Nantucket sea captains who were my ancestors include not only the Swain family names but also the family names of Bunker, Wyer, Paddock, Gardner, Macy, Coffin, Barnard, Folger and Worth. These are all well-known names of the first settlers who moved to Nantucket in the 1660's. Some of the many Swain family connections with these other early Nantucket settlers are listed below:
Richard Swayne's second wife was Jane (Godfrey) Bunker, the widow of a French Huguenot, William Bunker. Jane died on October 31, 1662, the first death of the first Nantucket settlers. She was buried under the front door step of Richard's home.
John Swain, Richard's son, married Mary Wyer (Weare) when they both still lived in Hampton, New Hampshire. Mary was daughter to Nathaniel Weare I and Sarah. She was born about 1633 in Devonshire, England and died in 1682 on Nantucket. The Weare family changed their name to Wyer after they moved to Nantucket.
Caleb Swain, our fourth generation, grandson of John Swain married Margaret Paddock in 1726. Margaret was granddaughter of Richard Gardner, one of the first Nantucket settlers and great granddaughter of Thomas Macy, a First Purchaser of Nantucket and from whom all New England Macys originated. Margaret Paddock was also related to Worth, Barnard and Folger families.
Nathaniel Swain, our family fifth generation, son of Caleb Swain, married Bethiah Macy on November 24, 1755, Bethiah Macy's father, Joseph Macy was a descendent of Thomas Macy, Tristam Coffin, and Richard Gardner.
Thomas Swain, our sixth generation, son of Nathaniel Swain, married Lydia Worth, Sept. 29, 1791 in Guilford County, North Carolina, after a colony of Quakers, including the some of the Swains, Worths and Coffins, had moved there from Nantucket.
In the late 1600's, the settlers on Nantucket took up whaling as a serious business. At first they hunted right whales passing just south of the island shoals. Nantucket, about 30 miles into the sea, was within easy reach of the main migration stream of the right whales passing near the island. In 1712 Captain Christopher Hussey was caught in a storm and blown several miles out into the Atlantic and accidentally was carried into the midst of a large herd of the great sperm whales. This discovery of the sperm whale forever changed the nature of whaling on Nantucket and in New England. Because of the sperm whale, what had been a minor enterprise along the New England coast, rapidly became big business. For more than 80 years, sperm whale fishing remained dominated by Nantucket sea captains. Swarming south and east into the open Atlantic, the Nantucketers found sperm whales in abundance. By 1740 some 50 sloops were bringing in almost 5,000 barrels of oil a year. By 1748 the Nantucket fleet was 60 and by 1774 the Nantucket fleet of 150 was providing an income of $500,000 annually.
How important were our predecessors to the whaling industry? In 1763 there were 75 Nantucket sea captains. Thomas Worth prepared this unusual list of them.
It can be noted, from the above list, that 43 or 57% of the 75 Nantucket men who were sea captains in 1763 were our predecessors. The importance of our predecessors in the whaling business is also apparent in the number of streets, wharfs, buildings, businesses, museums, etc. that bear their names. As will be described later, their names also appear all over the Pacific Ocean and along the Antarctica coast.
The stories of the whalers and sea captains in our family are stories of exploration and discoveries, danger and terror, terrible sadness and unbelievable tragedy. Some of their stories are described below. The Paddock Whalemen:
Shortly after the settlers on Nantucket took up whaling as a serious business in the late 1600's, they hired Ichabod Paddock, a mainlander, to teach them how to go to sea after their quarry. Ichabod must have been a good teacher. The Nantucketers immediately began to dominate the whaling industry. Over the next 150 years, they became the most skillful and successful whalers in the world. Unfortunately, Ichabod's skills did not save some of his descendants. In 1742, a sloop under the command of Captain Daniel Paddock went down with all on board. Later, in 1833, another descendant of Ichabod, Captain Henry Paddock a highly respected Nantucket shipmaster, met a tragic death in the Pacific while sailing on the Catherine. As a crew member recalled the tale, they were reprovisioning in Valparaiso, Chile, when the normally agreeable Paddock apparently got roaring drunk, and struck and killed a local man - a deed for which the captain "was cruelly executed by the Spanish authorities."
