companies and today, we're brought to you by these companies, who provide it as a public services. nathaniel talks about "the heart of the sea" following a destructive attack by a sperm whale and he accounts the fate of the ship's crew, as they spent three months, trying in vein, to reach mainland south america before being rescued. the nan ticket historical association hosted the event and provided the video. good evening and welcome to the nantucket whaling museum. the 200th anniversary of the

essex whale tragedy. and we are thrilled to be this evening, in kangds with long-time island erhere. they arrived in 1986 and have lived here ever since. and nat is a historian and has written numerous books about the island in the year 2000, published "in the heart of the sea." a book about the essex tragedy, which won the national book award in 2000 for nonfiction. since then, he's gone on to write quite a number of books, very good book about the u.s. exploring expedition, looking at mayflower, a variety of other interesting topics. branching off from sort of nan ticket. this is a sea base for all of the history work that nat's done. but we are thrilled that

everybody can join us this evening. the story of the essex tragedy is a sort of near and dear story to nan ticket and to the identity as a historic whaling port. and this organization is a unique place to be able to tell this story. we preserve the history of nan tucket for the people of nantucket and we have lots of collections related to the story and we have lots of bones, as it were. so, we're thrilled to have you join us and our conversation about the essex. i second that and it's great to be in conversation with you. there's no one who knows nantucket history like you do. >> oh, thank you. >> so, the basic thing. we're here to tell, to talk about the essex. and i suppose the question of the evening, we should start

with, in case anyone joining us may not know, what are the bissic things everybody should know? >> the essex left nantucket in the summer of 1819, just the year after the pacific national bank was built. she was a typical whale ship, about 20 years old, not in great repair. she had a first-time captain, george pallered jr. first mate, owen chase. 21 men. cabin boy was thomas nickerson and they departed and headed for the pacific. it was a normal whaling voyage, not a very successful one, as they made their way around cape horn, up the west coast of south america and they decided to venture out farther into the pacific than the essex had ever been before,to the off shore grounds. and they were, after a stop at the gulop goes, they were 3,000

miles from the coast of south america, when they sited a huge sperm whale. 85 feet long. this is a huge whale. if you know the huge jaw here at the whaling museum. that refutedly came from an 85-foot whale. just massive. particularly when you realize the ship was 85 feet long. one of the whale boats was damaged and so, first mate owen chase dragged that boaten the deck of the whale ship, essex, is repairing it, while the other two boats are pursuing whales. cabin boy, 15 years, was at the helm steering, when the huge 85-foot sperm whale appeared on their port side. they didn't think much of it because never before in the

history of american whaling had a whale attacked a ship. but this whale had a different intention and began to pick up speed, slammed into the side of the ship, knocked the men to their sides. drievl the ship backwards, crush the bow like an egg shell. the ship would not sink but would fill up with water. the men would take to their whale boats. they all gathered and captain pollard would arrive and say to mr. chase, because they were over the horizon. say to chase, mr. chase, what is the matter? these were men of few words. this a simply said we've been stoved by a whale. many of us, if you don't know about the essex, probably familiar with moby dick. this would inspire the clime ax of the great american novel.

but where "moby dick" ends, it would turn into a survival tale like none other. fearful of rumors of cannibals in the islands to the west in the pacific. that they decided to go for south america, 3,000 miles away. and impossible voyage and the great irony, they would be forced to survive cannibalism. eventually, only two of the three whale boats would be sited by rescue craft. five nantucketers would get out of the whale boats alive. three others were left on henderson island. and when news came to nantucket and eventually the rest of the country, this was fitting news. this is before the american west had begun the predominant wilderness that incited the american imagination. the sea was the wildernize.

