Because how else will you power through the boredom AND the horrors!?
Two men aboard the Wanderer, photographed by Pardon B. Gifford in 1906 (New Bedford Whaling Museum)
Music featured quite frequently on whalers, though not necessarily in the same way as it might on a merchant vessel. The quintessential musical contribution of sailors—the sea shanty—didn’t hold as prominent a place aboard a whaler as it did on other types of ships. Some captains were particularly strict about keeping noise down while cruising to prevent gallying any nearby whales. Shanties were also less necessary for performing the work: Whaleships tended not to carry a great deal of sail, had a lot of hands aboard available to handle it, and were quite leisurely in their pace as they lolled around the globe for years at a time. This was unlike merchant ships that tended to have smaller crews, larger ships, and tighter schedules, all for which shanties were used more often to coordinate that work effort.
However, music was still vital to maintaining good morale during a whalers' work that was, in turns, extremely demanding and dangerous, and extremely dull and mind-numbing. Both of which could really plague a fellow's soul if there was no relief. A panacea for a whaleship's ills, music rang out in the fo'c'sle during idle hours, was sought out during shore leaves, was copied down in remembered songs in the backs of men's journals, and any fellow who hazarded to pick up an instrument or lift his voice was a prized member of the crew.
Even though they weren't as utilized, there were still occasions when shanties burst out on deck. Greenhand William Abbe of the Atkins Adams (1858) recalled them first being used several months into the voyage. This speaks to the fact that shanties weren't a regular part of whaling work, but rather an instance of one shipmate finally venturing to include them:
“We began to sing shanties last night in hauling aft sheets or bowsing on halliards — Jack leading in 'Johnny Francois' + 'Katy, My Darling' and all hands taking up the refrain + pulling with a will. This pleased the Mate who told us that pretty well for the first time that he liked to hear us make a noise—as it showed that Jack —not Allegany [surname of a crewmate on board] — but any one of us was awake. He laughed—waved his hands— + cried out 'that’s the way sailors'.”
Johnny Francois, A.K.A Boney
They were later "obliged to avast singing + haul away without the "Shantie" as the crew’s singing was so "ludicrous" that they were all laughing over it rather than effectively hauling. But even if shanties weren’t often used aboard the Atkins Adams to set the pace of the work, they still featured during downtime in their watches:
“Jack leading sung the watch out in Shanties 'Johnny Francois' 'Santa Anna' 'Katy, My Darling' +c. Mr. Gorland + Tripp came forward and joined us. It was very cold and wet — but our singing warmed our hearts while we were free from the spray and warm from mutual contact.”
On whaleships, shanties were more frequently employed—though still inconsistently—during more demanding tasks such as weighing anchor or working the windlass to haul up blubber. While greenhand John Perkins’s ship, Tiger, was lying at anchor at the Hawaiian islands in 1845, he mentioned hearing another whaling crew strike up a shanty upon leaving:
“When called this morning we heard the Neptune’s crew weighing anchor to the tune of ‘Tally hi o you know.’ After breakfast our watch went ashore on liberty”
Tally-I-Oh
Music was also greatly sought out during whalers’ shore leave. Thomas Nickerson, cabin boy of the ill-fated Essex, 1820, wrote about a dance hall in Talcahuano that he was quite unimpressed by, but his other shipmates enjoyed tremendously.
“There we found a few young women seated around the hall on wooden stools, and playing off some Spanish airs upon their guitars to dance by. There did not seem to be either melody or music in their touch, but after such an interval of confinement our men were ready to dance to anything had it even been a corn stalk fiddle. With their guitars were an accompaniment of an old copper pan used as a tambourine. To this music did our men dance apparently with as much satisfaction as though it had been the finest music in the world.”
