During the heyday of the early 19th century whaling industry, 672 American whaling ships plied the world’s oceans. A normal voyage took a clockwise route from Massachusetts to the Azore Islands and then south to Cape Verde and Africa. A western route was then plotted to South America.
When returning to Massachusetts, it was common for whalers to make a detour into the Gulf of Mexico to search for sperm, pilot and killer whales. It is estimated that the whalers harpooned more than 1,000 sperm whales and 400 pilot and killer whales in the Gulf. The whale population was so decimated that whalers essentially had abandoned the region by the 1870s.
When a kill was made, the crew tied the whale next to the ship and used large cutting tools to strip off its blubber. A winch then hauled the blubber aboard, where it was cut up into smaller chunks and cooked in large pots to render the whale oil. Afterwards, the cooked blubber was tossed overboard, and the oil was stored in wooden barrels.
Whale oil was one of the most valuable commodities in 19th century America because it was a good lubricate and burned with no smoke. This latter quality made whale oil especially popular for use in homes and lighthouses.
A waxy material found in sperm whales’ heads called spermaceti was used to make candles, and ambergris, a substance found in the bowels, was particularly valuable for making perfumes.
Whaling was one of the few integrated industries in America at the time, and African Americans and Native Americans often served as crewmen. The owners of whaling vessels were more concerned about a man’s skills than his race, so whaling was one of the few jobs where Black people were paid the same as white people.
Among the 19th century American whaling vessels was the two-mast brig Industry. Built in 1815, the ship was 64 feet long and 20 feet wide.
Extant documents show that the Industry had a mixed-race crew, with many of them being teenagers. On some voyages, William Cuff, a freedman from Massachusetts, served as the navigator. His son-in-law, Pardon Cook, served as first mate and is believed to have made more whaling voyages than any other African American.
In 1835, the Industry left Westport, Massachusetts, for a 14-month voyage, and among its fifteen crewmen was at least one African American.
While returning home a year later, the Industry detoured into the Gulf of Mexico for one last hunt and met up with the Elizabeth, another Westport ship. Then, on May 26, 1836, a vicious storm struck the vessels when they were about seventy miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River.
The strong winds snapped both of the Industry’s masts, ripped open her hull and swept away all of the whale boats except one. Realizing their vessel was doomed, the crew abandoned ship and crowded onto the remaining whale boat.
Fortunately, the Elizabeth was only a few miles away and quickly rescued the Industry’s crew. Interestingly, Hiram Francis, the captain of the Industry, and George Sowle, the captain of the Elizabeth, were half-brothers.
Because of the buoyant barrels of whale oil onboard, the Industry remained afloat and was discovered about a week later by the whaler Harmony. Its crew managed to salvage 230 barrels of oil, some rigging and one anchor before the Industry finally sank.
In 2011, an energy company crew surveying the Gulf discovered a wreck that they thought might be a whaling boat because it had a hearth like the ones used to render whale oil. The company reported the wreck to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and in 2022 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) vessel Okeanos Explorer checked it out with its deep diving submersible.
The searchers knew that the Harmony had salvaged the Industry before it sank and noticed that some of the things taken were missing from the wreck. In addition, the hull was 63 feet long and 20 feet wide, which almost exactly matched the Industry’s size. All in all, it was strong evidence that the wreck was, indeed, the Industry.
The shipwreck’s location, eighty-three miles north-northeast of the Industry’s last reported position, provided more evidence that it was the long-lost whaler. Scientists knew that the Gulf of Mexico’s Loop Current would have carried the ship as it slowly sank through the 6,000-foot water column and calculated that the wreck was exactly where the Industry should have come to rest on the Gulf’s bottom.
Some 186 years after it was lost, the only whaling vessel known to have sunk in the Gulf of Mexico had been found.
Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. For an autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, send $25 to Terry L. Jones, P.O Box 1581, West Monroe, LA 71294.
