"Fine Times on the Old Three Brothers" Historic Nantucket article from the Nantucket Historical Association

Originally published in the Historic Nantucket, Vol 51, no. 1 (Winter 2002), p. 17-21

"Fine Times on the Old Three Brothers"
by Leslie W. Ottinger

All quotations in italics are from the log of the Three Brothers kept by Charles Coffin, the ship's cooper. The journal is held in the collection of the Nantucket Historical Association Research Library.

ON MARCH 17, 1854, THE NANTUCKET whaleship Three Brothers anchored at Holms' Hole (now Edgartown), Martha's Vineyard, back from a two-and-a-half year cruise to the North Pacific. This was the fifth of ten whaling cruises, spanning the years from 1833 to 1875, for the famous ship. Displacing 384 tons and owned for most of those years by members of the Starbuck family, the Three Brothers held the distinction of returning to Nantucket in 1859 with the largest cargo of oil ever recorded - 6,000 barrels. On this particular cruise, though, she carried 2,285 barrels and 21,000 pounds of bone, the product of thirty-five whales - mostly bowheads. This cargo was actually above average for the time and, with additional oil and bone that had been sent back from Hawaii, was large enough to bring the owners more than a satisfactory profit.

The Three Brothers had sailed from Martha's Vineyard on October 15,1851.10/16/1851: Underway from Tarpaulin Cove with heavy hearts. Ten weeks later she rounded Cape Horn and entered the Pacific. 1/1/52: Thus New Year had come and we had two goonies for supper. I wish you a happy year in Nantucket. Here I am off the Cape in the old hail squalls. After recruiting (provisioning) ship in Talcahuano, Chile, and taking two sperm whales off the east coast of South America, she reached the Hawaiian Islands in April of 1852. In May the Three brothers sailed through the Kurile Islands and into her primary destination, the whaling grounds in the Sea of Okhotsk, north of Japan, off the coast of Siberia. There followed a return to Hawaii, then back to the Okhotsk in the summer of 1853, Hawaii in the fall, and then around Cape Horn and north to home.

The NHA Research Library holds both the log and the account book for the voyage. The log, which in many ways seems more a journal, was apparently kept for the first four months by Tobias Tyler of Pittstown, New York, but after that by Charles Coffin, the ship's cooper. Coffin was a twenty-seven-year-old Nantucket native and son of Obadiah and Lucretia Coffin. He subsequently married Almira Gardner, also of Nantucket, and this explains the name "Almira" scripted several times in the margins of the brown, ruled logbook. It has the usual details of whales taken, land sightings, notations of latitude and longitude, ships spoken, weather and storms, damage and repairs, ship maintenance, courses steered, and sails deployed. Beyond that, though, it is the personal journal of an observant and opinionated young man who found much that was remarkable and interesting to add to the daily entries. They are rich in the vernacular of the whaler - wild whales are "galleyed," deserters "take leg bail," and the drunken captain is "over the bay." There are short pieces of mid-nineteenth-century humor: a long religious tract written by a shipmate while in the gloom for reading the Same of the Okhotsk Sea, an example of the usual bill of fare for a week, and poems and songs from various sources. Especially, there are observations and comments on the "old man" (Captain Adams). 4/12/52:... in all my going to sea I never see a meaner man than this same Capt. Adams (but I will except old Joe Mitchell). [Joseph Mitchell II had been the master of the Three Brothers on its two preceding cruises.]

The account book was kept in the hand of the captain. It lists, for later accounting to the owners, the expenditures from the cash funds provided to him. There are also pages for each member of the crew. These show the value of clothes, shoes, tobacco, and other items issued, along with advances of cash when in port.

The roster of officers and boatsteer-ers notes that the captain, Joseph S. Adams, was a native of Holms' Hole. It was his only cruise as master of the Three Brothers. It was also the first time the ship had ventured into the Sea of Okhotsk, then known to be a site rich in bowhead whales. Perhaps the owners selected him because of his prior experience on the Arctic whaling grounds. Captain Adams was clearly a skilled whaling captain, something that was especially important for ships venturing into the treacherous sea with its storms, sudden dense fogs, and floating ice. The log includes a list of six other whaleships lost there in the first season alone: 5/10/52: . . . the sea running mountains high, as the old saying is. 5/20/52: Ice found on things about deck 3 and 4 inches thick: Cold Cold Cold quantities of fish frozen in the sea -first rate, none better, if as good.

