Nantucket Whaling: The Fate of the Essex

Nantucket, Massachusetts was the heart of the American Whaling industry during the 1820s. Whales were used to produce a multitude of everyday items including oil, candles, meat, corset and crinoline boning and even expensive perfumes.

Whaling was a huge industry. Sailors on whaling vessels not only had to track and find whales but also harpoon them, bring them aboard their ship and process the whales. It was a very dangerous job as many sailors could not swim and there were plenty of chances of falling into the water.

When a whale was spotted, chosen sailors would depart the ship and man small whaling boats. All the small boats would be rowed up to the whale and the harpooner would take a shot at the whale. Ropes attached the harpoons to the small boats so that the boats would not lose the whales. The whales would frequently try to swim away, dragging the boats quickly behind them, sailors referred to this as a "Nantucket sleigh ride." When the whale was too hurt to swim, the whale was hobbled, by cutting the tail (this is similar to cutting an Achilles tendon in an ankle.) The whale was then struck again with a lance to kill the whale. The whale's lungs would fill with blood until blood would shoot out of the whale's blowhole, sailors would call "chimney's afire," when it happened to prepare everyone for a shower of blood.  It was a gruesome job but the only way to get oil in a time before petroleum.

The Essex, a whale ship in the 1820s, was attacked by an abnormally large sperm whale in the South Pacific. The ship was rammed twice and sank and 21 men escaped on their small whaling boats but could not manage to get the necessary supplies. The men eventually landed on a small island with a freshwater spring but soon drained the island of its resources. All but three men decided to leave the island in search of food.

The three men who stayed behind were eventually rescued but the other men, delirious from malnutrition and a lack of fresh water" soon resorted to eating their dead companions. Similarly to many 'last resort' accounts of the time, African Americans "died" first, a true testament to the societal norms of the time. After exhausting those who died of natural causes, the stranded men started to draw lots to decide who would be sacrificed for the group. The Captain's nephew, who was entrusted to his care by his sister, was elected and his good friend was elected to kill him.

When they were rescued, there was only three men left. The First mate soon wrote an account of the incident entitled The Loss of the Ship "Essex" Sunk by a Whale and the Ordeal of the Crew in Open Boats. The account was not published until the 1980s; however, the son of the First mate lent a copy of his father's manuscript to a young Herman Melville while they worked on a ship together. Melville was so inspired by the violence of whales, which was a rare occurrence, that he went on to write Moby Dick. 

The whole whaling industry sends shivers down my back. Can you imagine the time when whale oil would be lighting your homes and your corset would be stiffened with baleen? Those sailors must have been a tough group!

You can see modern whaling on Animal Planet's Whale Wars. It is an interesting show. I am not sure I believe in their methods but they do have a great devotion to saving whales.

Sontag it is! Were Sontags Crocheted during the Civil War?

It seems like the Sontag is the winner for the knit-along. I am trying to find a yarn that is affordable and available to most of the knitters. While most of us will be knitting the sontag, others have expressed interest in knitting other Civil War Era items. I am ecstatic and will link to all of the knitted items regardless of what they are.

The sontag pictured is post war--1866, but it is absolutely gorgeous! Many people are interested in crocheting sontags as they don't know how to knit. I have only seen one period reference to crocheted sontags.

The reference is late war--1864 and from Peterson's Magazine:

This pattern produces a sontag that is more like a shawl. It is something period and warm, so if you must crochet, I'm sure it could look very beautiful. If you aren't looking to make something period and just want a sontag to wear around the house indulge yourself with the 1866 sontag at the top.

I will keep you all posted when a suitable yarn for the knit-along is found. The needles will most likely be a common 7US. You will also need a few stitch markers. Stich markers can be bought cheaply or made at home, as a friend taught me, by cutting a drinking straw into 3 mm thick rings. 

Civil War Era Knit-Along

These storms keep rolling in! As I write this I could hear a roaring in the distance which soon became large crashes and flashes that shake the house. What crazy weather we've been having, we just had a storm this morning. It is very hot now but forecasters are predicting a very cold winter. All the better to make sure that we have plenty of knitted things to keep ourselves and loved ones toasty.

On August 1, I will be hosting a knit-along for beginners if anyone is interested. Everyone will have a chance to vote on what you'd most like to knit. We will knit a certain amount each week and everyone is invited to post photos of their progress every Saturday, and I will link to them.



