area south of the center of town, where for a while he owned a house jointly with David Wyer with whom he had family ties through the Meaders. He subsequently owned land closer to town between Beaver and Spring streets and owned other land as well. Whether he had a house on the Beaver Street property is not clear, but he also acquired other land including a lot and house two blocks from the Beaver Street property, which in time he sold to his son Owen.
To Judah and Phoebe Chase were born eight children. Benjamin, the first, died as a young man from drowning in the harbor in March 1809; his birth date has not been recorded. Eliza was born in 1791, William in 1794, Owen on October 7, 1796, Joseph M. in 1800, George G. in 1802, Alexander M. in 1805, and Susan in 1806.10 In 1808 Judah’s wife Phoebe died, and in the same year he married Ruth Coffin, forty years old, by whom he had one daughter, Maria, born in 1812.
All five of Judah’s surviving sons turned to the sea, and all five in time became whaling captains, an accomplishment that would distinguish the family even in Nantucket. The rapid rise of all of them to captain suggests that they started their sea careers at the earliest possible ages—they were all captains in their late twenties, save Alexander who was thirty at the time of his first known captaincy.
Judah Chase had the satisfaction of seeing all of his sons rise to captain, complete their sailing careers, and retire from the sea before his death in 1846.
About Owen Chase’s early years little is known. He clearly had some schooling, but it is hard to know where. Public schools were not founded on the Island until 1827, except for a short-lived effort in 1716 to establish one. There were some Quaker schools, dame schools, cent schools, and infant schools, but in 1818 a town committee reported that there were between three and four hundred children in the town between the ages of three and fourteen who could not afford private schooling.11
The soundest evidence we have of Owen’s literacy is the 1836–40 log of the Charles Carroll.12 Owen, the captain, kept the log himself, as is clear from his first-person references, and it demonstrates an adequate mastery of the written language in most matters save spelling. Whether or not we should read Owen’s Narrative of the Essex shipwreck as coming from his pen is a question left for chapter 5.
Owen’s religious upbringing cannot be determined from extant Nantucket church records. His name does not appear in surviving Baptist, Methodist Episcopal, or Congregational church records or in records of the Quaker Meetings.13 But Owen’s sister-in-law Winnifred, the wife of Joseph M. Chase, is on the Quaker records from 1834 to 1844 (the year that Joseph and family left Nantucket), and a tradition has been passed on in Joseph Chase’s family that the Chases were Quakers.14 If the text of Owen’s Narrative accurately reflects his sentiments, he was a devout man; most likely these are accurate impressions, for a similar piety is manifest in a letter (quoted in chapter 4) of Joseph Chase.
What Owen’s first ship was and how old he was when he sailed on it are not known, but what his second—or perhaps third—ship was is known. On June 11, 1817, at the age of twenty he sailed from Nantucket on a whaling voyage on the Essex under Capt. Daniel Russell and a first mate named George Pollard, Jr. However much sea experience he had had at that time he was certainly not a green hand, for he was hired as boatsteerer, and no one became boatsteerer on his first voyage.
The boatsteerer’s, or harpooner’s, duties are graphically described in chapter 62, “The Dart,” of Moby-Dick: after the harpooner rises from his forward oar, pitches his harpoon into the whale, and stands back from the speeding line, the headsman comes forward, exchanges positions with the harpooner, and uses his lance to pierce the whale’s vital organs.
Had Owen’s first voyage or voyages been on the Essex? There is a suggestive continuity of service between the 1817 voyage of the Essex and its 1819 voyage: Captain Russell retired, the first mate moved up to captain, and the boatsteerer moved up to first mate. One is led to guess that Boatsteerer Chase and Mate Pollard had served each in a lower grade on the Essex’s 1815 voyage. Owen would have been eighteen years old at that time. And before that? Owen’s brother Joseph went to sea at the age of fifteen and Owen as captain of the Winslow was to have thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds serving under him.15 It was common for boys to go out on whaling ships at this age. Owen’s 1817 voyage may well have been his third.
In any event young Seaman Chase arrived back in Nantucket from the Pacific on April 9, 1819, after an almost two-year voyage on the Essex, a fairly prosperous voyage for a ship of that size, resulting in 160 barrels of whale oil and 1,260 barrels of the more valuable sperm whale oil. Owen’s lay from the voyage was one sixty-second, that is, his pay was one sixty-second of the profits.16
This money gave him something to live on and something to get married on; on April 28, 1819, about three weeks after he returned from sea, he married Peggy Gardner. They had part of the spring and early summer together before Owen went to sea again on August 12, 1819, this time as first mate of the Essex. On April 16, 1820, while the Essex was cruising and taking whales off the coast of Chile, Owen’s first child, Phebe Ann, was born back in Nantucket.
The Essex, which by this time Owen had gotten to know inside out, was not a new ship—it had been sailing for twenty years when Owen went out as first mate. The ship is described in its original register:
William Bartlet of Newburyport in the State of Massachusetts Merchant, having … sworn that he is the only owner of the Ship or vessel called the Essex of Newburyport whereof George Jenkins is at present master, and is a citizen of the United States, as he hath sworn and that the said ship or vessel was built at Amesbury in the said state this present Year One thousand seven hundred and Ninety Nine, And Michael Hodge surveyor of this District having certified that the said ship or vessel has two decks and three masts and that her length is eighty seven feet, seven inches her breadth twenty five feet her depth twelve feet six inches and that she measures two hundred thirty eight tons; and seventy two ninety fifths that she is a square sterned ship has no Gallery and no figure head.17
Subsequent registers of the Essex make it possible to trace its history. On May 7, 1804, a temporary register was issued in Newburyport indicating that the ship had been sold to David Harris (who was also its master) and Sylvanus Macy of Nantucket.18 Two months after this temporary register was issued, the new Nantucket owners brought the ship home to its new port, and on July 7, 1804, a permanent Nantucket register was issued.19 On June 21, 1815, a permanent Nantucket register was issued for the Essex indicating that the owners were Daniel Russell, Walter Folger, Gideon Folger, David Harris, Philip H. Folger, Benjamin Barnard, Paul Macy, and Tristram Starbuck, “all of Nantucket.”20 Some notations made on the back of this register indicate that a contemplated change of captain after the 1815 voyage (which Owen Chase may have been on) never took place: on November 19, 1816, the Essex returned from its 1815 voyage; four days later Tristram Pinkham replaced part-owner Daniel Russell as captain, but on May 26, 1817, two weeks before the ship was to sail on the voyage on which Owen Chase was boatsteerer, Daniel Russell resumed the captaincy. Another notation on this same register records George Pollard’s replacement of Daniel Russell as captain on April 5, 1819, about four months before the Essex sailed on its last voyage. The last register of the Essex was issued August 10, 1819, two days before it sailed, and listed Paul Macy, Walter Folger, [Philip H.?] Folger, Gideon Folger, David Harris, Job Smith, Benjamin Barnard, and Tristram Starbuck as owners.21 On the back of this register is written: “Surrender at Nantucket August 6, 1821. Ship sunk at Sea.”
The Essex’s new captain on its 1819 voyage, George Pollard, Jr., a whaling master for the first time, was twenty-eight years old and even more of a newlywed than First Mate Chase. Captain Pollard had married Mary
