After capturing the Circassian, Chatfield and crew wait orders in Key West harbor, fire a disaster of a 34-gun salute, are sent on patrol, nearly sink their New York ferry boat in the Gulf Stream, and are reassigned to the calmer inside waters, where they take up blockade duties near St. Marks and Cedar Key.
Thanks a near tornado in Durham last night, my hotel had no power from 7 to 11, so I did the transcription by the light of the screen and my Thinkpad’s keyboard light.
Part 8 – The Reminiscences of Capt. Thomas Chatfield
The Captain returns to Cotuit, finds his house has been sold and the family has moved into the village, ships out on a coastal schooner, a grain ship, then enlists in the Union Navy, where he is commissioned as an Acting Master.
He visits the Monitor in Hampton Roads, fresh from her victory over the Merrimac, then off he sails to Key West as part of the East Gulf Squadron in a converted ferryboat, the U.S.S. Somerset and immediately captures a big prize off of Cuba, The Circassian
Churbuck.com » Part 7 – The Reminiscences of Captain Thomas Chatfield
Coming to the end of his first, and very successful voyage as Captain, Thomas returns to the Sea of Okhotsk to rescue Uncle Bethuel, who wintered on Elbow Island in Shantar Bay. I’m on page 88 of the 162-page typescript. Tomorrow, he returns to Cotuit, hangs up his harpoon, and the tale shifts to the Civil War.
Churbuck.com » Part 7 – The Reminiscences of Captain Thomas Chatfield
“It was the first of October, and no help would reach them, or anyone know anything about them before the following May, with food enough, with close economy, to last from three to four months and scurvy (that scourge of the High latitudes) sure to make its appearance in a short time…”
Wow, poor Uncle Bethuel goes ashore on an island in the Ochotsk Sea, builds a camp, crosses the frozen straits, finds some Cossacks, and doesn’t lose one of his 32 men. Let’s see, today I listened to a tele-direct web discussion about PTI rates, accessory attach rates, and debated the fine points of a merged agenda for an Integrated Media marketing presentation ….. Garrr. Time to swash the buckle and batten the hatches.
“For God’s sake, Captain, do shorten that sail, you’ll tear the masts out.”
This is salty stuff. The Captain is crusing the “Artic”, dodging bergs, floes, and growlers, learns why Captain Cook got snuffed, returns to San Francisco, and has a close call with a lee shore.
I’m having a blast with this. Almost half-way and realizing I never truly read these memoirs before. Cousin Pete lent me his copy of the Captain’s war letters, which will be the night-time lonely guy project in Raleigh after this transcription. Then to the annotation with maps (I’m think of footnoting directly to Google Earth) but that may require a trip to the Kendall Whaling Museum in Sharon, Mass. which has Chatfield’s original ship’s logs with the latitude and longitude.
(I majored in American Maritime History at Yale, so this stuff is a dream come true. In another dimension I’d have become a college professor of maritime history.)
[update: added another five pages to part 6 — amazing description of nursing a wounded mate back to health after he gets whacked by a whale off of California: “…then with four men to help, and another with his elbow bare for a model, I got the elbow joint in place.”]
In this episode, things really get going, in a Moby Dick kind of way, and the Captain gets stove in by a whale. Arr matey. And goes home to win his first command at the age of 25. Sheesh, at 25 I was covering car wrecks at a daily newspaper and making $113 a week, not trying to outswim angry whales.
Just posted more of the Captain’s memoirs. He completes his second voyage as second mate under Seth Nickerson, returns to Cotuit, is married, then heads back out to the Pacific for his third voyage. And hasn’t turned 25 years old yet …
In this installment the doughty Captain whales in the “Artic”, survives a couple close calls, and returns to Maui with a scurvy crew.
This marks up through page 37 of the 162-page typescript. The first voyage is over, the Captain is 20-years old, and ready to get married.
Cousin Pete Field suggests breaking out the scanner and getting some illustrations in here, so that will come. Recommendations on a good, high quality flat-bed scanner would be appreciated.
130 pages to or so to go. Maybe a month or more at this pace. The man punctuates very randomly which makes transcription a true example of ancestor worship. Anyway, the intrepid skipper is killing some whales and playing amateur anthropologist in the Marianas.
It’s maddening to try to Google the island names — “Stranger Island” “Pleasant Island” — names out of The Hardy Boys. But its killing time and beats the heck of setting interactive marketing strategies through the blunt axe of Powerpoint every the evening.