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World’s Most Comprehensive Whaling History Database Released

WhalingHistory.org connects all things whaling for researchers, scholars, genealogists and enthusiasts

The New Bedford Whaling Museum and Mystic Seaport Museum have developed the world’s most comprehensive whaling history database and it is now available for all to use at whalinghistory.org. Researchers, genealogists, students, teachers, and history buffs alike will find it to be the most robust and useful repository of whaling history documentation and scholarship.

The data presented combines many sources including logbooks, journals, ship registers, newspapers, business papers, and custom house records. Users will be able to find and trace whaling voyages and ships to specific logbooks, as well as the list of crew members aboard most of the voyages. The foundational fabric of Whaling History features three databases that have been stitched together – the American Offshore Whaling Voyage (AOWV) database, the American Offshore Whaling Log database, and an extensive whaling crew list database. All data is open to the public and is downloadable for any researcher to use with other tools and systems.

The American Offshore Whaling Voyage (AOWV) database, which was spearheaded by Judith Lund, scholar and former curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, includes information about all known American offshore (or “pelagic”) whaling voyages from the 1700s to the 1920s. It does not include the modern factory ship voyages of the mid-20th century. Information is most complete for the 19th century. The voyages included in the database sailed from, or were under the registry of, what is now the United States.

Extensive records of American whaling in the form of daily entries in whaling voyage logbooks and contain a great deal of information about where and when the whalemen found whales. The second part of the database’s foundation is the American Offshore Whaling Log database, which includes information from 1,381 logbooks from American offshore whaling voyages between 1784 and 1920. These data were extracted from the original whaling logbooks during three separate scientific research projects, one conducted by Lieutenant Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury in the 1850s, the second conducted by Charles Haskins Townsend in the 1930s, and the third conducted by a team from the Census of Marine Life project led by Tim Denis Smith between 2000 and 2010. The data file includes 466,134 data records assembled in a common format suitable for spatial and temporal analysis of American whaling throughout the 19th century.

The third database that Whaling History is built from is extensive whaling voyage crew lists from more than 5,300 voyages. Crew lists for whaling voyages recorded at the customs houses in Fall River and Salem, Massachusetts and in New London, Connecticut have been compiled as part of various projects and from various sources over the years. Crew lists for New Bedford voyages have been compiled using records kept by the chaplains of the New Bedford Port Society from 1840 to the end of whaling in New Bedford. These crew lists are now in a single searchable, sortable database.

In the next phase of the Whaling History, museums and other institutions’ collection items will be able to be linked to the database, giving researchers the ability to see a robust and dynamic picture of whaling history and artifacts.

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Spatial and Seasonal Distribution of American Whaling and Whales in the Age of Sail

This map showing the spatial distribution of American Whaling and Whales in the 17th to 19th century was created using AOWL data. This and other maps are presented in:

Smith TD, Reeves RR, Josephson EA, Lund JN (2012) Spatial and Seasonal Distribution of American Whaling and Whales in the Age of Sail. PLoS ONE 7(4): e34905.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034905

Abstract

American whalemen sailed out of ports on the east coast of the United States and in California from the 18th to early 20th centuries, searching for whales throughout the world’s oceans. From an initial focus on sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) and right whales (Eubalaena spp.), the array of targeted whales expanded to include bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus), humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), and gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus). Extensive records of American whaling in the form of daily entries in whaling voyage logbooks contain a great deal of information about where and when the whalemen found whales. We plotted daily locations where the several species of whales were observed, both those caught and those sighted but not caught, on world maps to illustrate the spatial and temporal distribution of both American whaling activity and the whales. The patterns shown on the maps provide the basis for various inferences concerning the historical distribution of the target whales prior to and during this episode of global whaling.

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Townsend’s Whaling Charts

Chart A: Distribution of the sperm whale based on logbook records dating from 1761 to 1920. April – September, inclusive. (Click on any chart to enlarge.)
Chart B: Distribution of the sperm whale based on logbook records dating from 1761 – 1920 October—March, inclusive
Chart C: Distribution of northern and southern right whales based on logbook records dating from 1785 to 1913.
Chart D: Distribution of bowhead and humpback whales based on logbook records – mostly Nineteenth Century.

From Townsend CH (1935) The distribution of certain whales as shown by logbook records of American whaleships. 19. Zoologica (NY): : 1–50+6 Charts.

For a dataset that corresponds in part to these charts, visit Townsend’s Logbook Data →

For more information and chart scans, visit WCS Canada →

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Honolulu, Nov 2nd 1859

To: Mystic Seaport, Collections Research Center
Date: 23 November 2017

Sir:

When my older brother died last month, his widow sent me a box of family papers, much of which I was totally ignorant of. Among them was a letter dated Nov 2nd 1859, from Honolulu, Sandwich Islands. The letter was from, I assume, a crew Member to his mother. In it he expresses regret at the news of his father’s death and guilt that he wasn’t there to help console the family. He writes that there are presently about 80 ships in port, mostly whalers, and he has met many men from Hartford. He also notes that they were “in the Ochotsk Sea six months and have on board one thousand barrels of oil and 8500 lbs of bone”. He signed the letter “From your ever affectionate and dutyful son, Sidney Case.” He then writes “Please direct Honolulu Sandwich Island in care of Cpt Davey (Davis?) “Barque Gratitude” The hand writing is very formal and ornate, the letter has been folded, unfolded numerous times and at some point the folds were taped making much of it difficult to read. I would like to confirm that “Sidney Case” was a crew member, and then try to determine what connection he had with my family (Gilmore (Gillmore) and Randall). Any information you can provide is appreciated.