L'Homme-Confiance?

Noted on Hershel Parker's blog: The French Ministry of Education has added The Confidence-Man to the agrégation examination for English; specifically the Norton Critical Edition, 2nd edition, Hershel Parker and Mark Niemeyer, eds.

This Wikipedia entry explains the agrégation (I think).

Read these three posts for what this might mean to the world of Melville studies. Years ago, I read somewhere that the reason we study Prufrock is that it's what our profs were required to study. Could it be that in five years, The Confidence-Man will be more familiar to French readers than to (North) American readers?

H.M. on the Crew List

Here's an example of one source of information for the Whaling History database mentioned in previous posts (here and here): crew lists.

On February 28, 1803, Congress passed "An Act supplementary to the 'act concerning Consuls and Vice-Consuls, and for the further protection of American Seamen.'" This stipulated that any vessel bound on a foreign voyage must deliver a crew list "to the collector of the customs." (Read the text of the Act for a glimpse into the complexities of maritime law!)

The original crew list for Melville's voyage on the Acushnet, as filed in New Bedford by Captain Valentine Pearse on Dec. 31, 1840, is in the National Archives in Boston.

A photo of that document is online; click the image to see it full-size. Our man is sixth from the bottom, with his data:

Place of Birth

New York

Place of Residence

Fairhaven

Of What Country Citizen

United States

Aged

21

Height

5 feet, 7 1/2 inches

Complexion

Dark

Hair

Brown

New Bedford Customs House

Side note: Here's an entertaining letter sent to President Thomas Jefferson a few months after this law was enacted. Calvin Chaddock complains that the customs collector of New Bedford, Edward Pope, is a "Sworn enemy to the present administration of the federal Government" because he claimed that crew lists (a.k.a. rôles d'équipage) were "totally unnecessary" ("besides a number of other pieces of misconduct..."). Also, since Chaddock is "on good terms as Neighbours, tho opposite in politics" with Pope, please "make use of my name no farther than necessary."
Plus ça change.

Marathoners will recognize the Customs House, across William Street from Freestone's.

Hat-tip to Slate.

Searchable 'Whaling History,' part 2

Following up on the last post. More fun with data...

While you're looking at Melville's details in the Crew List (Rank: Greenhand; Lay: 1-175), make a note of the VesselID, AS0819, which unambiguously identifies his ship. (There is second vessel Acushnet in the database.)

Now return to American Whaling Voyages > Voyages. (Wait for it to load.) Enter VesselID: AS0819.

You'll see the voyages of "Melville's" Acushnet, listed chronologically. Click each line to display the details of each voyage. Melville was on its maiden voyage, under Valentine Pease. It was rigged as a ship, and had a tonnage of 359. (Was that gross or net tonnage?)

Striking (pun intended) is the note: Vessel End  Stove by a whale, 1847; lost Aug 16, 1851.

Captain Pease's voyage ended "1845 May." Clicking the second voyage in the list we see the Acushnet sailing from Fairhaven about two months later, on "1845 Jul-16," under William B. Rogers. Rogers returned in "1848 Jun" with a notably smaller haul of sperm oil, whale oil, and whalebone. Captain Rogers' birthdate is listed, so we know that he was nearly 31 years old when he set out on this voyage. It was during this voyage that the Acushnet was "stove by a whale," but it must have been repaired because the voyage end was "1848 Jun."

The third and final voyage of this Acushnet began, again after about two months in port, on "1848 Aug-30," with Destination "N Pacific." It was "lost Aug 16, 1851." Note the Master ID, AM0569, of its captain at the time, "Bradley, Thomas C." Return to Voyages and enter that code for Master ID—this is Bradley's only whaling voyage in the database. Loading the Crew List, we find twenty-six men (Bradley is listed twice), captain included, aged 17 to 35 years. Their Rank and Lay are not given, except for Bradley who is listed with Rank "Master."

Searching the full crew lists data for some of the less common names on this voyage (Schimerhorn; Hutchinson, Henry; Donley, Frank; Durice; Duren), shows the Acushnet as their only whaling voyage. Did the Acushnet meet a sudden, tragic end?

Well, no. According to Alaska Shipwrecks: 1750 - 2010, the Acushnet "went ashore in a fog and sank in 10 fathoms [60 feet] of water at Saint Lawrence Island." Less than 20% of her cargo of 1300 barrels of whale oil was salvaged. One assumes that if 250 barrels of oil were saved, at least some of the crew made it to safety as well. Still, we can look at St. Lawrence Island and count our blessings.

