A whale strikingEssex on November 20, 1820, depicted in a sketch byThomas Nickerson
History
United States
Name	Essex
Laid down	Amesbury, Massachusetts,[1] US
Launched	1799[1]
Fate	Attacked and sunk by asperm whale, November 20, 1820
General characteristics[2]
Type	Whaler
Tons burthen	23872⁄95 (bm)
Length	87 ft 7 in (26.7 m)
Beam	24 ft 0 in (7.3 m)
Depth	12 ft 6 in (3.8 m)
Notes	Four whaleboats, 20–30 feet (6.1–9.1 m), plus one spare

Essex was an Americanwhaling ship fromNantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799. On November 20, 1820, while at sea in the southernPacific Ocean under the command of CaptainGeorge Pollard Jr., the ship was attacked and sunk by asperm whale. About 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) from the coast of South America, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in threewhaleboats with what food and water they could salvage from the wreck.

After a month at sea, the crew landed on the uninhabitedHenderson Island. Three men elected to stay on the island, from which they were rescued in April 1821, while the remaining seventeen set off again for the coast of South America. The men suffered severedehydration,starvation and exposure on the open ocean, and the survivors eventually resorted tocannibalism. By the time they were rescued in February 1821, three months after the sinking ofEssex, only five of the seventeen were alive.

First mateOwen Chase and cabin boyThomas Nickerson later wrote accounts of the ordeal. The tragedy attracted international attention, and inspiredHerman Melville to write his 1851 novel,Moby-Dick.

WhenEssex departed fromNantucket, Massachusetts, on her fateful voyage in August 1819, she was considered to be a lucky vessel, as her previous six whaling expeditions had brought in good profits.^[3] She was twenty years old and had been refitted during the summer.^[4] At only 88 feet (27 m) in length, and measuring about 239tons burthen,Essex was small for a whaling ship.^[2][5] She was equipped with fivewhaleboats, each about 28 ft (8.5 m) in length.^[6]

Essex set sail with a crew of twenty-one men. Twelve, including the officers and two of the three boatsteerers, were born or raised in Nantucket while nine were off-islanders. The captain, 29-year-oldGeorge Pollard Jr., had sailed assecond mate ofEssex in 1815-1816, and asfirst mate in 1817-1819. The first mate, 21-year-oldOwen Chase, had sailed onEssex in 1817-1819. The second mate was 26-year-old Matthew Joy. The three boatsteerers were Obed Hendricks and Benjamin Lawrence, both 20 years old and from Nantucket, and Englishman Thomas Chappel. At age 14, cabin boyThomas Nickerson was the youngest member of the crew, while at least five more were under the age of 20.^[3]

Essex departed from Nantucket on August 12, 1819, on what was expected to be a roughly two-and-a-half-year voyage to the whaling grounds off the west coast of South America. The route towardsCape Horn was an indirect one dictated by the prevailing winds of theAtlantic Ocean. First the ship would sail with thewesterlies towards Europe and Africa, and then back towards South America with the northeasttrade winds. There were scheduled stops at theAzores andCape Verde Islands, where the ship could be stocked with provisions more cheaply than at Nantucket.^[7]

A few days into the voyage,Essex was hit by a suddensquall in theGulf Stream. She was knocked on her beam-ends and nearly sank; damages included the loss of hertopgallant sail and two whaleboats, with an additional whaleboat sustaining minor damage. Pollard's initial thought was to return to Nantucket for repairs, but he accepted the arguments of Chase and Joy, the first and second mates, who wished to continue to the Azores. At the Cape Verde Islands the crew were able to purchase a whaleboat.^[8] Later, asEssex sailed down the east coast of South America, three months into the voyage, the first whale was killed.^[9]

In the face of strong winds from the west,Essex took over a month to round Cape Horn into the whaling grounds of theSouth Pacific. In January 1820 she met up with other whalers from Nantucket atSt Mary's Island off the west coast of Chile.^[10]

After several months searching for whales off the coast of Chile,Essex sailed north and met with more success off the coast ofPeru. Within two months they had killed enough whales to produce 450 barrels of oil.^[11] In May 1820,Essex hailedAurora, another whaler from Nantucket, whose captain told them that another whaling ground, known as the "offshore ground", had been discovered more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) off the Peruvian coast. Pollard decided that, after making provisioning stops, he would set sail for these new grounds, rather than stay in the depleted coastal grounds.^[12]

