It was November 6, 1857: a day I will never forget. I sat in the rowboat silently, staring over the starboard side, watching the ruined hull of the once mighty whaler sink below the ever-rolling waves of the North Atlantic, taking down with it some of the most ambitious men I ever knew. It was a scene unlike any I had ever witnessed in my twenty-seven years of life, and one that could only be paralleled by the five months of action preceding it. Since it’s almost impossible for me to speak publicly about these events, I have instead resorted to writing them down in this faded, water-stained journal I began keeping on that fateful voyage of four years ago.

New Bedford, Massachusetts was one of the liveliest towns I had ever lived in. After I failed to find work as a master blacksmith in the state as industry replaced apprenticeship, I sought a new area of work. But I didn’t just want work; I wanted adventure. New Bedford had a booming whaling culture, though it was at that point declining. And I wanted to take advantage of it before the chance was lost. Growing up in the coastal towns of Pennsylvania, I was well-acquainted with whaling, and two of my uncles had been whalers. One of them was killed at sea; the other eventually became a profitable merchant of lamps fueled by whale oil. So I figured my odds were 50-50. And always having that air of confidence around me that I had at that point of my life, I naturally expected to be in the better 50%. So, at the age of twenty-three, I enrolled in the crew of a whaler by the name Osprey, and we embarked in May of 1857. Though I had hoped to be a harpooner, I instead found myself as a mere cabin boy on this voyage, despite protests to Captain Bram, whom my father knew from business ventures in New Bedford. In light of all this, the Osprey set sail on May 18, 1857, leaving the harbor with much fanfare and celebration. We were expected to bring back a large haul.

As we headed out farther to sea, I began to become better acquainted with the rest of the crew. There was Micajah, the first mate, Obadiah, the second mate, and Anthony, the third mate. Captain Bram had gotten the best harpooners he had ever seen hunt a pod of whales, and there were four, Cyrus, Abram, Elijah, and Ned. There was also Chauncey, who specialized in the flensing of whales, which is quite a gruesome task. Every member of the crew was of course tasked with spotting a blow, which would signal a chase and a hunt. During the first five months, we tracked several pods of whales, but Captain Bram had a very clear image in his mind of the whale we would bring back from this voyage. This would be his moment for glory, his moment for power, his chance for wealth. And it all depended on the whales. Because without the whale, there is no spermaceti wax or sperm oil or muktuk or blubber or baleen. Thus, Captain Bram wasn’t just hunting for a whale. He was hunting for a leviathan, and the crew along with him.