With the loss of only an occasional boat, Captain Adams brought them through two seasons in the Arctic and many storms. Two of the storms were violent hurricanes, in the second of which the ship Heroine, sailing with the Three Brothers, lost all boats, bulwarks, and eight men. He was compulsive in the care of the ship, attentive to obtaining all necessary provisions, and relentless in the pursuit of whales. l/16/54:The old man is bound to some whaling ground and I wish he had a right whale about his neck but I must grin and bear it, [In the Atlantic Ocean on the way home.]

In the log there are almost daily notes detailing the duties and work accomplished, not just of the author but also of the other members of the crew. The first weeks these included the preparations to take whales. The gear and tools for the task were made ready as were the inexperienced members of the crew. 12/6/51: Lowered three boats to practice the boys and learn them to row. Although the officers were New Englanders, two boatsteerers were from the Cape Verde Islands and the crew also included Spaniards, Kanakers [Kanakas] from the Hawaiian Islands, and men from islands of the South Pacific. While desertion and the necessity to sign on new members were common occurrences on whaleships, the numbers of replacements for this cruise of the Three Brothers were unusually high. 1/20/53: Boatsteerers and officers keep watch to prevent the men from taking leg bail. Hawaii; 11/6/53: All hands kept aboard to fit the ship for sea. It was my liberty day but the old man was afraid some of the old crew would take leg bail.

The daunting task of the captain was to mold this conglomeration of men into an efficient crew. Central to this was to establish and maintain his authority and control. Captain Adams was clearly up to the job. Rigid rules and standards were imposed. A severe breech was followed by the irons or a flogging, usually at the hands of the captain himself. Other punishments included extra work assignments such as knocking rust off eye bolts, cleaning the deck pot, a long stretch at the masthead, or being seized in the rigging. Nothing was allowed to disrupt the steady attention of the members of the crew to their work. In fact, some of the rules seem quite extraordinary for a small ship on a long cruise. 4/14/52: I had a touch of the old mans schooling this morning. - don't allow no sport, no skylarking and no loud talking. Also prohibited were singing, eating between meals, and, as far as possible, any leisure time whatsoever.

8/3/52: . . . several incidents of his humor. Was afoul of the cabin boy. Caught two skylarking and one he see eating bread and meat before meal time. All these he gave work up jobs. Eat 3 times . as much as you can and don't let me catch any more of you eating before grub time. So says Capt, Adams. Lovely man.

Charles Coffin leaves no doubt that, at least in his opinion, this complex man was an overbearing bully, cruel and difficult.

6/23/53: Two of the men forward had a sort of knockdown - the old man happened to see them - seized in the rigging on each side of the deck. He laid on the Kanacker 17 cuts and on the Spanish hoy 12. Captain Adams who thinks his dignity and power is equal to queen Victoria.
3/12/53: The old man was blowing a gale of his dead wind having caught two of the men asleep on the lookout. He boxed one, heat the other with a rope end.

The men were driven ceaselessly. Illness and injuries brought no special consideration.

4/29/52: The Capt. has no sympathy nor feeling for any person that is hurt or sick. 9/12/52; One of the crew fell down the main hatch and hurt himself badly. After we got him up on deck the Capt. instead of examining him to see if any of his bones were broken commenced to curse him for folly. What the H... was you doing down there?

He was described as cross as a "mad dog" and "cross grained as a piece of curly maple." This behavior was especially notable when he was drinking, which was often.

4/16/53: The old man for the last two days had been cross and ugly, having turned to at his rum bottle again.
6/1/53: The old man is in a had fix cursing everything an inch high and a minute old - so goes so much for a fine Captain.

There are many descriptions of the captain's episodes of intoxication and it is clear that when drinking his rum he was not always ready to exercise his usual incisive judgment.

7/12/52: While the boats was ashore the old man was well over the hay. He could see better than any person and a sample of his sight was looking through the spyglass with the cover on the end. Swore he could see nothing with that glass and sent out for another.

On December 2, 1852, while the Three Brothers was provisioning in Hawaii, it is noted that the mate and the second mate and boat steermen Crawford and Ned Breland went to the American consul to sign a protest. This, we may at least infer, was related to the captain's abuse of the crew.

It was also the captain's drinking that led to two remarkable episodes with the ship's steward (or stewards), the first rather comic and the second tragic. The first began on June 5, 1852, when the captain, being drunk, accused the steward of stealing rum and "banged and beat him about." Four days later,

6/9/52 . .. when the old man turned out he found that his rum tasted rather different so after the breakfast the first and third mates tried some and found that it was poisoned. Then called the steward down and made him drink some. The darkey run up on deck and spit it out before the old man could have much a chance to stop him . . . what the poison was can't find out. Fine times on the old Three Brothers.

