Soon, Two Brothers grounded and sank on a reef near French Frigate Shoals. The two ships became separated and Captain Pollard of Two Brothers was unclear as to his ship's position. On the night of February 11, 1823-while sailing west through the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands with another whaling ship, Martha- Two Brothers found herself in a storm. On her second whaling voyage, Two Brothers left Nantucket on 13 November 1821, with Captain George Pollard Jr., master, and with destination the Pacific. Two Brothers returned on 5 August 1821 from the Pacific with 1231 barrels of sperm oil and 158 barrels of whale oil. They were transferred to Two Brothers which was heading to Valparaíso, Chile. Pollard, captain of the Essex, and Ramsdell were in poor mental health ( dissociative) after 93 days at sea in the whaleboat. and crewman Charles Ramsdell who were on a whaleboat from the whaleship Essex which had sunk after being rammed twice by a sperm whale. On March 5, 1821, the ship encountered fellow Nantucket whaleship Dauphin which on February 23 had rescued Captain George Pollard Jr. On her first whaling voyage, Two Brothers left Nantucket on 21 November 1818, with George B. She is thought to have been built in 1804 by Joseph Glidden in Hallowell, Maine. The wreck was discovered in 2008 (announced on February 11, 2011) by a team of marine archaeologists working on an expedition for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. The ship's captain was George Pollard, Jr., former captain of the famous whaleship Essex. Two Brothers was a Nantucket whaleship that sank on the night of February 11, 1823, off the French Frigate Shoals. Sank near French Frigate Shoals, February 11, 1823 He died in 1879.A diver examines an anchor at the Two Brothers shipwreck site on August 24, 2008. He and Eliza Pitman, married in 1824, had six children. He was keeper of the Quaise Asylum for many years beginning in 1848, and in later life farmed and fished from a home in Siasconset. Captain Benjamin Lawrenceīenjamin Lawrence continued whaling, eventually becoming part owner and master of the Nantucket brig Dromo on three voyages into the Atlantic between 18. Captain Charles RamsdellĬharles Ramsdell continued to sail on whaling ships, rising to command the Salem ship Lydia for two voyages in the late 1830s. Returning with his wife Margaret to Nantucket in the 1870s, he operated a boarding house on North Street (now Cliff Road). He retired as a master mariner to Brooklyn, New York, where he penned his own account of the Essex tragedy. Thomas Nickerson worked as a mate aboard whalers into the 1830s, when he switched to cargo ships. It is said that near the end of his life Chase began hoarding food in the attic of his Orange Street house. He married four times his second wife was Nancy Slade, widow of Matthew Joy. Owen Chase enjoyed two more decades of successful whaling in the Pacific, eventually becoming part owner and master of the Nantucket ship Charles Carroll. Married for more than 50 years, he died in 1870. A good-natured man, he fasted privately every year on the anniversary of the loss of the Essex. Later he served 13 years as one of the town constables. After one voyage in the merchant service, he quit the sea and worked as a grocer on Nantucket for a few years. The wreck of the Two Brothers ended Pollard’s whaling days. Providentially, they were rescued the next day. The men found themselves again cast into small open boats in the middle of the ocean. Fifteen months later, the Two Brothers struck a coral reef in a storm northwest of the Hawaiian Islands. In a true show of confidence, Thomas Nickerson and Charles Ramsdell shipped with him. The owners of the Essex entrusted Captain Pollard with another ship, and he sailed for the Pacific as master of the Two Brothers mere months after returning home. He then signed himself aboard a New Bedford ship and headed back to the Pacific. Chase, working with a ghostwriter, turned his log from the ordeal into a book published in New York before the end of the year. Pollard, Nickerson, and Ramsdell shipped out for the Pacific again within a few months. The men were welcomed back into the community, which stoically accepted the chance perils of whaling. Two months later, Captain Pollard arrived on the Two Brothers, and 1,500 islanders met him on the wharf in profound, awe-struck silence. Incomplete news of the Essex disaster reached Nantucket before Owen Chase, Thomas Nickerson, Benjamin Lawrence, and Charles Ramsdell arrived home on the whaleship Eagle in June 1821. Illustration by Rockwell Kent for the 1930 Lakeside Press edition of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick The Fate of the Crew
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |