Nov 18: Mystic Seaport

The Charles W. Morgan, her structure, her voyages and cultural diversity
by Jennifer Stahl

On November 18th 2016 our class took a ferry from Orient Point Long Island to New London Connecticut; we then took the vans the Mystic Seaport Museum. Upon arrival we met our tour guys who began to show us around the outside portion of the museum. The first thing that caught my eye was this huge whaling vessel that was sitting in the Mystic River; her history was memorable and truly amazing.

Image 1: The image down below shows the rigging of the Charles W. Morgan as well as the color of the deck which is thought to be the original color.

The Charles W. Morgan was built in 1841 by Jethro & Zachariah Hillman who were from Massachusetts. The ships plan show that the whaling vessel measures at 106 feet; the deck is 11 inches long. She carries 7,134 square feet of sails and is fully rigged for sailors to climb upon. She was built for durability not speed and was also known as the “lucky ship” because she did successful navigate through rough waters including Arctic ice. This beautiful whaling vessel sailed from 1841 to 1921; during these years she went on 37 whaling voyages.1600 men lived and sailed aboard during these voyages in conditions that were not the cleanest and spacious.

Whaling voyages on the Charles. W Morgan not only gave whaling jobs but also created opportunities for cultural exchanged between crew members. Like many other whaleships the Charles Morgan was used to emigrate, crew members were picked up while visiting new and exciting places in the world. Picking up people from around the world to work on the vessel as crew members helped enrich America with varied customs and points of view from different cultures.

Image 2: The pie chart below shows the continent and countries that were represented onboard; most of the crew were Americans but you can see there was a wide of variety cultures. Men, women and even children onboard left behind letters, journals, art work and stories which helped inform people back on land.

The End of Whaling
by Sarah McTague

Over the period of less than 100 years, we have gone from the slaughter of whales primarily for their baleen and oil, to protecting them across the majority of the world. This switch over literally occurred in a lifetime, and it is something to be celebrated. The die off of whaling occurred for a few different reasons. There was a decrease in the need for whale oil first when oils such as petroleum was discovered, which was easier to obtain as well as burned cleaner than whale oil. The hunting for whaling after petroleum was discovered continued for the whale’s baleen. It is a very flexible material that was perfect for everything from hairbrushes to corsets. Corsets were worn by women for years, and created the “optimal body type” for courting men to look for. It was said the perfect body would allow a man to wrap his hands around the entire waist of his wife on their wedding night. With the 20’s came a movement for women and the fashion of corsets went considerably down. With no need for oil or baleen now, whaling plummeted for American sailors.

In 1972, the Marine Mammal Protection Act was formed, making it illegal for anyone living in America to kill, hunt, injure, or harass any marine mammal. This was especially important for the right whale, which due to whaling, experienced the decimation of 90 percent of their population. The Endangered Species Act was further enacted in 1973 to protect all endangered species, which all great whales were considered to be so. Though it is still legal in Iceland, Norway and Japan to hunt whales, the majority of the rest of the world is still in unison with the protection of these creatures. We were fortunate enough on our trip to Seaport to learn some sea chanteys from an amazing singer. His final song to us was written by his own friend and was of the whale’s perspective in a whaling world. It was tragic and sad, but it made me have to think that we as a population have moved on from that industry. Today, instead of boarding a ship and sailing into the ocean to kill whales, we go to search and observe the beauty of these creatures and work towards an increase in their populations in the future.

Scrimshaw
by Christopher Meyer

Our final and longest trip was to Mystic Seaport, where we experienced our most immersive look into New England coastal culture yet. We were able to tour an original whaling ship, the last survivor of its kind. We also saw beautiful collections of figureheads, learned some great shanties, and an amazing scrimshaw collection. Due to space constraints, as well as letting the museum change exhibits and keep its pieces of history safe, only about one percent of the entire collection is on exhibit at any point in time. However, the collection on display is still amazing and incredibly diverse. I have always enjoyed the art of scrimshaw, and it has been an absolute pleasure to get to earn so much about it this past semester. So I’ll stop talking now, and get to showing you some of this amazing art!

Seen above are a narwhal tusk, and baleen and teeth from a whale. Scrimshaw could be done on any of these, but the teeth were most common, followed by baleen. You can see how rough the teeth are, and imagine how many hours it would take to get one smooth enough to begin the intricate carving process. A common material used to polish the teeth was shark skin.

