BACKGROUND

Until 2017 the answer to the question regarding homosexual activity on whaling ships, whether or not it was merely situational or because of sexual orientation, even, perhaps as many whaling voyages took place before Psycho-analysis invented the word "Homosexuality" and created the gender binary, just natural, had consistently been that all-male crews isolated for months and years on a ship at sea and having natural needs would most likely have engaged in some form of Homosexual activity, but there is no actual record of any.

While studies have been done and books written regarding Homosexuality among pirates, but this is a different topic as pirating and whaling, although taking place on ships, were not the same by nature, there has been no serious study of Homosexuality on whaling ships, or, if there is, it is being done quietly.

The whaling ship Newport was wintering on Herschel Island over the winter of 1894-1895. Among the log entries was,

“Monday Feb 11th

A light breeze from the W.N.W. Cloudy and misty Bar. 30.10. Ther. -4 Got a load of meat put the Steward (Scott) forward for Sodomy and Onanism of Bark Wanderer one of the men deserted but was overtaken and brought back.”

Prior to museums and other repositories of historic documents beginning to transcribe them to be digitized and placed on the internet for easy reading or, if the transcription is true and an exact version mistakes and all, easier reading, the scanned versions of documents such as ship logs appeared on various web sites. Prefacing each scanned log book on some archive sites is information about the ship and a list of topics a person, or persons, considering reading the log book might see as topics of interest.

However, in the case of the Newport previous readers of the log had mentioned whales, baseball games, hunting expeditions, and other items of interest found in the log and deserving of further research, but there was no mention of what might be considered an out of the ordinary occurrence on a whale ship, the event with the steward, Scott.

Upon being told about my discovery a few years after it, I was informed by a professor of maritime history, that, while reading certain log books for weather references, he had come upon a second log entry from a ship 50 years before the Newport entry, the Charles Phelps, that included the line, “allso tried to hire a Portuguese deckhand to commit Soddomy”.

Upon reading the topics of interest on the cover page of the original log manuscript for the Charles Phelps, there was no mention of this.

Considering the keeper of the log had recounted the steward, William H. Smith, getting 29 lashes for this and for having previously attempted to poison the captain whose steward he was by putting a chemical into the bread dough, this should be a topic of interest unless for some reason, and, perhaps this applies to the Newport as well and, maybe, even more logs, it was purposely omitted because such a topic went against the reader’s personal, political, and/or religious belief, thus denying a lead to anyone doing research in this area, It was either deemed of no interest to anyone, or it just did not register.

Finding two whaling crew members on two separate ships, decades apart, has brought the assumption of Homosexuality into the realm of reality, and for over 150 years in one instance and over 100 in the other this information existed and remained unseen.

The answer to the Question is now, Yes. There was Homosexuality on board whaling ships. We have log entries on that topic.”