[I have been on a hiatus from blogging while I work on a genealogy of the Tew family of Rhode Island descended from Richard Tew and his wife, Mary (Clarke) Tew, who arrived in New England from England in 1640. The following is from some recent discoveries about one of those descendants.]
Several years ago I read a fascinating book titled “LEVIATHAN” by Eric Jay Dolin who lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts. The book is about the history of whaling in New England. On October 3, 2015, I did a “review/recommendation” about the book here, https://filiopietismprism.blogspot.com/2015/10/saturday-serendipity-october-3-2015.html#comment-form Mr. Dolin actually commented on that blog post and alerted me to his newest book at the time about the history of the American lighthouse “BRILLIANT BEACONS: A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN LIGHTHOUSE"––another engaging read, especially since one of my great great uncles was a keeper at Beavertail lighthouse on Conanicut Island (Jamestown), Rhode Island. Eric Jay Dolin is an excellent writer and the latest of his books that I have read is “BLACK FLAGS, BLUE WATERS: THE EPIC HISTORY OF AMERICA’S MOST NOTORIOUS PIRATES.” Thomas Tew, who is often referred to as "Rhode Island's pirate," is mentioned on nine pages of the book and that book is in my small collection of pirate books that discuss Thomas Tew.
In reading LEVIATHAN, I learned for the first time about the ship Essex, which got stove by a sperm whale in the southern Pacific and sunk. See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship) The experience of the Essex in 1820 was an inspiration for Melville’s novel Moby Dick. The fate of the Essex crew was horrific. After the attack by the whale and the sinking of their ship, their experience is summarized at Wikipedia as follows . . .
"Thousands of miles from the coast of South America with little food and water, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in the ship's surviving whaleboats. The men suffered severe dehydration, starvation, and exposure on the open ocean, and the survivors eventually resorted to eating the bodies of the crewmen who had died. When that proved insufficient, members of the crew drew lots to determine whom they would sacrifice so that the others could live. A total of seven crew members were cannibalized before the last of the eight survivors were rescued, more than three months after the sinking of the Essex.”
The sinking of the Essex by a ramming sperm whale in 1820 was the only recorded incident of the kind, that is until the Ann Alexander suffered a similar fate in the Pacific thirty-one years later in 1851. When that whaling ship was rammed by a sperm whale that had been hunted and wounded by the whaling crew, the Master of the Ann Alexander was a captain by the name of John Scott Deblois. The fate of the Ann Alexander crew was much different that that of the Essex because they were rescued by the passing ship Nantucket not very long after their ship was demolished. The harrowing story of the Ann Alexander was told to the New York Daily Times by Capt. Deblois and was verified by multiple eye witnesses following the inevitable investigation into the loss of the ship.
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| Capt. John Scott Deblois |
While doing some genealogy research, I discovered the story as published in the November 5, 1851 edition of the N.Y. Daily Times. Read the story in the four-part clipping of the article that follows. Those with genealogy roots in Rhode Island, and those with a general interest in what might be called obscure events and persons in Rhode Island history, will also want to read the rest of the story that follows the New York Daily Times account immediately below.
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AND NOW THE REST OF THE STORY . . .
Capt. Deblois sailed out of New Bedford, Massachusetts, but he was a Rhode Islander who lived for a time in Providence and later in Newport (where it appears he was born). He is buried in the Common Burial Ground in Newport along with his wife. His gravestone reads, “John S. Deblois Born Nov. 25, 1816 Died Nov. 29, 1885 Late Master of Ship Ann Alexander which was stove and sunk by a Sperm Whale in the Pacific Ocean 1851.” His wife, Henrietta M. Deblois is buried near him and she died in 1883, two years before he did.
There is an interesting thing about Henrietta. She was born in 1808 in Newport. She and her husband John apparently had no children, but they appear to have lived comfortably and employed live-in domestic servants. They also had Henrietta’s mother live with them in her old age until she died sometime after age 79. This is all documented in the federal census records from 1850 - 1870. Henrietta’s mother, the former Elizabeth “Betsey” Grimes outlived her husband by 32 years. Betsey and her husband William had two sons and four daughters in addition to Henrietta. Before Henrietta married John Deblois, her maiden name was Henrietta M. Tew. She was the daughter of William Clarke Tew (1770-1822) and Elizabeth “Betsey” Grimes (1772-1854). According to the calculator on Ancestry.com, Henrietta is my 3rd cousin 5 times removed.
Meet Henrietta M (Tew) Deblois of Rhode Island.
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| Henrietta M. (Tew) Deblois |
What an exciting story...and how brave the captain was to use his hatchet and with one blow, be able to right the ship!
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