this was the donner party before that all unfolded. owen chase would write an account of it, probably ghost written. that would become renowned around the country and the world. this is big news. so, this was a tale that nantucketers weren't particularly proud of but full of all sorts of fascination for those outside nantucket. so, this was a story i realized i needed to write about. >> and there's an interesting things in this disaster that come to mind as you're retelling it. on the one hand, this part of the pacific that they were whaling in the off shore ground, had only been discovered a year or two before as being a place

rich with. whales and not a part of the ocean that the crew hof essex or many of their brethren had been to, that they knew very well. they were more comfortable on the coast of south america. but there was money to be made and they ventured out. in one case, they were in the unknown, taking a risk. but here they are with their shipwrecked. and imagine us being cast into a boat in the middle of the pacific. you're a reputable sailer. you might be able to do some of the great stuff. i would be at my whit's end. but here are professional sailers who are able to salvage things from the wreck, able to rig their rowing boats to sail. they're actually -- they have all these professional skills to bring to bear to actually save themselves. and the great irony or tragedy

of this, either way, is that they're outmatched by the circumstances. they make a decision not to go to the nearest islands because they've heard there are cannibals there. again, a reflection of maybe think is slightly pruvingsal about nantucket, maybe, maybe not but they're going to south america and that's where they go. it just happens to be sailing against prevailing winds in boats that don't have center boards and not enough water and food doesn't work very well. so, i thought long and hard and tried to examine it in my research. how did they do this? what were they thinking? and this is a story of survival. when you're in a survival situation, it's your fears that drive you. it's hard to think rationally. and the fears they had were the unknown pacific. this is very early in pacific

whaling. the only thing they knew about islands were rumors of cannibals. the nantucketers had taketen farther than anyone else, when it came the exploration of the world and they're very conservative. they built their knowledge incremental and unless they could hear it from someone they knew, they didn't trust that information. the one thing they did know was the sea, whale boats and whale ships. so, when forced to it, just as you described, here's a whale boat right here. this boat is from a later era, much larger than the essex whale boats were, which are only 25 feet long. and they built up their size so a large wave wouldn't necessarily flood it. these boats were not yet

equipped with sails. they turned them into spooners and off they went. finally falling into the only thing they knew to get back to a civilized coast. and so, for me, the story of the essex is a tale of human survival. but as you eluded to, these guys had tremendous skills but ultimately it would be nature to call the shots in what they would endure in the weeks and months ahead. >> absolutely. the irony that we see in the story now, as modern observers. they don't want to go to certain islands because they're afraid of cannibalism and they resort to it in the boats. they're in these boats for three months. three months in an open boat. i mean, that's an entire summer. and you're at sea and they had, in the gulop goes islands at that point, in the history of

whaling, it's common to have huge creatures and store them like wood, sacks of wood in the hull. and these gallapagos tortoises could supply them for weeks. they put two tortoises in each whale boat, had some bread some water and that was the key thing. they didn't have a lot of water and off they went. for me, the closest i can get to getting my head imaginatively to get my head around, it's like a space ship blown up and you're

in your escape pod in the middle of the universe. pacific was spaced for them, really. and here they are out there just doing their best. try to get back home. >> and helping -- they know there are other ships out there. british ships, american ship said, nantucket ships and they're hoping maybe they'll pass one. imagine sailing through an area the size of texas hoping you're going to pass one of the 60, 70 other whale ships out there. luck or not luck, they didn't pass. >> they felt if everything went right, the winds worked perfectly, they might be able to get the coast of south america in a month and a half. and their provisions would last that. and of course, not everything would go wrong.

they were always hopeful someone would discover them, they were dying of dehydration, when they sight an island, an island they were not aware of. they called it duchy island. it was henderson island. you can't make this stuff up. they're on the verge of death, sail up to and they can't find any water. and so, luckily it's a spring, high and low tide and a dead low tide bubbling from a rock that's usually submerged is fresh water. this is positively biblical and you know, but they would realize that -- and this is almost a metaphor for the human race on this planet. because, within a couple of days, weeks, they realized they

