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The logbook transcription initiative of the NHA

The Nantucket Historical Association has recently started a long-term project, in which they ask a world-wide audience for voluntary transcriptions of their entire whaling logbook collection.1

Throughout the last centuries, they have amassed an extraordinary collection of ships’ logs and shipboard journals that open a window into the rich maritime heritage of the 18th and 19th centuries. These documents, primarily kept by captains or first mates, offer daily accounts of life at sea. They meticulously record a vessel’s position through latitude and longitude readings, detail weather conditions, list other ships sighted, and note ports visited during their voyages.

In the context of whaling expeditions—a predominant theme in this collection—the logs provide invaluable insights into the industry that once thrived in Nantucket and New Bedford, Massachusetts. They catalog encounters with whales, noting those seen and successfully captured, which was crucial information for the economic success of the voyage. Beyond these operational details, some logs enrich their pages with crew lists, cargo inventories, and even personal touches like poems, drawings, and candid observations that bring the seafaring experience to life.

Complementing the logs are shipboard journals often penned by captains’ wives, passengers, or crew members. These narratives delve into the human aspects of maritime journeys, recounting events such as accidents, illnesses, and the daily challenges faced aboard. They also describe leisure activities, interactions during port visits, and encounters with Native peoples in foreign lands, painting a vivid picture of the cultural exchanges that occurred.

The collection is particularly strong in documenting voyages that embarked from Nantucket and New Bedford, regions that were once bustling centers of the whaling industry. The majority of these logbooks focus on whaling voyages, highlighting the significance of this trade in shaping the local economy and community identity.

For historians, researchers, and enthusiasts of maritime history, this assemblage offers a treasure trove of firsthand accounts. It not only preserves the operational aspects of historical sea voyages but also captures the personal stories and experiences of those who lived them. Through these logs and journals, the Nantucket Historical Association provides an enduring link to the past, allowing us to appreciate the adventures and hardships of life at sea during a pivotal era in American history.

  1. Nantucket Historical Association Transcription Initiative, in: from the page, https://fromthepage.com/nharl/logs [last Access: 1.10.2024]. []

The Hawaiian Islands and the whaling industry

I would like to put your attention on the following article of Amy Jenness about the connection and importance of the Hawaiian Islands for Nantucket’s whaling industry. She wrote the article in 2016 in the “Yesterday’s Island, Today’s Nantucket”1 and I will briefly summarize the text.

The history of the Hawaiian Islands is deeply intertwined with the rise of the whaling industry in the 1820s.

The arrival of whalers Edmund Gardner and Elisha Folger in 1819 heralded a new chapter in Hawaii’s maritime heritage. Soon ports such as Honolulu, Lahaina and Hilo were buzzing with activity as whaling ships from Nantucket and beyond made their presence felt. Initially venturing into the Pacific Ocean in search of sperm whales, these ships found a welcome haven in the Hawaiian Islands, thanks to treaties with local monarchs such as King Kamehameha.

The following years saw a surge in maritime activity, with traders establishing routes to Canton, China, and thriving on the lucrative trade in Hawaiian sandalwood. However, it was the emergence of the whaling industry that would shape Hawaii’s history and become its economic backbone for the next two decades. Local communities thrived on the influx of sailors, supplying ships and providing essential services to the burgeoning maritime trade. Honolulu, in particular, underwent a rapid transformation with the installation of water mains and the establishment of businesses to cater for the needs of the whalers.

But this period of prosperity was not without its challenges. The clash of cultures led to conflict and tension as Western influences clashed with traditional Hawaiian ways. Disease ravaged the native population, while missionaries tried to impose their beliefs, leading to social upheaval and unrest.

Among the prominent figures of this era was Nantucket captain Valentine Starbuck, whose exploits aboard the English whaleship L’Aigle would become the stuff of legend. Starbuck’s encounters with King Kamehameha not only forged a bond between two distant worlds, but also hinted at the tantalising prospect of Hawaii’s allegiance to the British crown.

  1. Jenness, Amy (2016): An important stop for Nantucket whalers – Hawaii”, in: Yesterday’s Island, Today’s Nantucket, https://yesterdaysisland.com/important-stop-nantucket-whalers/, [Last Access: 30.3.2024]. []

NHA YT Channel: “Real Nantucket History”

The Youtube channel of the Nantucket Historical Association provided parts of its virtual exhibition from 2019. One clip, which I would like to recommend watching is the brief recollection of Nantucket during the American Revolution and its impact on the Island, the whaling industry and the Quaker Community in manifold ways with a distinct focus on the Rotch family.1 The nine short episodes had been produced by Ian Opaluch.

