“We took in Topmast studding sail haulled up on the foresail and luffed too with the fore and main yards aback the deceased was then layed upon the end of a board projecting over the ships side and a prayer was read by the 2nd Mate when our unfortunate shipmate who left home with as buoyant and as bright hopes as any of us was buried in his Ocean grave after toiling about 31 years all he could carry with him of this worlds goods was a few yards of canvas and a few pounds of sand.”
—William Chappell’s remarks on the death of a shipmate aboard the Saratoga, August 26th, 1853
A set of logbook stamps from the collection of the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Note, between the stamps for ships and marine life sighted, is a stamp for a coffin that would be used to mark deaths during the voyage.
Death was very common on whaleships be it from injury or disease—so frequent in fact that there were particular logbook stamps designed in anticipation of such an occurrence needing to be marked over the course of the voyage. I don’t think I’ve read a single journal where at least one person didn’t die, or was discharged at a port in such a state that he probably didn’t live long after. On the other hand, it’s surprising that there wasn’t more death given how incredibly dangerous the work was and how limited the medical care. But when a death occurred they were marked and acknowledged by the entire crew.
“At 9pm our poor Cook breathed his last we laid the poor fellow out and at 9am committed his mortal remains to the Ocean whose turn will it be next Echo answers who yes one of our numbers is gone in the prime of life and as I gazed on the course [corpse] of that man I tried to se[e] if aught I could wrench out of death but I could not fathom that iron Bound secret. middle and larter [latter] part strong breezes so ends.
[written in the margin] what is man we are born, we live we die, is that the end?”
— Benjamin Boodry, 2nd mate aboard the Arnolda, reporting on the death of William Murray, August 18th 1852.
When a whaler died at sea, their kin ashore rarely ever received closure in the form of a body. In some instances bodies were preserved in a cask of oil or liquor to be sent home. However, this was usually only ever done in the case of captains or members of their family, and even then was very rare to be done at all, regardless of rank. Burials at sea were the most common.
For a burial at sea the man would be dressed in his shore clothes. Then he’d be sewn up in canvas and weighted down with something heavy to keep the body from floating, thus making it as proper a burial as it could be. The sails were laid aback, all hands were called on deck for a brief funeral service, and then he’d be slid into the sea.
If there was ANY land though, port or otherwise, attempts would be made to bury him there instead. On the uninhabited (but for birds) Denis Island in the Seychelles, whaler J.T. Landgon of the St. Peter came across others’ makeshift graves on multiple occasions in 1851. He tended to get very reflective about them.
“While wandering over the island I chanced to pass by the grave of Wm Owen who died in the ship Lafayette of New Bedford. He is buried in a lonely part of the island with a pine board for a tombstone with the simple inscription William Owen aged 31 1848 He was I believe an American and a native of New Bedford In a short time the board will rot away and no trace will be left of the grave.”
A few months later, when they returned to the island for eggs Langdon remarked that the graves of two more men had appeared on the island.
“A single board marks their resting place on this desolate island simply stating their names, ages, and the day they died. They are buried close to the beach where the breakers dash up with a continuous sullen roar and the wild sea bird screams their funeral dirges over their lonely graves. The 2nd mate was with me where found them and the dusky night was drawing its sable veil over the Earth and sea as we turned sadly away from the lonely lot to return aboard sincerely hoping that such may not be our[s].”
In ports of call frequented by whalers there were often dedicated cemeteries for foreign seamen. Here’s a 1970s photo of the approximate location of the whaler’s cemetery in Paita, Peru.
The markers were likely wooden and have since decayed, so there’s no physical trace of graves now. The graves themselves were also quite shallow, and as it was just sand the remains were often exposed. Whaler Stephen Curtis, aboard the Mercury in 1841 described the “hundreds of greedy turkey buzzards [that] hovered around this miserable abode of death.”
In addition to the challenges of distance and decay limiting the possibility of shore burials, in the case of men killed by whales—such as a boat being stove or someone being taken out of the boat by a line, or otherwise drowned—it was often difficult to recover the body (though attempts were made). The Seamen’s Bethel in New Bedford has cenotaphs lining the walls, paid for by community members, to memorialize those who died at sea.
