Searchable 'Whaling History' !

The Whaling Museum's eNews e-mail (March 19, 2018) contained a significant announcement:

World's Most Comprehensive Whaling History Database Released

The New Bedford Whaling Museum and Mystic Seaport joined forces create the public website whalinghistory.org.

You can read the Press Release for the story behind the database. Basically, it makes searchable info from "logbooks, journals, ship registers, newspapers, business papers, and custom house records" of "American" whaling voyages from the 1700's to the 1920's.

Dive in! Of course, we immediately go to American Whaling Voyages > Crew Lists, and enter Last name: Melville.

There's our man on the Acushnet, registered with the New Bedford Customs house, departing January 3, 1841. Click that line and his info appears below (Rank: Greenhand; Lay: 1-175).

Click the VoyageID and you'll get all the data (it could take a minute to load). The Acushnet returned in May, 1845 with 850 barrels of sperm oil, 1350 barrels of whale oil, and 13500 pounds of whalebone.

Click the link for Logbook data to view a map of this voyage.

Apparently the logbook for this voyage is incomplete. Click View logbook data to see the info behind the map. There is an entry for June 23, 1842, when the Acushnet reached the Marquesas Islands (dates from Hershel Parker, Herman Melville, A Biography, vol. 1). The next entry is July 11, two days after Melville and his friend Toby slipped away from their mates.

On August 9, Melville shipped on the Lucy Ann, a whaleship out of Australia, thus not in this database.

The next water-leg of Melville's adventure was on the Charles and Henry, out of Nantucket in December, 1840. This voyage is in the database (wait for it to load), but with no logbook data, so no map. Melville was discharged on May 2, 1843 on the island of Maui. On August 17, in Honolulu harbor, he boarded the USS United States (definitely not a whaler; not in the database).

Finally, on October 3, 1844, the United States returned to Charlestown Navy Yard, although Melville was not discharged until October 14.

This is just one brief "trip" through this database, and does not even touch on the other resources available on the site. You can even download the data to slice/dice/extend on your computer, and contribute your results to the site. Look under Projects for examples.