The second episode involved Frances B. Graham, the twenty-six-year-old Negro steward who was from New Orleans. It began on May 27, 1853, when Charles Coffin noted "noon whilst the boats were off the old man sent me with the steward on the run to fill up his keg of rum." The boats returned with a bowhead whale. This is the account provided by Coffin:

5/28/53: We turned to in cutting in the whale, the Captain in the meantime drinking deeply. About 4 o'clock PM the steward come on deck. Went to the cooler for some oil, then went off in the galley (he was then well over the bay.) The captain observered it. (I was then grinding spades and see the whole.) Went at the steward, beat him several times over the head. Swore when he was sober on the morrow he would flog him, so help him God and the steward went below. No more was seen of him after that. . . . The Capt. in the meantime was staggering drunk, could not walk straight nor talk straight, was insulting to his officers and everyone else... . At 5 AM the mate gave orders to call the steward (it being the first time he was thought of) to prepare for breakfast. They went in where he was last seen and behold he was a corpse, cold, and stiff and all drawed up and blood coming from his nose. [There follows a description of the burial at sea.] He was beloved by all on board. Had not an evening here or ashore but rum brought him before his maker before he was prepared for in life we are in the midst of death. Went on with the work as if nothing happened. The old man soon forgot it for he was soon aswearing, etc.

In the account book there is, in the captain's hand, a page for each member of the crew listing items dispersed from the slop chest and their value. (The slop chest was a chest of clothing, shoes, tobacco, and other items that every ship of the day carried to meet the needs of the crew while at sea.) The amount was to be deducted, or discharged, on completion of the cruise from his wages. At the bottom of the page for F. B. Graham, Captain Adams recorded "5/27 died," and put a credit of ten dollars against his account for "sale of used clothes." That was, apparendy, the end of the episode. We cannot say whether or not this event-or if Adams's excessive indulgence in rum was the reason - but Charles Cleveland, the first mate, replaced him as master on the next cruise of the Three Brothers. Just as we do not know whether any specific response to the death was taken by the owners, or anyone else for that matter. While at sea, at least, the captain was the law, and there was no practical recourse or appeal for the crew short of mutiny.

We also do not know whether Charles Coffin made other whaling voyages. He did twice suggest that he would not. In the fog and ice of Okhotsk Sea he declared his decision: 6/22/52: The first man that ever says or asks me anything or to go in another ship awhaling I shall be so good as to knock him or her over. Later, he repeated his pledge: 8/12/52: Well it's my last voyage so I take it all in good part - gurry and iron rust and smoke. How it makes me think of Nantucket.

When conditions were better, though, he was sometimes of a more cheerful mood. 5/24/52: Had for dinner roast pig and sea pie. Who would not go a right whaling and have roast pig.

At any rate, by December of 1853 the Three Brothers was bound for the Cape and home. Coffin often describes the progress as being aided by "the Nantucket girls" hauling in the lines. And even Captain Adams could not entirely smother the good spirits of the crew.

Caught a gooney and put a label around marked Ship Three Brothers Full Bound Home and let it fly to the four corners and we hope it will bring us to Nantucket.

On February 24, 1854, as was traditional when they were no longer of use, the tryworks were thrown overboard. Three weeks later the Three Brothers anchored off the Vineyard.

So how typical was Captain Joseph S. Adams? Was Charles Coffin simply free to express the unvarnished truth about this off-islander, someone he would not meet regularly on his rounds of Nantucket in the future? Or was he truly an exception to the stern, dedicated, brave, and strong but reasonable and balanced captain of a Nantucket whaler many other accounts describe? The journal leaves little doubt that he was a masterly captain, a fact attested to by the safe return of the Three Brothers with a full cargo of oil after a two-and-a-half year cruise, which would have been considered short for the time. His ruthless administration of "sea justice" was probably justified by the risks of the venture and the unrelenting need for discipline and teamwork. Beyond this, though, to extend control to the prohibition of even loud talk and singing, skylarking, and the other behavior that might relieve the tedious and relentless work, the "gurry, smoke, and rust," seems to go beyond this. Perhaps his drunkenness was not unusual, but the associated rages were certainly something more. One way or another, his own description of himself, as noted by Charles Coffin, does seem to have been remarkably close to the mark, 6/16/52: Old Adams is as he says as whole horse two Jack Asses.

Leslie W. Ottinger, a physician, retired to Nantucket in 1996. He has been a volunteer in the Research Library since February 1999 and previously contributed "Sally Takes the Smallpox" to the fall 1999 issue of Historic Nantucket.