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.

Melville and the Iron Duke

Wellington (detail), painted soon after Waterloo

The Duke of Wellington, who led the allied forces to victory over Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo, famously declared to his troops at the decisive moment, "Up, Guards, and at 'em!"  While historians have long doubted he actually said that (Wellington himself couldn't remember what he may have said), the command attributed to him seems to have been as familiar to nineteenth-century English speakers as "a date which will live in infamy" is to us today. 

A quick search on Google Books has turned up a pre-Moby-Dick reference to the saying in a New York periodical:  The June 1846 issue of The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art reprinted from Punch a humorous exchange of letters in which one Adolphus Carns tried to have the Duke settle a bet over whether he had said, "Up, Guards, and at 'em," or "Guards, up, and at 'em!"   Wellington declined to decide the dispute.

What does all this have to do with Melville?  Scholars have shown how Melville's writing in Moby-Dick echoes Shakespeare frequently and, less often, other authors he was reading at the time.  And something that sounds a lot like an echo of Wellington comes from the mouth of the Tahitian Sailor in "Midnight, Forecastle" (Ch. 40): "The blast! the blast! Up, spine, and meet it!"

Incidentally, in what might be called the battle-of-Waterloo section of Part I of Finnegans Wake, Joyce plays with the command attributed to Wellington (amid references to the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and who knows what else):  "This is the seeboy, madrashattaras, upjump and pumpim, cry to the Willingdone."

Melville Scholars Workshop, June 7!

In case you missed the notice, it's not too late to register for an afternoon/evening full of Melville at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. This workshop looks to be a great event—a mini-MDM, without all that reading.

The Melville Society Cultural Project will lead the workshop, followed by themed museum tours, and a lecture (with reception) on Tuesday, June 7, beginning at 1 PM.

We can expect to see most of the panelists from the MDM's "Stump the Scholars" and "Chat with a Melville Scholar." Looking forward to it!

Herman's 196th Today

Today is the 196th anniversary of the birth of Herman Melville. (His 200th will be here before we know it!)

Visit the Melville collection at gutenberg.org and honor him with a read.

So that's where it went!

As noted back in 2011, Melville's "travel desk" was auctioned for $34,160 to an unnamed buyer. Now we know where it went.

An article in yesterday's New York Times, Sendak’s Estate: Debating Where the Things Go, mentions in passing some of the objects in Mr. Sendak's collection: works by Blake, Rembrandt, and Goya, as well as some Melville first editions and his traveling writing desk!

For more on the Sendak-Melville connection, see this post (and the comment).

The New Bedford Homecoming of the Charles W. Morgan

Here's a quick rundown on (some of) today's events surrounding the return of whaleship Charles W. Morgan, newly restored, to New Bedford. The Morgan is "the only surviving wooden whaling ship from the 19th century American fleet." Built in New Bedford, and launched on July 21, 1841, she has been in Mystic Seaport since 1941. A multi-year restoration made the Morgan once again sea-worthy. She sailed into New Bedford harbor to be the centerpiece of a week of activities. Get down there and check it out! (Leave your backpack in the car. They're not permitted.)

Today was a chance to hear presentations from some of the Melville scholars we normally see only at the MDM. As always, these folks make me realize I have a lot of reading to do. Still, when Tim Marr opened his talk asking the audience, "How many of you couldn't finish Moby-Dick the first time you read it?", the scholars were the first to raise their hands!

I took pages of notes at these presentations, but what sticks in my mind is Dr. Marr quoting Stephen Colbert who asked, "Is Moby-Dick a metaphor for the struggle of trying to read Moby-Dick?" (Who was it said, "When one of a work's themes is the work itself, another of its themes is art."?)

The week's displays and events are the combined efforts of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, Mystic Seaport, the Nantucket Historical Association, and the Melville Society. That's some major fire-power, and they've done it up royally.

Like a trade show, there are lots of booths to visit inside the hall.

An area is curtained-off for the scholar presentations.

Outside, you can visit the schooner Ernestina. I've only ever seen her covered with snow, on my way to the MDM.

You can crew a whaleboat and row out for a waterline view of the Morgan. Our boatsteerer was a member of a local rowing club, well able to instruct the green crew.

Back on land, it is worth waiting in line for a chance to snake through the restored Charles W. Morgan.

According to Wikipedia, these flags spell "J B P N." What am I missing?

The dark brown areas in the diagrams show original, 1841-vintage bits of the Morgan.