Another descendant of Ichabod was luckier than Daniel and Henry. Captain Peter Paddock was well remembered for an unusual incident in his whaling career. In 1802 he struck and lost a whale. Thirteen years later, in the same water, Paddock killed a whale and found his lost harpoon, rusted but still embedded in the whale's hide. Captain Uriah Bunker:
A great problem for the American whalemen was that the demand for whale oil had a sudden and disastrous effect on the Atlantic population of sperm whales. In April 1775, Captain Uriah Bunker, a Nantucket Captain, returned in the Amazon to report the discovery of fabulous new whaling grounds off Brazil. Even this did not last long. By the late 1780's sperm whaling in the Atlantic entered a decline. Fortunately, the resourceful Captains from Nantucket discovered the fertile hunting grounds in the Pacific about this same time. The Swain Sea Captains:
In 1789 or 1790,the Emilia, under the command of Captain Shields, was running before the trades in the South Atlantic on a return trip home, when, she encountered the Hope, commanded by Nantucketer Captain Thaddeus Swain. Captain Shields signaled to Captain Swain to come along side, so he could share the news of his very important discovery. But Captain Swain was in too much of a hurry; without shortened sail, he swept past the Emilia, without stopping, but sailed close enough so that he could bellow through his trumpet that he was 46 days out, bound for the south Atlantic grounds. Captain Shields called back that he had come "from the Pacific, by way of Cape Horn, with 150 tons of sperm!"
From the Pacific? One-hundred fifty tons? In a sudden change of heart Captain Swain shouted to Captain Shields to heave to for a conference. But Shields was angered by his colleague's peremptory manner, and ordered his ship held on course. The Emilia sailed on.
Captain Swain had heard enough, however. Without pausing in the South Atlantic, he took his Hope around the Horn, In a few months he was back in the Atlantic, headed for home with a full ship. This time, when he met the New Bedford whaler Rebecca, he paused for a short gam, as the whalemen called a visit between ships. He learned that the Emilia's news had galvanized the entire industry. The Rebecca was bound for the Horn, and so were a swarm of other Yankee whalers, including Captains Paul Worth and Elishu Coffin. Captain Swain assured the Rebecca's captain, Joseph Kersey, that there were plenty of sperm whales for everyone along the coast of Peru and Chile.
Soon after the war of 1812 had ended, Samuel Swain, a fifth generation Swain, went to London with an older cousin, Captain William Swain, who was in the employ of the famous London whaling merchant Samuel Enderby and Sons. In London, Samuel shipped out on the whale ship Indian, commanded by Cousin Captain William Swain. Like many other Nantucket shipmasters, he was soon placed command of the whaleship Indian, and made two voyages to the Pacific. His next command was the Vigilant, and after successive voyages in it he was given command of a new vessel, the Bermondsey. In October 1841, Captain Samuel Swain left London in October 1841 in command of the Bermondsey. This was to be his last voyage. After rounding Capt. Horn, the ship sailed through the south Pacific, and on Feb. 24, 1842, arrived at Sydney, Australia. After loading needed supplies, the ship sailed on May 26 to resume her whaling voyage. On July 9, the Bermondsey returned to Sydney, "in consequence of her captain being in the last stages of consumption, and he expired on Saturday night." Captain Swain was then only 43 years old. His body was brought ashore and buried in the parish of St. James, Cumberland County. Captain Samuel Swain's descendants still live in Australia.
In August 1856, Captain Calvin Swain, on the Minerva from New Bedford, was sailing off the Kingsmill Islands in the Gilbert Islands. The Minerva scraped a coral reef so gently that Captain Swain scarcely noticed it. He was mystified when, six months later; the ship began to leak at a rate that steadily increased to 250 pump strokes per hour. Captain Swain made to Norfolk Island, but contrary gales drove him south toward Sydney, while the pumps went to 2,400 strokes per hour with 16 inches of water pouring in each hour. Clearing out the forehold and standing in water to their waists, the men managed to stanch some of the flow with tarred canvas and blankets, and the Minerva struggled into Sydney. There, when the ship was hauled out, Captain Swain found that the cooper sheathing beneath the water line on the starboard bow had been scraped free and the shipworms had reduced the planking to a shell. It took expensive and time-consuming repairs before she was fit to sail again.
