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Account of the sinking of the ship Essex [transcript].
- Format:
- Book
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Nickerson, Thomas, 1805-1883.
- Pollard, George, Jr., 1791-1870.
- Archimedes (Ship).
- Essex (Whaleship).
- Surry (Ship).
- Birds.
- Cannibalism.
- Castaways.
- Christianity.
- Clothing and dress.
- Commerce.
- Dance.
- Death.
- Discipline.
- Fires.
- Food.
- Games.
- Labor.
- Manners and customs.
- Masts and rigging.
- Mental health.
- Motion sickness.
- Poetry.
- Postal service.
- Priests.
- Rescues.
- Salvage.
- Scurvy.
- Seafaring life.
- Ship captains.
- Shipwrecks.
- Songs and music.
- Starvation.
- Storms.
- Thirst.
- Whale oil.
- Whaling.
- Women.
- Azores.
- Chile--Talcahuano.
- Chile--Valparaíso.
- Falkland Islands.
- Massachusetts--Nantucket.
- Pacific Ocean--Alejandro Selkirk Island (Juan Fernández Islands).
- Peru--Paita.
- Pitcairn Islands--Henderson Island.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (96 pages).
- Production:
- [Place of production not identified] : [producer not identified], [date of production not identified].
- Summary:
- Typed transcript of Thomas Nickerson's account of the voyage and wreck of the Essex. Nickerson had been fifteen at the time and his story covers the whaling expedition, the destruction of the ship by a whale and the crew's attempts to survive. They were left with three small boats with which to get to land, and suffered from such a lack of provisions that they resorted to eating their dead companions.
- Notes:
- AMDigital Reference: MSS 106/Folder 2
- Collection: Thomas Nickerson Collection, 1819-1876
- Title from publisher's website.
- When the Essex sank in 1820, cabin boy Thomas Nickerson was just fifteen years old. He survived the tragedy, and went on to captain several merchant vessels. In the mid-1870s, Nickerson authored his own account of the tragedy, and sent his manuscript to a professional writer, Leon Lewis, hoping it would be refined and published. Instead, Nickerson's story was lost for some eighty-four years, until 1960, when the 105-page manuscript was uncovered in an attic in New York. It was returned to Nantucket in 1980, and finally published in 1984.Please note that some of the metadata for this document has been drawn from the Nantucket Historical Association catalogue.
- Description based on publisher metadata (viewed October 30, 2024).
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