In September 1820,Essex sailed to the Peruvian port town ofAtacames (now part of Ecuador). It was here that Henry DeWitt jumped ship, leavingEssex with a crew of only twenty. When whales were spotted fromEssex, the three whaleboats, each with an officer, a boatsteerer and four crew members, would go in pursuit. Without DeWitt, there would be only two crew members left aboardEssex, not enough to safely handle a ship ofEssex's size and type.^[13]

To restock their food supplies for the long journey,Essex sailed for Charles Island (later renamedFloreana Island) in theGalápagos Islands. The crew needed to fix a serious leak and initially anchored off Hood Island (now known asEspañola Island) on October 8, 1820. During a week at anchor, they captured 300Galápagos giant tortoises to supplement the ship's food stores. They then sailed for Charles Island, where on October 22 they took another sixty tortoises. The tortoises weighed between 100 and 800 pounds (45 and 363 kg) each. The sailors captured them alive and allowed some of them to roam the ship at will; the rest they kept in the hold. They believed the tortoises were capable of living for a year without eating or drinking water (though in fact the tortoises slowly starved).^[14][15]

While hunting on Charles Island, Chappel lit a fire as a prank. It was the height of the dry season, and the fire quickly burned out of control, surrounding the hunters and forcing them to run through the flames to escape. By the time the men returned toEssex, almost the entire island was burning and Pollard swore vengeance on whoever had set it. The next day, the island was still burning as the ship sailed for the offshore grounds; even after a full day of sailing, the fire was still visible on the horizon. Chappel would only admit that he had set the fire much later afterEssex sank.^[16] Many years later, Nickerson returned to Charles Island and found a blackened wasteland; he observed "neither trees, shrubbery, nor grass have since appeared".^[17]

WhenEssex reached the hunting grounds about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) west of the Galápagos Islands, whales still proved elusive. When they finally found a whale on November 16, 1820, it surfaced directly beneath Chase's boat. No one was injured, but the boat required repairs.^[18]

At eight in the morning of November 20, 1820, the lookout sighted spouts, and the three remaining whaleboats set out to pursue apod of sperm whales. On theleeward side ofEssex, Chase's whaleboatharpooned a whale, but its tail struck the boat and opened up a seam, forcing the crew to cut the harpoon line and return toEssex for repairs. Two miles away off thewindward side, Pollard's and Joy's boats each harpooned a whale and were dragged towards the horizon away fromEssex.^[19]

Chase was repairing the damaged whaleboat on boardEssex when the crew sighted an unusually large sperm whale bull (reportedly around 85 feet (26 m) in length) acting strangely. It lay motionless on the surface facing the ship and then began to swim towards the vessel, picking up speed by shallow diving. The whale rammedEssex, rocking her from side to side, and then dove under her, surfacing close on the ship'sstarboard side. As its head lay alongside thebow and thetail by the stern, it was motionless and appeared to be stunned. Chase prepared toharpoon it from the deck when he realized that its tail was only inches from therudder, which the whale could easily destroy if provoked by an attempt to kill it. Fearing to leave the ship stuck thousands of miles from land with no way to steer it, Chase hesitated. The whale recovered, swam several hundred yards forward of the ship, and turned to face the ship's bow.^[20]

I turned around and saw him about one hundred rods [500 m or 550 yards] directly ahead of us, coming down with twice his ordinary speed of around 24 knots (44 km/h), and it appeared with tenfold fury and vengeance in his aspect. The surf flew in all directions about him with the continual violent thrashing of his tail. His head about half out of the water, and in that way he came upon us, and again struck the ship.

The whale crushed the bow, driving the vessel backwards, and then finally disengaged its head from the shatteredtimbers and swam off, leavingEssex quickly going down by the bow. Chase and the remaining sailors retrieved the spare whaleboat while the steward, William Bond, ran below to gather the captain's sea chest and whatever navigational aids he could find. The whaleboats of Pollard and Joy were about 2 miles (3.2 km) fromEssex when one of the boatsteerers looked back and saw the ship falling on her beam-ends. The two boats hurriedly released their whales and rowed back toEssex.^[22]

The captain's boat was the first that reached us. He stopped about a boat's length off, but had no power to utter a single syllable; he was so completely overpowered with the spectacle before him. He was in a short time, however, enabled to address the inquiry to me, "My God, Mr. Chase, what is the matter?" I answered, "We have beenstove by a whale."

