The 38th Voyage of the Charles W. Morgan began at Mystic Seaport on May 17, 2014. Throughout this historic journey, we will share entries on our website based on some of the logs and journals from the Morgan’s past whaling voyages.
We will sample a number of different years to give a taste of the long history of the ship’s travels from 1841 into the 20th century. Spelling, syntax and the whaleman’s jargon will be retained, and occasionally a link will be added to the image of the original logbook to give further insight into the world of the American whaleman. The life of the whaleman could be extremely frenetic during the hunt, physically taxing during the cutting in and trying out, and downright boring as the ship traveled thousands of miles in search of their prey. The entries will hopefully express a little of each.
Illustrations appearing in the blog are not, for the most part, from the Morgan’s logs, but from other logbooks and rare books in the collection of the G.W. Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport, and will be annotated as to their source.
The following is from the first page of the first logbook of the Charles W. Morgan in 1841, and the sentiment appearing there bodes well for the future of the lucky ship built in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
The entry reads, “Journal of a Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, in the Ship Chas W. Morgan, Thomas Norton Master. Sept 6th 1841. May kind Neptune protect us with pleasant gales; and may we be successful in catching Sperm Whales.”
