Twenty-four hours after she had sailed bravely from New Bedford on what was to be her “last voyage,” the staunch old bark, Wanderer, last of New Bedford’s once glorious fleet of square-rigged whaling vessels, came to a tragic end off Cuttyhunk island late Tuesday afternoon, when mountainous seas and a shrieking northeast gale drover her on to the jagged teeth of Middle Ground shoals.

 

After seven men of her crew had been picked up by the Cuttyhunk life saving station, the other boat with eight men could not be located. The boat’s crew, it was afterwards learned, finally reached the Sow and Pigs lightship, from which they were taken off Wednesday morning by the life saving crew.

 

The Wanderer it is thought will be a complete loss.

 

The New York World, only a week ago, referred editorially to the Wanderer as follows:

 

 

A lifetime ago New Bedford whales were numbered by the hundreds. Now the old whaler Wanderer is fitting out for what may be the last whaling cruise from New Bedford. Two or three ships returned last year, but the ventures showed small profit. The price for whalebone and oil is low. Substitution ruined the market. Science has obviated the hazards and the expenses of whaling.

 

The Wanderer is a suitable name for the last whaler. In their time ships from New Bedford ranged from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Some sailed from New Bedford, rounded the Americas and hunted in Bering Sea and back again in their quest for the whale. It was a hardy, adventurous, uncertain and dangerous life the whalers led. In New Bedford memorial tablets record the names of whaling-men who failed to return to port. On the quays, in the streets and on the vessels sailing from New Bedford, Melville found inspiration for some of the great sea stories of all time. Fortunately New Bedford has preserved something of the romance of the industry in a unique whaling museum, a memorial to the sturdy men who hunted the leviathan.

 

It was the motion picture that provided last employment for the Wanderer. If ever a shift in industry brings back a need for whaling novices of another day may be able to see how it was done. But it is fitting that the movie “prop” should go back to the sea on business bent for a last voyage - if it is a last voyage. That was the history of so many of the men who lived and died by the chase of the whale. The sea and the chase were in their blood.