Music was also one of the first ways whalers and locals at various ports of call built camaraderie between each other, where potential language barriers were no object if someone had along with them a fiddle (and maybe some alcohol). Such an interaction was recorded by Albert Peck, greenhand on the Covington that stopped in Guam in the 1850s:
“Having our fiddler with us, we went from one hut to another giving them a tune at each, which would please them very much, and to show their appreciation of it they would produce a bottle of aquadiente [Aguardiente] or brandy, and treat us to a glass which would consist of a coconut shell, until it became evident that this would not do if we intended to walk to the town, as before long we should be incapable of walking anywhere. So we started for the town.”
Whaler-made fiddle c. 1835-50, inscribed with the name Daniel Weeks. (New Bedford Whaling Museum)
But liberty always came to an end. When the Tiger departed Hawaii 10 days later, Perkins noted that they were too glum to accompany their leaving with a shanty:
“We weighed anchor without a song all feeling to bad at departing from summer islands to the cold Norwest sure of hard labor, absolute suffering & danger.”
Amidst that hard labor, absolute suffering, & danger, music served an essential function of bringing in levity and acting as a pressure release valve aboard.
Clifford Ashley, who joined the bark Sunbeam in 1904 on part of her voyage for research, described the music of his dog watch:
“Two misfit concertinas every night sent up their dismal wail to a tune that never varied, often keeping time with the strokes of a couple who pounded up hard bread in a canvas bag to be mixed into a molasses mush for their watch.”
A whaler’s concertina, c. 1850 (Nantucket Whaling Museum)
Any man who had a bit of a voice or could play a bit of an instrument quickly became a favorite among the crew, even if he only knew one song. Foremast hand William Stetson, of the Arab (1850s), was delighted when a new man they shipped aboard during a provision stop had some faint musical inclination.
“in the dog watches we enjoy ourselves very agreeably by stepping off a lively measure to the tune of “roads to Boston” as performed on the violin by Moody, one of those lately shipped at Lahaina. This is about the only tune he can saw off decently, but he is the first that has belonged to the bark this voyage who has made any pretensions to being a fiddler, and consequently the ‘doleful music’ of the skipper’s cracked violin is usually heard in the evening between the hours of five and seven P.M”
Road to Boston
Even in the absence of an actual musical instrument, crews made do with whatever they could get. William Abbe writes about one such time on the Atkins Adams:
Last night while gamming with F. Willy in the forecastle I was called on deck to help make up a set for a cotillion — being honored as the lady of Curly — we were at a loss for music + were stepping to the hummed air of Johnny the Boatsteerer + the orders of the dancing master — Jack — when Shanghai rushed up from the forecastle + jumping up on the oil cask looked forward of the windlass + squatting his long legs on the cask head began a toot toot on an old tin funnel, followed by Johnny Come Lately on an old tin bread pan for a drum — We greeted our band with shouts — + to the music of our mimic french horn and kettle drum chased up + down + joining hands by partners promenaded with double quick steps round the forecastle deck making the deck ring with our laughter — + the rattling music — both music and steps getting quicker + quicker till Tarpsechorz [Terpsichore] herself would have fled agast — + home belles and beaus would have fainted at the sight —our fun was suddenly interrupted by the order to shorten sail — + our quick stepping was only rivaled by our agility aloft for we reduced sail in unusually short time.
The captain, enjoying their sense of play but finding their makeshift music particularly disagreeable, then came up on deck to give them something to better it:
“Old Man liked the fun but didn’t like the music for Old Woman — brot up on deck a new accordion + calling Charley aft consigned it to him with the injunction to use it well — Charley came forward — delighted— + mounting the spars struck up Fisher’s Hornpipe + the strums sounding through the calm evening animated us till Jack or Molly [a crewmate currently crossdressing for the role] + our barefooted stepping got the whole Ship’s Company in a roar — from the Old Woman to Cabin Boy.”
