Founded | 1849 |
---|---|
Defunct | 1914 |
Headquarters | New Bedford, Massachusetts |
The Joseph & William R. Wing Company was the largest whaling firm in the United States. Based in New Bedford, Massachusetts during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the J. & W. R. Wing Co. was the agent for 236 whaling voyages from 1852 until 1914 and was among the last whaling companies operating in the United States. [1] [2] [ failed verification ]
Brothers Joseph Wing (born 1810) and William Ricketson Wing (1830–1908) were born on a farm at Russells Mills near South Dartmouth, southwest of New Bedford. They opened as partners in a dry goods business in a New Bedford in 1849, providing clothing for mariners embarking and returning on New Bedford whaling voyages. The Wings began to invest in whaleships in 1849, and in 1852 they became the owners and agents of their first vessel. [2]
The Wings made their fortunes primarily from outfitting seamen, and to a lesser extent from the production and sale of the whale oil and whalebone. Typically, they would indebt a recruited sailor for the cost of their clothing and supplies, the cost for boarding them before the ship departed, and then charge substantial interest on these loans. [2]
The Wings increased their fleet during the Civil War, and by 1866 were managing 16 vessels. By 1870 they controlled the largest fleet of whaleships in the United States. [2] Among their possessions was the Charles W. Morgan, [3] today moored at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut.
In 1908, 78-year-old William R. Wing and his ten-year-old grandson were killed when the horse-drawn buggy they were driving was struck by a train. [4] The last whaling voyage by the J. & W. R. Wing Co. was in 1914, the voyage of the bark Andrew Hicks under Capt. Charles A. Chace. [1]
Mystic is a village and census-designated place (CDP) in Groton and Stonington, Connecticut.
Mystic Seaport Museum or Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea in Mystic, Connecticut is the largest maritime museum in the United States. It is notable for its collection of sailing ships and boats and for the re-creation of the crafts and fabric of an entire 19th-century seaport village. It consists of more than 60 historic buildings, most of them rare commercial structures moved to the 19-acre (0.077 km2) site and meticulously restored.
This article discusses the history of whaling from prehistoric times up to the commencement of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. Whaling has been an important subsistence and economic activity in multiple regions throughout human history. Commercial whaling dramatically reduced in importance during the 19th century due to the development of alternatives to whale oil for lighting, and the collapse in whale populations. Nevertheless, some nations continue to hunt whales even today.
Charles W. Morgan is an American whaling ship built in 1841 that was active during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ships of this type were used to harvest the blubber of whales for whale oil which was commonly used in lamps. Charles W. Morgan has served as a museum ship since the 1940s and is now an exhibit at the Mystic Seaport museum in Mystic, Connecticut. She is the world's oldest surviving (non-wrecked) merchant vessel, the only surviving wooden whaling ship from the 19th century American merchant fleet, and second to USS Constitution, the oldest seaworthy vessel in the world. Charles W. Morgan was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
The Stone Fleet consisted of a fleet of aging ships purchased in New Bedford and other New England ports, loaded with stone, and sailed south during the American Civil War by the Union Navy for use as blockships. They were to be deliberately sunk at the entrance of Charleston Harbor, South Carolina in the hope of obstructing blockade runners, then supplying Confederate interests. Although some sank along the way and others were sunk near Tybee Island, Georgia, to serve as breakwaters, wharves for the landing of Union troops, the majority were divided into two lesser fleets. One fleet was sunk to block the south channel off Morris Island, and the other to block the north channel near Rattlesnake Shoals off the present day Isle of Palms in what proved to be failed efforts to block access the main shipping channels into Charleston Harbor.
Paita is a city in northwestern Peru. It is the capital of the Paita Province which is in the Piura Region. It is a leading seaport in the region. Paita is located 1,089 km northwest of the country's capital Lima, and 57 km northwest of the regional capital of Piura. Starting in 2014, the city has considered ideas for separating from the Piura Region, proclaiming itself as the "Miguel Grau Region".
Owen Chase was first mate of the whaler Essex, which sank in the Pacific Ocean on November 20, 1820, after being rammed by a sperm whale. Soon after his return to Nantucket, Chase wrote an account of the shipwreck and the attempts of the crew to reach land in small boats. The book, Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, was published in 1821 and would inspire Herman Melville to write Moby-Dick.
New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and is maintained by the National Park Service (NPS). The park commemorates the heritage of the world's preeminent whaling port during the nineteenth century.
Effie M. Morrissey is a schooner skippered by Robert Bartlett that made many scientific expeditions to the Arctic, sponsored by American museums, the Explorers Club and the National Geographic Society. She also helped survey the Arctic for the United States Government during World War II. She is currently designated by the United States Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark as part of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. She is the State Ship of Massachusetts.
A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales.
The A. T. Gifford was the last American schooner-rigged whaleship to cruise Hudson Bay. She caught fire and sank in late 1915. Although the captain and a few of his crew escaped the wreck, none survived the disaster.
Cape Fullerton is a cape and peninsula in the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut, Canada, located on the northwest shores of Hudson Bay on Roes Welcome Sound and includes Fullerton Harbour. Today it is part of Ukkusiksalik National Park.
Captain George Comer was considered the most famous American whaling captain of Hudson Bay, and the world's foremost authority on Hudson Bay Inuit in the early 20th century.
The whaling disaster of 1871 was an incident off the northern Alaskan coast in which a fleet of 33 American whaling ships were trapped in the Arctic ice in September 1871 and subsequently abandoned. It dealt a serious blow to the American whaling industry, already in decline.
Thomas Luce & Company was one of the last American whaling companies on the east coast. Based in New Bedford, Massachusetts and founded by an Azorean immigrant, the Thos. Luce company operated thirty-six whaling voyages between 1886 and 1903 into the Atlantic Ocean and Hudson Bay.
Iony Island, or Jonas' Island, formerly Ostrov Svyatogo Iony, is a small island in the Sea of Okhotsk.
Commercial whaling in the United States dates to the 17th century in New England. The industry peaked in 1846–1852, and New Bedford, Massachusetts, sent out its last whaler, the John R. Mantra, in 1927. The Whaling industry was engaged with the production of three different raw materials: whale oil, spermaceti oil, and whalebone. Whale oil was the result of "trying-out" whale blubber by heating in water. It was a primary lubricant for machinery, whose expansion through the Industrial Revolution depended upon before the development of petroleum-based lubricants in the second half of the 19th century. Once the prized blubber and spermaceti had been extracted from the whale, the remaining majority of the carcass was discarded.
Nantucket shipbuilding began in the late 1700s and culminated in the construction of notable whaling ships during the early 19th century. Shipbuilding was predominantly sited at Brant Point. Whaling ship construction concluded in 1838.
Samuel Enderby & Sons was a whaling and sealing company based in London, England, founded circa 1775 by Samuel Enderby (1717–1797). The company was significant in the history of whaling in the United Kingdom, not least for encouraging their captains to combine exploration with their business activities, and sponsored several of the earliest expeditions to the subantarctic, Southern Ocean and Antarctica itself.
Charles Waln Morgan was a whaling industry executive, banker and businessman. At his peak in the whaling industry, he owned fourteen whaling ships, one of which was named after him, the Charles W. Morgan. It became a National Historic Landmark. He sold the sperm oil that came from his ships, and also used it in his candle-making factory.