Apparently, "How much is original?" is asked often.

At 4:30, it's time to deflate the whale.

The city is much more inviting on these warm summer evenings than in the January wind and ice of an MDM.

After dinner, Robert K. Wallace opened The Art of Seeing Whales exhibition at the Whaling Museum. Take your time here—the juxtapositions are deliberate.

Was anyone else put off by all the humorless, armed police stalking the area? [no photo here]

"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.)

Blessed by "Berkshares"

A news segment on PBS this evening talked about the "local currency," Berkshares, an alternative coin-of-the-realm for western Massachusetts.

Who is the "face" of Berskshares? None other than our man, H.M., pictured on the twenty next to a profile of Mt. Greylock.

Damned by dollars, blessed by Berkshares...

Today in History

On this date in 1850 Herman bought, from "Dr. John Brewster, Sr., the farm adjoining the Broadhall estate in the rear." This was the Pittsfield farm that Melville later named Arrowhead.

Parker's biography describes the transaction in vol. 1, p. 778. Herman persuaded his father-in-law to give him "three thousand dollars against Lizzie's [his wife] inheritance" so that he could buy 160 acres and a house for $6500.

Returning to our trusty tool, we find that $6500 in 1850 had the "purchasing power" of $187,000 in 2010. Make of that what you will. Today, Broadhall, once the farm of Herman's uncle (Thomas Melvill, Jr.)  is a tony country club.

Herman's 193rd

courtesy of jasonlam

Remembering our man, born 11:30 P.M. on Sunday, August 1, 1819, at 6 Pearl Street, NYC.

Here's Google's view of that location today:


View Larger Map

The gam that changed literature - July 23, 1841?

In all Melville's life he is not known to have so intricately tangled up so much misapprehension and misinformation as he did about Owen Chase.
                                               - Hershel Parker, Melville, v.1, p. 197

The details of Melville's acquisition of a copy of Owen Chase's Narrative, and the confused notes he made in it are worth reading. The story involves Judge Shaw's connections in Nantucket, a whale-man mistaken for Owen Chase, and the "surprising effect" the Narrative had on young Herman, about to turn 22 years old and hunting whales in the same ocean where the Essex was sunk by a vengeful sperm whale. See Parker's Melville, pp. 196-199 and Parker's notes on Melville's notes in the Norton Critical Edition of M-D, 2nd ed., p. 571.

On 23 July 1841 the Lima of Nantucket gammed with the Acushnet... ...this may have been the occasion when he [Melville] met a son of the famous Owen Chase, and first held a copy of Chase's Narrative.
                                               - Hershel Parker, Melville, v.1, p. 196

So, one hundred seventy-one years ago today may have been Melville's first reading of Chase's horrific encounter with a sperm whale.  Ten years later, the fruit of that seed was ripe.

Road Trip - When Herman met Hawthorne

161 years ago today, Herman Melville met Nathaniel Hawthorne. The influence that this meeting had on Moby-Dick is a subject for another time. For now, let's say that it wasn't for nothing that M-D was inscribed to Hawthorne.

If you can't make it to the "Hawthorne & Melville Annual Hike" up Monument Mountain this Sunday (Aug. 7), you can browse a commemorative road-trip here. I drove out to western Massachusetts two days ago for a quick snapshot safari, but found that every answer led to more questions.

View from Melville's "piazza"

First stop, Arrowhead. I got in on the lightly attended (three visitors, total) penultimate tour of the day. Our guide was well-practiced and very knowledgeable. (We were told that Hershel Parker bought Herman & Lizzie's bed at auction and donated it to Arrowhead. A national treasure is Mr. Parker. Most of the details here are taken from his biography of Melville.) The place is in great shape inside, thanks to the off-season work of skilled volunteers.

Pontoosuc Lake, Pittsfield

Thursday, August 1, 1850 was Melville's 31st birthday.  Two days later, a group from the Melvill farm (purchased by Herman in September, 1850 and named "Arrowhead"), including visitors Evert Duyckinck and Cornelius Matthews, took a fishing trip to Pontoosuc Lake, on the other side of Pittsfield. Duyckinck and Matthews had been invited out to the farm by Herman. The following day, August 4, was Herman and Elizabeth's third wedding anniversary.