 The options are:

* Sontag from Godey's Lady's Book, 1860

 *Opera Hood From Godey's Lady's Book, 1856

* Necktie from Peterson's Magazine 1861

* Lace Collar from The Ladies' Complete Guide, 1859 









Let me know what you would like to knit and if you plan to participate. Once we pick a project, we can figure out the yarn and needles we'll need. I think it will be fun and I feel like I'm more likely to finish it and not discard it for another project if I am knitting along with a group.

Anne of Green Gables Entry, The Hazel Dell Sheet Music

I am one of the few who has never seen the Anne of Green Gables movies. Before last month, I had never even read the books. I was inspired to read the book by the pretty photos on Bramblewood Fashion's blog which is hosting an Anne of Green Gables Fashion Week. To celebrate the week, I drew Anne on the roof in one of her "serviceable" dresses.

 I finally read the first book and absolutely loved it! There were a lot of very true and beautiful things written in it.






Some meaningful things said in the book were:

• " Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed."
• "...when a man is courting he always has to agree with the girl's mother in religion and her father in politics."
• "A body can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as the Irishman said."
• "It is all very well to read about sorrows and imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when you really come to have them, is it?"

Here is a song to celebrate the week also. Anne mentions that Diana is going to teach her a song called Nelly in the Hazel Dell. This song was written in 1853 and was revived in the early 1900s. A midi version of the song can be heard here at The Music.

I hope everyone has been enjoying Anne of Green Gables Fashion Week and I can't wait to see the rest of everyone's blog posts. Someone will have to tell me if they use this song in the movie.

A Recipe from my Great Grandmother

My Grandmother was trying to find a recipe for me from my Great Aunt Ann for Perogies. We couldn't find it today--she has a lot of recipes! She did pull out this recipe for crabcakes and said "This is my mother's handwriting."

I looked at it, scrawled in green pen, her handwriting is much sloppier than my grandmother's. The recipe was nothing special; there was no ingredient list and there were blue ink annotations correcting the measurements.

What I found very fascinating, living in the modern, disposable age, was that the paper it was written on. The recipe was written on the back side of an order form from the "Stork Diaper Service."

"How long ago did you use cloth diapers?"

"Oh, a long long time, now you can use the disposable ones," she said."
She looked at the back of the recipe and said "This must have been when Uncle Freddie used to work there."

" I'm thinking of using cloth diapers, when I have kids," I said with a smile.

She looked at me with horror and said the first curse word I have ever heard from her in my 22 years-- "No, they were horrible! It was just a rag! You had to send them away all S***ty and they'd clean them there and send you back the same number your sent them. They would sanitize them. Don't tell your mother, I still have two of hers."

She went up to her rag drawer and pulled out two white rags.

"I use them for the windows. They soak up a lot more than normal rags."

The cloth diapers would have been from the 1950s and my Grandmother said the recipe was probably from around the same time. She tried to remember how to wrap the diapers.

"The extra fold goes in the back for girls and in the front for boys. That's all I remember. And you had to make sure you didn't pin the baby."

We tried wrapping the cloth diaper on Pinocchio, another relic from the 1950s. We weren't very successful, and she reiterated that I should use disposable ones when the time comes.

"They are very expensive," I said.

"It's well worth it!"

I guess it is true because statistics say that in the 1950s, 92% of babies were toilet trained by the time they were a year and a half old. Today only 4% are toilet trained by that time. There is an interesting article here about this: Cloth Diapers. I am guessing that this would have been true in years before as well. No one wanted to carry around a messy baby. Imagine the ruined clothing!

Diapers seem to have been a thick cloth for the most part in history
The book, Babyhood from 1891, mentions that cheesecloth diapers are better than cotton ones and that you should put one diaper folded up inside of the "wrapping diaper."

Only at Grandma's can you go in looking for a recipe and end up putting a Nappie on Pinocchio.  

 The Crab cake Recipe:
"Fry onions + celery together in [1 TB] Butter until tender then add 1 can Crab Meat stir it good then [1/2 cup] 1 qt. milk bring to a boil, then take it off the stove and stir in [2 TBS] 1 Cup flour, do not dilute the flour, stir it in dry, then a little soy sause, salt + pepper or if you have Chicken Boullion it gives a nice flavor, make This The day before you use it Then its eas-ier to bread you Take a spoonful and roll it in Bread-crumbs."