The cause of the whale's aggression is not known. InIn the Heart of the Sea, authorNathaniel Philbrick speculated that it may have first struck the boat accidentally or have had its curiosity aroused by the sound of a hammer as the damaged whaleboat was being repaired. The frequency and sound of the nailing may have sounded similar to those made by bull sperm whales to communicate andecholocate.^[24]

The crew spent the next two days salvaging what supplies remained from the waterlogged wreck ofEssex. Three whaleboats were rigged with makeshift masts and sails taken fromEssex, and boards were added to heighten thegunwales and prevent large waves from spilling over the sides.^[25] Inside Pollard's sea chest, which Bond's quick thinking had managed to save, were two sets of navigational equipment and two copies of maritime charts. These were split between Pollard's and Chase's boats; Joy's boat was left without any means of navigating except to keep within sight of the other boats.^[26]

Essex sank approximately 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) west of South America. The officers debated which route to take towards land. Pollard favored sailing west with the prevailing winds and current. The nearest islands to the west wereMarquesas Islands, about 1,200 miles (1,900 km) away, but Pollard was afraid they would encountercannibals there and concluded that it would be better to sail to theSociety Islands, about 2,000 miles (3,200 km). Chase and Joy disagreed, fearing that the Society islanders might be cannibals, and suggested sailing south for about 1,500 miles (2,400 km) and then picking up a band of variable winds to take them to the coast of Chile or Peru, all the time hoping to come across another whaleship. In fact, both the Marquesas and Society Islands would have been safe destinations, as the inhabitants were at that time friendly towards mariners, but Pollard accepted the suggestion of Chase and Joy.^[27]

Herman Melville later speculated that the crew would all have survived had they followed Pollard's recommendation and sailed to the Society Islands, writing: "All the sufferings of these miserable men of the Essex might, in all human probability, have been avoided had they immediately after leaving the wreck, steered straight forTahiti, from which they were not very distant at the time. But they dreaded cannibals".^[28]

The crew were divided between the three boats, under the command of Pollard, Chase and Joy, and on November 22, 1820, set off for land.^[29] Never designed for long voyages, all the whaleboats had been very roughly repaired, and leaks were a constant and serious problem during the voyage. After losing a timber, the crew of one boat had to lean to one side to raise the other side out of the water until another boat was able to draw close, allowing a sailor to nail a piece of wood over the hole. Storms and rough seas frequently plagued the tiny whaleboats, and the men who were not occupied with steering and trimming the sails spent most of their time bailing water from the bilge.^[30]

Food and water wererationed from the beginning, with the men first consuming the bread that had been soaked in seawater, even though it increased their thirst. After ten days of eating only meagre rations of bread, they slaughtered the first of the giant tortoises that had been salvaged from the wreck and achieved a small respite from hunger.^[31]

On December 20, exactly one month after the whale attack, with the men suffering fromstarvation,dehydration and exposure, the boats landed on uninhabitedHenderson Island, a smalluplifted coral atoll within the modern-day British territory of thePitcairn Islands. The men incorrectly believed that they had landed onDucie Island, a similar atoll 220 miles (350 km) to the east. Had they landed onPitcairn Island itself, 120 miles (190 km) to the southwest, they might have received help; the descendants of the survivors ofHMS Bounty, who hadmutinied in 1789, still lived there.^[32]

On Henderson Island,Essex's crew found food in the form of birds, eggs, crabs, fish andpeppergrass but water proved more difficult to find, although they eventually came across a freshwater spring below the tideline. After just one week, they had largely exhausted the island's food resources. On December 26, they concluded they would starve if they remained much longer. As most of the crew prepared to set sail in the whaleboats once again, three men – William Wright, Seth Weeks and Thomas Chappel, the only white members of the crew who were not natives of Nantucket – opted to stay behind on the island. Pollard promised, if he made it back to South America, to see that they were rescued.^[33] Pollard was true to his word, and the three men on Henderson Island were rescued bySurry, an Australian trading vessel, in April 1821.^[34]

