Danger Beyond Whales

Crewmen on whaling ships faced extreme hazards. Enraged whales capsized and sank the boats that pursued them. A fall from high masts of a sailing vessel caused serious injury or death. Heavy, sharp iron tools used to butcher a captured whale could inflict serious wounds. Heavy gales created giant waves that swept crewmen overboard.

Fortunately somewhat rare, but not unheard of, was danger from hostile natives when the ship stopped at a remote island to replenish food and water. James A. Hamilton, master of the whaling bark Prudence, was involved in such an incident and wrote about it.

Hamilton related the violence in a letter to a Honolulu newspaper: “Sir, will you please insert in your valuable paper (‘The Honolulu Friend’) the death of Mr. Robert F. Weeks, which took place at Easter Island on the morning of May 1st, 1856. He belonged to Babylon, Long Island, aged about 33 years, a promising man, my second officer.”

Hamilton explained that he was unfamiliar with Easter Island, and when the Prudence anchored there, “I did not like the looks of the people, and was totally unaware of their treacherous disposition.”

Apparently, the Prudence was bound to the Marquesas Islands and decided to go ashore to seek provisions. Hamilton and his second officer, Robert Weeks, got into separate boats, and their crews rowed toward shore.

When nearly there, Hamilton came alongside Weeks’s boat and gave him some “trade,” which probably meant trinkets and cloth that the islanders would like to have. He told Weeks to deal from his boat and not go ashore, because the natives “looked too savage.”

Weeks’s crew pulled in, and when they were close to the beach, natives in the water grabbed the boat’s oars and the side of the boat and capsized it.

Realizing that Weeks and his crew were in sudden danger, Hamilton yelled to them to swim to his boat. As they struggled to the captain’s boat, the natives tore the clothes off the crewmen.

Though the rest of his crew reached the safety of the captain’s boat, Weeks and his boatsteerer, named Pease, failed to make it. The natives dragged them both to shore, and in the melee Pease stabbed one of them.

Hamilton wrote that he never saw Weeks after the capsize but thought he had survived. He remained off the island until dark, hoping to rescue Weeks and Pease. He gestured to the islanders that he would give them more cloth if they released the men. But his offer was ignored, and as night came on he saw Pease standing alone on the beach.

Hamilton stayed just offshore all night and in the morning armed a crew of volunteers and rowed toward the beach. He saw Pease among people on the sand. The boatsteerer suddenly broke away and ran into the water, with natives chasing him. Pease was a strong swimmer, and when he neared Hamilton’s boat, the captain threw a rope to him and ordered his oarsmen to pull farther seaward to escape the islanders.

One of the natives grabbed the rope behind Pease and reached the boat rail — but let go when the captain threatened him with his Colt pistol.

Once on board the whaleship, Pease told the captain that on shore he saw Weeks with blood oozing from his head, and that the islanders dug a hole and threw him in. He believed that they killed him for his clothes. Pease guessed that he was saved from the same fate because the natives wanted to trade him for one of the whaler’s boats.

Hamilton added in his letter to the newspaper that “a visit from an American Government vessel would be a blessing … for the safety of others, as I think whoever goes there after this will be at their mercy.”

Harry D. Sleight told this tragic story in his book “The Whale Fishery On Long Island,” which was published in 1931. Easter Island, a remote spot in the mid-Pacific Ocean, is famous for its giant stone statues that were discovered in the 1700s by Dutch explorers. The carvings, called Moai, apparently were made from volcanic rock by the Rapa Nui people, Polynesians who came to the island from the Marquesas chain or from South America.

Sleight added that many years later, in August 1866, the Sag Harbor bark Ocean and its crew of 24, commanded by the unfortunate James Hamilton, was lost without a trace and never heard from again, presumed to have foundered in a gale.