Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602-1890

by Nathaniel Philbrick

  During this difficult, transitional time, William Coffin received information from the Keeper of the New York State Prison (whose name happened to be Alexander Coffin) that a prisoner had given a detailed account of the Nantucket Bank robbery. Here, at long last, was incontrovertible proof that it had been an outside job. So, in a few quick months in 1816, Coffin (with the assistance of his fellow accused, Albert Gardner) put together a pamphlet entitled “Narrative of the Robbery of the Nantucket Bank.” Fired to an awesome eloquence, Coffin provides a passionate portrayal of a community in chaos:When it was publicly announced that the Bank was robbed, the inhabitants of Nantucket were seized with a consternation, that could not have been much exceeded had they been assured the dead had risen. . . . The atrocity of the act, and the darkness which enveloped the whole transaction had a powerful influence upon the minds of the inhabitants, not yet familiarized with crimes, to bring into operation a talent for the marvelous, and the wonderful; and never, since the memorable times of the Salem witchcraft, did superstition and bigotry wave their scepter over the human intellect with such unlimited sway. . . . Our old men dreamed dreams, and our young men interpreted them. Madness was mistaken for inspiration, and the ravings of a lunatic were collected into form as the basis for a criminal prosecution. . . . The whole society was convulsed, with the action and reaction of the contending parties, till that peace and harmony, which once characterized the inhabitants, were destroyed, and fled forever.

  Ultimately Coffin and Gardner’s pamphlet failed to lay to rest the business of the Nantucket Bank scandal. For generations to come, families refused to forget the pain inflicted by the controversy. And then, to add insult to injury, other bank scandals (see Chapter 17) would rock the island in the years to come. Given the direct relationship that had historically existed between the community’s dominant religion and its ability to turn a profit, it was perhaps inevitable that banking debacles would accompany Quakerism’s gradual fragmentation and decline on Nantucket.

  If Coffin and Gardner’s 1816 pamphlet opened some old wounds (Obed Macy recorded in his journal, “Old Bank Fire is kindling again”), it also demonstrated the power of the written word to a Quaker community that had always discounted the need for anything more than a practical education. In a world in which words would become as important (if not more important) than deeds, the kind of eloquence (and education) Coffin displayed would become increasingly valued. And yet at this time Nantucket still lacked a public school system, leaving an estimated 300 children without access to any form of education. With no place to go, packs of boys roamed the streets, inevitably making a nuisance of themselves. Once again it was Coffin and his circle (especially his son-in-law, Samuel Jenks, editor of the Nantucket Inquirer) who led the fight for educational reform. After a long struggle against those who accused them of bringing “Boston notions” to the island, Coffin and Jenks’s efforts finally forced Nantucket into compliance with state educational laws in 1827.

  There was a fortunate subplot to the education controversy that began to heal some of the damage inflicted by Coffin’s bruising battles with Silvanus Macy and others. In 1826, Sir Isaac Coffin, the British admiral who had treated the Nantucket prisoners with such kindness during the War of 1812, visited the island for the first time as the guest of William Coffin. With no family back in Britain to inherit his considerable estate, Sir Isaac hoped to “do something” so that his name would be remembered on Nantucket, a place for which he had maintained a life-long admiration. As might be predicted, William Coffin’s son-in-law proposed that the Admiral build a free school for any child with Coffin blood in his or her veins, which, as it turned out, included just about everyone on the island. Thus was born the Coffin School, which still stands to this day on Winter Street, as well as the first training ship in America: an eighty-seven-foot brig known as the Clio that would take crews of young Nantucketers as far as Rio Grande, Brazil.