Above are two examples of finished pieces of scrimshaw. Commonly used as gifts, themes would often be of the ship a whaler was on, the whales themselves, or the names or faces of loved ones from home. The tooth on the left above shows the ship and a poem on the bottom, while the one on the right mostly focuses on a Mary M. McKenzie. It leaves on to wonder if that was the name of the ship the sailor was on or if that might be a sorely missed loved one from home.

This tooth shows a whaling venture in progress. Coloration like above was added using whatever materials was possible, in this case, probable the blood of the sailor.

This beautiful piece was found in the vault. It gives a personal look into the lives of the sailors that we are lucky to have preserved for study and enjoyment.

One of the most common pieces of art made from whale bones were pie crust crimpers. This one, I assume the sailor wanted to make sure the person receiving it knew that it was a gift. Gifts like this on above could be useful, which tends to be the best type of gift. The detail is also beautiful. More utilitarian gifts such as ornate boxes, can be seen below.

I found the bone inlays of this box to be particularly beautiful.

The sheer magnitude of this scrimshaw collection is impressive, and when considering the quality of the pieces that cannot even be on display, it is truly amazing. When on the tour of the vault, we were able to see and feel some fake scrimshaw pieces, which look and feel like the real thing, and often sell as such in auction, later brought to a museum and revealed to be false. This trip was not only a great experience educationally, but a great day spent with amazing friends.


Mystic Seaport: The Charles W. Morgan
by Darren de Silva

This past Friday, November 18th, we visited Mystic Seaport. This place is a major center for research and preservation of maritime artifacts. It is also houses a major whaling ship, the Charles W. Morgan, used during the peak of the whaling period from 1841 to 1921. The Charles W. Morgan was used throughout 37 voyages on the east and west coasts where it hunted many different whale species.

Image 1: The blubber room, the largest room on the ship and where all the blubber was processed and then packaged into barrels.

Shown above is the blubber room where all of the blubber from the whale was cut into chunks and laid down on the floor for processing. The height of the room itself was about 5 feet 9 inches tall and although it was the largest room on the boat, the floor was raised to make room for the hold to store the oil and ballast. Compared to the foc’sle and the living spaces, the blubber room was about triple the size and this showed how when on the boat, the crew and captain had business as their top priority. This also highlighted how the crew wanted to get as much oil as they could in order to get paid and earn the money since they got paid only after selling the oil. The height of the room wasn’t as important compared to the length because when processing the whale meat, the crew was one their hand and knees anyways since they used the floor to cut the pieces of meat and then extract the blubber. Due to all the processing the floor of the room was constantly oily and slippery which also made the crew stay on their hands and knees in order to avoid slipping. In addition to being the largest room, it was also the only room without light The light would enter from the top hatches on deck.

Although the blubber room was the largest and represented the tone and environment on a whaling ship, the Charles W. Morgan made most of its money off of baleen rather than oil. This was mainly due to the fact that she sailed until 1921 when oil became less practical and was replaced with petroleum and kerosene. Baleen was mostly used for fashion such as corsets and other grooming tools.


The Vault at Mystic Seaport
by Lila Glansberg

As it turns out, Mystic Seaport only has about 1% of their collection on display. Roughly 90% is housed in the Vault. The Vault is a maritime lover’s heaven! It has everything from the quirky to the bizarre. As Semester by the Sea students, we were granted access to the Vault and got a tour of all the artifacts tucked away back there. Here are some of my favorites:

This is a jaw bone of a sperm whale.  It was so big I had to take a panorama shot!  You can see the pockets where the teeth would normally be, as well as the part that connects the lower jaw to the rest of the head.

Elaborate scrimshaw done on whale teeth.  While life at sea is exciting, there were certainly hours of the day where sailors had nothing to do.  They were given hard structures from the whales they harvested to carve and paint pictures on.  This is known as scrimshaw, and could depict tales of whale hunts or beautiful women.  The Vault has a very large collection of scrimshaw.

A figurehead stares stoically off into the distance.  The Seaport has an exhibit with about 15 figureheads on display.  They store the rest in the The Vault.  Figureheads were carved and attached to the front of ships and can represent many different symbols.

The Vault also contains a vast collection of ship models, many of them very large.  This one tucked in the back looks very familiar…I wonder if there are mini Jack and Rose figurines on the inside?

A model of a large ship with square-rigged sails.  All of the full size ships that we were able to tour had their sails folded and tucked away.  The proportion of the sail to the boat is huge!  Clearly, these ships were great at harnessing the wind.

A peculiar model of a mole and a rat in a row boat.  Anyone recognize these characters?  I believe they are an allusion to the old children’s book The Wind in the Willows.

