The vast oceans, seas, and gulfs of our planet have long been the source of captivating tales of giant squid, sharks bigger than man has before seen, or one that has been a classic for centuries – an enormous whale with a supernatural ability to elude its predators and ultimately destroy them. It is likely that most any fanatic of the sea has heard the story of Moby-Dick – the terrifying sperm whale that Herman Melville brought to life in his nineteenth-century classic. What many may not realize is that this is a true story; an unforgettable one experienced by the twenty-one men aboard the Nantucket whaleship Essex in 1820.
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick is the true story behind Melville’s Moby-Dick, told from the perspective of Thomas Nickerson, the young cabin boy of the Essex.
The book opens with a description of early nineteenth-century Nantucket, an island off the eastern coast of the United States with deep tradition in whaling. Lifestyles of Nantucket citizens, primarily married couples, were quite different than today and modern couples would likely find these conditions unbearable. It was common for husbands to be home for three months at a time and then at sea for three years: the average duration of a whaling voyage. Quite obviously, the bond between a wife and husband in those days was considerably less intimate in every way than those of contemporary couples. Nantucket wives accustomed to dealing with these long absences with a dependence on opium and sexual aids known as “he’s-at-homes.” (I have to admit that I was unaware of such practices in these days). In contrast, life aboard a whaleship at sea was never lacking in activity or danger. Just four days out of Nantucket, the Essex encountered a squall and suffered what is known as a knockdown: a potentially lethal situation when the ship is blown on its side by heavy winds and is in danger of capsizing.
It was not until the Essex reached 30 degrees south latitude that the ship spotted its first whale. This sighting resulted only in the destruction of Chase’s (the ship’s first mate) whaleboat. It wasn’t until several days afterward that whales were one again sighted and pursued. This time, however, Chase and his crew were successful in harpooning, killing, and butchering the ship’s first whale. The process of “trying out”, or turning whale flesh into oil, took as long as three days per whale, depending on the size. This is a barbaric sequence of events in which the blubber is removed from the whale and boiled into oil. The head must also be removed so that the case, or upper part of the whale’s head containing up to five hundred gallons of spermaceti (high-quality oil), may be accessed for the removal of said spermaceti. If ever there was a scene capable of turning sailors from whaling, it was that of the trying out of the whale. This vision would doubtless be comparable to Charon’s ferry of damned souls crossing the Acheron in the fiery depths of hell. “There is a murderous appearance about the blood-stained decks, and huge masses of flesh and blubber lying here and there, and a ferocity in the looks of the men, heightened by the red, fierce glare of the fires.” The Essex continued on its journey and sometime in September, called at Atacames, a little village of approximately three hundred Spaniards and Indians in Ecuador, just north of the equator. It was here that Henry DeWitt, one of the Essex’s African-American sailors, deserted. This act was no great surprise, as sailors fled from whaleships all the time. The morale of the crew was significantly altered, however, due to the fact that each whaleboat required a six-man crew, which left the ship keepers understaffed. On the way to the Galapagos Islands, the men of the Essex killed two whales, bringing their total amount of oil to seven hundred barrels – about halfway to filling the ship. Reaching the islands, the crew gathered tortoises for provisions and continued onward.
The Pacific Ocean is of a scale not easy to comprehend, by any standards. Sailing west from Panama, it is 11,000 miles to the Malay Peninsula – almost four times the distance Columbus sailed to the New World – and it is 9,600 miles from the Bering Strait to Antarctica. The ocean also contains incredible mountain ranges and canyons that plunge more than six miles into the watery blackness. By November 16, 1820, the Essex had sailed more than a thousand miles west of the Galapagos Islands, heading into the heart of the largest ocean in the world. Four days later, the lookout saw spouts. It was about eight in the morning of a bright, clear day. Closing the distance to the shoal, the three whaleboat crews dispatched and began pursuit. His whaleboat promptly damaged by one of the whales, Chase returned to the ship for repairs while Captain Pollard’s and second mate Matthew Joy’s boats fastened to whales. While Chase was nailing canvas across the damaged hull of his whaleboat, a strange object appeared off the port bow. It was an enormous sperm whale, a male about eighty-five feet long, they estimated, and approximately eighty tons. Quickly closing the distance to the Essex, the whale rammed the ship just forward of the forechains. As they pulled themselves from the deck, Chase and his men had good reason to be amazed. Never in the history of the Nantucket whale fishery had a whale been known to attack a ship. After impacting, the whale passed underneath the ship and resurfaced at the ship’s starboard quarter. Circling the ship, the whale stopped several hundred yards ahead and turned head-on to the Essex. Striking the ship just beneath the anchor secured at the cathead on the port bow, the whale parted, never to be seen again. Quickly returning, Pollard’s and Joy’s crews helped to load Chase’s whaleboat and then began chopping holes in the hull of the partially submerged vessel to obtain as much food and water from belowdecks as possible. The crew quickly realized that without provisions, they would have almost no chance of surviving long enough to reach even the closest land. Chase had not yet and would not for the remainder of his life get over the attack on the ship. Drawing on his words, “it seemed as if something – could it have been God? – had possessed the beast for its own strange, unfathomable purpose.” Whatever or whoever might be behind it, Chase was convinced that “anything but chance” had sunk the Essex.
After rigging a crude sail assembly, the whaleboats began sailing for the coast of South America. As time wore on and provisions, especially water, dwindled, the men came to understand the words of the ancient mariner: “water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” The men inadvertently came across an island that they assumed was Ducie Island (in reality, it was Henderson Island). Stopping here to allow themselves a bit of time for rehydration and nourishment, they left three men to try their luck at surviving there instead of on the sea. Continuing on, the crews became separated in the darkness. Men had already begun to die, but not yet realizing the resourceful use of the bodies, the crews simply buried them at sea. Finally, eight days after losing sight of Chase’s boat, the other two crews suggested that they eat the body of the most recently deceased. With hundreds of miles between them, the crews began consuming the flesh of the bodies in their whaleboats. At seven o’clock in the morning on February 18, the crew of Chase’s boat sighted a sail on the horizon and after a pursuit of over three hours, the men were onboard the Indian from London. Meanwhile, the crews of the other boat sailed on. The flesh of their dead had long since vanished and they began cracking open the bones of their shipmates and eating the marrow. It was in this state that they were discovered by the Dauphin.
Understandably, the news of this tragedy was a shock to the people of Nantucket. They did not accuse the men of unfair behavior, even though the religious leaders were not compelled to speak in their defense. The story of the Essex would be told into the twentieth century but began to fall later into an unspoken memory. The legend of the whaleship Essex will live on in the community of Nantucket.