After a death, the man’s personal effects would either be locked up in his chest to be given to some relation ashore, or they’d be auctioned off among the crew. Very personal items such as journals, letters, mementos, or valuables, would likely be held onto by the captain in the hopes of returning them to friends or family, but things like the man’s tools or clothes would be put up for auction. The stated purpose of the auction was to give the money to the deceased’s loved one’s ashore, but the cultural purpose was deeply connected to the social life of the ship. Men often paid much more than an old shirt or a sheath knife was worth, and it wasn’t because they had any intention of using them—it was extremely bad luck to use a dead man’s belongings. Instead, through that auction they were buying a memento mori for themselves and a physical remembrance of their lost shipmate.
In a place where one only sees the same 20-30 faces every single day for years out, bound together in very difficult conditions, a loss of anyone would be keenly felt. This is evidenced in the entries men make about the deaths of their companions, not only commenting on their character but reflecting on the hole left within the crew and their families back home.
“The boatsteerer that was lost, was a colored man of Indian extraction called Benjamin S Johnson, belonged to Bridgewatter Mass. and was about 22 years of age. Being acquainted with our captain, when at home, at his instigation Johnson shipped on board the Arab and came out with us, before the mast. In Magdelena bay he was made a boatsteerer, did his duty well, and when we arrived in Lahaina he was shipped over in that capacity. Not a man on board the bark was more generally esteemed than he and his loss was deeply regretted. He leaves a father, and several brothers and sisters to mourn his loss when the sad tidings shall reach their fireside…The carpenter has been employed all week in repairing the Bow boat, but he has has now nearly finished her and if an opportunity offers she will probably be down again next week none the worse for the damage she sustained on Sunday, but poor Johnson, his loss cannot be compensated for, whatever may be our future success.”
— William Stetson, greenhand aboard the Arab, reporting on the death of boatsteerer Benjamin Johnson, May 18th, 1856.
In addition to noting deaths in their own journals, sometimes a fellow whaler would write in the back of the deceased’s journal before it went to the captain (or the Captain would write in it himself) to explain what happened to any living eyes who read it in the future. In these it’s clear how much impact a death had on the entire crew. Here was a poignant note left anonymously in the back of John Perkins’s journal, greenhand on the ship Tiger, who was killed by a whale at age 21 on June 15th, 1846.
“It has become the painful task of one of the friends of the deceased to conclude the journal which has been thus far written to transmit to his friends the particulars of his end, but before closing the volume, justice to him who has been called away demands an expression of the feelings and regrets of his companions. To say that he was esteemed and respected by all would be but a slight testimony to his worth. His gentleness of manner, kindness of heart & disinterested generosity won upon every one and the good nature & amicable disposition that characterized him endeared him to his shipmates. His death so unexpected, so mournfully sudden produced a shock that will never be effaced from the minds of his friends. Every breast felt a pang, every eye was dimmed with a tear & words of pity & sorrow of which the pen cannot do justice burst from every lip. Beloved by all & bound to us by ties which none can appreciate but those who have passed months together within the narrow compass of a ship, his decease has caused a gap which will never be filled.”
When I come across these small memorials in journals it makes me think of all the men who died at sea that I’ve tried to find word on, but whose deaths silently slipped through the cracks of the paper record. So many working class lives historically go unrecorded by any sort of official documentation. Sometimes papers will publish a perfunctory notice of death, but usually they don’t. The person is just there on paper, sometimes, in crew manifests or census records or city directories, and then just isn’t anymore. In each of these journals I’ve read, if someone dies on the voyage, the journal keeper usually makes a point to name him. They say how old he was, where he was from, if he had any known family left behind, how the crew felt about him (and there was almost always a lamentation of the void he left behind). Sometimes they also do it for other ships’ crews where a stranger was lost, where the news is brought up in a gam—they record the information as well even though they didn’t know him personally. They come across old makeshift graves of strangers on uninhabited islands and also make a point to write down the information on the grave in their own journal.
Who he was, how old he was, where he hailed from, when he died.
It does something to me to know that somewhere those lives and deaths are recorded. And that they’re recorded in someone’s private journal, where he briefly departs in writing about himself and the life happening around him and instead makes a little note in acknowledging the loss of another. It’s something about the information-sharing, specifically—that beyond mentioning that a man died and the effect that death had on the writer, he’s being specific about where the man’s home was, who he was. That even though no one is going to read those personal journals (or so, perhaps, they thought), they’re still trying to pass the word along through them.