Scrimshaw done on the baleen from a whale.  Baleen whales belong to the order Mysticeti, and include blue whales, right whales, and humpback whales.  The name “Mysticeti” actually comes from the town of Mystic, Connecticut!  It was a big whaling town back in the day.  Additionally, the scientific name of the humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, means “winged New-Englander.”

On the left is a jar of whale fetuses preserved in formaldehyde.  These are believed to be baleen whales and collected on whaling journeys; when the whale is being cut up, the sailors may have discovered the fetuses if they fell out of the whale.  On the right is a column of whale oil, which had many purposes and was the main reason whales were hunted back in the day.

Painted swords made from structures on the heads of swordfish.

Scrimshaw that has been done on the flat noses of sawfish.

An old-school diving helmet sits on the top shelf of an aisle in the Vault.  I had to take a picture because it reminded me so much of Scooby-Doo.

Mystic Seaport
by Zach Roselle

After going for a tour of the Charles Morgan, we walked through the town to the Stillman Building, to see an exhibit titled “Voyaging in the Wake of the Whalers.” This exhibit displayed many artifacts and details of whaling. One board included pictures of whale and human parts comparing the sizes of whales to humans and a description. These comparisons included the human hand to the bowhead whale forelimb, the human tongue to the bowhead whale tongue, the human eyeball to the humpback whale eyeball, the human brain to the gray whale brain, and the human heart to the grey whale heart.

This picture shows the whale tongue, the long pink thing on the right that spans the picture and compares it to the human tongue, the little tongue on the left side. Whale tongues need to be so strong and powerful because they are used to push seawater through their baleen plates. This filters out the plankton and krill that they eat. The human tongue is about 4” while the whale tongue is 8’, a 1:24 ratio. This picture also shows the comparison of the human hand to the whale forelimb. The skeletons of these limbs are very similar as you can see from this picture. They both have finger like bone structure, however, whales have their “hands” encased in their fins and use them for swimming while humans have fingers and an opposable thumb. The human hand is 7.5” and the whale forelimb is 33”.

Also on the display was a comparison of the eyes of whales and humans. The whale eye is on the right and the human eye is on the left. The eyes are distinct in how they work as human eyesight is binocular and combine images, while whale eyes receive distinct images. The human eye is 100 times sharper then the whale eye. Also, humans have a very good color perception while whales see the ocean in shades of gray. The whale eyeball is about double the size of the human eyeball, as the human eye is about 1” and the whale eye is 2 1/8”.

The whale brain on the right is about 10” long and weighs about 9.5 pounds, while the human brain on the left is about 6” and weighs 4 pounds. Some whale brains are even bigger as a sperm whales brain weighs 22 pounds. Whale brains have yet to be intensely studied and are an area of whale research that is only beginning to be looked at and explored.

The whale heart is to the right and the human heart is on the far left. Due to whales weighing an average of 35 tons and having such a large body, whales need an enormous heart. The human heart is about 6” in length while the heart of whales are about 3.5’ long. Blue whales, the largest animals on earth have even larger hearts. These Blue Whale hearts are the size of a VW Beetle and can pump 10 tons of blood through the whale’s body. Humpback whale hearts weigh about 430 pounds.

Mystic Seaport - Ship Figureheads
by Helena Nierer 

One of the exhibits at Mystic Seaport is a collection of figureheads from ships. These figure heads were from a variety of different ships. The Seaport actually has a large collection of figureheads that they rotate through the exhibit. There are several reasons why not all of the figureheads are one display. One is that there just isn’t enough room for all of them in the exhibit.

This eagle was the figurehead on the clipper ship Great Republic. The Great Republic was the largest wooden cargo ship built by the United States at 335 feet long. The eagle was removed when the Great Republic caught fire a few weeks after it was launched.

This figurehead was from the steam yacht Iolanda. At the time the Iolanda was one of the largest steam yachts in the world. This figurehead is actually the second to be carried by the Iolanda and was recently restored by the staff at the Seaport.

While most decorative figureheads were carved in the likeness of women, sometimes they were made to look like men. This figurehead from the clipper ship Great Admiral. This figurehead is actually made in the likeness Admiral David G. Farragunt who served in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War.

This decorative billethead was a common sight on smaller vessels. Its simple design was easier to carve and place on a ship than an actual figurehead. It was an easier, cheaper design that would still make a ship’s bow look nice.