Stockbridge station

Monday, August 5, 1850, Melville, Duyckinck, and Matthews took the train to Stockbridge, where Dudley Field (Jr.) had arranged for the two out-of-towners to meet "all the celebrities of Stockbridge" (Parker). There they met Field and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Holmes's grandfather owned 24,000 acres in the Berkshires—a valuable holding as the coming of the railroad in 1850 led to the development of the area as a playground for the rich. Arrowhead is on Holmes Road; Oliver had a summer home down the road, on the river.

The four went to the Field "cottage" in Stockbridge, then set out for Sacrifice Mount as a "rehearsal, for the grand climb." I could find no location for Sacrifice Mount or the Field home. Parker mentions that the cottage is (was?) "on the village green ... [a] square, red-brick house later known as the Old Parsonage." Note that the well-to-do referred to their Berkshire homes as "cottages" in the same way that the Vanderbilts and the Astors referred to their palaces in Newport.

Returning to the Field cottage, the four were joined by James T. Fields (publisher of The Scarlet Letter) and his wife, Henry Sedgwick ("of the famous Stockbridge family" [Parker]), and Mister Nathaniel Hawthorne. (So, Melville and Hawthorne actually first met at Field's house in Stockbridge!)

From Monument Mountain

"Miss Jenny Field" (Dudley's sister?) came along as all ten rode out to Monument Mountain "in three conveyances." There is no record of the actual route they hiked. We know they abandoned the wagons partway up the mountain. They got caught in a rainstorm, drank some champagne, listened to Matthews recite poetry, and watched Herman climb out on a rock, pretending it was a bowsprit.

The mountain is now owned by The Trustees of Reservations. (Download a trail map here.) I hiked up the west side. The trail followed an old dirt road until it became steep, so I imagine this was their route. On a humid August day, this was a good workout — not a hike I'd enjoy in long woolen trousers, no matter how much champagne was on offer. Some photos from the trail are in this album.

In the Ice Glen

The group then returned to the Field cottage for a big, well-lubricated turkey dinner. Joel Tyler Headley dropped in and induced the men to hike the "Icy-Glen" (mentioned in Moby-Dick, Chapter 102). This is a short hike, just a few blocks from the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge center. See the album for all the photos and information. Bring bug dope and shoes with good traction. On a humid day the mossy rocks are slippery. I did get a few drafts of cool air, but there was no ice to be seen. The route is unobtrusively engineered to aid the visitor through the boulder field, with stone steps and bridges. An alternate fork on the trail toward the Glen makes a sweat-inducing, mosquito-infested climb to an observation tower ("Laura's Tower") with limited views.

The party returned again to the Field house, and at 10 P.M. the three from Pittsfield took the train home. The brakeman consented to pause the train near the Holmes Road crossing, saving them a two-mile walk back from the Pittsfield station. Duyckinck and Matthews stayed at the Melvill farm that night.

So ended the Big Day. It led to the birth of Moby-Dick as we know (and love) it. And it was all orchestrated by David Dudley Field. More about him in a subsequent post.

Our man born today

Born 192 years ago today, a Sunday, at 11:30 P.M., at 6 Pearl Street, New York City.

Melville's birthday celebrations

if ((you have children) and  
    (you will be near New Bedford on July 31)) then {

you might be interested in "a fun-filled day celebrating Herman Melville's birthday"

} else {

celebrate our man's 192nd birthday, August 1, as you will

}

Hawthorne's Birthday!

Hawthorne statue, Salem, MA

Crimminy! Almost missed this...

Today is the 207th birthday of Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom Melville inscribed Moby-Dick.

Born in Salem, Massachusetts (at 27 Union Street, where there is no historical marker!). He grew up, went to college, married the girl next door (around the corner, really, at 105 Essex Street, where there is a marker), became a big-time writer, was appointed U.S. consul in Liverpool, and was buried in Concord.

Along the way, Melville latched onto him as a mentor. Hershel Parker, in his biography of Melville, 2nd volume, wrote, "By understanding Moby-Dick as a great truth-telling allegory, Hawthorne had proved himself the ideal audience of one."

Thanks and happy birthday, Mr. Hawthorne.

PS - If you're walking around Salem, stroll down Mall Street and look at #16. Years ago when I lived nearby, it had a sign stating that Hawthorne lived there while he was writing The Scarlet Letter.

Today in History

From The New York Times, on this day in 1932:

SOURCE FOR 'MOBY DICK' TO BE SOLD AT AUCTION; Book Used by Melville Telling of Whale's Attack on Ship Goes on Block Tuesday.

Not having read the full article ($), one assumes this book to be Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, by Owen Chase. How much did it go for? And where is it now?