Posted on 02/06/2023 6:18:21 AM PST by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1821, a first-time whaleship crewman named Owen Coffin was executed by a comrade to feed three starving mates.
Coffin was the second-to-last victim of an event which shocked the whaling community and inspired the novel Moby Dick.
Owen Coffin was a 17-year-old aboard a doomed whaling vessel called the Essex. He was cousin to George Pollard, Jr., who was making his first trek to the Pacific whaling grounds as a ship’s captain.
The Essex sailed from Nantucket Island in 1819, one of dozens of ships to leave port in search of whales and, ultimately, whale oil. In spite of the large numbers of whales slaughtered by whalers around the world, the Essex had the unfortunate honor of taking part in the first documented violent encounter by a sperm whale on a whaleship.
Of the whales available to the whalers of the day, the sperm whale was most prized: aside from the typical blubber found on all whales, which could be processed for its “oil” (actually a free-flowing form of wax), this whale’s head was filled with the clean-burning substance called spermaceti, a name inspired by its resemblance to the sexual fluid. Spermaceti fetched a high price at market when sperm whales were in sufficient abundance to hunt them....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Here’s a book report on it
https://youtu.be/WEDU2I9fp_8
I think “murdered” might be more appropriate than “executed”.
The story of the whaling ship Essex is a fascinating read. Much easier than Moby Dick.
And it is a TRUE STORY. Highly recommended.
Agree, would not use the term executed. More like an assisted suicide. Coffin volunteered to be killed according to the written accounts of the incident.
There are two written accounts of the wreck of the Essex. “In the Heart of the Sea” by Nathan Philbrick based on a manuscript written by Thomas Nickerson, the 14-year-old cabin boy. The other was written by Owen Chase, the 1st mate. It was written the year after he returned to Nantucket after being rescued. Its title is “Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex”. This is the book that Herman Melville use for part of his novel “Moby Dick”
Who goes whaling in a 38-foot boat? There's never a Chief Brodie around when you need one, is there?
The ship used in the film was 102 feet.
Speaking of 'Coffin," in the novel (and the film), the innkeeper at The Spouter, where Ishmael bunked in and shared a bed with Queequeg), was Peter Coffin.
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