The remainingEssex crewmen, now numbering seventeen in three boats, resumed their journey on December 27 with the intention of reachingEaster Island.^[35] On January 4, 1821, they estimated that they had drifted too far south of Easter Island and decided to make forMás Afuera Island off the coast of Chile. On the same day they exhausted their supply of fish and birds from Henderson Island and were back on daily rations of a cup of water and three ounces of bread.^[36]

On January 10, Joy, who had been in poor health even beforeEssex left Nantucket, died; his body was consigned to the sea. Pollard's boatsteerer, Obed Hendricks, took over the command of Joy's boat.^[37] The following day, Chase's boat became separated from the others during a squall.^[38] On January 20, Richard Peterson died on Chase's boat and his body too was buried at sea.^[39]

On the same day, more than 100 miles (160 km) to the north, Lawson Thomas died on Hendricks' boat. By this time the provisions on Pollard's and Hendricks' boats had almost run out, and they decided toeat the body. Two days later Charles Shorter died and was eaten.^[40] Within a few days Isaiah Sheppard and Samuel Reed suffered a similar fate.^[41] On the night of January 29, the boats of Pollard and Hendricks became separated. Hendricks' boat lacked any navigational equipment and he and his two remaining crew members, William Bond and Joseph West, were never seen again. Months later a whaleboat with four skeletons in it was found washed up on Ducie Island, and it was suggested that the boat was Hendricks'.^[42]

By February 6, the crew of Pollard's boat were again starving. It was decided to draw lots, and Owen Coffin was shot and eaten.^[43] Five days later Barzillai Ray died and was eaten by Pollard and Charles Ramsdell.^[44] Meanwhile, the men in Chase's boat had resorted to cannibalism when Isaac Cole died on February 10.^[45] "I have no language to paint the anguish of our souls in this dreadful dilemma", Chase later recounted in hismemoirs.^[46]

On the morning of February 18, Lawrence, who was steering Chase's boat, spotted a sail a few miles distant. They managed to catch up with the vessel, which turned out to be the British merchant shipIndian. Too weak to climb aboard the ship, Chase, Lawrence and Nickerson had to be lifted from their boat and carried to the captain's cabin. Later that day they came within sight of Más Afuera, the island towards which Chase had, with remarkable accuracy, been navigating. A few days later,Indian sailed into the port ofValparaíso. The whaleboat, which was being towed behindIndian, was lost in a gale.^[47]

On February 23, ninety-three days after the sinking ofEssex, Pollard and Ramsdell were spotted by the Nantucket whaleshipDauphin near St Mary's Island off the coast of Chile, whereEssex had stopped over a year before. Pollard and Ramsdell were close to starvation, sucking on the bones of their dead shipmates and drifting in and out of consciousness when they were taken aboardDauphin.^[48] They were then transferred to another Nantucket whaleship,Two Brothers, which was sailing for Valparaíso. On March 17, they reached the port and were reunited with Chase, Lawrence and Nickerson, who had been recovering on thefrigateUSS Constellation under the care of the ship's surgeon. All the whaleboat survivors were Nantucketers.^[49] On March 23, Chase, Lawrence, Nickerson and Ramsdell set off for Nantucket in the whaleshipEagle. Pollard was still too weak to make the journey and followed them aboardTwo Brothers in May.^[50]

The commander ofConstellation arranged the rescue of the three seamen who had stayed on what they thought was Ducie Island (actually Henderson Island). He asked the captain of an Australian trading vessel,Surry, which was returning to Australia, to stop at Ducie Island and pick up the survivors. When they found Ducie Island uninhabited, the captain ofSurry wondered if the officers ofEssex had confused Ducie and Henderson Islands and decided to sail on to Henderson Island, where they found Chappel, Weeks and Wright on April 9.^[51]

Pollard returned to sea in early 1822 to captainTwo Brothers. She was wrecked on theFrench Frigate Shoals to the northwest of theSandwich Islands during Pollard's first voyage as her captain. The crew, which included Nickerson and Ramsdell, took to two whaleboats and were picked up the following day by the whaleshipMartha, which had been sailing with them. This wreck was to end Pollard's whaling career; he was considered a doomed captain, or "Jonah", whom no whaleship owner would trust with a vessel. After one voyage aboard amerchant vessel, he retired from the sea and became a night watchman on Nantucket. Every year on November 20, the anniversary of the sinking ofEssex, he would lock himself in his room and observe afast.^[52] He died in Nantucket on January 7, 1870, aged 78.^[53]

