations, the sailors were forced into cannibalism, eating those who had died in the boats. By the time the last of the eight survivors were rescued on 5 April 1821, seven sailors had been eaten.
The first mate, Owen Chase, wrote an account of the disaster, the Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex; this was used by Herman Melville as one of the inspirations for his novel Moby-Dick.
The cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, wrote another account titled The Loss of the Ship "Essex" Sunk by a Whale and the Ordeal of the Crew in Open Boats which was not published until 1984 by the Nantucket Historical Society. Nickerson wrote his account late in his life and it was lost until 1960. It was not until 1980 that is came into the hands of Nantucket whaling expert Edouard Stackpole that its importance was realized. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is a National Book Award winning work of maritime history by Nathaniel Philbrick. It tells the story of the Essex from the point of view of Nickerson.
The ship was 87 feet long and measured 238 tons.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Philbrick, Nathaniel (2001). In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-100182-8.
- Chase, Owen (1821). Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex. W. B. Gilley. OCLC 12217894. New York.
- Nickerson, Thomas (1984). The Loss of the Ship "Essex" Sunk by a Whale and the Ordeal of the Crew in Open Boats. Nantucket Historical Society. OCLC 11613950.
[edit] External links
- Summary of the Essex Tragedy
- Artifacts of the Essex
- In the Heart of the Sea:The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick (ISBN 0-670-89157-6)
- Article on the Essex published in H2G2
