Today in History

Stumbled on this little document while browsing Harvard Library's fantastic Mirador Viewer: a receipt for $10 paid to Samuel Bartoll on May 25, 1804, for "painting the [Marblehead] Custom house boat including oars, mast, etc.

Using some white-pages search websites, there was no "Bartoll" or "Bartol" currently listed in Marblehead, Salem, or Lynn.

This could be him—born 12/24/1786 in Marblehead, thus 17 years old when this job was done; more likely it was his father, "Samuel Bartol Drummer 1776 W 6 Painter," 39 years old at that time.

Let's stop now before going farther down the geneological rabbit-hole. A road-trip to Marblehead's cemeteries would be interesting.

Marblehead Harbor Master

Using blogmate Lemuel's favorite conversion tool, Measuring Worth, the current value of that $10 paid to Samuel in 1804 ranges from $195 to $364,000(!). From my ignorance of things economic, it looks like the "labor value" applies, "using the unskilled wage"—$2,730 in 2017 dollars.

Given the scale of the Marblehead Harbor Master's current boat, that doesn't sound unreasonable.

FYI: Here is Harvard's fascinating cache of "customs documents, correspondence, and United States Treasury Department circulars sent to the Marblehead Custom House, dated from 1789 to 1878."

The Whaleman's Lay

Who ain't a slave?  Tell me that.

When Ishmael describes (in Chapter XVI) how he came to choose the Pequod for his and Queequeg's voyage, he explains that whalemen were customarily compensated by means of an oddly denominated profit-sharing scheme:

I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid no wages; but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares of the profits called lays, and that these lays were proportioned to the degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the ship’s company. I was also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my own lay would not be very large; but considering that I was used to the sea, could steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt that from all I had heard I should be offered at least the 275th lay—that is, the 275th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage, whatever that might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay was what they call a rather long lay, yet it was better than nothing; and if we had a lucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I would wear out on it, not to speak of my three years’ beef and board, for which I would not have to pay one stiver.

Ishmael doesn't tell us a whole lot more about how lays worked; there was no need to for purposes of the story.  But fortunately for the curious, the system is very well explicated in a scholarly, highly detailed study of the nineteenth-century whaling industry, In Pursuit of Leviathan, by Lance E. Davis, Robert E. Gallman, and Karin Gleiter, published in 1997 by the University of Chicago as part of the National Bureau of Economic Research Series on Long-Term Factors in Economic Development.

First, to clear up one misconception, the lays were not sequentially numbered from the largest share to the smallest.  In other words, the system didn't involve person A getting a 10th, B getting an 11th, C getting a 12th, and so on, until every last investor and sailor was accounted for.  For one thing, such a system would never work mathematically -- you would exceed 100% by the time you got to the 26th share.

Instead, the numbers of the lays jumped.  For example, in the November 1843 voyage of the Abigail of New Bedford, the "shortest" lay (i.e., the largest share in compensation) was, unsurprisingly, the captain's, at 16 -- meaning one sixteenth (or 0.0625) of the profits, assuming there were any.   The first mate's lay was 29, the second mate's 50, the third mate's 72.  The cooper -- typically, one of the most important artisans on a whale ship -- got the 55th lay.  Each of the harpooneers (a/k/a "boatsteerers") got the 95th lay.  All the remaining lays were well above 100.  Added up, the lays totaled about three tenths, which left about seven tenths for the "owners," who could probably be more accurately referred to as partners.

According to In Pursuit, a 70-30 split of the profits between the owners/partners, on one hand, and the captain and crew, on the other, was typical.  In addition, looking at data from over a thousand whaling voyages out of New Bedford, the authors of In Pursuit found that the distribution of lays followed a pattern: captains tended to get lays in the mid-teens, first mates in the 20s, second mates in the 30s or 40s, third mates in the 50s or 60s, etc.  

