WE MAY HAVE FOUND HIM

   In 2017, I was assigned the log book of the Newport, a steam whaling vessel out of San Francisco owned by a New Bedford firm scheduled to spend three seasons hunting for Bowhead whales in the North Pacific whaling field. As this type of whale had an annual North/South migration, rather than chase them, knowing their route would take them through the Bering Strait into the arctic waters and since this would bottleneck them into a smaller expanse than the open Pacific ocean, for a while whaling vessels would gather at Herschel Island, 60 miles East of Barrow, Alaska, off the northern edge of Canada in the Fall, carefully winterized in the forming ice to sit through the winter as homes for the crews while other amenities were supplied by the company owned village, and wait for the whales to return in the spring and have them come to the whalers and not the usual way,  being chased by them. 

     It was a common practice for captains to bring their wives on voyages, and spending the winter on Herschel Island as a couple was a good practice for them either because their wives were welcome additions or they had insisted on being there as the Indigenous women might be seen as too great a temptation. They knew their husbands, and those wintering on Herschel Island usually brought theirs and, often, their children too.

     Crew members did not have this privilege, so if there was to be any sex for them, it was either with the few Indigenous Women in the area or each other.

     In log books there are entries about the interactions of captains with their wives as these activities relate to the public, acceptable aspects of the wintering community and are usually ship related business, except in the case of the log book of the Jesse H Freeman that was kept by the captain’s wife, a woman interested in the smallest detail of he voyage and including many non-business details of the day in the log with the mentions of birthdays,  parties, births, and deaths, which normally would not be included in an entry in any detail if at all.

      We know the captains had sexual relations not only with their wives, but with the indigenous women. Captain Leavet, having fallen in love with and marrying an indigenous woman, left whaling, remained on Herschel Island for a time, and became a very prominent person in that area of Canada off of which the Island lay. Captain Leavet’s activities would have been noted as he was a captain, but if there were women available to him, they were also there for any crew member as well.

       Before I found the Newport entry of February 11, 1895 it was a logical conclusion to assume there was Homosexual activity on whaling ships just because the men were human beings with needs and they were isolated at sea for months and years with only an occasional stay in a port that would make heterosexual sex available, but not all ships were in port long enough for shore leave. This combined with hints throughout Moby Dick also promoted the unproven, yet comfortable, assumption.

      If the assumption was that an all male crew being alone at sea was responsible for situational Homosexuality because of circumstances, any record of it on land where there were options would be important.

      As the whaling ship Newport was wintering on Herschel Island over the winter of 1894-1895, the log keeper wrote,

     “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.”

     This was not isolated.  Scott was not out on a ship isolated with a stag crew.

     That year the population of Herschel Island was the largest in the company’s history of using that island, 1,500 people, not counting the Indigenous people who came in and out of the community to trade.   

     Captains were having sex with their wives, a birth is recorded, and captains, and presumably others, were having sex with Indigenous women, and, yet, even with the option, Mr. Scott was involved in Sodomy.

     His was not situational Homosexuality as it was not the only option caused by isolation. 

     I had taken for granted that this entry was an example of an instance that attested in a log book  that men were having sex with each other on whale ships and left the realm of accepted assumption to a fact. In further discovered entries and court papers where things on board had spilled over on to the land and entered the legalities of society’s laws and not those looser ones on board a ship. 

     The common feature of the additional examples of Homosexuality was isolation on an all man ship for long periods of time.

     By the time the captain had come upon Mr. Scott, the Newport had been sitting at Herschel Island for at least 6 months during which time there were captains and their wives doing what any husband and wife could do and mentions of interactions with the Indigenous people with one Captain marrying one and giving up his profession for a life in the North of Canada with her. There is mention of multiple social events in the Jesse H Freeman log, referred to often as Sophie Porter’s Journal, and the entertainment at these gatherings were often supplied by a greater group and/or the chorus formed among members of the various crews which would require practice and rehearsals which obviously could not be done with the men scattered on ships throughout the Pacific.

     There are multiple mentions of baseball games played on the tundra, hunting trips with the indigenous people, small and large gatherings, and men who ran away in pairs and groups, some to be captured and brought back others to die in the wilderness or to actually get away safely. 

     There was no forced isolation that would have resulted in the only sex being Homosexuality. On Herschel Island there were options from September to late April.   There were no  conditions that would call for Situational Homosexuality. To the contrary, Herschel Island was a community of 1,500 of the best and worst people and all between, and an ever changing Indigenous population that came and went for trade.

     Mr. Scott does not fit the accepted reason for Homosexual activity on a whaling ship as he was not isolated, was living in a large community with a great amount of interaction, and could address his natural needs accordingly.

     He was found in the act of Sodomy not forced into it by circumstances, but apparently by will.

    What I originally saw as proof of an assumption related to all whalers might be, in reality, the discovery of an individual Gay man.