Men of color were full participants in the whaling industry, a business so difficult and dangerous that most people only went out once.
Men of color were full participants in the whaling industry, a business so difficult and dangerous that most people only went out once.
Of the 2,500 masters who captained whaling ships during three centuries of whaling, at least 63 were men of color, five with Martha’s Vineyard ties, Skip Finley told a rapt audience Wednesday night.
New exhibit at Martha’s Vineyard Museum explores the characters and figures from the heyday of Island whaling that often go unnoticed.
Nathaniel Philbrick’s book In the Heart of the Sea, on which the movie is based, tells a tale of horror.
It is a sad thing to contemplate the passing of the last whaling captain of Martha’s Vineyard.
Capt. Ellsworth Luce West, last of the Vineyard whaling captains, died at his home on the Middle Road, Chilmark, on Sunday nigh, following some months of failing health. He was in his 85th year and although feeble physically for some time, his faculties had remained active until his death. As an authority on the Arctic, his last days had been spent in the dictation of a volume on Arctic phenomena and his Alaskan experiences. He was also collaborating with Vilhjalmur Stefansson the explorer, in recreating in print various phrases of the whaling era.