Other Swain Captains
- Captain Frederick Swain, called one of the sturdiest of the amazing group of Nantucket whaling captains, made most of his trips in London ships.
- Captain Obed Swain, who, along with Captain Samuel Swain, and Captain Samuel Wyer and Captain James Wyer, is in the photograph SEVEN NANTUCKET WHALING MASTERS OF THE PACIFIC CLUB.
- A Captain Swain, of Guilford County, North Carolina, was master of the ship called the Sally Ann. The Sally Ann was chartered in the 1770's by the Quakers of North Carolina to transport the slaves that had been given their freedom to Haiti.
- In 1876, Hussey and Robinson published a "Catalogue of Nantucket Whalers and their Voyages," Supplementing it with a list of Nantucket men who commanded whaleships from French and English ports subsequent to the Revolution and prior to the War of 1812. Those removed to Halifax were:
MASTER SHIP
Thaddeus Swain Manilla
Barnabas Swain Dartmouth
According to the pamphlet issued by Hussey and Robbinson the following named Nantucket whaling captains removed to London.
Matthew Swain Kingston
Howse Swain Boyne
William Swain Cumberland
Andrew Swain Rattler
Zacchary Swain Spy
According to Hussey and Robinson the following named Captains went to France (Dunkirk) from Nantucket.
David Swain Brothers
Uriah Swain Young States
Valentine Swain, 2d Diana
Thaddeus Swain Diana
Valentine Swain Swan
The Folger Whalers:
The Nantucketers charted the powerful north and eastward-flowing current of the Gulf Stream. When some London merchants once asked Benjamin Franklin why British vessels were taking so much longer to sail across the Atlantic that the colonists ships, Franklin turned to his cousin, Nantucketer Timothy Folger, who obliged with a chart of the Gulf Stream. Franklin passed in along to the London merchants, who ignored it - and continued to marvel at the apparent magic of the Yankee mariners. Timothy Folger, a well to do Nantucket merchant could not abide being a rebel against England. In 1785 he led 3,000 loyalists, many of them whalemen, to Nova Scotia and set up a whale fishery - much to the delight of the Nova Scotians, who had been forced to pay British taxes on imported American oil.
In 1808, Captain Mayhew Folger, of the Topaz out of Boston, discovered the sons and daughters of the mutineers of the Bounty on Pitcairn Island, and Alexander Smith, the lone surviving mutineer. Captain Folger induced Mr. Smith to change his name to John Adams.
The Worth Family Sea Captains:
Captain Thomas Worth was unquestionable a hard man. He had assumed command of the Globe, the vessel in which George Washington Gardner had discovered the Pacific's Offshore Grounds. When Captain Gardner accepted command of a larger ship, he recommended Thomas Worth to be Captain of the Globe. In 1824, while on a cruise to the Pacific, Captain Thomas Worth was the victim of the bloodiest mutiny in Yankee whaling history. The trouble started when the vessel was provisioning in Honolulu and six of her crew deserted. The best men Captain Worth could fine to replace them were derelicts from the waterfront. The replacements quickly joined an existing cabal of malcontents led by one Samuel Comstock, a harpooner who had a record for trouble making. The Globe had been at sea for 28 days when one of the new hands, a seaman named Joseph Thomas, became so insubordinate that Captain Worth had him triced to the rigging for 15 lashes. As was customary, the crew was required to watch. The spectacle so angered a number of men that they readily joined Comstock when he proposed mutiny. In one gory night, Comstock and his followers murdered Captain Worth and all three officers. Comstock himself dispatching the sleeping Captain Worth by decapitating him with an axe. Tossing the officer’s bodies overboard, one of them mortally wounded but still alive, Comstock took the Globe to the Mulgrave Islands, where he planned to set up a fiefdom enforced by the ships armaments. Inevitably, the mutineers soon fell to murderous brawling, Comstock was shot to death and half a dozen survivors managed to slip the Globes' cables and escape to sea. When they arrived in Valpariaso four months later, they were questioned by the U.S. Consul and sent home to Nantucket. Because of various extenuating circumstances, only one man ever went to trial for mutiny, and he was acquitted.
