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Owen Coffin was born 1 14 Aug 1802 in Nantucket, Nantucket Co., Massachusetts. He died 1820 in At sea.
Died at sea on board Ship Essex
In the safe of the Atheneum there is also another pamphlet, written by Owen Chase, First Mate of the whaler Essex. This booklet is extremely rare . . . Indeed, it is said that the last one sold for $1600! But that was Herman Melville's copy with his own notes penciled in the margin. The story of the Essex has a special interest because it gave Melville the material for that terrible last chapter of Moby Dick, when the White Whale rams the ship and sinks it. . . .
Owen Chase, in his preface, states simply that he lost everything when the Essex went down and issues "this pamphlet in the hope of obtaining something of remuneration by giving a short history of my sufferings to the world." His title, as was the fashion in those days, is a summary of the entire story:
Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex of Nantucket; Which was Attacked and Finally Destroyed by a Large Spermaceti Whale in the Pacific Ocean; with an Account of the Unparalleled Sufferings of the Captain and Crew During a Space of Ninety-three Days at Sea in Open Boats in the Years 1819 and 1820. By Owen Chase of Nantucket, First Mate of Said Vessel.
This is the story in brief. On November 20, 1820, while in the southern Pacific, Chase was out with his boat in pursuit of a whale, as were two other boats from the Essex. Chase had just harpooned his quarry when it disappeared and suddenly rose under the boat, damaging it so badly that it could barely be kept afloat until it got back to the ship. As the captain and second mate were still out in pursuit of another whale, Chase altered the direction of the Essex to come up with them. Meanwhile, he began to work repairing the leak in his own boat.
Suddenly, a huge sperm whale broke the water ahead of the ship. It spouted, disappeared and then rose again to the surface. In a moment it charged directly at the Essex. The helmsman tried to sheer off, but the whale struck the vessel such a blow as nearly to throw every man on his face with the shock. It was as if the ship had run full speed ahead on a reef.
The whale dived again, this time grazing her keel. Again it rose alongside and made off. Meanwhile, the vessel was sinking by the head. Chase signalled the recall of the other boats. Suddenly the whale began thrashing about convulsively. It turned, as if in fury, came faster than before and a second time rammed the Essex. The whole bow was stove in by this blow. Again the whale dived under the vessel and then made off.
Chase barely had time to cut away the lashings of the one remaining boat, put in some nautical instruments and shove off, before the ship went over on her beam ends. When the other boats came up the men managed to regain the wreck and cut away her masts. This righted her and brought her up somewhat. Then they chopped through her decks to get water and ship's bread for the long voyage. The captain's and the mate's chests were saved, containing some useful instruments and tools. Chase found in his chest a few sheets of paper and a pencil, which enabled him to keep some sort of record of the experience.
The castaways lingered about the wreck for nearly two days salvaging what supplies they could, including some turtles, and making sails and spars for their frail craft. The captain determined to head for the coast of Chile or Peru, two thousand miles away. There was land much nearer, to the west, the Marquesas Islands, but they were known to be inhabited by cannibals. Accordingly, the three open boats spread their sails toward the south and east, hoping to reach the line of the trade winds.
A month later they touched at a desert rock named Ducie's Island, where they were able to vary their diet with shellfish and bird's eggs and where they found some fresh water. Here they spent a week. Three men elected to remain and take their chances of living there. The others set sail again in the three boats.
Ducie's Island was 1500 miles from the scene of the Essex disaster, but actually farther to the west. Captain Pollard's decision to set a course east from Ducie's island has been criticized because he might have reached the Society Islands by a short sail. The course to the mainland meant a distance of 2500 miles more.
Ducie's Island, near Pitcairn.
Click on the image for current environmental information about the island.
On January tenth the second mate, Matthew Joy, died. He had been ill during the entire journey. Two days later a negro seaman was caught trying to steal an extra amount of ship's bread, but surrendered it at the point of a pistol and promised never to repeat his theft. That night a gale of wind and rain separated Chase's boat from the other two, and they never came together again. The small amount of provisions they had brought from Ducie's Island soon gave out. They ate a small species of clam found clinging to the bottom of the boat; they devoured stray flying fish that were caught in the sail--wings, fins, bones, and all--but were reduced in the main to the tiny allowance of hard-tack and water. They became so weak that they could not move an oar. One of the negroes died and was cast overboard. Then, on February eighth, Isaac Cole went mad from his sufferings and died in convulsions. Chase then made the suggestion that the body be used for food, and the other two men lost no time in complying. Chase describes with horrifying fidelity to detail how they fell upon the body of Cole and feasted. As the weather was hot they cooked the remainder of the flesh to keep it better. (They used the shell of a turtle as a hearthstone, and laid it on the sand ballast.) Ten days later, they were again on the verge of death from starvation. One lay down in the bottom of the boat to die. Just then a sail was sighted, and happily the ship's lookout spied the little boat at the same time. It was the English brig Indian. When the boat was brought alongside, the three surviving occupants were too weak to help themselves and had to be lifted into the ship. Indeed, one was so far gone that he was unconscious at the time of the rescue.
Meanwhile, the second mate's and the captain's boats were in no less straits for want of food and water. The entire stock of food in the mate's boat was consumed by January fourteenth. A negro seaman succumbed and his body was eaten. Shortly after, a second negro died; and as the captain's boat also was at this time entirely without food, the body was eaten by both crews. Next a third African in the mate's boat and a white man in the captain's boat died, and their bodies were consumed. The next day the mate's boat became separated from the other and was never heard from again.
In a few days the situation became so frightful in the captain's boat that on February first it was determined to draw lots to see who should be sacrificed in order to prolong the lives of the others. The lot fell upon Owen Coffin, the cabin boy, who was Captain Pollard's nephew. The lad submitted to his fate without a murmur. The captain begged the youth to let him take his place, but Coffin insisted on his "right," as he called it, to make the sacrifice. The executioner was also determined by lot and the dreadful duty fell upon another young man, Charles Ramsdell. Thereupon he implored Coffin to change places with him, but in vain. Ramsdell finally put the pistol to Coffin's head, turned his face away, and fired. The body of Coffin kept the survivors alive for another ten days, but Captain Pollard refused to eat from his nephew's corpse. Then another man died, and his body kept life in the remaining two, Pollard and Ramsdell, until they were rescued by a Nantucket whaler. The two groups of survivors from the boats, five in all, met in Valparaiso shortly after.
The three men left on Ducie's Island also were picked up later by a ship sent from Valparaiso. When rescued, they had spent 102 days fighting for existence on that island. In one of their explorations for food they came upon a cave, where to their horror they saw the skeletons of eight men lying side by side, the grim testimony to an earlier shipwreck.
Of the twenty men in the crew of the Essex, just eight survived in all. . . .
Captain Pollard made only one voyage after this experience, and that ended in shipwreck. He decided that he was born to be unlucky and never went to sea again. Chase, however, became master of a whaler and made several very profitable voyages. Both he and Captain Pollard lived to be old men.
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Owen Coffin's story inspired the music group Mountain's song "Nantucket Sleighride." |
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