were killing off all of the wildfire they could sustain themselves, the birds. and if they stayed for any length of time, they would ultimately starve. so, they decide we have to push on. it's then where three men, not nantucketers, one was an englishmen, realized this was an ingrown group of nantucketers. good luck to you. we're going to stay on dry land. so, they would stay. very emotional parting. and ultimately, they would be rescued because the survivors would send a rescue ship there. but another great irony, it turned out that the rock, from which water would bubble up, would, as the tide moved on, spring low would never again come above the tide limit and so

they began to die of dehydration. and e, they would barely make it. they're on the verge of death when they were rescued. once again it's a story of incredible human endurance. full of all sorts of ins and outs. and it's a story that really captures the imagination. >> it's interesting. i was asked once by somebody. so, a few of these people survive, go through a horrible ordeal, they come home, what's the importance of this? what's the lasting impact of their tragedy? we think now of airplane disasters or any variety of modern calamities that bring about changes in legislation and safety p very famous example of changing all sorts of rules and regulation. somebody asked what did this do

for whaling? >> not much. well, nantucketers, this had never happened before. it seemed to them like just a random act. as captain pallered would say, he would be given a ship and depart within months of his return to nantucket. clearly no one faulted him or anyone else in the crew. but as he would say to a young naval officer, he met along the west coast of south america, that because the naval officer said he had just read the story of the essex, like so many americans. and said you're not captain pollard of the essex and said how could you ever go out there again? and he would say we have a saying lightening never strikes twice. for him, it would.

off hawaii, in a storm, they would -- the ship would be beaten to death on the coral, they would take to the whale boats and that cabin boy was with him when this happened. and said they had to drag pollard off the deck. he did not want it get back in a whale boat under these circumstances. luckily, they would be rescued the next day. but as pollard would say to a missionary, who he would meet on his return to nantucket, of all places, pacific islands, tahiti, one of the places they decided not to go too, because of fear of cannibal, he would say back home i will be judged an unlucky man. and yes, that was right. he will never go the sea again and live out his life as a night watchmen. >> it's interesting you eluded

to a couple of written sources for the story. and as historian, wanting to tell these compelling stories, in the past we rely on the evidence that existed for it. i think it's interesting in this case that there are two really compelling first-hand accounts by two of the survivors. and there are a variety of the second-hand accounts where the missionary who met captain pollard wrote down what he remembered him saying. and naval officers doing the same thing. i would love to hear a little bit about your encounter when you were on nantucket and inspired actually looking more closely at this and writing about it. >> yeah, well -- when i look back, i didn't know how lucky i was to be living on nantucket, where you had, not only this

wonderful whaling museum and research center, which has thomas nickerson's account, which he wrote late in life, which had just been newly discovered. it's the kind of book you get at a stationary store today. where he had written out his account of it and done wonderful drawings of the event. so, to hold that in your hand, extraordinary. but it has its own great archive. the newspapers had just been recently microwave -- microwaved? microfilmed. there's the town building. one of the resources, you guys had was that genealogy had just

gone online and it was possible for the first time to take two people and figure out how closely they were related. i was curious how closely related were the nantuckets? and so i did that. figured out how -- and they were all related. over and overagain. and survival situations, it's people -- it's groups of people that have a preexisting bond, whether it's spiritual, cultural, that tend to make it out at a higher rate than those that don't have those kinds of bonds. that probably helped the fact that there were only five nantucket survivors from the whale boats at the end. the other thing i went to mystic sea port and spent time in the charles w. morgan, the last

remaining american wooden whale ship, spent a lot of time channelling what it would have been like when a whale attacked and went to the kendall whaling museum, which had its own wonderful collection, that's now part of the bedford whaling museum. so, all of these provided -- history isn't what happened in the past. it's what we tell, using the evidence of what came from the past. you're -- you don't know everything about what happened. you just have these art facts from the past, whether it's a journal, a letter, a newspaper account. all of these kinds of things and you take that all together. you take this all together. and it's the historian's job,

