Whaling Disaster of 1871

The Whaling Disaster of 1871 was an incident off the northern Alaskan coast in which a fleet of 33 American whaling ships were trapped in the Arctic ice in late 1871 and subsequently abandoned. It dealt a serious blow to the American whaling industry, already in decline.

The Whaling Disaster of 1871.

The 1871 whaling season

Abandonment of the Whalers

Ships receiving the Captains, Officers, and Crews of Abandoned Ships

In late June 1871, forty whaleships passed north through Bering Strait, hunting bowhead whales.[1] By August the vessels had passed as far as Point Belcher, near Wainwright, Alaska, before a stationary high, parked over northeast Siberia, reversed the normal wind pattern and pushed the pack ice toward the Alaskan coast. Seven ships were able to escape to the south, but 33 others were trapped. Within two weeks the pack had tightened around the vessels, crushing four ships.[2] The vessels were spread out in a long line, some 60 miles (97 km) south of Point Franklin.[3]

By mid-September all 1,219 people aboard the ships evacuated in small whaleboats with a three-month supply of provisions, crossed 70 miles (110 km) of ocean, and were eventually brought to safety by the seven ships which had escaped the ice to the south.[2][4] Amazingly, there were no casualties.

The seven whalers that escaped (the vessels Europa, Arctic, Progress, Lagoda, Daniel Webster, Midas, and Chance)[1] were forced to dump their catch and most of their equipment overboard to make room for passengers on the return trip to Honolulu.[2] The total loss was valued at over $1,600,000 ($34.15 million in today's dollars). Twenty-two of the wrecked vessels were from New Bedford, Massachusetts.[5] In 1872 the bark Minerva was discovered intact and subsequently salvaged,[6] but the rest were crushed in the ice, sank, or were stripped of wood by the local Inupiat.[4]

Lost whaling vessels

The lost vessels were as follows:[5]

Vessel	Homeport	Captain[7]	Notes
Roman	New Bedford, MA	Jared Jernegan	Crushed in the ice on September 7, 1871.[1]
Concordia	New Bedford, MA	Robert Jones	Abandoned and lost. Wreck burned by local Inuit.[7][8]
Gay Head	New Bedford, MA	William H. Kelley	Abandoned and lost. Wreck burned by local Inuit.[7][8]
George	New Bedford, MA	Abraham Osborn	Abandoned and lost.
John Wells	New Bedford, MA	Aaron Dean	Abandoned and lost.
MA	New Bedford, MA	West Mitchell	Abandoned and wrecked. One lone sailor remained with the wreck through the winter.
J.D. Thompson	New London, CT	Capt. Allen	Abandoned and lost.
Contest	New Bedford, MA	Leander C. Owen	Abandoned and lost.
Emily Morgan	New Bedford, MA	Benjamin Dexter	Abandoned and lost. Wreck later found ashore.[7]
Champion	Edgartown, MA	Henry Pease	Abandoned and lost. Wreck later found ashore.[7]
Henry Taber	New Bedford, MA	Timothy C. Packard	Abandoned and lost.
Elizabeth Swift	New Bedford, MA	George W. Bliven	Abandoned and lost.
Florida	New Bedford, MA	D. R. Fraser	Abandoned and lost. Wreck burned by local Inuit.[7][8]
Oliver Crocker	New Bedford, MA	James H. Fisher	Abandoned and lost.
Navy	New Bedford, MA	George F. Bouldry	Abandoned and lost.
Reindeer	New Bedford, MA	B. F. Loveland	Abandoned and lost. Sunken wreck found in 1872.[8]
Seneca	New Bedford, MA	Edmund Kelley	Abandoned and lost. Beached wreck found in 1872.[7][8]
George Howland	New Bedford, MA	James H. Knowles	Abandoned and lost.
Fanny	New Bedford, MA	Lewis W. Williams	Abandoned and lost.
Carlotta	San Francisco, CA	E. Everett Smith	Abandoned and lost.
Paiea or Paia	Honolulu, HI		Abandoned and lost.
Monticello	New London, CT	Thomas W. Williams	Abandoned and lost.
Kohola	Honolulu, HI	Alexander Almy	Abandoned and lost. Wreck later found ashore.[7]
Eugenia	New Bedford, MA	Daniel B. Nye	Abandoned and lost.
Julian	Honolulu, HI	John Heppingstone	Abandoned and lost.
Awashonks	New Bedford, MA	Ariel Norton	Crushed in the ice on September 8, 1871.[1]
Thomas Dickason	New Bedford, MA	Valentine Lewis	Abandoned and lost. Wreck found in 1872.[7][8]
Minerva	New Bedford, MA	Hezekiah Allen	Abandoned. Discovered intact in 1872; manned and taken south.[6]
William Rotch	New Bedford, MA	Cromwell Morslander	Abandoned and lost.
Victoria	San Francisco, CA	Capt. Redfield	Abandoned and lost.
Mary	Edgartown, MA	Edward P. Herendeen	Abandoned and lost.
Comet	Honolulu, HI	Capt. Sylvia	Crushed in the ice on September 2, 1871.[1]

See also

• Whale oil
• Overland Relief Expedition

Further reading

Nichols, Peter (2009). Final Voyage: A Story of Arctic Disaster and One Fateful Whaling Season (Oil and Ice: A Story of Arctic Disaster and the Rise and Fall of America's Last Whaling Dynasty ed.). Putnam. ISBN 039915602X.

References

1. Alexander Starbuck. "HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY FROM ITS EARLIEST INCEPTION TO THE YEAR 1876".
2. Paul Edward Parker. "Study focuses on end of whaling for city".
3. "The Whaling Disaster of 1871".
4. Robert McKenna. The Dictionary of Nautical Literacy.
5. "Overview of American Whaling: Arctic Whaling". Archived from the original on November 10, 2011.
6. John Randolph Spears (1908). The Story of the New England Whalers. The Macmillan Company. p. 403. Bark Roman.
7. Everett S. Allen. Children of the Light. (Parnassus Imprints, 1983.)
8. Report of the Commissioner.