Stereoview with handwriting on the back, in pencil: Bark Massachusetts lost in Arctic. Its amazing that everyone was rescued by the ships that escaped. Please see story at bottom of listing. There is no maker mark, but pencil handwriting on the back says: New Bedford. Approximately 3 3/8 x 7 inches. When tilted, scuffing is apparent. Mount: Wear around edges and at corners. Soiling, front and back. Very good tones, with the right side being slightly richer. 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 late 1871 and subsequently abandoned. It dealt a serious blow to the American whaling industry, already in decline. In late June 1871, forty whaleships passed north through Bering Strait, hunting bowhead whales. Seven ships were able to escape to the south, but 33 others were trapped. Within two weeks the pack had tightened around the vessels, crushing four ships. The vessels were spread out in a long line, some 60 miles (97 km) south of Point Franklin. By mid-September all 1,219 people aboard the ships evacuated in small whaleboats with a three-month supply of provisions, crossed 70 miles (110 km) of ocean, and were eventually brought to safety by the seven ships which had escaped the ice to the south. Amazingly, there were no casualties. The seven whalers that escaped (the vessels Europa, Arctic, Progress, Lagoda, Daniel Webster, Midas, and Chance) were forced to dump their catch and most of their equipment overboard to make room for passengers on the return trip to Honolulu. Twenty-two of the wrecked vessels were from New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 1872 the bark Minerva was discovered intact and subsequently salvaged, but the rest were crushed in the ice, sank, or were stripped of wood by the local Inupiat. The item “BARK MASSACHUSETTS SHIP LOST IN ARCTIC WHALING DISASTER OF 1871 STEREOVIEW” is in sale since Monday, March 26, 2018. This item is in the category “Collectibles\Photographic Images\Vintage & Antique (Pre-1940)\Stereoviews”. The seller is “genest” and is located in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. This item can be shipped worldwide.
- Photo Type: Stereoview