then we try to tell the story as best we can, to be truthful to what historical accounts you have and inevitably, they disagree between chase and nickerson. and you have to make the judgment call, who to believe. >> the nantucket historical association polled these things. in 2015 a film version of your book came out, "the big hollywood treatment" inspired by, put it that way, inspired by your book. so, here at that nha, we took that opportunity to sort of reassess the essex tragedy and do an exhibit about it. and look anew at some of the art facti and put them on display. it was one of the first things i worked on at the association. we're going to do a show about

the essex with all of our show about the essex and we'll see what we have in terms of art facts and as i'm fond of saying, the nantucket historical association holds all the art facts. both of them. because when you look at one way of looking at it, things actually from the ship, there's basically one. it's this piece of twine. it's the most heartbreaking artifact. this is a crew member and it's this little piece of twine where one of the crew members in the whale boats, would take the fibers and sails from his cloekting and create -- weave a piece of twine. and you often see this behavior

in survival situation wheres you're terrified all the time. what do you do? you take up the equivalent of a hobby and in this case, a young teenager was creating a piece of twine and when he was pulled out of the whale boats, he still had that piece of twine with him, which clearly was important enough for him and his family that it eventually ended up here. >> it became part of the collection in 1914. the crew member who made it kept it and gave it to alexander starbuck, a great historian of nantucket and of nantucket whaling. i don't know exactly when it was gifted but it ended up with starbuck and starbuck gave to the nha in 1914. and it's just as you describe.

it's in an ivory frame with a card that says that he was in the boat 93 days. and he made this piece of twine. it's a very powerful arti, if act and they have the chip and the boat and all that's left is this piece of twine. very powerful. nat's already eluded to manuscripts. there's warf books from other messages of the ship and have all the crew signatures. there's -- we own -- museum hold as silver laddal given to the previous captain of the essex. at the ends of the previous voyage, he was then given a new command, new ship and that's when pollard, the former first mate ux stepped up. the ship was regarded as a good one to be aboard.

we have arti facts that reflect that. and holds the power of this kind of event in the imagination is a trunk. it's a small travel trunk of a period. and it was fetched out of the sea. the story is that it was fetched out of the sea from near where the essex wrecked. and a man on one ship, who had it. sold it to a man on another ship. this is from the essex. and man bought it and took it and held it dear. and he lived in ohio, retired there, his family was from there. and in the 1890s, his family gave the trunk at the nha, knowing the importance of the essex. so, this is from the essex and it's always been displayed as trunk from the essex. there isn't a single water stain

on it. so, and they were in the boats for three months. how nevertheless, it's one of those oral traditions. but it's an artifact. that's the ultimate thing about writing history. i will always have huge respect for the tenuousness. you -- it's said that those who don't know history will live to repeat it. unfortunately, we're all going to repeat history, no matter how well you know it. we're all living in the fog of reality. it's terrifying now we don't know where we're going and

that's exactly the way it was with the crew of the essex or any time in the past. history is great. you can look back and say this is where it was going. and there's a tendency to think it was a simpler time and they knew what they were doing. no. we had the luxury of looking back. when you're in the middle of it, you don't know. they almost become an artifact of the cultural memory of the essex as much, even if it's -- it may not have been pollard's trunk or wherever. and that's where this institution is so important. not only do you have the stuff that connects with razor, laser directness to what happened, you

have evidence of how a culture responded to something like this. it's endlessly fascinating. and the longer i'm in this business, the more i begin to realize how lucky i was to have lived on nantucket, to stumble on to the story and decide to tell it and have all of this incredible organization. >> we're happy to have such great people come and use resources and make -- good story telling out of it. so, this is the 200th anniversary of the disaster. and the anniversary of your book about the disaster. i know you've been speaking about the book. are there any stories from the process of writing the book? >> this is before the internet

had really kicked in. so, now you google something and i was using a lot of interlibrary loans to get, not only books but academic articles. so, i was working with our local library. and i worked very closely with sharon. i have to question a lot of things. at one point she called to say there were articles. and went up to the great hall,to the reference desk and sharon looked worriedly into melissa's eyes and said is matt all right.

