Anatomy of a Mutiny Ship Sharon, 1842; Old Dartmouth Historical Sketch Number 75
New Bedford: Old Dartmouth Historical Society, 1968. Reprinted from The American Neptune, Vol. XXVII, No. 2, April 1967. Wraps. Format is approximately 7 inches by 10 inches. Unpaginated (20 pages plus covers). Introduction by Charles F., Batchelder. Illustrations. Footnotes. Cover has some wear and soiling. Small ink notation on front cover. The illustrations are from the collection of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society and Whaling Museum . Philip F. Purrington was Curator, Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Massachusetts and Editor of Returns of Whaling Vessels Sailing from American Ports, 1876–1928. The Whaleship Sharon from Fairhaven, Mass. experienced a mysterious mutiny in the South Pacific in 1842. Captain Howes Norris from Edgartown, Mass. was murdered by four Pacific Islanders he had taken on to replace crew who had deserted. On May 25, 1841, the Massachusetts whaleship Sharon set out for the whaling ground of the northwestern Pacific. A year later, while most of the crew was out hunting, Captain Howes Norris was brutally murdered. When the men in the whaleboats returned, they found four crew members on board, three of whom were covered in blood, the other screaming from atop the mast. Single-handedly, the third officer launched a surprise attack to recapture the Sharon, killing two of the attackers and subduing the other. An American investigation into the murder was never conducted--even when the Sharon returned home three years later, with only four of the original twenty-nine crew on board. Commercial whaling in the United States dates to the 17th century in New England. The industry peaked in 1846–1852, and New Bedford, Massachusetts, sent out its last whaler, the John R. Mantra, in 1927. The Whaling industry was engaged with the production of three different raw materials: whale oil, spermaceti oil, and whalebone. Whale oil was the result of "trying-out" whale blubber by heating in water. It was a primary lubricant for machinery, whose expansion through the Industrial Revolution depended upon before the development of petroleum-based lubricants in the second half of the 19th century. Once the prized blubber and spermacetti had been extracted from the whale, the remaining majority of the carcass was discarded. Spermaceti oil is sourced solely from the head-case of sperm whales. It is processed by pressing the material rather than "trying-out". It was more expensive than whale oil, and highly regarded for its use in illumination, by burning the oil on cloth wicks or by processing the material into spermaceti candles, which were expensive and prized for their clean-burning properties. Chemically, spermaceti is more accurately classified as a wax rather than an oil. Whalebone was baleen plates from the mouths of the baleen whales. Whalebone was commercially used to manufacture materials that required light but strong and thin supports. Women's corsets, umbrella and parasol ribs, crinoline petticoats, buggy whips and collar-stiffeners were commonly made of whalebone. Public records of exports of these three raw materials from the United States date back to 1791, and products of New England whaling represented a major portion of the American GDP for nearly 100 years. Condition: Good.
Keywords: Benjamin Clough, Whaling Ship Sharon, Howes Norris, Murder, Desertion, Mutiny, Andrew White, Rotumah, Grenville Island, George Babcock, Thomas Smith, Nathan Smith, Kanaka
[Book #82128]
Price: $45.00