A Wordy Journal Entry about Mystic Seaport and a Little Family History

On our final full day in New England we ventured out into the rain again (after having been completely drenched in the morning at Connecticut College) to see Mystic Seaport.  Elise deserves an award for her fearless tour guiding in the face of less-than-ideal conditions.  

As we wandered the streets of the seaport trying to envision what life would have been like during the golden years of a bustling seaport I kept thinking how foreign this was for me, a daughter of a tradition of farming and teaching.  Ship anchors lie about on every corner. Buildings were specialized for the trade they housed--ropemaking companies had buildings several football fields long!  I thought about how industries come and go as technology changes, how we mourn the loss of jobs, and how eventually one generation of tradesmen had to learn to do something different to support their families.

But then my mind began to envision all of my ancestors from Scandinavia and Europe.  Surely they weren't strangers to these seaports. 

The inside of the buildings are just as fascinating as the streets of the town.  The shops feature goods and equipment necessary for the industry.  The small (!) houses were restored to reflect cozy and industrious domestic living.

Mystic Seaport is also a traditional shipyard so we learned just a little about shipbuilding.  Well, I took about twelves photos of the displays and then read them when I got home, but A was on the ball and took advantage of the moment.

 We went aboard the Charles Morgan which is in the process of being restored.  It looked rather precariously perched there on the scaffolding.

 Capable Miss Arwen at the helm.

To be a boatsteerer was a prestigious step up from being a crew member.

 I knew very little about the whaling industry before stepping on deck the Charles Morgan. My great-great-great grandfather worked on whaling ships to both avoid military service in Portugal and to pay for his family's passage to America, but he became a dairyman as soon as they settled down and his time at sea is a little forgotten in our family now.

 I didn't get a chance to read these until I came home and zoomed in on the photos.  Reading about the diversity of the crew I began to wonder about the names of the ships that were the homes of the Portuguese men in my family who pioneered their way to America from the Azore Islands. 

What a horrible life he led, no doubt as one of the lowest members onboard in the crew.  His job was to know and take care of the ropes, row the whale boats when they were in pursuit and then row up to five miles back to the ship.  His life was a dirty, greasy, wet one with little sanitation and slave-like living conditions.  If he had done well he was promoted to be a harpooner which meant he handled and sharpened and cared for the six-seven foot harpoons.  It took a dozen of these things to kill a whale.

The Tri works was the oven where whale blubber was boiled down to become precious whale oil.  This thing was hot and stinky but the center piece to a whaling ship since the blubber goes rancid within three days.  I can't imagine navigating those greasy decks after they processed those whales by cutting them up.  I don't even like cleaning a cutting board off after I've prepared raw meat on it--ick.

None of my photos below deck turned out very well, but the quarters were cramped.  I counted bunks for about thirty men, twenty-four of them in one small area called the forecastle. It is hard to avoid the realization that our lives are so privileged.

And it is difficult not be in awed by the enormity of these crafts built and maintained to endure the most violent of storms and waves.  Click on the links to see the ships with their sails unfurled.

 The Amistad

 The Joseph Conrad

We enjoyed a fun ending at the children's discovery room and seeing (and participating in) a short play. I should have taken more photos of the house and storefronts, but now I'm remembering I almost killed my camera as it was.

Elise drove me through the main historic area of Mystic to see the old captains' homes with the widow's walks perched atop and I thought about those women who would send their husbands off for three to five years at a time.  What a dangerous and adventurous commute, and what a life it was for the women who didn't go aboard but kept moving forward with daily tasks and child rearing on land.  I feel like those widow's walks are the only monument to the sacrifice they made.

Moby Dick, anyone?  Dan and I watched a great PBS documentary on Netflix when we got home and now I am intrigued.