One thing the data make clear is that Melville is having a bit of fun in Ishmael's long-lay episode.  Ishmael says that he hoped to get 275.  Captain Bildad offered him 777, and Captain Peleg, after remonstrating with Bildad, then settled on 300.  As he does so often in Moby-Dick, Melville is here exaggerating Ishmael's socio-economic insignificance.  Even Ishmael's aspirational lay of 275 was absurdly long -- no one in the In Pursuit data had a longer lay than 202,with unskilled seamen (or "greenhands") usually in the 175-190 range.  

How much a whaleman's lay actually turned out to be worth depended, of course, on how successful the voyage was.  The incentives built into the lay system were meant to encourage the men to work their hardest to fill the hold with oil.  If the voyage was truly disastrous (spoiler alert: like the Pequod's), the whalemen never returned at all.  An "average" voyage in the 1830s apparently brought back oil and baleen worth about $21,000 (in 1830s dollars) (see page 120 of In Pursuit).  After subtracting about $6,000 for expenses, you were left with about $15,000 to be divided among the owners/partners and crew.  Let's say that, realistically, someone in Ishmael's shoes would have had the 175th lay, which is what Melville in fact was assigned when he sailed aboard the Acushnet.  One 175th of $15,000 is $85.71.  If we plug that into the invaluable Purchasing Power calculator at Measuring Worth, we get $2,280 in today's dollars based on changes in the consumer price index.  If the voyage lasted exactly three years, that works out to $63 per month, plus "three years’ beef and board," for which Ishmael "would not have to pay one stiver."

Ishmael spoke the truth when he observed that "this was a poor way to accumulate a princely fortune ... a very poor way indeed."  But, he goes on with philosophic equanimity, he is "quite content if the world is ready to board and lodge [him], while [he is] putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud." 

Today in History

[Originally posted 11/20/2011]
One hundred ninety-six years ago (November 20, 1820) was the event that started it all, for us Marathoners: The whaleship Essex, out of Nantucket and hunting in the south Pacific, was struck and sunk by a large sperm whale. The crew of twenty set out in three whaleboats. Eight survived.

Owen Chase

Owen Chase (1798-1869) was the first mate on the Essex. He wrote about the incident in Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex.

On July 23, 1841, the whaleship Acushnet gammed with the Lima about 2000 miles west of Ecuador. At this gam, Melville met Owen's son, William Henry Chase, and "first held a copy of Chase's Narrative."

Melville recalled years later, "The reading of this wondrous story upon the landless sea, & close to the very latitude of the shipwreck, had a surprising effect upon me." (Herman Melville, v.1; Hershel Parker, 1996)

"Loomings" locations, part 2

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward.      - Chapter I, Loomings

Continuing a look at some of the locations mentioned in the first chapter of Moby-Dick. (See part 1.)

Coenties Slip — a surprising family connection

Coenties Slip, 1876 (original stereo view)

Coenties Slip area, 1841

Coenties Slip was a significant feature on the waterfront, cutting inland nearly two blocks. Sometime in the late 1800's it was filled in. Later, Front Street in this area was obliterated by office towers. Today Coenties Slip is largely covered by the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park, with a heliport at what was the slip's mouth.


View Larger Map

Coenties Slip today, looking south across Water St. toward the river

The name "Coenties" has a history. You won't find it in any telephone directory, U.S. or Dutch. It is a contraction of the Dutch "Coenraedt en Antje"—Coenraedt and Antje. Coenraedt Ten Eyck (alternately Conraet, Coenraet) was born in Germany in 1617, and worked in Amsterdam as a shoemaker's helper. He married Maria Boele; their first child, Jacob C., was born in 1645. The family immigrated to New Amsterdam around 1651. Sometime later, Coenraedt married Antje (no last name found), and "worked as a tanner and shoemaker near his home [...] on his sizable property on what [became] Coenties Slip." (nycgovparks.org)

Now follow me down the generations, using information from the New York State Museum website.