  1. Opaluch, Ian (2019): Real Nantucket History: The American Revolution, in: Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cECaaGTmXg, [Last Access: 21.2.2024]. []

Whaling Logbooks or “The art of whaling”

Today, I would like to shed light on the “Public domain review” (PDR) Journal. It is a non-profit public Journal that also keeps a blog about a vriety of topics. On their homepage, they introduce themselves with the following words: “Founded in 2011, The Public Domain Review is an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.”1

The reason how I came across the journal is an obvious one! Some years ago, it was during the pandemic times, when people were actually used to conduct social distance, I was drawing and fighting with analyzing whaling logbooks. As you might remember in this former blog post almost exactly one year ago, I was digging into several logbooks and eventually found a very helpful way how to analyze and to extract the rich details of a logbook with an excell sheet.2

During my research, I have found another wonderful blog article of Jessica Boyall3 and I immediately bookmarked it in my online bookmarked treasures, which contain numerous articles and pages that are somehow more or less related to whaling history. I hope you will enjoy reading the article as much as I did. You can find the article here.3

  1. About, in: The Public Domain Review, https://publicdomainreview.org/about, [Last Access: 27.02.2023]. []
  2. Hussein, Haureh (2022): Logbook analysis: “William Hamilton” (1834-1837), in: transoceanic Voyages, https://transoceanic.hypotheses.org/445, [Last Access: 27.02.2023]. []
  3. Boyall, Jessica (2021): The Art of whaling, Illustrations from the logbooks of Nantucket whaling, in: PDR, https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-art-of-whaling, [Last Access: 27.02.2023]. [] []

Prof. Dr. Tiya Miles: New Guinea and the Island of Nantucket.

Last year, on 31st August 2021, Professor Tiya Miles, department of history at the Harvard University, published an article in The Atlantic about the Island of Nantucket entitled: “Nantucket doesn’t belong to the Preppies”.1 The article grew out not only from the vivid history of the island itself, but also through her conversations with many figures of the island.

Combined with private observations, biographical experiences and conversations, she first pictured colonial-white-focussed perceiptions and quickly corrects the impressions.

Picture Nantucket, and you probably imagine whales and hydrangeas, white people swimming in white-capped waves. But that’s only part of the story. Although the Black community of New Guinea has passed into history, its mark on the landscape remains, a reminder that Nantucket was once a place of working-class ingenuity and Black daring.

Tiya Miles

While the most stories of Nantucket typically began with the popular anektode of English settlers, who arrived in 1690, and noticed whales while they surveyed the sandy land, the Wampanoag people had already lived there, “dispersed across multiple villages.” Miles shows how the rising wealth of “Anglo-Nantucketers […] particularly through the commercial whaling industry” based on the rising “labor from populations with ready skills that would not, or could not, reject dangerous maritime work.” For this, they not only “compelled Indigenous people to row their boats”, but also drew back to slavery by bringing people with descent from the African continent to Nantucket.

According to a census of 1764, the Island inhabited 148 “indians + Sqwaws” and 50 “Negroes”, of which a majority were enslaved. In this regard, Miles also recounts the famous case between William Swain and Boston:

One black family, the Bostons, lived on Nantucket for generations and profoundly shaped the island’s history. Boston and his wife, Maria, and their eight children were enslaved by a merchant named William Swain. In 1760, for reasons that are not documented, Swain freed the couple and their youngest baby. He placed the other children on a manumission schedule, guaranteeing that he could extract their labor for years. Eventually, members of the Boston family moved to a hilly region at the edge of town, where a handful of other free Black families lived, near the four noisy windmills that served as the island’s power source.

Tiya Miles

In the 1770s, when the island suczessively “phase out slavery”, many free persons now settled themselves at “New Guinea”or “Newtown”, where they intermarriaged with Native Americans and so shaped the place as “a multicultural hub”.

You can read the full article here.1

  1. Miles, Tiya (2021): Nantucket doesn’t belong to the Preppies, in: The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/nantucket-doesnt-belong-to-the-preppies/619874/, 31.08.2021. [last Access:25.7.2022]. [] []