The White Lady is the odd figurehead in the exhibit because it is not actually a figurehead. There are several sighs that suggest that she was not actually a figurehead. One is that she stands to straight. Figureheads were curved to that they would fit their ship’s bow. Another is her arm. Figureheads don’t often have outstretched arms because the arm would be damaged at sea. In addition, there were no sign of any iron or wooden fastenings that would have been used to hold her onto a ship’s bow. 

The Last Trip: Going out in Song
by Maria Grima

The last leg of our wonderful Semester by the Sea experience was marked by singing and stomping with Geoff Kaufman (featured above), a professional shanty singer who looks remarkably like SoMAS professor Malcolm Bowman (featured below).

Kaufman is renowned for his shanty singing both nationally and internationally. His journey began in 1976 when he auditioned to perform at one of the biggest gigs that New York City had to offer at the time: a huge maritime palooza, the first of its kind. Needless to say he earned the part, and from then on became a world-traveling singer of sailor song. Kaufman has been based in Mystic, CT ever since he performed at the First Annual Mystic Seaport Music Festival. From then on, he has played an integral role in maintaining several music festivals for the museums at Mystic over the years.

Kaufman has performed at various maritime museums across the United States, including sites in Boston, San Francisco, Washington, Chesapeake Bay, and on ships in Philadelphia and Galveston. He is even regularly invited abroad to perform at festivals in France, England, Holland, Portugal, Poland and more! Clearly, we were very lucky to have the pleasure hearing him perform, and being in his presence in general. [Source: http://stevementz.com/hungry-ocean-music/]

For us, Kaufman performed several different songs using several different instruments, illustrating the vast diversity within the maritime music culture. He began the night by clicking and clanking buffalo ribs to produce a very complex series of beats that he was somehow able to simultaneously sing to. He also sang a cappella, with an accordion, and even with a nose flute!

To hear some of the songs he played for us, check out one of his most popular albums, Geoff Kaufman’s Sea Song Sampler, which can be found on Pandora, YouTube, and Spotify. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

This may have been our last trip, but it shan’t be the last of us...

Whale be back...

Mystic
by John DiMarzo

Friday, we went to Mystic, Connecticut, a hub of maritime history and culture. Among the various exhibits, a common thread was the presence of miniature scale models. Many of these models emulated ships and boats of the whaling era in mystic with great accuracy. We were so lucky as to have a guided tour through the private vault of the museum (it was made abundantly clear that this building was not open to the public).

As the guide brought us back into the vault, we passed by a few eclectic exhibit pieces in glass cases. He mentioned that one model in particular cost the model maker of 2000 hours in labor and research. It was amazing to look and see the attention to detail taken down to the scale of the lines, cleats, and decking. Once we were in the vault, it became clear that the pieces we had passed on the way in and the collections we had seen at other exhibits were but a small fraction of what the museum actually owned. there were rows of large shelves with whale bones, teeth, scrimshaw pieces, paintings, articles of clothing, and of course, ship models.

The guide showed our group one particular model that belonged to a collection of over 20 models made by the same person. The museum recently acquired a writing by this model maker, detailing the lengths he had gone to in order to achieve such painstaking accuracy and scale. He had, for this smaller model, used human hair for rigging, as he could not find any string small enough for scale. His models double as a small lock box, and in the box upon delivery he always includes a piece of literature pertaining to the type of ship or boat he has reconstructed. While some of these models are historical reconstructions for scholarly purposes, others were constructed during the lifetime of the ship as an ornamental piece for ship owners.

Crew living Quarters on the Charles Morgan
by Peter Larios

On November 18th our class visited Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, where we learned about the various cultural aspects of maritime New England. Perhaps the most popular exhibit was the whaling vessel Charles Morgan, which is the last of its kind from the whaling era. Although a large crew was required to man the vessel, it is interesting to note that patterns of Victorian class separation which took place on land were maintained at sea. The arduous labor, heavy seas, and often disgusting working and living conditions no doubt bonded these men together. Social class and stigma, however, overpowered these factors in their daily lives.

The rear of the vessel, both topside and down below, was maintained especially for the captain and his family, as well as for the first mates. On the topside portion of the vessel, the crew constructed a special living quarter for the captain’s wife. This was done because early on in one of the whale voyages, she learned that she detested everything about the ocean and whaling. Farther below deck was the first officers and captains quarters. Noteworthy for the time was the fact that the captain and first mate each received their own separate rooms, complete with bunks in addition to a desk and clothes chest. This element of Victorian society was also seen on land, and found its way to the innards of a whale ship.