and a packet to see what was in if. and the first article was caloric. and for me, this was a research that took in the whole iron. one of the traditions i have heard, when i was beginning work on this, everyone had said have you heard the tradition about what happened to captain pollard when he came back to nantucket? and the story was that pollard was with some friends on the steps of the pacific national bank.

when someone from off island, who had recently arrive oden the ferry came up and said i'm looking for someone named owen coughman. have you -- you know where i can find it? and he's one of the people on theesh ex, who didn't make it. and pollard is refuted to have said no, why i ate him. so, how is that for an oral tradition from nantucketers. i have always had an interest in the dark side of history. i'm not so much interested in the great triumphs and inspiration. i'm really interested in the scary stuff. that is indexed to our what happens to people in the toughest of times. so, the darkness of the essex story had an immediate appeal. what i didn't -- i'm a big

stephen king fan and all that kind of thing. what i really didn't anticipate was how much i would identify with the crew members during the writing of "in the heart of the sea." and what was amazing for me was i actually, once they got in the whale boats, as i was writing it, they were in the whale boats sort of during the winter of january and february and that's the actual time i was writing the book. i had a fantasy i would finish that part of the thing on the day they survived. but what i didn't anticipate was how hard it was going to be to write about the situation. whereas on pollard's boat, there are four of them left. grown up with each other.

pollard is related to owen coughman and they've come to the point where they know that, if they do nothing, they'll probably all die of starvation. but in there custom of the sea, if you draw locks and execute the person who got the short straw, and consume his body, the rest will have a chance to live. can you imagine to be in that situation? and when pollard was rescued, and it would be pollard and a kid with the last name of ramsdell, found in their whale boat, they were clutching the dead bones of their mess mates. that's how it was described. and pollard would come on the whale ship of the boat that rescued him and i don't know how he did it, but he would recall the story of what happened. and it was told by a story of a

nantucketer who listened to this. can you imagine the drama, this men at sea for three mungs, a living skeleton and describing how they drew lots and his much younger cousin drew the short lot. pollard said my boy, no one is going to touch you if you don't want to do this and he said i like my lot as well as any other. and so, they would draw lots again to see who would execute the boy. and he would be dispatched as, as they said, and ultimately would be one thing that would allow pollard and ramsdell to survive. so, this is tough stuff. and it was a hard process. but one that i will -- i feel just such an enormous debt to the island and those people who lived it. and just hope the book, in some

way, does a proper tribute to them. >> it's interesting you mentioned both spending time at the charles w. morgan at mystic seaport, that atmosphere, and there's nothing like being on nantucket in winter to inspire lots of thoughts. in some ways, it's easy to see how mel vill corresponds to this. he's a young man, goes whaling. he reads chase's account. >> given the book by chase's son. >> right. >> he's channelling the gods here. and yeah. melville reads this. and through the nantucket nethe

would visit nantucket, the summer after writing "moby dick." can you imagine this? he publishes his masterpiece, but it's completely neglected. visits nantucket, traveling with his father in law. i love mine but not the most auspicious way to go. and his father was the judge. and they stayed at what's now the jared coughman house, than the atlantic house. and living kitty corner across

the street was none other than captain pollard. and he would write in green crayon and his eye sight is to have thought to have gone. and a product of all those years at sea. he would write on the back, in the back pages of his copy of chase's narrative, sometime in the 1850s, visited nantucket and saw captain pollard. to the islanders, he was a nobody, but to me, the most remarkable man i'd ever met. if that's not a character reference, i don't know what is. and i think melville at the beginning of the tail spin of his career, saw in pollard, someone who experienced the

worse possible fats, not once, but twice in losing his ship. i think he saw in pollarda source of information on how someone can survive when the worst happens. melville would return to the meeting with pollard in a long poem, he would write about a called claire elin which recounts a trip to the holty land and he recounts meeting a man who lost a ship that had been rammed by a whale and meeting himg in a fog and the tendrils wrapping around him like snakes. it's got to be based on the circumstance he saw pollard. i think what's fascinating for me is yes, moby dick was inspired by the story of the essex. particularly the sinking of the ship. but it would be the captain of the essex who would really