1. Coenraedt's son, Jacob C., followed his dad into the shoemaker's trade, moved to Albany, and married Geertje Coeymans, the daughter of Albany-area "landholder." Their children "married well, prospered, and established the Ten Eyck family in Albany and in the upper Hudson region." Their first son, Coenradt, was born in 1678.
2. Coenradt trained as a silversmith, worked in Albany and New York City, married Gerritje Van Schaick, and had ten children. Their first child, Jacob C., was born in 1705.
3. This 1705 Jacob married Catharina Cuyler. They had son Abraham in 1743.
4. Abraham married Anna Lansing, and had son Jacob A. in 1772.
5. Jacob A. Ten Eyck married a certain Magdalena Gansevoort at the Albany Dutch church in April 1795. (Yes, that Gansevoort!)

Magdalena Gansevoort was the daughter of "Albany mainstay" Leonard Gansevoort. Leonard had a brother, Peter, "the hero of Fort Stanwix." Peter had a daughter, Maria Gansevoort—mother of our man, Herman Melville!

In short: Herman's first cousin once removed (Magdalena) was the wife of the great-great-great-grandson (Jacob A.) of the couple who gave Coenties Slip its name [step-GGGgrandson of Antje].

I wonder if Herman or his mother was aware of this distant connection to what was, during the time the Melvill family lived in lower Manhattan, a prominent local enterprise. (They moved to Albany when Herman was eleven years old.) The fact is too insignificant to be included in any of the Melville biographies I have at hand.

The final post in this series will look at the Whitehall in the quote above—Herman's nod to his mother's family?

(Note: The full map of 1841 Manhattan can be found at this outstanding Boston Public Library site.)

"Loomings" Locations, part 1

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward.      - Chapter I, Loomings

We hear them in the opening minutes of every Moby-Dick Marathon—Corlears Hook, Coenties Slip, Whitehall. In one sentence, Melville mentions three well-known locations along New York's working waterfront. He also slips in a shout-out to his mother's family back in Albany, and names a spot that is tied to her family in a way even he may not have known about.

Corlears Hook

What I learned in my researches was a revelation to me—sawmills on the Hudson; north of Coenties Slip bowsprits run in over street traffic so you could touch the figureheads; the ship-chandlery shops north of Market Street (halfway between the Battery and Corlears Hook).
      - Melville Biography, An Inside Narrative; Hershel Parker; p.13

Check Google Maps—Market Street is still there, leading right down to the East River. The dockyards long gone (mostly), replaced by the FDR Drive.

Corlears Hook, 1841

According to the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, "The Corlear family, 17th century Dutch landowners, controlled much of the property in this curving landmass." Jacobus von Corlaer (the original spelling) was the first Dutch owner of a "plantation" here (Wikipedia).

By Melville's time, the area had evolved into an isolated slum, frequented by seamen from the nearby waterfront, and prostitutes. Some sources claim that the term "hooker" derives from this neighborhood's name.

Today, Corlears Hook is memorialized by a small park.


View Larger Map

Corlears Hook Park, looking south toward the river

My next posts will look at the other locations mentioned in Loomings, Coenties Slip and Whitehall, and their (surprising) ties to Melville's family.

(Note: The full map of 1841 Manhattan can be found at this outstanding Boston Public Library site.)

Kendall Collection 2001.100.2658

This decrepit bench on display in the Whaling Museum caught my eye. I showed the photo to brother T. and he identified it immediately: a sailmaker's bench!

T. worked at Hood Sailmakers back in the 80's when they had offices in Marblehead, MA. He was in the "handwork" department then, crafting and repairing sails in a large, open "sail loft" overlooking an arm of the harbor. The photos show the back of the bench, he explained. You sit with your legs opposite the bags of parts and supplies, your tools (mallet, fids, probers, awl,...) in the tray/holes at your right, needles stuck into that chunk of wood at the end. In front of your bench you'd have your "block," a large, free-standing piece of wood. The block functioned like an anvil for tasks like punching holes in sails to sew in rings.

courtesy: Elgewen

Each handworker had a "palm" to push a needle through multiple layers of sailcloth. T. had a hard-to-find left-handed palm. (He still has pain at the base of his left thumb.)

