The ordeal of Charles Peirce a New England whaler in N.Z. waters 120 years ago

Press, 30 July 1982, Page 14

The ordeal of Charles Peirce a New England whaler in N.Z. waters 120 years ago

A visiting American professor recently enabled local historian GORDON OGILVIE to examine letters written by Charles Peirce, a New England whaler, who was working in Australasian waters between 1859-74. This is the first of two articles concerning Peirce’s trials and tribulations.

Two jet-lagged Americans stood, slightly stupefied, on the surf-pounded foreshore of Birdlings Flat. The sun was slipping low over the Alps but we could see clear down Ninety Mile Beach to South Canterbury. A golden light lit up the southern bays of Banks Peninsula. Neither Professor Donald Graves, director of the writing process laboratory at New Hampshire University, nor his wife Betty, could quite accustom themselves to the fact that after the 32hour flight from Boston they had actually arrived. Professor Graves had accepted an invitation to be principal guest speaker at the 1982 English Conference which was to start two days later. In our car was his overnight bag with the lecture notes for two major addresses he was to give, plus — just as important to him — a folder of photo-copied letters. These were copies of some 14 originals written by Don-

ald's great-grandfather, a New Bedford whaler, covering two long and dismal voyages into the Pacific be : tween 1859 and 1874. The letters mention New Zealand a number of times and one reason why Donald Graves was happy to accept the invitation to speak at Christchurch was the chance he would have of seeing where some of the whaling would have taken place. His whaling ancestor was Charles Henry Peirce (pronounced “Purse"). Peirce of “Mayflower” stock, hailed from Acushnet. This small township was only four miles from New Bedford and Fairhaven, and under 50 miles from Nantucket, Newport, Warren and the other New England whaling ports which made this stretch of Massachusetts and Rhode Island coastline the focal point of international whaling in the first half of the 19th-century. By 1846, the peak year for

sperm whaling, there were 729 American whalers operating, mostly from New England ports, and 70,000 men employed in the industry. New Bedford, where an oil factory to process lighting and heating fuel had been established as early as 1755, was the whale industry’s capital. With a population'of 20.000 it had in Peirce's time a whaling fleet of 330 ships. American whalers outnumbered those of all other nationalities by three to one. Whaling in the best years, was an extremely lucrative investment. One ship, Lagoda, earned $652,000 in 12 years and her owners in one season paid out a dividend of 363 1/ 2 per cent.

Charles Peirce went to sea at the age of 15 and was not to have another Christmas ashore until 1863, at Sydney. 18 years later. In August 1859. at the age of 28, he married Eliza Tobey; and a month later he embarked as first mate on a whaler, the James Allen, to try to earn something worthwhile for his new wife. (The 355-ton James Allen had just returned from a successful whaling expedition to Australian and New Zealand waters, but now had a new captain). Peirce was not to see Eliza again for five and a half years — nor the child they conceived during their single month together; Little Henry, Donald Graves’ grandfather. When he first went to sea in 1845, Charles Peirce would have observed the New England whaling industry in its heyday. Now things were different; and the discovery of petroleum near Titusville only a few weeks before he sailed was going to accel-

erate the ruin of the American whaling industry. But Peirce was not to know this, and anyway there was no other job he was trained to do. By January, 1861, the James Allen was fishing in the South Pacific and Peirce sent a letter home from Mangonui just north of the Bay of Islands. He took his responsibilities very earnestly, and was evidently respected by both captain and ci;ew. He was a God-fearing, even-tempered, seriousminded man-, (there is not a joke anywhere), a teetotaller, non-smoker and non-swearer

who seems to have successfully resisted a wide range of temptations whenever his vessel reached harbour — and this in an era when whalers were regarded as a notoriously rough and boisterous lot. He was constantly anxious about his young wife and how she was coping, and concerned about the ship's poor returns from its venture. He worried about his relative lack of education in writing to his wife, who was a school teacher. Peirce was easily moved to tears and did not dare look at the daguerreotype of Eliza he