  In the meantime, other forces were at work to help pull together a once divided island. By the 1820s, the old distinction between a Federalist and Democrat had, in the words of an Inquirer editorial, “ceased to exist” as another generation of Nantucketers began to take the stage. One of these was Coffin’s only son, William, Jr. Although born at the height of the bank scandal, he proved to be a kinder and gentler version of his father. A schoolteacher, merchant, newspaper editor, cartographer, and eloquent temperance advocate, he helped achieve an extraordinary reconciliation when in 1834–5 he ghostwrote Obed Macy’s History of Nantucket, a partnership that was publicly announced in a long-running advertisement in the Nantucket Inquirer. Indeed, given the feuding of the past forty years, it is hard to believe that the brother of Silvanus Macy would look to the son of William Coffin for literary help.

  This was probably not the younger William’s first collaboration. He may also have been the coauthor of both Owen Chase’s Narrative of the Essex disaster, published in 1821, and William Lay and Cyrus Hussey’s A Narrative of the Mutiny on Board the Whaleship Globe of Nantucket, published in 1828 (see Chapter 15), potentially making him the unheralded author of the three most important books written on Nantucket in the nineteenth century. When it came to his collaboration with Obed Macy, William seems to have had a definite agenda. In the advertisement for subscribers that ran prior to the book’s publication, he makes it clear that facts—as opposed to the rumor and conjecture that had once made his father’s life a living hell—would be the focus of the History:I must own that I had some misgivings as to the value of any record that could at this period be made. . . . The only source, I thought, from which any amount of information could be collected was tradition; and consequently that the uncertainty of such authority must be too well known to give value to a work of the kind proposed. I need not express my surprise at finding not only a well written, but a connected, well authenticated, and, to myself at least, a very interesting history.

  Unfortunately, by the time of the book’s publication, William Coffin, Sr., was dead at the age of seventy-eight. And then, only three years later in 1838, his son fell victim to a fatal attack of pleurisy at the age of forty.

  When recognized as the product of two very different authors, The History of Nantucket stands as a remarkable testament to the regenerative powers of time. Although Macy/Coffin do mention the ill-feeling that then existed between rival Quaker sects on the island, they speak only generally (when at all) about the bank robbery, commons fight, and public-education disputes. In fact, at one point they apologize for “the dull monotony” of their book since it only concerns “the peaceable settlement of a few enterprising families, and their slow progress in wealth and numbers, from the commencement down to the present moment.” It may not have been an entirely true account of the island’s history, but for Nantucketers finally emerging from close to half a century of economic, political, and social upheaval, its contrivances and omissions were necessary, even palliative, lies.

  Many hands have been wrung over the tragic dissolution of Old Nantucket, but at this time in the island’s (and the country’s) development, the idyll of the “peaceable settlement” was proving ever-more difficult to sustain. Although there were some notable individual exceptions, vested interests rather than communal and spiritual ideals had become the driving force behind the proprietary and Quakerism on Nantucket. Indeed, it could be argued that more than anything else, Quakerism was what fouled the Nest of Love, as the religion that had once consolidated a community began to encourage a truly diabolical genius for character assassination. According to one observer, who had much to say about the “depravity” of the Nantucket Quakers: “Unfortunately, the anger which they are forbidden to express by outward actions, finding no vent, stagnates the heart, and, while they make professions of love and good will to their opponents, the rancor and intense malevolence of their feelings poison every generous spring of human kindness.” It could also be argued that the effects of this attitude, combined with a knee-jerk economic and social conservatism, were w
hat would ultimately doom the whale fishery to a premature death on Nantucket (see Chapter 18).

  But this fate was still in the distant future. Throughout the 1820s and ’30s whaling began to experience a remarkable resurgence as the Industrial Revolution took hold. Feeding the insatiable maw of the Machine Age with illuminants and lubricants, Nantucket whalemen led the charge into a new and inconceivably vast frontier: the Pacific Ocean. Here, not in the narrow streets of town, was where the action was.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Golden Boy and the Dark Man: Obed Starbuck and George Pollard

  FATE, LUCK, or what-have-you always seemed to smile on Obed Starbuck. Born into a well-to-do whaling family, he set out on his first voyage to the Pacific in a brand-new ship built by his uncle. Captained by James Russell, the Hero returned in the winter of 1818 full of oil, and with prices at an all-time high. By the summer of 1819, she was once again headed for the Pacific, this time with young Obed Starbuck as her first mate.

