Essex was an American whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799. On November 20, 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., the ship was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale. About from the coast of South America, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in three whaleboats with what food and water they could salvage from the wreck.
After a month at sea, the crew landed on the uninhabited Henderson Island. Three men elected to stay on the island, from which they were rescued in April 1821, while the remaining seventeen set off again for the coast of South America. The men suffered severe dehydration, starvation and exposure on the open ocean, and the survivors eventually resorted to cannibalism. By the time they were rescued in February 1821, three months after the sinking of Essex, only five of the seventeen were alive.
First mate Owen Chase and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson later wrote accounts of the ordeal. The tragedy attracted international attention, and inspired Herman Melville to write his 1851 novel, Moby-Dick.
Ship and crew When Essex departed from Nantucket, Massachusetts, on her fateful voyage in August 1819, she was considered to be a lucky vessel, as her previous six whaling expeditions had brought in good profits. She was twenty years old and had been refitted during the summer. At only in length, and measuring about 239 tons burthen, Essex was small for a three-masted whaling ship., citing original 1799 specifications. She was equipped with five whaleboats, each about in length.
Essex set sail with a crew of twenty-one men. Twelve, including the officers and two of the three boatsteerers, were born or raised in Nantucket while nine were off-islanders. The captain, 29-year-old George Pollard Jr., had sailed as second mate of Essex in 1815–1816, and as first mate in 1817–1819. The first mate, 21-year-old Owen Chase, had sailed on Essex in 1817–1819. The second mate was 26-year-old Matthew Joy. The three boatsteerers were Obed Hendricks and Benjamin Lawrence, both 20 years old and from Nantucket, and Englishman Thomas Chappel. At age 14, cabin boy Thomas Nickerson was the youngest member of the crew, while at least five more were under the age of 20.
RoleNameAgeRaceHomeFate Captain George Pollard 29 White Nantucket Survived First mate Owen Chase 21 Second mate Matthew Joy 26 Died Boatsteerer Obed Hendricks 20 Presumed dead Benjamin Lawrence 20 Survived Thomas Chappel Age unknown England Survived. Rescued on Henderson Island. Steward William Bond Black Birthplace unknown Presumed dead Cabin boy Thomas Nickerson 14 White Grew up on Nantucket Survived Seaman Owen Coffin 16 Nantucket Shot and eaten Isaac Cole Age unknown Rochester, Massachusetts Died and eaten Henry DeWitt Black Birthplace unknown Jumped ship Richard Peterson About 60 New York Died Charles Ramsdell 15 White Nantucket Survived Barzillai Ray 17 Died and eaten Samuel Reed Age unknown Black Birthplace unknown Died and eaten Isaiah Sheppard Charles Shorter Lawson Thomas Seth Weeks 16 White Barnstable, Massachusetts Survived. Rescued on Henderson Island. Joseph West Age unknown Birthplace unknown Presumed dead William Wright 18 Barnstable, Massachusetts Survived. Rescued on Henderson Island.
Final voyage Round Cape Horn Essex departed from Nantucket on August 12, 1819, on what was expected to be a roughly two-and-a-half-year voyage to the whaling grounds off the west coast of South America. The route towards Cape Horn was an indirect one dictated by the prevailing winds of the Atlantic Ocean. First the ship would sail with the westerlies towards Europe and Africa, and then back towards South America with the northeast trade winds. There were scheduled stops at the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, where the ship could be stocked with provisions more cheaply than at Nantucket.
A few days into the voyage, Essex was hit by a sudden squall in the Gulf Stream. She was knocked on her beam-ends and nearly sank; damages included the loss of her topgallant sail and two whaleboats, with an additional whaleboat sustaining minor damage. Pollard's initial thought was to return to Nantucket for repairs, but he accepted the arguments of Chase and Joy, the first and second mates, who wished to continue to the Azores. At the Cape Verde Islands the crew were able to purchase a whaleboat. Later, as Essex sailed down the east coast of South America, three months into the voyage, the first whale was killed.
In the face of strong winds from the west, Essex took over a month to round Cape Horn into the whaling grounds of the South Pacific. In January 1820 she met up with other whalers from Nantucket at St Mary's Island off the west coast of Chile.
Whaling grounds depleted After several months searching for whales off the coast of Chile, Essex sailed north and met with more success off the coast of Peru. Within two months they had killed enough whales to produce 450 barrels of oil. In May 1820, Essex hailed Aurora, another whaler from Nantucket, whose captain told them that another whaling ground, known as the "offshore ground", had been discovered more than off the Peruvian coast. Pollard decided that, after making provisioning stops, he would set sail for these new grounds, rather than stay in the depleted coastal grounds.
In September 1820, Essex sailed to the Peruvian port town of Atacames (now part of Ecuador). It was here that Henry DeWitt jumped ship, leaving Essex with a crew of only twenty. When whales were spotted from Essex, the three whaleboats, each with an officer, a boatsteerer and four crew members, would go in pursuit. Without DeWitt, there would be only two crew members left aboard Essex, not enough to safely handle a ship of Essexs size and type.