T. was working at the tail end of the tail end of the golden age of handwork. Computer-guided laser cutters were just coming in when the Marblehead loft closed. Until then there were after-work rum libations at Maddie's, and Friday afternoon keggers in the parking lot. Each December, workers scoured the loft for trashed metal parts to sell to the ironmonger — proceeds were used to decorate the loft's Christmas tree with mini bottles of booze. Ah, how comforting are the holiday traditions!

Google's Homage

Today's background image at google.com

Google today remembers the publication of M-D (in London, 161 years ago) with the above background image on its search page.

Another hat-tip to brother #3, T. (I've abandoned Google for duckduckgo.com!)

Beckett's 106th

Samuel Beckett, born on this day, in 1906.

At the age of 26 he read Moby-Dick, and wrote to his close friend Tom MacGreevy, "That's more like the real stuff. White whales and natural piety." (Damned to Fame, James Knowlson, 1996.)

And a slightly-relevant quote from Molloy:

There are people the sea doesn't suit, who prefer the mountains or the plain. Personally I feel no worse there than anywhere else. ... And I too once went forth on it, in a sort of oarless skiff, but I paddled with an old bit of drifwood. And I sometimes wonder if I ever came back, from that voyage. For if I see myself putting to sea, and the long hours without landfall, I do not see the return, the tossing on the breakers, and I do not hear the frail keel grating on the shore.

Ishmael's Rights, Part III

As I mentioned in a previous post in this series (linked below), to appreciate the psychology in Moby-Dick we need to keep in mind that the Pequod was not a naval ship.  Her crew were employees, not enlisted men subject to military discipline.  They had a contractual relationship with the ship's owners (including Ahab), and the captain and mates could not normally use violence against the crew with impunity.

A fascinating U.S. case on this subject, from 1806, is Thorne v. White (D. Pa. 23 F. Cas. 1132).  The opinion, by Judge Hopkinson, contains much more in the way of instructive material than I could possibly quote here.  As in many other cases brought by seamen, the issue was wages -- specifically, whether the bad conduct of the seaman bringing the case entitled the owners to withhold his pay for the voyage.  This gave Judge Hopkinson the opportunity to discuss at length how the behavior of sailors and captains must be weighed to determine who was most at fault.

It is the duty of seamen to bear even the ill-temper of the master, and to get out of his way, when instances of passion occur. ... Some of the maritime laws are particular in adjusting how a mariner shall demand [sic] himself when the master is enraged, and when he may stand on his defense.  A master must not pursue (as was done in the case before me) a mariner, who flies from him when enraged. ... When the crime of a sailor is too great for the master's authority to punish (which should be evident on the trial, to justify severe measures) the master and his officers are to seize the criminal, put him in irons, and not take the law into their own hands, but bring him to justice on their return.  But the contract for wages is not affected. ...

I have generally thought myself warranted to give a latitude of construction to the words "moderate correction," where chastisement was salutary and merited, and in this I have never been overnice.  The safety of a ship sometimes depends on promptly checking disobedience, and stimulating exertion.  Subordination is peculiarly essential to be enforced, among a class of men whose manners and habits partake of the attributes of the element, on which they are employed. ... [But] instances have not been rare in this court (and they have not been overlooked) where the most enormously cruel, and unjustifiable acts of tyranny, and wanton abuses of power, have been exhibited by masters of ships. ... The sea laws enjoin on the master a temperate demeanor, and orderly and decent conduct, towards seamen.  By several of these laws, he is finable for abusive expressions[!], or misconduct, towards mariners. ... When a mariner is incorrigibly disobedient, and will not submit, and offer to do duty and make amends, the master may discharge him.  He may correct and confine him on board the ship, or dock him of his provisions. 