become a life-long source of inspiration for melville in the years after he wroets "moby dick." i think that's powerful. we talk a lot about ships and technology. but we're really all about people. we're about telling real stories from real people. and making their stories and their experiences come alive, to the extents we can. j i think that's a great reminder of the effort we put into doing that. and with pollard, it reminds me of the story you were telling on the book tour in 2000. >> yeah, well, in the heart of the sea came out. in may of 2000. and i went on this extensive book tour. my first book tour, a strange experience and it was a wonderful experience.

but terrifying at the same time. and i was in st. louis at left bank books. still there. wonderful book store. and as i came in, there was a gentleman with grocery bag holding it, clutching it. he looked at me as i walked by and i didn't know what was going on. and he came up to me afterwards and said i have something i want tashow you. and before he opened up the bag, he explained he had been on nantucket several years before and has come across a yard sale, where there were books for sale. and there was this old bible for sale. he bought it for a couple bucks. and he brought it back to st. louis and then he was reading my book about the essex and captain pollard. he looked back and said wait, what was the name inside that

bible? he opened it up, it was the pollard family bible. george pollard's family. he said -- should i have this? don't you think it should be somewhere else? i said i think the folks at the nantucket historical association would love to have it. and sure enough, this wonderful gentleman, it was in the mail by that week. at that point, there was an essex exhibit and within the week, the pollard family bible was on exhibit at that exhibit. so, for me, this was like the power of history to bubble up. i grew up in pittsburgh. mare time center of the universe.

and they were descended on the essex. and they said they had an oral tradition in the family, that, whenever it was time for dinner, they all sat down right away and began eating because they all knew what happened when grandpa got hupgry. it was fun when the book came out. the story just kept on happening and it was really wonderful. >> and we have the bible is in the collection and we had it in our 2015 show. >> and by the way, your exhibit was terrific. it was so fun. you had -- it was a game, basically.

you'd be one of the crew members and find out what happened to you. i was talking to someone, who, at that point, was sitting a couple of four year olds and their twins. and one got one character and the other got the other character. and one of the twins died, was eating and the other survives. was a huge hit. >> thank you. we -- for those in the audience, who may not have had a chance to see it, when represented the story of the essex, we looked at what are the core ideas we want visitors to come aiowa? and that the story involves a journey was a key part of what we wanted to communicate. and it involved real people. again, getting back to the connection with real people in the past. so, we built a reproduction boat of the right scale that you could sit in and read quotes, a projection of quotes, as the

disaster gets worse and worse and a big mural of the ocean. then a path on the floor that you could follow their journey to the whale, past the whale the boats split up. and these cards and each of five or six places your card, which would say look, i drew the card of charles ramsdale, did he stay on henderson island? no, he didn't he wasn't one of those men. and of course, many rifle through the cards and they would look for owen chase, pollard. so, they went really fast. very much forgrounding and getting your mind around what are that might have been like. the survivors came back and had

whole lives at sea, actually. we have artifacts from that. some of the great arti facts are where they lived. we're living in a museum. i live off orange street and the owen chase house is still there. the house thomas nickerson was in, was then a guest house. nantucketers no longer hunted whales at this point. they fished for tourists and he hadded a guest house that's now part of the north water street is part of the harbor house. complex. the pollard house on center street. and it's amazing. owen chase's grave is there.

i had a chance to take two of his descendants. and so, it sort of brought home to me, this is a local story. this is local history. and one sense for me, but one of the aims i had within the heart of the sea was to take what i learned as local history in my book about nantucket, away up shore and try to make it more universal, to really focus on this as an endurance situation. as what happens to people in the worst of situations. i wanted to make it not just another whaling story but if you grew up and never seen the sea, you might be drawn into the human element. and that's what it is.

