Nantucket has always been known for its prosperous whaling economy. In the 1700s, Massachusetts governors relied on the whalers in Nantucket for economic profit. Nantucket became the whaling capital of the United States. The reason whales were so profitable back then was because of the use of oil and spermaceti to produce lighting and lubrication.
In 1820, a whale pounded into the Nantucket whaling ship called the Essex in the center of the Pacific Ocean. Twenty-one sailors then split up among three smaller ships. The whaling business was dangerous, therefore, there were ethnically diverse groups among the crew. Nine Nantucket-born, twelve off-islanders, six were recruited at Boston, one was born in another country, fourteen were white, and seven were black among the Essex ship crew.
To get to know the crew better, George Polland Jr, the captain of the ship, was a 28-year-old white male at the time. He married his nineteen-year-old wife, Mary Riddell, two weeks before setting sail. When the three ships split up with little supplies, some ended up resorting to cannibalism.
They were near South America with no easy way to get back home. They chose the longest route because the Marquesas tribe was inhabiting the closest island, and they assumed the men were cannibals. Only eight men survived, with three attempting to inhabit a small island and five going in two boats that sailed to South America. In the end, only nine of the twenty-one men survived. One boat got lost, and all the men on that boat died.
On Owen Chase’s boat, they were rescued by a British boat, and only three men had survived. On Pollard’s boat, only two men had survived and were rescued by an American ship.
We know of these stories because of Owen Chase’s eyewitness account. He was the first mate, and I’d like to focus on his story. Chase suffered from anxiety and depression from the terrifying experience of being stuck at sea. They dealt with severe sun poisoning and saltwater sores. Men eventually started to die of starvation and dehydration. The others resorted to cannibalism for their survival. Something really cool about Nantucket is that they have all this information right in the museum.
My experience happened in 2024. In the summer, I took a trip to Nantucket with my best friend. My friend’s family knew an ancestor of Owen Chase, who let us stay in his house.
The house was right on Main Street, showing his extreme wealth even back then. The house has a four-story spiral staircase with a luxurious grey carpet.
There was a greeting room to the right with a picture of Owen Chase. In the next room, there was a window nook with a bench to read, there was a huge living room with a door leading to the deck. The bathroom had a sink with a cherry blossom pattern and a pink sink.
There were two kitchens, one for the family and one for the slaves. The slave kitchen was barely a room, with the wall encroaching into standing space. The basement was dark with creaky stairs. When I went down there to explore, the light was on the opposite side of the room, so I had to walk in the dark. I ended up falling into a four-foot dirt hole.
When I started to walk upstairs, there was a Harry Potter-like nook under them. Upstairs, there were five bedrooms with two bathrooms. Each bedroom was gigantic, some had enough for two beds. On the top floor, there were two more bedrooms that each held two beds. The point is that Owen Chase was very well off after experiencing his story on the Essex.
Here are some pictures from inside the house:
In the end, although Owen Chase was very wealthy, the terrible things he witnessed, such as cannibalism, led to his life of suffering with PTSD, anxiety, and depression.
