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Crew of the Essex

George Pollard Jr.

First Mate

Owen Chase

Second Mate

Matthew Joy

Boatsteerers

Benjamin Lawrence • Obed Hendricks
Thomas Chappel

Steward

William Bond

Sailors

Owen Coffin • Isaac Cole • Henry De Witt
Richard Paterson • Charles Ramsdell
Barzillai Ray • Samual Reed • Isaiah Sheppard
Charles Shorter • Lawson Thomas
Seth Weeks • Joseph West
William Wright

Cabin Boy

Thomas Nickerson

Sketch of the Whaleship Essex being struck by a whale 20 November 1820. Sketched by Thomas Nickerson.

Captain

The whaling ship Essex left Nantucket, Massachusetts in 1819 on a two-and-a-half-year voyage in the whaling grounds of the South Pacific to hunt sperm whales. On November 20 1820, the Essex was struck by a sperm whale and sunk, 2,000 miles (3,700 km) off South America. The twenty sailors set out in three small whaleboats, with wholly inadequate supplies of food and water.

Excessive sodium in the sailors’ diets and malnutrition led to diarrhea, blackouts, enfeeblement, boils, edema, and magnesium deficiency which caused bizarre and violent behavior. Furthermore, sailors suffered withdrawal from severe tobacco addiction. As conditions worsened, the sailors resorted to drinking their own urine and stealing and mismanaging their food. Faced with no more rations, the sailors were forced into cannibalism, eating those who had died in the boats. By the time the last of the eight survivors were rescued on 5 April, 1821, seven sailors had been eaten.

The first mate, Owen Chase, wrote an account of the disaster, the Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex; this was used by Herman Melville as one of the inspirations for his novel Moby-Dick. The cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, wrote another account, not published until 1984.

The ship was 87 feet long and displaced 238 tons.

See also

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• Ann Alexander (ship)
• The Raft of the Medusa

References

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• Nathaniel Philbrick, The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, Penguin Books 2001.
• New York.

External links

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• Summary of the Essex Tragedy
• Artifacts of the Essex
• In the Heart of the Sea:The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
• Article on the Essex published in H2G2

Whalers | Shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean | Tall ships of the United States | Moby-Dick | Whaling

Essex (Walfänger) | Essex (walvisvaarder) | Baleeiro Essex