er for it's really the human element. if we don't engage emotionally t doesn't mean anything to us. >> we've been talking now for about 50 minutes. we have questions people have been submitting. i think if you're -- >> sure. >> -- we'll segway into that. the first question we have is somebody who noticed that you mentioned in your book that mail sperm whales are sometimes referred to as carpenter fish. and from loud clangs they make to announce them selves to potential mates. there is the story of whether the hammering of the damaged repair boat may have attracted the whale that attacked the essex. has there been research into whether it was? >> when i was researching the

book i reached out to one of the foremost sperm whale experts on earth. he and wife and small children took a sail boat and basically sailed very close to where the essex went down with very high-tech listening devices under water, listening -- they were really the first ones to develop a good sense of how sperm whales communicate and it's through a process of clicks. males have more of a clang, boom, sound. and it's a real language. almost morris code-like clicks. i emailed and explained to him, as best i could from the evidence, what happened. what did he think the whale

happened? and he said who knows. he said -- because he was familiar with following the whales. he tended to think maybe the whale blundered into the ship by accident and got angry and came after it. sperm whales, male sperm whales are very territorial. they're like elephants. they'll attack each other and fight over the females in a pod of whales. and who knows. i have not heard a definitive explanation. and unless we have the traditions grand ad used to tell, we'll never know. at the center of it is this question.

what was the whale thinking? chase, looking at the whale attacking, coming at them. felt, in his account, feels there's something going on. melville channels this. there's a malevolent dety. what is going on there? it made its way to moby dick. you can only madge. but we'll never know and i think that's what gives history real legs. where something of huge importance happens but ultimately will never really, really know what exactly happened. >> that's somewhat segwayinize -- segways into another question. we have accounts that say what happened. they drew straws in pollard's

boat, they resorted to cannibalism and the question is how do we know they're telling us the truth? >> ah, that's the question when it. >>s to all evidence in history. and the one things, when it comes to letters, they're telling the side of the story. chase's account is a narrative of an officer, putting a voyage, that went really bad in the best possible light, particularly when it comes to his involvement. what's interesting about -- and usually, as a historian, you want stuff that was recorded as closethy vent as possible. before people have had a chance to think about their reputation. and it's a disinterested person

recording this. coming right out of his mouth. nickerson's is suspect. on the other side, he had the chance to talk to other survivors, get information that chase may not have had and he's coming from a different perspective. he was 15 a cabin boy. he had no great professional state in what happened. and what he reveals are details about what happened in the initial collision that chase chose not to. and decided the ship ended up on the side, floating, knocked out

on the side of ship with its tail close to the rutter and chase had the opportunity to pick opkilling lance and motion to try to kill this whale, that dared to attack the ship. and he realized that tail was so close to the rutter, that if provoked he could take out the steering device and as nickerson says, he would have risked losing the rutter but chase makes no mention of this. in that instance, i tend to believe nickerson on this. i don't think he's making that up and he had great respect for chase. on the other side, nickerson claims they never had to eat anybody else. that it was the bread that kept them through, when chase

provides clear evidence that they were reduced to survival cannibalism. nickerson was an old man who didn't want to be remembered as a cannibal. what you need do is look at various sources, think about how their point of view would have been, what they said. and ultimately, do your best to figure out what happened on your own judgment. that's why people need to return to these stories over and over again. there's no such thing as a definitive account of any historical event, particularly as we move through time and people are interested in different kinds of things. we look back and you're interested in telling the story in different ways. >> and in fact, one of the other questions here is asking about other differences between chase's and nickerson's narrative because they're at different times.

if you don't mind, i'll address that. it's so fascinating to read nickerson's account. he clearly has chase's account on his desk. >> yep. and he's reading that and it's a promptue memory. or he chooses not to engage, again with the bread, verses cannibalism. what chase does or nickerson does is fill in all this detail from the perspective of the 15-year-old boy, instead of the perspective of the 20-some-odd-year-old officer of a career. and they make a really interesting study that way. >> widely available. >> anyone can read these sources. nickerson's journal is digitized and available on our website. >> and highly readsable. it's a nice script.