Repairs and resupply at the Galápagos Islands To restock their food supplies for the long journey, Essex sailed for Charles Island (later renamed Floreana Island) in the Galápagos Islands. The crew needed to fix a serious leak and initially anchored off Hood Island (now known as Española Island) on October 8, 1820. During a week at anchor, they captured 300 Galápagos giant tortoises to supplement the ship's food stores. They then sailed for Charles Island, where on October 22 they took another sixty tortoises. The tortoises weighed between each. The sailors captured them alive and allowed some of them to roam the ship at will; the rest they kept in the hold. They believed the tortoises were capable of living for a year without eating or drinking water (though in fact the tortoises slowly starved).
While hunting on Charles Island, Chappel lit a fire as a prank. It was the height of the dry season, and the fire quickly burned out of control, surrounding the hunters and forcing them to run through the flames to escape. By the time the men returned to Essex, almost the entire island was burning and Pollard swore vengeance on whoever had set it. The next day, the island was still burning as the ship sailed for the offshore grounds; even after a full day of sailing, the fire was still visible on the horizon. Chappel would only admit that he had set the fire much later after Essex sank. Many years later, Nickerson returned to Charles Island and found a blackened wasteland; he observed "neither trees, shrubbery, nor grass have since appeared".
Whale attack When Essex reached the hunting grounds about west of the Galápagos Islands, whales still proved elusive. When they finally found a whale on November 16, 1820, it surfaced directly beneath Chase's boat. No one was injured, but the boat required repairs.
At eight in the morning of November 20, 1820, the lookout sighted spouts, and the three remaining whaleboats set out to pursue a pod of sperm whales. On the leeward side of Essex, Chase's whaleboat harpooned a whale, but its tail struck the boat and opened up a seam, forcing the crew to cut the harpoon line and return to Essex for repairs. Two miles away off the windward side, Pollard's and Joy's boats each harpooned a whale and were dragged away from Essex.
Chase was repairing the damaged whaleboat on board Essex (which he believed to be faster than lowering the spare whaleboat) when the crew sighted an unusually large sperm whale bull (reportedly around in length) acting strangely. It lay motionless on the surface facing the ship and then began to swim towards the vessel, picking up speed by shallow diving. The whale rammed Essex, rocking her from side to side, and then dived under her, surfacing close on the ship's starboard side. As its head lay alongside the bow and the tail by the stern, it was motionless and appeared to be stunned. Chase prepared to harpoon it from the deck when he realized that its tail was only inches from the rudder, which the whale could easily destroy if provoked by an attempt to kill it. Fearing to leave the ship stuck thousands of miles from land with no way to steer it, Chase hesitated. The whale recovered, swam several hundred yards forward of the ship, and turned to face the ship's bow.
The whale crushed the bow, driving the vessel backwards, and then finally disengaged its head from the shattered timbers and swam off, leaving Essex quickly going down by the bow. Chase and the remaining sailors retrieved the spare whaleboat while the steward, William Bond, ran below to gather the captain's sea chest and whatever navigational aids he could find. The whaleboats of Pollard and Joy were about from Essex when one of the boatsteerers looked back and saw the ship falling on her beam-ends. The two boats hurriedly released their whales and rowed back to Essex.
The cause of the whale's aggression is not known. In In the Heart of the Sea, author Nathaniel Philbrick speculated that it may have first struck the boat accidentally or have had its curiosity aroused by the sound of a hammer as the damaged whaleboat was being repaired. The frequency and sound of the nailing may have sounded similar to those made by bull sperm whales to communicate and echolocate.
Survivors Abandoning the wreck
The crew spent the next two days salvaging what supplies remained from the waterlogged wreck of Essex. Three whaleboats were rigged with makeshift masts and sails taken from Essex, and boards were added to heighten the gunwales and prevent large waves from spilling over the sides. Inside Pollard's sea chest, which Bond's quick thinking had managed to save, were two sets of navigational equipment and two copies of Nathaniel Bowditch's New American Practical Navigator. These were split between Pollard's and Chase's boats; Joy's boat was left without any means of navigating except to keep within sight of the other boats.
Essex sank approximately west of South America. The officers debated which route to take towards land. Pollard favored sailing west with the prevailing winds and current. The nearest islands to the west were Marquesas Islands, about away, but Pollard was afraid they would encounter cannibals there and concluded that it would be better to sail to the Society Islands, about . Chase and Joy disagreed, fearing that the Society islanders might be cannibals, and suggested sailing south for about and then picking up a band of variable winds to take them to the coast of Chile or Peru, all the time hoping to come across another whaleship. In fact, both the Marquesas and Society Islands would have been safe destinations, as the inhabitants were at that time friendly towards mariners, but Pollard accepted the suggestion of Chase and Joy.
Herman Melville later speculated that the crew would all have survived had they followed Pollard's recommendation and sailed to the Society Islands, writing: "All the sufferings of these miserable men of the Essex might, in all human probability, have been avoided had they immediately after leaving the wreck, steered straight for Tahiti, from which they were not very distant at the time. But they dreaded cannibals".