  While lying at the island of St. Mary’s, a favorite gathering point for Nantucket whalers off the coast of Chile, Spanish pirates threatened to put an end to Obed’s budding career when they captured the ship. With the captain and cabin boy imprisoned on shore, Starbuck and the rest of the crew were detained below-decks as the Spaniards looted the ship. When the pirates temporarily abandoned their plunder and rowed for shore, Starbuck broke down the door of his stateroom, freed the rest of the crew, and commanded them to set sail. Unfortunately, the breeze was distressingly light, and with the pirates in hot pursuit, it began to look as if the Hero might be overtaken by the gun-wielding buccaneers. At one point, several members of the Hero’s crew came aft and implored Starbuck to give up in hopes that their lives might be spared. But the twenty-three-year-old Starbuck was not about to surrender his uncle’s ship, telling his crew: “Well, my lads, if any wish to remain and enjoy their clemency, they must take a plank and jump overboard. For my own part, the ship can’t be stopped. If they shoot me, they must do it flying.” With the help of a fortuitous puff of wind, the Hero made it safely out of the harbor. Although the captain and cabin boy were eventually killed, Starbuck and the rest of the crew arrived safely in Valparaiso.

  Upon returning to Nantucket, Starbuck, not yet twenty-five, was given command of the Hero. His first voyage as captain was termed “most successful”: after only twenty-five months at sea (the average voyage now took at least three years), he returned with a full ship. But this was just the beginning. His uncle next put him in charge of the Loper; this time he was back in only twenty months with a full ship; next voyage: eighteen months. Then, proving that three times is indeed the charm, the Loper had the voyage to end all voyages, returning to Nantucket after only fourteen months and sixteen days, with every inch of available space—including the deck—crammed with casks of oil. Even as they approached the island a whale was sighted, enabling them to anchor off the Nantucket Bar with their tryworks still blazing. Under the headline “Greatest Voyage Ever Made,” the Nantucket Inquirer exulted:This was whaling with a vengeance; and it must be that Capt. S. possesses the spirit of enchantment, which attracts the leviathans of the ocean around his ship. If this unparalleled success is the effect of superior skill in the art of whaling, would it not be proper for him to communicate it to others of the same profession, who are now three years in performing exploits for which he requires little more than one?

  On an island where whaling was not just big news, it was the only news, Obed Starbuck’s feat was immensely exciting. Rumors circulated that at one point during the voyage there were no fewer than fifteen dead sperm whales tied up to the Loper, and then to arrive at the Nantucket Bar still trying out a whale? Well, this was simply too much—“a glorious sight to witness from the lookouts upon our houses,” remembered one Nantucketer. Enthusiasm ran so high among Starbuck’s nearly all-black crew that two prominent members of the island’s African-American community, Captain Absalom Boston (see Chapter 16) and Samuel Harris, led a joyous parade through the streets of town before all were treated to a gala dinner, replete with hours of lengthy toasts (see Notes). According to the Inquirer, “The occasion is said to have been one of great hilarity and social enjoyment.” And no wonder. The Loper had just brought in 2,280 barrels of whale oil worth more than $50,000, not only making the owners very happy men but enabling Obed Starbuck to retire at the ripe old age of thirty-three. This was Nantucket at its greasiest, culturally inclusive best.

  Adding to the adventure and excitement of Starbuck’s accomplishments was the fact that he and his fellow Nantucketers were not just whalemen, they were also explorers, venturing out into an unknown frontier that dwarfed that of the American West. New islands were being discovered on an almost routine basis (Starbuck named one of his “New Nantucket”) as the whalemen often became the first white people the South Sea Islanders had ever seen. Even though it was situated thirty miles off the New England coast, Nantucket was a border town, a jumpingoff point into the vast Pacific, where the twin lures of money and adventure fired the imaginations of the local populace long before there ever was a Gold Rush. Whaling was no longer something a Nantucketer did simply because it was all he knew how to do; finally, after the interruptions of two catastrophic wars, the Nantucket whale fishery was once again the envy of not only America but the world.

