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Lot Essay
One of that handful of iconic ships which are part of the American national psyche, the Charles W. Morgan was probably the most successful sailing whaler ever to fly the 'stars and stripes' and, moreover, is the only one of her breed to have survived into modern times.
Named in honor of Mr. Charles Waln Morgan who owned a half-share in her, the 314-ton bark bearing his name was built by Hillman Bros. at New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1841. Between that date and 1886, when she changed her home port to San Francisco, she made twelve voyages under nine different masters and rapidly became one of the most profitable ships in the entire North American whaling trade. Although she cost $52,000 to build, she brought home a cargo of whale oil and bone valued at $56,000 from her maiden voyage and this set a standard which she managed to keep up for most of her long career. In thirty-seven seasons over some eighty years, she grossed over $1,400,000 in profits for her successive owners, her most successful being the sixth commission which brought her home to New Bedford in 1863 with a surplus in excess of $165,000. Most voyages lasted years rather than months, three-and-a-half years being the average, and usually took her south around Cape Horn and thence into the vast Pacific in search of sperm whales. Later skippers also took her out via the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean but, whichever route she took, the goal was always the same until her later years when the scarcity of sperm whales generated a demand for the products of other species.
Charles Morgan's original partner was Edward Mott Robinson but after the ship's first voyage, he bought Morgan out and took over sole control until selling her to J. & W.R. Wing after her fifth season. The Wing's retained an interest in her until 1906, by which time Mr. Robinson's daughter Hetty had somehow become involved with her ownership, and it was Hetty's son H.W. (Edward) Green who subsequently made the first attempts to preserve the whaleship twenty years later. By then, the Charles W. Morgan was ninety years old and had ceased commercial whaling soon after World War I. Just prior to this, in 1916, she was hired to impersonate the whaleship Harpoon in the cinema film Miss Petticoats and later made two further film appearances in 1922 (in Elmer Clifton's Down to the Sea in Ships starring Clara Bow) and in 1935 (in Joseph Hergesheimer's Java Head), the first of which may well have saved her from the breakers. By the time she appeared on screen for the last time she had been purchased by Edward Green who had converted her into a floating museum at South Dartmouth, Massachusetts but, following his death in 1935, she passed into the hands of a well-intentioned but inadequately funded group who, after three years of financial difficulties, sold her to the Mystic [Maritime] Museum at Seaport, Connecticut, under the auspices of the then curator, Carl Cutler. Fully restored and refurbished, she was finally opened to the public in 1941, by which time she was exactly a century old, and still remains there as one of the museum's prime attractions in addition to the wider role she has now assumed within America's maritime heritage.
Named in honor of Mr. Charles Waln Morgan who owned a half-share in her, the 314-ton bark bearing his name was built by Hillman Bros. at New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1841. Between that date and 1886, when she changed her home port to San Francisco, she made twelve voyages under nine different masters and rapidly became one of the most profitable ships in the entire North American whaling trade. Although she cost $52,000 to build, she brought home a cargo of whale oil and bone valued at $56,000 from her maiden voyage and this set a standard which she managed to keep up for most of her long career. In thirty-seven seasons over some eighty years, she grossed over $1,400,000 in profits for her successive owners, her most successful being the sixth commission which brought her home to New Bedford in 1863 with a surplus in excess of $165,000. Most voyages lasted years rather than months, three-and-a-half years being the average, and usually took her south around Cape Horn and thence into the vast Pacific in search of sperm whales. Later skippers also took her out via the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean but, whichever route she took, the goal was always the same until her later years when the scarcity of sperm whales generated a demand for the products of other species.
Charles Morgan's original partner was Edward Mott Robinson but after the ship's first voyage, he bought Morgan out and took over sole control until selling her to J. & W.R. Wing after her fifth season. The Wing's retained an interest in her until 1906, by which time Mr. Robinson's daughter Hetty had somehow become involved with her ownership, and it was Hetty's son H.W. (Edward) Green who subsequently made the first attempts to preserve the whaleship twenty years later. By then, the Charles W. Morgan was ninety years old and had ceased commercial whaling soon after World War I. Just prior to this, in 1916, she was hired to impersonate the whaleship Harpoon in the cinema film Miss Petticoats and later made two further film appearances in 1922 (in Elmer Clifton's Down to the Sea in Ships starring Clara Bow) and in 1935 (in Joseph Hergesheimer's Java Head), the first of which may well have saved her from the breakers. By the time she appeared on screen for the last time she had been purchased by Edward Green who had converted her into a floating museum at South Dartmouth, Massachusetts but, following his death in 1935, she passed into the hands of a well-intentioned but inadequately funded group who, after three years of financial difficulties, sold her to the Mystic [Maritime] Museum at Seaport, Connecticut, under the auspices of the then curator, Carl Cutler. Fully restored and refurbished, she was finally opened to the public in 1941, by which time she was exactly a century old, and still remains there as one of the museum's prime attractions in addition to the wider role she has now assumed within America's maritime heritage.