The remaining crew members slept underneath the forecastle, while lies in from of the ship near the front mast. Unlike the captains and first mates quarters, the crew’s quarters was much more restricted and cramped. No desk or space for a private sea chest could be found, only the bunks and perhaps a small amount of adjacent space were allotted to the crew. The primary reason for this lack of space not only had to do with Victorian class ethics at the time, but also for making room for the whale oil storage and processing centers. The ships pay depended on how much whale oil it could bring home, and crew space was compromised to account for this. Some members of the crew, such as the carpenter and the cooper, were given additional space compared to the quarters of the unskilled crew. Overall living space, however, still lacked compared to the captain and the first mate.

This is the size of a typical crews sleeping quarters. Each man was given a bunk as well as a tiny space for personal effects. The more unskilled the man’s crew position, the lesser living conditions he was offered. Men who slept in these bunks were tasked with jobs such as dory rowing, blubber cutting, and sail and tackle raising.

This is a picture of the whale oil and baleen storage area. As the ships pay was dictated by how much of the hold was filled, the space for the storage area had to be maximized. It is for this reason why crew quarters were the size they were, as comfort was traded for pure profits. Additional space for the blubber room, where the blubber and oil was boiled down and processed, was also given. This lowered the living space for the crew even further, exemplifying the need for profit on a whaleship.

These were the sleeping quarters for both the cooper and the carpenter. If a crewmember knew a trade or was apprenticed, he was in turn given a greater berth size. The ships carpenter was a critical job, as he was responsible for maintaining the structure and seaworthiness of the ship during a voyage. A cooper’s job was to craft and assemble the wooden barrels used to store whale oil, an important job as the vessels profits depended on it. Any leak in the barrels could lead to spoiled oil, and any shift in the barrel hold could make the ship unseaworthy.

This is the top view of the vessel, looking aft towards the captain and first mates typical positions on deck. Visible behind the wooden grating in the center of the photograph is the captain’s wife quarters. Never having been to sea, she was disgusted by the ocean and the activity of whaling so much so that she demanded her own separate space on deck. Her berth not only housed a bunk bed, but also a small cage for her pet bird!

This is the view of the top deck. Beyond this point lies the forecastle, where the majority of the crew members whaling activities would take place. Raising and lower the sails, adjusting the rigging, and lowering the whaleboats would all take place from this point forward. The crews sleeping accommodations were therefore right below the forecastle, while those higher up in rank slept in the stern of the vessel. As discussed previously, the comfort of the men in the lower working classes was often compromised in order to maximize oil and baleen storage space.

A Whaling Ship with History and New Purpose

by Chris Wozny

The Mystic Seaport in Connecticut is home to the Charles W. Morgan, the last wooden whaling vessel in existence. Built in 1841, it is the oldest commercial ship still floating and after its renovation in 2014, was launched for its 38th voyage. Sailing from port to port around New England, the Charles W. Morgan allowed people a glimpse into the past and of maritime traditions, as well as educating people about sustainability and conservation of the amazing animals it once hunted.

It was customary for the captain of the ship to have their photo taken before the voyage. In 1903 Cpt. James A.M. Earle was accompanied by his wife Honor and son Jamie.

This photo was placed in the cabin of the ship after its restoration and the story that goes along with it was told by Jamie himself on a visit to the ship when he was in his 70’s. He is visibly upset due to an argument his parents were having. Jamie was late for the photo due to his shenanigans with the family cat, he ran up from the bowels of ship after chasing after the family cat. At picture time the family was in mid argument and Jamie was distraught at the notion that it was all his fault.

The Captain's quarters was one of two only private rooms on the ship. A privacy given only the Captain and first mate, a status that held them above everyone else working in the crew. It became commonplace for a captain to bring his family aboard, since whaling voyages would commonly take several months and sometimes years at a time. The decision to have a family on board was not a light one to make since the presence of the captain's family would often change the dynamic of the voyage. Children would have to be schooled on board, and a wife who had sometimes never before stepped off dry land would have to spend the first years of their marriage on a floating whale blubber factory.

Boat Building-Caulking the Ship
by James Macdonald

Ever hear of the phrase, “He runs a tight ship”, meaning he leads in a firm or an effective way? It comes from the practice in finishing a boat called caulking the ship. When constructing a boat, in order to become waterproof, the space in-between the planks must be filled in. This is traditionally done with reeds, straw, or old pieces of rope. First, the caulking material is prepared by soaking in pine tar. Then, using an iron and mallet, the material is pushed in-between the planks until packed tightly. The filled in lines are treated with a final coat of tar and thus, “the ship is run tight”.