There is much more worth reading, but I fear I have already tried the reader's patience.  One footnote, however, needs to be quoted in full, because in it the judge describes an earlier case that bears some similarity to the Town-Ho's story:

In a case wherein confinement on board the ship, of two disobedient seamen, appeared to me proper, and indispensable, and where frequent endeavors to reclaim were ineffectually tried, for almost the whole latter section of the return voyage, I held the confinement in irons, so justifiable and necessary for the safety of the ship, that I refused to allow wages for that part of the voyage.  The two seamen were influential characters, and atrocious leaders of a rebellious crew.  [As] they had not misbehaved on the former part of the voyage, I considered it to be a partial breach of contract, and not a forfeiture in toto.  These seamen complained, I thought without cause, of high-handed and cruel treatment.  I left them to their remedy at common law, by action for false imprisonment, or any other mode of redress.

Ishmael's Rights, Part I


Ishmael's Rights, Part II

Frederick Douglass autobiography "Read-a-Thon"

Frederick Douglass circa 1855

The work of another author (although that term only hints at his significance) with ties to New Bedford will have a public reading on Sunday, February 5. The New Bedford Historical Society's twelfth annual reading of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave runs from 2-6 PM.

Details, and contact information for volunteer readers, are on the Historical Society's site.

What to expect?

Packing for MDM16 now, I was reminded of reading this 4-part post when I was anticipating my first MDM.

 ... The young woman Carol spoke with last night is one of them, now attired in pajamas and bathrobe. ...

 If this is your first MDM, you can expect a well-organized, tolerant, focused, quietly convivial affair.

Today in History

New Bedford Harbor, 1893

In the hectic run-up to MDM16, we're grateful to The Writer's Almanac for noting that today is the 171st anniversary of Herman's departure on the whaleship Acushnet, from New Bedford Harbor. (The ship was registered in Fairhaven.) In 1841, he was just 21 years old. That voyage proved to be his "Yale College and [his] Harvard."

For its first thirteen editions, the Moby-Dick Marathon began on January 3 in remembrance of Melville's sailing. It wasn't until 2010 (MDM14) that the event was moved to the first weekend after the New Year holiday, to make it more accessible for the conscientious laborers among us.

The ship Acushnet was named after the Acushnet River, which forms New Bedford Harbor where the river enters Buzzards Bay. According to Wikipedia:

The name "Acushnet" comes from the Wampanoag Algonquian word, "Cushnea", meaning "as far as the waters", a word that was used by the original owners of the land in describing the extent of the parcel they intended to sell to the English settlers from the nearby Plimouth colony.

Today in History

One hundred ninety-one years ago (November 20, 1820) was the event that started it all, for us Marathoners: The whaleship Essex, out of Nantucket and hunting in the south Pacific, was struck and sunk by a large sperm whale. The crew of twenty set out in three whaleboats. Eight survived.

Owen Chase

Owen Chase (1798-1869) was the first mate on the Essex. He wrote about the incident in Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex.

On July 23, 1841, the whaleship Acushnet gammed with the Lima about 2000 miles west of Ecuador. At this gam, Melville met Owen's son, William Henry Chase, and "first held a copy of Chase's Narrative."

Melville recalled years later, "The reading of this wondrous story upon the landless sea, & close to the very latitude of the shipwreck, had a surprising effect upon me." (Herman Melville, v.1; Hershel Parker, 1996)

Today in History

This date in 1851 was the official publication date of Moby-Dick in the U.S. (It had been published in England on October 18, as The Whale.)

Today in History

Published in The New York Times, November 5, 1851:

Thrilling Account of the Destruction of a Whale Ship by a Sperm Whale—Sinking the Ship—Loss of the Boats and Miraculous Escape of the Crew 

We have just received the following thrilling account of the destruction of the Whale Ship Anne Alexander, Capt. John S. Deblois, of New Bedford, by a large Sperm Whale, from the lips of the Captain himself, who arrived in this city from Paita on Sunday last, in the schooner Providence. ... A similar circumstance has never been known to occur, but once in the whole history of whale-fishing, and that was the destruction of the ship Essex, some twenty or twenty-five years ago... The ship Ann Alexander ... sailed from New Bedford, Ma., June 1st, 1850...  