Nantucketer Captain Paul Worth in the ship Beaver, on Nantucket, was on of the first American whaling masters to take his ship into the Pacific. (Captain Shields of the Amelia from London had first sailed into the Pacific.)
Captain William Worth was one of Nantucket's finest shipmasters. As a boy he served with Porter on the Essex. Between the years 1821 and 1841 he made six voyages whaling - three in the ship Rambler and three in the Howard. In 1823, while in the Rambler, he discovered Worth's Islands in Lat. 8o 43' North and Long 151o 30' East. He also discovered dangerous reefs in the northern Solomons, which he named Rambler Reefs and Sail Rocks.
Captain George Worth in the ship Oeno in 1823 discovered Oeno Island, just north of Pitcairn. On her next voyage, the Oeno was wrecked on Turtle Island in the Fijis, and her crew massacred. There was one survivor reported, William S. Cary who was rescued by a fellow Nantucketer and returned home nine years later. There is some evidence that a boy named Coffin also escaped the massacre and made his way to the Tonga Islands, but he was never located by Nantucket whaling masters in these islands. The Gardner Sea Captains: Captain Edmund Gardner, in command of the Winston, became one of the few men ever to survive the crushing power of the jaws of a sperm whale. While stalking a whale off the West Coast of South America, Gardner went forward in his whaleboat to assist the harpooner. He planted a harpoon and was reaching for a second one when the whale struck. Later, Captain Gardner recalled only the flashing of huge teeth as they closed on him. He wrote this account: "When I came to my senses after being stunned, I called one of the boat's company to cut off the line and take me to the ship. I was bleeding copiously when taken on board. My shoes were quite full of blood. When on board, I found one tooth had entered by head, breaking in my skull, another tooth had pierced my hand, another had entered the upper part of my right arm, the fourth had entered my right shoulder. The bone from the shoulder to the elbow of the right arm was badly fractured. My shoulder was broken down an inch or more, my jaw and five teeth were broken, tongue cut through, my left hand was pierced with a tooth and was broken and very painful." Captain Gardner was put ashore at Piata, Peru, to recover from his wounds. He recuperated enough to go whaling on many more voyages and lived to the ripe age of 90. As early as 1818, Captain George Washington Gardner, in the Globe, out of Nantucket, had sailed west from the volcanic Galapagos Islands, which lie astride the line, and found a broad feeding area ranging from Long. 105o to 125o West between Lat. 5 and 10 South. Oil from these Offshore Grounds, as they came to be known, filled the casks of countless Yankee whale ships over the next 50 years. Lydia, married to Captain Gardner for 37 years, was typical of the wife of any seafaring man at the time. Lydia had to resign herself to long periods of loneliness, and to the very real possibility that she might never see her husband again. During the 37 years they were married, Captain George Gardner spent less than five years at home in Nantucket. A whaleman's wife could routinely count on at least three, and sometimes four or five, melancholy years of waiting and wondering while her husband pursued his intensely dangerous calling in the Pacific, 10,000 miles from home. The Macy Whalers: Captain Richard Macy described one of his early contacts with the Pacific Islanders on a trip in 1820. At that time the Pacific Islanders were invariable cordial. For example, in the early 1800s the girls from the Sandwich Islands (Now the Hawaii Islands) swam naked to the ships and climbed aboard to trade themselves for trinkets. Ceremonial feasts that would have scandalized the strait-laced New Englanders back home often accompanied contact with the Pacific Islanders. In 1820, Captain Richard Macy, in command of the Maro, was greeted by a Fijian chief and his retinue, "in a state of nudity, with the exception of a little grass." Captain Macy went ashore with "the King," as he called the chief. "The King introduced me to the Queen, who was apparently much pleased to see me," wrote Macy. "I was seated on a clean mat and fanned by a woman on each side of me. The queen spread a table, which was a large wooden tray spread with leaves; and the meal consisted of yams, breadfruit, taro, fish, coconuts and other dishes, which were prepared