Women Sailors & Sailors' Women (20 page)

Many of them go without clothing; both sexes bathe in the water entirely naked, unabashed. As I am writing, two men are close by my door without an article of clothing, Minnie says, “I have to turn my head the other way.” There are but very few that can be depended upon, even members of the church.
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Mary's pious upbringing and her Protestant work ethic caused her to deplore the Hawaiians' easygoing ways. She judged them to be low, degraded, indolent, and much given to stealing. In her journal, she confessed that many scenes she encountered made her blush, and she was particularly upset to hear even young children using English swear words. She blamed the influence of the foreign sailors, but like the majority of Westerners who encountered the Pacific Islanders during that period, she was completely ignorant of the very different customs and beliefs that governed their lives.

In spite of her disappointment with the uncivilized behavior of the Hawaiian people, Mary much enjoyed the ten days they stayed at Lahaina. She found the climate delightful and would happily have spent many more weeks there, but Captain Lawrence was impatient to be off. The friends they had made among the foreign residents came to see them before they left and brought them presents. Mary was given chocolate, walnuts, tamarinds, a box of cologne, and other luxuries, and Minnie was given baskets, toys, and books.

On April 27, they sailed for the nearby island of Oahu, and the next day they dropped anchor off the town of Honolulu. They spent a day ashore seeing the sights and meeting a number of American families before setting sail on the second cruise in search of whales. From the Hawaiian Islands, they headed northward to the Kodiak whaling grounds in the Gulf of Alaska. The weather grew steadily colder, and the days became damp and foggy. They met up with several other American whaling ships, all of which had experienced very rough weather. On several occasions they sighted whales, and lowered the boats and chased them, but without success. And then on June 6, after a day of very thick fog, they almost ran down a whale. Captain Lawrence turned the ship around and lowered the boats. By seven o'clock in the evening, a large whale had been caught and was lying alongside the ship. It was reckoned that it would produce 135 barrels of whale oil. Mary missed much of the excitement because she had been suffering from a severe headache and was so sick that she could not even sit up in bed. She heard the men engaged in cutting up the whale's carcass and swinging the pieces on board but was disappointed that she could not see what was happening.

Five weeks later they were again successful, capturing a female whale and her calf. Whether it was because she had been so sick on the last occasion or whether she found the capture and cutting up of the whales too unpleasant to watch, she dismissed the whole operation in a couple of sentences and was much more concerned about a pretty brown-and-yellow bird that flew on board from nearby Mount Fairweather. She converted one of her work baskets into a cage, gave the bird some flaxseed and rice to eat, and hoped it would sing. Sadly, the little bird died two days later.

On July 22, they left the Kodiak whaling grounds and headed west for Bristol Bay. All the whale oil had been collected and stored, and they now had 600 barrels. By mid-August they were negotiating the Unimak Strait, a passage ten miles wide between the islands off southwest Alaska, but were becalmed before they were safely through. They could see great mountains in the distance, their snow-covered peaks rising above the clouds. To prevent the ship from being swept ashore by the current, they dropped anchor, and some of the men took a boat ashore and collected some strawberries, blackberries, and huckleberries, and a large bunch of flowers for Mary and Minnie. They were both delighted by the fragrant flowers and decorated the cabin with them.

After a month of searching for whales in Bristol Bay, they headed south. They frequently found themselves in damp, clammy fog so thick that nothing could be seen beyond the ship's rail. On one occasion the boats were out searching for whales when the fog enveloped them, and they had to fire guns on the
Addison
and blow horns so that the men in the boats could find their way back to the mother ship. Food stocks were getting low, but they managed to catch large numbers of cod and flatfish, of which Mary noted, “We are now living on fresh fish, which are very nice.”