The full article reads like a replay of the story of the Essex. On August 20, 1851, a hunted sperm whale smashed two whaleboats in his jaws, then later rammed the ship, "knocking a great hole entirely through her bottom." The crew escaped in the remaining whaleboats with twelve quarts of water, five gallons of vinegar, and twenty pounds of wet bread. On August 22, they had the luck to be rescued by the Nantucket (of Nantucket).

Moby-Dick was published (in the U.S.) just nine days after this article appeared. (Think what a modern-day publicist would make of that coincidence!) As Hershel Parker relates in Herman Melville, A Biography, "around 5 November Evert Duyckinck sent Melville a clipping about this Ann Alexander catastrophe." Melville's reply, dated November 7, is rather restrained, but contains an odd reference to the year of the Pequod's sinking:

It is really and truly a surprising coincidence—to say the least. I make no doubt it is Moby Dick himself, for there is no account of his capture after the sad fate of the Pequod about fourteen years ago [emphasis added]. —Ye Gods! What a Commentator is this Ann Alexander whale. What he has to say is short & pithy & very much to the point. I wonder if my evil art has raised this monster.

According to Melville then, the Pequod sank "about" 14 years before 1851, i.e. about 1837. If he states or implies this date in the novel, I've missed it for years. Any help out there?

Ahab's "attaboy"

Here's something I've wanted to check since reading Lemuel's post about the the current purchasing power of the $1.25 he spent on M-D in 1977.

In Chapter XXXVI Ahab memorably takes a page out of the corporate manager's Big Book of Manipulation to offer a gold "sixteen dollar piece" to the first crewman to spot Moby Dick. Using the tool that Lemuel cited to gauge the purchasing power of $16 in 2010 dollars (2011 figures are not yet available), we get the following values. In the novel, Ishmael tells us that the Pequod sailed "some years ago," so I present numbers for the ten years preceding M-D's 1851 publication date.

$16 in	1841 is worth	$412 in 2010 dollars
	1842	$442
	1843	$487
	1844	$481
	1845	$476
	1846	$471
	1847	$437
	1848	$456
	1849	$471
	1850	$461

So we're talking about an "incentive" worth something like $450 today (although the coin might be worth somewhat less with a big nail-hole through it).

Not what you'd call a killer bonus for three years' work, but certainly a respectable "attaboy"—particularly since it was coming out of Ahab's pocket, not some productivity-enhancement budget.

Today in History

160 years ago today, Moby-Dick was first publicly available.

Richard Bentley

On October 18, 1851 The Whale (as it was then titled) was published in London by Richard Bentley—500 sets of three octavo volumes.

According to A Note on the Text in my venerable Penguin paperback, Melville's agreement with Bentley was that "the English edition was to appear at least a fortnight before the American." Melville would receive £150 on delivery of the manuscript as an advance of 50% share of the profits. (Using the "pounds" version of Lemuel's "purchasing power calculator," that's equivalent to a wage today of £116,000, or $183,103.)

The text was heavily edited to remove "dubious sexual, or political, or religious overtones" (Penguin). Chapter 25 was entirely missing. Most confusing to critical readers was the absence of the Epilogue—if everyone perished at the end, then who's telling the story?

Contrary to prevailing myth, the initial reviews were not uniformly scathing. They ranged from "...a most extraordinary work..." to "...wantonly eccentric; outrageously bombastic..." This collection of contemporaneous reviews is worth reading.

The American edition was published by Harper & Brothers, New York, "probably on November 14, 1851" (Hershel Parker). The title on this edition was changed to Moby-Dick. It was published as a single volume in a run of 2,915 copies.