Crew members of the Charles W. Morgan, 1906, taken by Pardon B. Gifford (New Bedford Whaling Museum)
Sometimes music was a little less favorably received. J.T. Langdon, greenhand on the St Peter, 1840s-50s, had brought his fiddle aboard to entertain himself, and at one point taught the Captain how to play it. On the homeward bound stretch--with his patience with the job and everyone on board strained to the limit--he grumbled about music-making halting getting home quickly:
“There seems to be an little disregard to sailing the vessel on the part of the Captain and the Mate. The 'Old Man' will saw away on his 'old fiddle' and the mate will tinker and the ship goes where she likes. I have sometimes almost cursed the day that I learned the Cap'n to fiddle.”
Sometimes, sailing be damned, it was time for an entire musical production, as on veteran whaler John Martin's ship, the Lucy Ann, 1841. He wrote out the Program along with the nicknames of the performers.
Programme
Part 1st
Song. One eyed Riley With chorus by whole crew. - By Chub.
"There was a Sheppards daughter, Kept sheep on yander hill" - by Lightning
Song. I hit her right on her stinking Machine - by Hominy Head
Solo. On Kent Bugle by - myself
Part 2nd
Song. Cant you wont you stay a little longer - by Turpin
"Turkish Lady - Black Leg
Duette with Drum & Fife - Chub & [left blank]
Part 3rd
Song. My dogs eyes makes mince pies - Steward
"Morgan Ratler - Spunyarn
"The Meremaid in three parts by - Hardy
"Trayum with chorus by crew
Part 4th
Song. Kelly the Pirate - King David
"Tally ho - Spunyarn
"Lord Lovell that went strange, countries for to see - Hardy
Solo. on flute by - Young Norval
Part 5th
Song. Fanny Blair - Turpin
"French Lady - Mizen
"All the girls in our town - Steward
Part 6th
Song. So early in the morning, the Sailors love the bottle O. - by Mocho a color'd Gentleman
"Milkmaid - Hominy Head
"Two little sisters walking up the street" - Jersey
Grand Chorus by the whole Crew on Bugle, Drum, Fife, Flute, Violins, Triangles, &c. & wound up by The mate telling us if we did not quit making such a damned noise he would heave a bucket of stinking water over us. Ends the same.
An excerpt of John Martin’s above program.
Often, in the backs of journals whalemen would write songs that are still known today. Rolling Down to Old Maui, Blow Ye Winds, Coast of Peru, Homeward Bound, Saucy Sailor, etc. These were learned on the job, or exchanged between crew mates.
From the journal of William Buel of the Wave, 1856, the lyrics to Saucy Sailor which he learned from a fellow greenhand:
“I am young my love and I am frolicsome
Good natured kind and free
And I don't care a single toss my boys
What the world says of me
~~~~
Learnt from my friend
Joseph F Horan”
There's something quite lovely to having a shared thread from their lives into the present. We might be separated by a gulf of over a century, but we know the lyrics to the same songs.
Some whalers composed their own songs, too. I'll close with one written by career whaleman Joseph Dias, when he was captain of the St. George in 1853. He ended his lyrics with the note 'Read and Circulate', so I see it as my duty to do him a small kindness 170 years later by circulating it now.
Paradox
Come all ye shipmates lend an ear
And the truth you soon shall hear
Of the Ship St. George in the zealous sea
Who is raiseing hell it seems to me
—
The way we try to get our grease
So to strike three whales and save a piece
Beside two whales of india ruber
The boatsteerer swore to be slack blubber
—
Very poor advice I freely lend
Of a way I highly recommend
To take a crowbar and punch a hole
Drive in the iron and the pole
—
Hang to your line till all is blue
Either kill him or he kill you
We want a man upon the docket
To go ahead like david Crockett
--
Promoting men at our expense
Takes our dollars with our pence
Besides it throws our work away
This thing For sure will never pay
—
To see the whales was once the cry
They are here where e're you turn your eye
They have raced for rise to sitting sun
Been on a dozen and killed but one
—
To man that’s taught in a bowhead school
Will find himself here but a fool
Read and Circulate