took to sea with him until he had been away six months and was too far away to turn back. He emerges as a sensitive and humane person, singularly unsuited to the privations of ocean whaling. Peirce's first letter from Mangonui. after the James Allen had already spent a mediocre season off the South American coast, is most un-promising. The Antipodes proved no better as a prospect; and he writes of the "hard luck” they had so far experienced on the West Coast of New Zealand. "We have had very'bad weather and saw a good share of whales but no great chance at them, we got one and came on a gale and blowed very heavy for three days, and saved but 40 barrels out of a large whale. I had a large whale missed dost to the ship, that was bad." He also describes how they sailed across to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) and New Holland (Australia) where they fished with indifferent results. He is proud of having spent only $5O ashore since he left New Bedford, whereas another officer has spent $lOOO. Peirce's wellcrammed sea chest was a considerable saving to him. Charles Peirce had evidently come to an understanding with Eliza that they would not write of anything deeply personal in their letters, in order to make their separation more endurable. But he cannot refrain from telling her how worried he is that she is alone and .unprotected. "Not that I doubt you in the least but I can’t help thinking how many virtueous women has been led astray by

listning to those they supposed there best friends . . ." Eliza had written to Mangonui to tell her husband the latest about the baby and Peirce tells her that the Captain's wife has also written to describe Henry as “the handsomest baby she ever saw." Eliza's two youngest brothers are evidently living with her. while two older brothers plus Charles’ sisters, brothers and parents keep an eve on the situation.

By the time Peirce writes next, in October. 1861. from Spring Bay (just north of Hobart in Tasmania), news of the American Civil War has reached him. Fighting had broken out on April 12 when Confederate troops opened fire on Fort Sumpter. Though the James Allen had left from a Federal port and the North had command of the seas through its blockade of the Confederate coastline. Captain Van Wyck would not venture back into his home waters till the troubles sorted themselves out. The main reason for this would have been the risks that New England whalers were running at the hands of Confederate raiders which were sinking any Northern shipping they could get close to. So what mg,y have begun as a two-year voyage for the James Allen was now likely to be prolonged indefinitely.

Whalers sometimes were away from home for three of four years, even in peacetime. They could discharge or trans-ship their oil at distant ports such as Sydney or Hobart, and re-fit in a number" of other anchorages. Often after a lean season the crew’s percentage ("lay") of the ship’s profits would be so minimal that by the time they had paid off all their debts to the company for the purchase of items from the ship’s stores ("slops") they would have to sign up for another voyage to pay off their deficit. But in tins case

it was war keeping them away; and Eliza was at risk. "Oh, you know not the anxious moments I have in thinking of home and friends during this dreadful war. it is but very late that we have had news of it and it is the most of our conversation wondering how the times are at home." There have been no further letters from Eliza, probably because of the blockade and the threat of confederate raiders. Peirce is desperate for news and hopes something may be

awaiting him at Mangonui. The whaling has continued to be poor. “This last season on New Zealand we had a large 100 barrel whale alongside 3 days blowing a heavy gale and then was obliged to cut him adrift and let him go and it still blew 3 days longer, it made us fairly shed tears ... I can truly say I never saw oil come to a ship so hard as it comes to this one . . . and now darling I am getting tired for it is getting late, I have worked hard all day and I must turn

in. Oh if I was only there to turn in with you it would seem something like it." In a later addition to this letter, Peirce hopes that items he has sent back to Eliza on the New Bedford whaler Roman have arrived safely. (The Roman is mentioned in Robert McNab’s "Old Whaling Days" as having visited New ’Zealand as early as 1839, calling in at the Auckland Islands, Bluff, and Kapiti Island). Peirce writes of the shells and coral he is collecting. “I find

myself more interested in gathering curiousitys than ever I was before. I suppose it is by haveing a certain little person at home that I know wants such things." There is also a dead kangaroo aboard which had been caught in a trap, and "a live posum and its young." This is about as cheerful as Charles Peirce’s letters to , his distant wife ever get. • From now on his situation . and morale steadily deteriorate, and so do Eliza’s.