Thus the novel was typeset twice, which resulted in two versions of the text (the English version unsympathetically edited to boot). The dedicated sleuthing of Harrison Hayford and Hershel Parker, later with G. Thomas Tanselle, rationalized the differences in the two versions to determine "as nearly as possible the author's intentions." The result was the Norton Critical Edition (1967), followed by the Northwestern-Newberry edition (1988).

The logic whereby Hayford and Parker untangled the M-D knot is for another post. Of course, not everyone agrees with their editorial choices, so the search for Melville's "intentions" continues (see the Longman Critical Edition). Some publishers skirt the issue entirely by simply selling (error-ridden) public-domain versions.

Today in History

Our man, Herman Melville, died on this day in 1891, just over 72 years old.

According to his wife, he died "after two years of failing health, induced partly by severe attacks of erysipelas terminating finally in enlargement of the heart." [Parker, vol. 2, p.920]  A Dr. Warner signed the death certificate stating that Herman died on the 28th at 12:30 A.M. at his home at 104 East 26th St. in New York City. His funeral was held at the family home on September 30.

His obituary appeared on September 29 in the New York Times—a single paragraph, stating that "He was the author of 'Typee,' 'Omoo,' 'Mobie Dick,' [sic] and other sea-faring tales written in earlier years." (View the original obit here; Melville's notice is about four paragraphs from the end.)

Notices in other newspapers mentioned that he had "fallen into literary decline ... if the truth were known, even his own generation has long thought him dead..."; called Typee his best book; and described him as a "formerly well-known author." [Parker]

The Times famously printed an article memorializing "Hiram Melville" or "Harry Melville" (Oct. 6, 1891), the headline obliterated from the printing plate in an effort to correct it.

Aside from such faint praise, the Springfield Republican declared that "...it is probable that no work of imagination more powerful and often poetic has been written by an American than Melville's 'Moby Dick; or the Whale'..."

Herman Melville was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, final resting place of such notables as Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, and F.W. Woolworth. (Road trip, Lemuel!)

Ishmael's Rights, Part II

In my previous post, I talked about the legal recourse that 19th-century whalemen had against mistreatment by their captains.  As it happens, the law did not require seamen (outside the Navy, at least) to suffer every sort of indignity imposed by a superior.  If a seaman felt that he had been punished unjustly, he could sue his captain or the ship once they returned to port.

We have a number of fascinating, reported decisions by U.S. courts from the early 1800s dealing with these issues.  One common theme was whether a seaman's misconduct was sufficiently egregious to justify imprisonment on board or ejection from the ship in port, such that he lost some or all of his wages.  A captain was entitled to eject a seaman if his conduct warranted it, but the captain was supposed to reinstate the seaman if he demonstrated a good-faith willingness to return and behave himself.*

Take the case of Relf v. The Maria, decided in 1805 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Pennsylvania.  (There was only one federal judicial district in Pennsylvania then, as opposed to the three it has now.) The seaman Relf claimed that his captain had (1) wrongfully discharged him from his ship, The Maria, and (2) wrongfully refused "to receive him on board again."  We aren't told exactly what Relf did, but he seems to have been bad news: "Relf showed every sign of a continued, refractory, dangerous and mutinous temper[.]"  He also evidently impeded the administering of discipline by the ship's officers, since the court observes that "[s]eamen ought to know that it does not lay [sic] with them, to interfere between the officers of a ship and any mariner they (the officers or any of them in command) choose to confine, or punish for disorderly conduct."

The court ultimately ruled against Relf, finding that his bad behavior justified his being ejected and not received back (although he still received his wages earned up to that point).  Yet along the way, the court explains that there were limits on what captains could do to their crews.  If conditions passed a certain threshold, a seaman could desert the ship and still be entitled to all his wages: 

When any charge of a criminal nature is alleged, I am, and always have been, ready to examine into it, and pursue the proper measures.  The officers of ships are amenable for improper conduct .... I have been too frequently called on to protect seamen against their oppression.... [A] seaman is justifiable in leaving a ship, if obliged to do so, by continued cruelty and oppression.  I have, under the clear and direct injunctions of the maritime laws, ... often compelled the payment of wages for the voyage, when such circumstances were in proof.  But it does not apply in this case.