Chase returned to Nantucket on June 11, 1821, to find he had a 14-month-old daughter he had never met. Four months later he had completed an account of the disaster, theNarrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex; Herman Melville used it as one of the inspirations for his 1851 novelMoby-Dick. Chase then sailed as first mate on the whaleshipFlorida, returning to Nantucket in 1823. His wife died after the birth of their third child, and he married the widow of formerEssex mate Matthew Joy. He then captained theNew Bedford whaleshipWinslow and the Nantucket whaleshipCharles Carroll, in which he owned a share. Chase married again after the death of his second wife, only to divorce his third wife when he found out she had given birth sixteen months after he had last seen her, although he subsequently brought up the child as his own. In September 1840, two months after the divorce was finalized, he married for the fourth and final time and retired from whaling. Haunted by memories of his ordeal, Chase suffered headaches and nightmares and began hiding food in his attic. He spent a period of about eight years in Quaise Asylum on the island.^[54] He died in Nantucket on March 7, 1869, aged 73.

Lawrence captained the whaleshipsDromo andHuron before retiring and buying a small farm at Siasconset on Nantucket.^[55] He died on Nantucket on March 28, 1879, aged 80.

Ramsdell captained the whaleshipGeneral Jackson.^[55] He died on Nantucket on July 8, 1866, aged 62.^[56]

Nickerson became a captain in the merchant service and moved toBrooklyn,New York.^[55] Late in his life he returned to Nantucket, where he ran aboarding house for summer visitors and wrote an account of the sinking, titledThe Loss of the Ship "Essex" Sunk by a Whale and the Ordeal of the Crew in Open Boats.^[57] Nickerson wrote this account fifty-six years after the sinking, in 1876, and it was lost until 1960; theNantucket Historical Association published it in 1984.^[58] He died in February 1883, aged 77.

The three men, Chappel, Weeks and Wright, who had been rescued from Henderson Island continued to work as crew members of their rescue shipSurry before making their way back to England and the United States. Chappel retired from sailing and became a missionary; he died of plague fever inTimor at an unknown date. Wright was lost at sea in a hurricane in theWest Indies about 1834. Weeks became a captain and retired toCape Cod, where he died on September 12, 1887, having outlived the rest of theEssex survivors.^[55]

As well as inspiring much of American author Herman Melville's classic 1851 novelMoby-Dick, the story of theEssex tragedy has been dramatized in film, television, and music:

• The dramatized documentaryRevenge of the Whale (2001), was produced and broadcast on September 7, 2001, byNBC.^[59]
• The television movieThe Whale (2013) was broadcast onBBC One on December 22, wherein an elderly Thomas Nickerson (played byMartin Sheen) recounted the events ofEssex. Charles Furness played the younger Nickerson,Jonas Armstrong played Owen Chase, andAdam Rayner played Captain Pollard.^[60]
• The 2015 filmIn The Heart of the Sea, directed byRon Howard, was based on Nathaniel Philbrick's book of the same name.Chris Hemsworth starred as Owen Chase andBenjamin Walker as Captain Pollard.Brendan Gleeson andTom Holland portrayed the elder and younger Nickerson, respectively.^[61]

• Cannibalism at sea
• R v Dudley and Stephens (1884), a case involving cannibalism out of necessity
• French frigateMéduse
• List of incidents of cannibalism
• List of people who disappeared mysteriously at sea

• Chase, Owen (1821).Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-ShipEssex. New York: WB Gilley.OCLC 12217894. Archived fromthe original on November 30, 2014. republished in 1965 asChase, Owen (1965).The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
• Heffernan, Thomas Farel (1990) [1981].Stove by a Whale: Owen Chase and the Essex. Middletown, CT:Wesleyan University Press.ISBN 0-8195-6244-0.
• Philbrick, Nathaniel (2001).In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. New York: Penguin Books.ISBN 0-14-100182-8.OCLC 46949818.

• Karp, Walter (April 1983)."The Essex Disaster".American Heritage.34: 3.
• Nickerson, Thomas (1984) [1876].The Loss of the ShipEssex Sunk by a Whale and the Ordeal of the Crew in Open Boats. Nantucket: Nantucket Historical Society.OCLC 11613950.

• Works about theEssex atOpen Library

0°41′S118°00′W / 0.683°S 118.000°W /-0.683; -118.000

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