under the immediate inspection of the Queen. She handed me each dish, separately in a leaf, taking care not to touch her fingers to either." In August, 1824, Capt. Richard Macy, still in command of the Maro, wrote: "After spending a few weeks in this vicinity (south of Fijis) I think I will cruise north'on Japan,' for a few months." Thus, in a few words, he disposed of a journey of thousands of miles through uncharted reaches of the greatest of all oceans. Such men as Captain Richard Macy brought undying fame and glory to their native Nantucket island and to their country. Captain Alexander Macy, on the ship Peruvian, sailing south of the line, came upon Captain Joshua Coffin's Great Ganges Island, "the land bearing west-southwest, 12 miles distant. On following ay saw two islands....with valleys intervening. The islands were well wooded. Captain Macy wrote, "A canoe with five natives of large stature and ferocious countenance, well armed with spears and clubs, came under our stern. Many other canoes were seen to leeward, paddling to intercept the ship." Captain Macy wrote that he "made all sail off-shore." The Coffin Whalemen: The earliest recorded loss of a Nantucket whaling vessel was in 1722 when a sloop commanded by Elisha Coffin was lost at sea with all on board. Dinah, the widow of Captain Coffin, partitioned for legislation permitting her to marry again. In her petition she recites that, "Elisha Coffin did, on the twenty Seventh Day of April, 1722, sail from the Island of Nantucket in a sloop: on a whaling trip intending to return in a month or six weeks at most, And instantly a hard and dismal Storm followed; which in all probability, swallowed him and those with him up; for they were never heard of." Prior to his death, Elisha Coffin in the Equator brought back several full cargoes and much valued knowledge of Pacific. Elishu Coffin, who was one of the first Nantucketers to venture into the Pacific, made five successful voyages on four different whalers between 1819 and 1845. His modest claim to fame was the discovery, in July 1833, of a previously uncharted and bountiful atoll in the South Pacific that later, as Nassau Island, became a provisioning stop for whalers. Captain Elishu Coffin, in the ship Mary Mitchell, in the year 1835, reported the discovery of an island in 11o 30' South Latitude and 165o 35' West Longitude, which he named Mitchell's Island, the second island bearing that name in the South Seas. Captain Uriah Coffin, although born in Nantucket, ventured to Europe to command British and French whalers in the early 1800s. However, he eventually returned to Nantucket, in 1820, and was given command of the first whaleship from New Haven to cruise the Pacific whaling grounds. He came back with a profitable 2,000 barrels of oil. Captain James J. Coffin, of Nantucket, while in command of the British whaler Transit, discovered a group of islands north of Marianas, which he named Fisher, Kidd, South and Pigeon Islands. Seaman Owen Coffin: On November 20, 1820, The Essex, captained by George Pollard, was attack and sunk by an enormous whale. The Essex stayed afloat long enough for the men to supply the whaleboats with meager provisions. Then three boats, carrying a total of 20 men, set out across the Pacific for the South American coast. Captain Pollard, along with Seaman Owen Coffin, was on one of the boats, and First Mate Owen Chase was on another. The men suffered salt-water boils, their lips cracked and bled. Starvation cramps wrenched their bowels. On the 51st day one man died on Chase's boat. Two days later a squall provided precious fresh water but separated the bobbing boats for the rest of the journey. Another man in First Mate Chase's boat died and on the 81st day a third. By then, with only three days supply of food remaining, First Mate Chase made the suggestion that would haunt the survivors for the rest of their lives. "We separated his limbs from his body," Chase wrote, "and cut all the flesh from the bones, after which we opened up the body, took out the heart, then closed it again - sewing it up as decently as we could - and committed it to the sea." - While their shipmate's carcass fed the sharks, his heart and some of his flesh kept the rest of the crew alive - until, after drifting 4,500 miles across the Pacific for three months, the whaleboat and its scarecrow crew were sighted and rescued by the brig Indian of London. In Captain Pollard's boat, starvation drove the men to an even more