Posted on April 26, 2008 by Greg Stone
Whaling bark Catherwood of Westport was totally lost on the Island of Narbio, one of the Galapagos group. Capt. Oliver states that she went ashore about 1AM in thick fog and dead calm. They commenced towing the vessel offshore but the swell was so heavy that in less than half an hour she struck and […]
Continue ReadingPosted on April 26, 2008 by Greg Stone
There are conflicting reports of this incident. Some reports identify a different whaling ship (not from Westport). So please do your research before assuming that this story is historically accurate!! Crew of the whaling ship President [of Westport] attacked by natives of Easter Island just as they had reached the shore to trade. Mr. Robert […]
Continue ReadingPosted on April 26, 2008 by Greg Stone
The British Barque Raja Bassa picked up the boat of the American whaling barque Champion [of Westport], with Capt. Gifford and several men on board. The boat had been separated from her companions while engaged in the pursuit of three whales, off the Isle of Ascension. Capt. Gifford and his men were on board the […]
Continue ReadingPosted on April 26, 2008 by Greg Stone
THE STORY OF A SURVIVOR In the winter of 1849, the northeastern coast of America was visited by one of the most destructive gales recorded in the history of that section. From Prince Edward’s Island to Montauk Point, the whole coast was strewn with wrecks. More than one hundred sail, large and small, went to […]
Continue ReadingPosted on April 26, 2008 by Greg Stone
THE MERCURY NEW BEDFORD, OCT 17-18,1849 Dreadful Suffering At Sea- We have received a letter from Capt. Hosmer, later master of the whaling barque Janet, of Westport, furnishing an account of privations and sufferings of a boat’s crew belonging to the Janet comprising the captain and five others, which is almost without parallel in the […]
Continue ReadingPosted on April 26, 2008 by Greg Stone
Westport’s most gruesome catastrophe befell the crew of the Janet in 1849. While chasing a whale, the master and several members of her crew were separated from the ship and left to drift in their small whaleboat for 2 weeks. Two survivors wrote an account of their ordeal, one written by Captain Francis Hosmer and […]
Continue ReadingPosted on April 26, 2008 by Greg Stone
Westport suffered its share of disasters. The peak of the whaling industry in the 1850’s was matched by the peak in shipwrecks and other disasters. . . .
Continue ReadingPosted on April 24, 2008 by Greg Stone
“My men, you must be well aware that the object of this voyage is to get a cargo of oil,” wrote Captain Edward S. Davoll to the officers and crew of his whaling vessel. . . .
Continue ReadingPosted on April 24, 2008 by Greg Stone
Abbie Maria Dexter Hicks went whaling in 1873. We know this because she kept a diary from June 23, 1873 to September 13, 1874 in a tiny book that measures only 5” by 3” in the collection of the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Her husband was Captain Edward E. Hicks. Two months after their marriage […]
Continue ReadingPosted on June 14, 2005 by Bill Wyatt
Bruce White Most accounts of cotton manufacturing in New England describe a progression from the small rural water-powered cotton-spinning operations, through the larger company town enterprises that extended the spinning of yarn to the manufacture of cloth, to the fully industrialized steam-powered factories of the latter part of the nineteenth century. Despite this trend, however, […]
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