and the images are just amazing. and you know, just think that must have been a pretty traumatic process for nickerson, to relive this thing and report it. and write it all out. and you know, which makes it an interesting process, in any event. >> yeah. another question we've had is asking about the island that they were -- that they stopped at for the week, on their voyage. if they didn't know the name of the island or were on the wrong island, how do rescuers know to get them? >> you want to me to answer that? >> yeah, take tuway. >> they get to this island and they use what navigational equipment they have to take -- figure out where they are and they open their copy of "bowditch" is the bible for navigators.

and they look up and it says they're at due seas or however the name of the island and so that's where they think they are. so, when the three men staybed hienld and picked up, they hire a british vessel headed across the pacific. they pay them a fee to stop at ducie's island and pick up these three men. the captain says, i can find that. i know where that is. i'll go get them. he sails out. there's nobody there. no evidence that anyone has been there but he knows this area of the pacific enough to know there's another island across the horizon that's not in boutic, and that's where the men were. >> yeah. really interesting is henderson island has since become a kind of a vortex for plastic. floating plastic. and so it's -- i think it has to do with why the "essex" guys

ended up their anyways. the currents converge on this island and kind of why these three whale boats ended up there, and the beach where they landed is now just full of plastic garbage. it's -- you know, this -- this once virgin island, and it was virgin island when i was -- when i -- you know, not a virgin island, but absolutely pristine back when i was writing in "the heart of the sea" had great fortune to run across a scientific study of the ecology of henderson island. a group of scientists that lived there, spent an amount of time. all sorts of photographs. hugely impressive and helpful to me and then to see now in the last two decades what's happened to that place is just heartbreaking. >> i think time for just maybe one more.

and are there any other examples after this of whales attacking whaling ships? >> good question. yes, there are. and, you know, the question is, what was happening here? there was -- were the whales getting more aggressive as they figured this out? you know, also the possibility that, you know, plenty of whaleships prior to "the essex" that never made it back. had they been destroyed by a whale beforehand? it didn't happen a lot by any means but it did happen. while melville was writing "mobey-dick," revising it, actually, in the summer of 1851, there was word came to him of -- of a whaleship that had been attacked by a whale. >> and the alexander disaster. >> alexander.

>> yes. >> and he would write a letter, i think to hawthorne would write, has my evil write raised this monster? talk about, whoa, man! when i was researching "in the heart of the sea" i explored every instance in which a whale, we had recordings of whales and whales attacking ships. even accounts during world war ii of sperm whales attacking metal naval ships. then in a group. who knows what behavior inspired that? but it did happen. it didn't happen a lot. but, you know, it was -- it was the whalers worst nightmare. if every bull sperm whale decided to attack a ship it would make it very hard for someone in a wooden whaleship to whale. >> absolutely. we've reached the end of our time here this evening. thank you, everyone, for joining us this evening.

for michael harrison and we are delighted to have had this conversation about "the essex" disaster on the 200th anniversary of the event itself and thank you. >> absolutely. >> really appreciate it, and thanks again to the nha, because without this organization, i couldn't have written a book, and it all of nantucketers owe the organization a huge debt of gratitude. thank you very much, and thank you all for joining us. we really appreciate it. >> week nighs this month, we are featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. tonight from thomas jefferson's books to "saturday night live"'s parody of joe biden talking how popular culture influences presidents and in turn presidents leave an imprint on the culture. watch tonight beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span3.

you're watching american history tv every weekend on c-span3 explore our national past. american history tv on c-span 3 created by america's television companies and today brought to you by these television companies who provide american history tv to viewers as a public service. during a period of are the 19th century, nantucket off the coast of massachusetts was a hub for whaling around the world. peggi godwin of the nantucket historical association discusses the history of whaling and the impact it had on this small island community. the nantucket historical association hosted this talk and provided the video. >> good evening, everyone. welcome to the nantucket historical association's webinar on the whale hunt. and i'm very excited about presenting this to you tonight.