The passage back from the whaling grounds took them three weeks, and on October 14, 1857, they returned to the Hawaiian Islands and dropped anchor off Honolulu. As on the previous stay in Lahaina, Mary's days were filled with social visits. Most of her acquaintances were expatriate Americans or whaling captains and their families. She visited the Sailors' Home and was invited on board the
St. Mary,
an American man-of-war lying in the harbor. On November 13, 1857, they set off on the third cruise of the voyage. This time they headed south to the New Zealand whaling grounds. As they crossed the equator, Mary noted in her journal that one year had passed since they had left New Bedford and that they had sailed a total of 35,985 miles. On this cruise they made a great sweep across the South Pacific to Sunday Island, and down level with New Zealand, across to Pitcairn Island, and then north to the Marquesas. They were back in Honolulu on March 7, 1858, after four months at sea.

More social visits followed, and after a stay in port of three weeks they set off on March 28 for another cruise, this time to the far north across the Bering Sea, through the Bering Strait to the Arctic Ocean.

The fifth cruise took them to Cape Lucas in California, and the sixth was a repeat of the fourth, taking them up into the Arctic Ocean again. Finally, on December 5, 1859, they set off on their seventh and final cruise, which was to take them home via New Zealand. Mary set off with a sad heart because she had learned that her father had died while she was away: “Home will hardly be home—that vacant chair. How my heart aches to think of it, and I shall not realize it fully until I get home. It will be a sad meeting should we live to reach home.”
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They spent another Christmas at sea. On Christmas Eve they met up with the bark
Lagonda,
commanded by Captain Willard. Minnie hung up her stocking and the next day found in it some candies, a pair of ivory candlesticks that had been turned on the lathe by her father, a book from her mother, and a portmanteau from Captain Willard.

New Year's Day 1860 was spent anchored off the beautiful South Sea island of Aitutaki. Mary described it as being like a perfect garden, rich in vegetation, with pineapples, oranges, limes, bananas, plantains, breadfruit, yams, and custard apples in abundance. They met an English missionary, Mr. Royle, and his wife. They had lived on the island for twenty-one years and had six daughters, the youngest of whom made a pleasant playmate for Minnie. They proved to be a delightful family, and Mary was much impressed by their schoolhouse and chapel, which were both neat and commodious. But such meetings were all too brief, and after no more than a day ashore they were back at sea. However, they were fortunate to meet another whaler with children on board. On January 8, they sighted the
Rambler,
commanded by Captain Willis. They went aboard and passed a happy day together. Mary wrote, “This meeting with families at sea is very pleasant for all concerned, particularly so for the children.”

They sailed on around the South Island of New Zealand and headed east for Cape Horn. By mid-April they were clear of the Horn's cold and stormy waters and heading northward. As they approached home, Mary engaged in an energetic round of cleaning, washing, and sewing. She scoured the dishes in the pantry, polished the spoons, cleaned all the drawers and lockers, and then began packing. On one day she packed five trunks, a barrel, and two boxes. Their final approach to New Bedford was severely delayed by a northwesterly gale that they had to beat into. The gale was accompanied by an extraordinary display of lightning: “I never saw such lightning before. The flashes would extend almost entirely around the horizon.” They tacked slowly northward under shortened sail. “This is really discouraging. It makes us feel very badly to be so near home and making no headway. . . .”

The gale was followed by a dead calm that was equally frustrating. But at last, on June 13, the wind freshened and they made the final approach. The pilot came on board at nine o'clock in the morning at Montauk. The next day they dropped anchor in the Acushnet River off New Bedford.

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M
ARY LAWRENCE'S JOURNAL
is a fresh and vivid account of one woman's experiences during an extended whaling voyage. It is more factual than introspective: We see what she sees but rarely what she feels. She hardly ever complains and she never questions her role in the ship, presumably because she intended the journal to be read by her husband and family later. Consequently, we are left wondering exactly what it must have felt like to be a woman alone in a man's world, a world that was alarmingly different from the one she had left behind.

The captain's wives who remained at home had the security of familiar surroundings and a well-worn routine. Their days were filled with a multitude of tasks, some of which might be monotonous and dreary, but at least they had some control over their lives. They might have missed their husbands, but they had the consolation of family and friends around them. They had the support network of parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters. They were able to call on other women for advice or help or simply to have an enjoyable chat.