*Another interesting background rule, noted in Justice Story's annotations to Abbott on Merchant Ships and Seamen (discussed in my previous post), was that if a seaman absented himself from his ship for more than 48 hours, he forfeited his entire wages "and all his goods and chattels on board the ship[.]"  This law actually serves as a plot point in Melville's Redburn. 

Ishmael's Rights

One of the challenges Melville faced in writing Moby-Dick was making the reader believe that Captain Ahab had the ability to enlist the crew in his "vengeful errand."  Whalemen, as Melville shows us, were a bunch of rowdy roughnecks.  They could be suddenly violent -- as in the fight between Daggoo and the "Spanish sailor" in Chapter XL -- and they could be needlessly cruel -- as when Flask wants to "prick" a giant abscess in the dying whale in Chapter LXXXI. 

Yet Ahab managed to persuade them to join enthusiastically in his profitless hunt for the white whale and to keep at it for months. 

Modern readers, I think, tend to underappreciate Melville's artistry in this regard, because we project onto nineteenth-century whaleships the discipline we're familiar with from stories about the navy.  Books and movies such as The Caine Mutiny and Mutiny on the Bounty (not to mention Melville's own Billy Budd) have accustomed us to the navy's iron rules against resisting officers.  We just assume that the same rules governed merchantmen and whalers.  And thus Ahab's feat of leadership seems not so wonderful to us.

Captains in the merchant service and the fishery, however, were not entitled to the same kind of unquestioning obedience that naval commanders could expect.  A seaman aboard a merchant ship or whaler was not bound to take whatever the captain dished out, on pain of flogging and ultimately death.  On the contrary, seamen could lawfully resist unreasonable acts by their superiors, and they could, and sometimes did, successfully sue violent or crazed captains for damages.

I have beside me a copy of the "third American edition" of Charles Abbott's Treatise on the Law Relative to Merchant Ships and Seamen, published in 1822, "with the copious annotations of Joseph Story, One of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States."  Abbott's Chapter Four, "Of the Behaviour of the Master and Mariners," is particularly instructive as regards Moby-Dick.  As Justice Story explains in his copious annotations, for any substantial ship involved in the merchant service, the coasting trade, or the fisheries, U.S. law required that "a contract for service ... be made in writing or in print by the master with the mariners."  We see Ishmael and Queequeg sign such an agreement in Chapters XVI and XVIII.

More importantly for present purposes, Mr. Abbott informs us that "the master [i.e., captain] has authority over all the mariners on board the ship, and it is their duty to obey his commands in all lawful matters relating to the navigation of the ship, and the preservation of good order.... In case of disobedience or disorderly conduct, he may lawfully correct them in a reasonable manner; his authority in this respect being analogous to that of a parent over his child, or of a master over his apprentice or scholar." 

"But," lawyer Abbott goes on to warn his readers, "it behoves the master to be very careful in the exercise of it [his authority], and not to make his parental power a pretext for cruelty and oppression."  In administering discipline, the captain is advised to consult with "the persons next below him in authority, as well to prevent the operation of passion in his own breast, as to secure witnesses to the propriety of his conduct." 

The law as outlined by Mr. Abbott had more than mere moral suasion behind it.  A captain's use of unlawful force could subject him to liability:  "For the master, on his return to this country may be called upon by action at law, to answer to a mariner, who has been beaten or imprisoned by him, or by his order, in the course of a voyage; and for the justification of his conduct, he should be able to shew not only that there was a sufficient cause for chastisement, but also that the chastisement itself was reasonable and moderate, otherwise the mariner may recover damages proportionate to the injury received."

Now, in referring to the master's "return to this country," Mr. Abbott was referring to England, he being a barrister at law and a member of the Inner Temple.  But Justice Story's learned annotations show us that the same law obtained in the United States, and was exemplified by cases decided in the U.S. courts, as I shall show in my next post.