'On an Ocean of Ink': An Inside Glimpse at the Business of Whaling

Thanks to the advent of 21st century technologies like email, texting and the now-ubiquitous Zoom meeting, in this era of instantaneous communication, getting your thoughts across to others with lightning speed has never been easier or more efficient.

But at what cost?

Historians will tell you that it’s through letters, journals or other hand-rendered documents that the past truly comes alive. These fragile pieces of paper from another time may seem ephemeral and transitory to us today, but no doubt, the individuals who originally put pen to paper did so with intention, purpose and often, true passion. They did so with the understanding that, given the unpredictability of mail delivery services in centuries past, not only might it be quite some time before their intended recipient laid eyes on the missive, there was an equally good chance it might never reach its destination at all.

So it makes you wonder. When historians of the future look back for clues about our lives in 2023, what source material might they seek out? Old laptops? Hard drives? Thumb drives? And when they do come across this material, how illuminating do you think it might be? Seriously, do we really want the words contained in our last email to be the message shared with future generations?

It’s an interesting question, and one that finds parallel in “On an Ocean of Ink,” the new exhibition that opened the season at the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum on May 3. This is a show that presents a selection of some 50 or so 19th century documents that, in their day, were no doubt considered mundane as they represented all manner of the kind of paperwork required to keep afloat that singular industry which once defined Sag Harbor’s very identity — whaling.

“Whatever romance, adventure or excitement comes to mind when you think of whaling, at its heart, it was a business,” explained Richard Doctorow, the museum’s director and curator of the exhibition. “And business meant paperwork — and it was all done by hand.”

We’re talking legal documents, ship manifests, insurance certificates, customs receipts and yes, even letters to sailors at sea — all that busy work, be it legal, official or personal, that was the backbone of every whaling voyage that set out from Sag Harbor. Some of the material on view in this show is dry, like the business letters between ship owner and captain. But there are also letters to and from loved ones and they provide a glimpse of just how hard it must have been to find a single whaler at sea when all a sender back home had to go on by way of an address was “Coast Brazil.”

That, in fact, is one of the objects on view in this show — an envelope addressed to Captain Robert F. Hand aboard the Ship Thorn, “Coast Brazil,” sometime in 1827 or 1828.

“We have a series of letters back home and then the envelopes where they’re trying to reach the ship at sea,” said Doctorow. “You wrote to captain so and so on ship so and so with hopes that it would meet a ship going that way. Certainly there were times it never got to where it was going.

“There are also customs slips, insurance documents, they’re building ships and selling shares in them, then getting the crew together — all the paperwork that made whaling possible,” said Doctorow. “There’s a will by a whaler named Joe Babcock who understands he’s going on a dangerous voyage and didn’t know if he was coming back.

“These are the forms, letters and log books that whalemen would encounter in their daily lives and the clerks were sitting somewhere in Sag Harbor and counting it all,” Doctorow added. “If they say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then a whaling voyage began with a quill dipped in ink.”

There are also curious items, including a document that acknowledges the purchase of a seaman’s outfit for an upcoming whaling voyage. It stipulates that, if the sailor is unable to reimburse the purchaser for the clothing, the funds will be deducted from his future wages.

Another document from circa 1844-1849 indicates that a sailor named Allen Nichol presold his shares in an upcoming whaling voyage on the ship Timor under command of Captain Edwards for $240. It’s a move that Doctorow notes would have been akin to taking a gamble, and if the voyage turned out to be wildly successful, the ship owner would have been the party to benefit more. But if the trip was a bust, which is entirely possible given that by the mid-1840s, whaling was on the decline, it is the sailor who would have made the better wager having left his family with money to live on while he was away.

In the 19th century, just like today, there was plenty of litigious impulses inherent in business. Another document on view shows that a local lawyer was retained by whaleman Luther Cuffee in 1861 in an effort to get back wages he claimed were due from a voyage he took on the bark Mary Gardiner.

“Out at sea, a captain’s word was final,” said Doctorow. “The captain and his mates had to keep these crewman in line.”

Which is why recourse may not have been practical or possible until a ship’s crew had returned to Sag Harbor and engaged legal counsel to sort out the disagreements, which could also involve charges of unfair treatment by the crew at the hands of those in charge of the ship.

For Doctorow, this sort of material is a treasure trove that offers a peek into the inner workings of a somewhat mysterious way of life.

“When you first get interested in whaling, you read about when they left, where they went and how much oil they brought back — the basics,” he said. “But the more you research, the more you realize that this was a business, they were out there for a reason.”

While one might assume there are boatloads of documents to be found from the whaling era, in fact, Doctorow notes that they’re now quite rare.

“There aren’t very many records left,” he said. “New Bedford is the largest whaling museum and they were the only one buying these things in the 1920s and 1930s, including records from Sag Harbor.

“So much of this material is lost and is offers little glimpses of whaling. This is a rare opportunity to see these things,” Doctorow added. “For every gallon of whale oil, it took that much in ink. These are all original documents and we don’t bring them out very often — it’s a once-in-a-decade chance to see them.”

“On an Ocean of Ink” is on view Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum, 200 Main Street, Sag Harbor. For details, visit sagharborwhalingmuseum.org.