excruciating decision: they drew lots to select a victim to be killed in order that the others might live. The lot fell to young Owen Coffin. He was Captain Pollard's nephew and Pollard offered to take his place, but the lad would not have it. The only choice the victim had was he could select his own place of execution. As Captain Pollard later described the scene, "The poor emaciated boy hesitated a moment or two; then quietly laying his head upon the gunwhale of the boat, he said, `I like it as well as any other.' He was soon dispatched and nothing of him was left. But I can tell no more - my head is on fire at the recollection." On February 23, 1821, after 96 days on the water, Pollard's whaleboat was in sight of Santa Maria Island, off the coast of Chile, when the boat survivors were rescued by the Nantucket whaler Dauphin. The third boat was never seen again. Of the 20 crewmen of the Essex, only eight survived. Five of them went right back to whaling, and all five, including Owen Chase later became captains. Captain Prince Coffin - The Pacific islanders were often ill treated by the visiting whalers. Some whaling captain agreed to buy native produce and then sailed away as soon as their decks were full. Others even shot their benefactors. Eventually some of the islanders themselves became practiced in deceit, pretending to be friendly until they could over power and massacre the whalemen. When the Awashonks of Flamouth, under command of Captain Prince Coffin, touched at Namarik Island in the Marshalls, in 1835, a group of islanders came aboard to trade, showing no signs of animosity. Then at a prearranged signal, the visitors made a rush for the ships cutting spades, with which they beheaded Captain Prince Coffin and killed the helmsman and both mates. The rest of the crew barricaded themselves below deck while the islanders rampaged around overhead. Finally, a member of the crew placed a keg of gunpowder at the top of the companionway, with a trail of powder on the steps. Touching off the powder trail, the crew waited until the keg exploded and then they burst through the smoke and drove off the terrified islanders. The third mate thereupon took the Awashonks away from Mamarik Island, as far and fast as he could. Captain Joshua Coffin in the Ganges made a number of remarkable cruises from 1821 to 1825, discovering several islands in the Phoenix Group, including Gardners Island, named by him for the owner of the ship, Paul Gardner. He also discovered Coffin's Island in the Dermadec Group, north of New Zealand. Captain Joshua Coffin came upon two islands that he named Great and Little Ganges Islands. Captain Coffin reported his discoveries in August 1825, upon returning home. American Polynesia in the Nantucket Ocean The early history of America in the Pacific is, to a great extent, dominated by the Nantucket whalemen. The whalemen from New England gave their country a heritage of exploration and discovery in the South Seas that this nation literally tossed away. Led by the sea captains of Nantucket, the whalers made the Central and Southwest Pacific so well known that cartographers called a large portion of the Central Pacific "American Polynesia." Over 300 islands in the Pacific Ocean were discovered by Nantucket whalemen. Unfortunately, particularly for our fighting men in the Pacific during World War II, the United States literally tossed away any claim to their discoveries. Instead, we let other nations gain control of "American Polynesia," salvaging only the Hawaiian group. The British and French and later the Germans took over regions which for years had been the scene of American whaling. Even worse, the Japanese were given rights to the Carolinas (Trek) and Marianas (Sampan) following the First World War. Of particular interest to the Swain clan is Swain Island, located at the northeast end of the Samoa Islands, and Swains Reef, now part of the Great Barrier Reef along the Northwest shore of Australia. The map below of the Nantucket Ocean was taken from the Nantucket Guide, 1993. REFERENCES: 1 - Whale Ships and Whaling, A Pictorial History, George Francis Dow, Dover Publications, Inc. New York. 2 - The Whalers, by A.B.C. Whipple and the Editors of Time-Life Books. 3 - The Whalemen of Nantucket and Their South Sea Island Discoveries. by Edouard A. Stackpole. From the Library of Nantucket Historical Association. 4 - "The Swain Saga, Part Two," by Nancy Foote. From the Library of Nantucket Historical Association.