  Stories began to appear in newspapers around the country commenting on the island’s spectacular comeback. In May of 1825, the Nantucket Inquirer quoted from a story in the Washington National Journal, then gave its own assessment of the fishery’s new strength, claiming that there were now at least sixty whaling vessels sailing out of Nantucket, of which more than forty were currently in the Pacific, with about twenty in port. These vessels employed 2,000 seamen, not to mention the “great numbers at home” (of a population of about 7,000) engaged not only in fitting out the whalers but also in the thriving coasting trade. According to the Inquirer, what made this fishery such an “effective nursery for bold and hardy seamen” was that Nantucketers, unlike “the ordinary Jack-Tars of many other places,” were “continually stimulated by the most powerful of human motives—namely, a desire of promotion”: “This honorable emulation is productive of the happiest effects—they soon become officers, and are even commanders at a very early age. After this period, the fruits of a few successful voyages banded with common prudence, enable them to become ship-owners, or manufacturers, and to settle down satisfactorily among their kindred, in the bosom of domestic life.”

  This was the blueprint by which Obed Starbuck led his life. After his profitable successes in the Loper, he would build a huge house on Fair Street, now known as the Ship’s Inn, then retire (temporarily at least) to “every-day life” as a gentleman farmer with acreage in the Cato section of the island beyond Mill Hill. According to one Nantucketer, he was commonly regarded as “a marked man among us . . . who [brought] success to everything he put his hand to.”

  There was, however, another “marked man” on Nantucket, who as a young whaling captain had been just as ambitious and just as energetic as Obed Starbuck. But in the case of George Pollard, the pursuit of Nantucket’s version of the American Dream would turn into a horrifying nightmare.

  We need look no farther than Owen Chase, Captain Pollard’s first mate on the voyage of the ill-fated Essex, for a description of your average Nantucket whaleman in the 1820s. Not surprisingly, given the staying power of traditions on the island, he bears a decided resemblance to Ichabod Paddock of old. According to Chase, “The profession is one of great ambition, and full of honorable excitement: a tame man is never known amongst them; . . . and it has been truly said of them, that they possess a natural aptitude, which seems rather the lineal spirit of their fathers, than the effects of any experience.”

  Whether or not they possessed an inherent genetic superiority when it came to killing whales, these were tough, strong, and rigidly disciplined men, who were encouraged, virtually from birth, to whale “with a vengeance.” One trad
itional anecdote tells of a nine-year-old boy who tied a kitchen fork to the end of his mother’s ball of yarn and proceeded to “fasten” to the family cat. As the terrified pet let out a fearsome shriek, the boy’s bewildered mother picked up the ball of yarn. At that point the boy is reputed to have shouted: “Pay out, mother! Pay out!! There she sounds through the window!”

  On an island where “Oil! Oil! is the toast; and if it does not suit the delicacy of your ideas to live breathe and dream of oil, you are no Nantucket man,” the whaleman was the center of attention. And according to some observers, the attention did not always bring out the best in a person: “A Nantucket man in any part of the world, may be known by the surly importance and glum dignity of his manner. . . . He considers it his business to draw the attention of every one to himself, and resents highly a want of peculiar respect and admiration for his own undeservings.” Chase put it more diplomatically: “a Nantucket man is on all occasions fully sensible of the honor and merit of his profession,” which involved nothing less than “an exterminating warfare against those great leviathans of the deep.”

  But if it was a war, it was an exceedingly one-sided conflict. As the whale did everything in its power to escape, the whaleman stabbed it with a harpoon and then as the terrified and wounded mammal dragged the whaleboat and its six occupants along on a “Nantucket sleighride,” the boatsteerer hacked at the victim’s vital organs with a lance until the whale “spouted blood” and went into its final, tail-lashing “flurry.”