Update July 2025: I’ve signed on with a literary agent, John Rudolph at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret in New York City to find a publisher for my book about the wreck of the Nantucket whaling bark Phoenix in Russia’s Sea of Okhotsk in 1858. Once I revise the publisher’s proposal it’s a game of wait-and-see to see if it makes it into print.
The working title is The Last Whalers: Shipwreck and Survival on Siberia’s Sea of Okhotsk.
This page will archive all posts about Captain Bethuel Gifford Handy, a Cotuit whaling captain, gold miner, Civil War veteran and survivor of a Siberian shipwreck. I’ll occasionally publish excerpts from my book about Handy: The Wreck and War of Bethuel G. Handy here, as well as supporting material such as primary sources and manuscripts, genealogical information, charts and maps, photographs and links to related resources.
I have also transcribed the logbook of Handy’s 1858 voyage to the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as his brother-in-law Thomas Chatfield’s Reminiscences. As part of that transcription I have been building a virtual tour of his voyage using Google Earth to fix the position of the ship as noted in the daily log entries.
A huge debt of gratitude to Handy’s descendants who have kindly shared their research and manuscripts: James Russell in particular has been of great assistance.
- Introduction to The Wreck and War of Bethuel G. Handy
- Foreword and Chapter 1 – Elbow Island
- Download of Chapter One in PDF format