The captain's wife at sea was cut off from all this. She was isolated in a confined space in which she had no defined role. It was extremely rare for a woman to take over command of a ship in an emergency as Mary Patten had. In normal circumstances, the captain's wife had little or nothing to do with the day-to-day running of the ship. She might mend the cabin boy's shirt, or act as a nurse to an injured crewman, but there was little else for her to do of a practical nature. The cook and the steward looked after the captain and the other officers, and so she found herself a mere onlooker in a world ruled by her husband. Her presence was often resented by members of the crew who regarded her as a spy who would report their behavior to the captain. “The carpenter has put a long window in the forward part of the house so Mrs. Hamblin can set down and look what's going on on deck, who goes over the bows or to the urine barrel,” wrote Abram Briggs.
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And John Perkins, a seaman on the whaling ship
Tiger,
provides us with a picture of the isolated position of Mary Brewster, who traveled with her husband on a four-year voyage: “The Captain's lady sits on deck sewing every pleasant day. There is nothing remarkable in her appearance. She never speaks to any of the other officers when on deck but her husband.”
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With no useful tasks to perform, many wives found that life at sea could become extremely tedious. As Eliza Brock of Nantucket wrote on Sunday, July 31, 1853, “It is a long lonesome day to pass upon the Stormy deep, all I can do is to read, write and sing a hymn now and then, and in thinking of my far distant home and friends.”
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The whaling wife's isolation was enhanced by the fact that she was mostly confined to the stern of the ship. She shared the captain's accommodations, but while he was free to roam the ship at will, she was expected to remain within her allotted area. In most whaling ships, this consisted of three rooms: the captain's stateroom, the captain's sitting room, and the main cabin. The stateroom was where they both slept, and it had a small alcove adjoining it that contained a water closet, a washbasin, and a locker. The captain's sitting room was a narrow room across the width of the stern that was lit by the stern windows. This was his dayroom and office and was the coziest room as far as his wife was concerned. It might be furnished with a sofa, an easy chair or two, a carpet on the floor, a barometer and perhaps a picture on the walls, and a space for the books that were her principal source of entertainment. The main cabin was the dining room for the captain, his wife, and the ship's officers. This was dominated by a dining table with the captain's chair at one end and chairs or benches for the three or four mates who were the officers. The rest of the ship was effectively out of bounds. Henrietta Deblois was able to give a detailed account of the captain's accommodations in her journal, but she noted, “For'ard is the Forecastle where the seamen live. I cannot take you there as I have not been there myself but am told it is very nicely fitted up.”
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In addition to the confinement of her quarters, the boredom, and the feelings of inadequacy and inferiority due to the lack of a useful role on board, almost all captains' wives desperately missed female company. We have seen Mary Lawrence comment on this at intervals, but her isolation was somewhat relieved by the presence of her young daughter, Minnie. For many wives the absence of other women was almost more than they could bear. Emma McInnes confessed to crying like a baby when she missed the chance to speak to a woman on another ship, and Eliza Williams described an occasion when she saw a captain's wife on a passing ship staring at her with a telescope: “She was looking at me, I imagine, anxious with me to see a Woman; she had the glass up to her eyes, I could see.”
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The only person a woman could confide in was her husband, but he was often preoccupied with running the ship and was not always sympathetic to things that were troubling her. As Dorothea Balano pointed out, “I can't turn to anyone for understanding, let alone help, because all the creatures on board are completely and absolutely in his power.”
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In fact, most of the wives who made the difficult decision to accompany their husbands to sea appear to have been so devoted to them that they were prepared to put up with all kinds of hardships. “I am with my Husband and by him I will remain. No seas can now Divide us. He can have no trouble, no sorrow but what I can know and share,” wrote Mary Brewster, who concluded, “I have need of nothing more and gladly willingly resign all friends and home and native land.”
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