Martha's Vineyard Whaling captains

Passed Their Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary

Vineyard Gazette | Thursday, July 11 1907 - 1:02pm

On the 2d of the present month occurred the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Capt. and Mrs. William A. Martin, well-known residents of Chappaquiddick. Mrs. Martin was before her marriage Sarah G. Brown, daughter of Abram Brown, and as Sarah Martin has been long and favorably known to our townspeople and also to many of our summer residents.

Capt. Martin has been a paralytic for the past seven years, and is now practically helpless, and for this reason no special celebration of the fiftieth wedding anniversary was made at the time.

Whaling captains

Chappaquiddick

William Martin

For Whaling Captains, Diversity Flourished

Skip Finley

Men of color were full participants in the whaling industry, a business so difficult and dangerous that most people only went out once.

Black Whaling Captains Found Liberty at Sea

Louisa Hufstader

Of the 2,500 masters who captained whaling ships during three centuries of whaling, at least 63 were men of color, five with Martha’s Vineyard ties, Skip Finley told a rapt audience Wednesday night.

Museum Exhibit Explores Whaling Era's Forgotten Figures

Heather Hamacek

New exhibit at Martha’s Vineyard Museum explores the characters and figures from the heyday of Island whaling that often go unnoticed.

Black Whaling Captains Led the Way

Skip Finley

Nathaniel Philbrick’s book In the Heart of the Sea, on which the movie is based, tells a tale of horror.

Whale Tales

It is a sad thing to contemplate the passing of the last whaling captain of Martha’s Vineyard.

Followed The Whale Slick All Over The World

Vineyard Gazette

Capt. Ellsworth Luce West, last of the Vineyard whaling captains, died at his home on the Middle Road, Chilmark, on Sunday nigh, following some months of failing health. He was in his 85th year and although feeble physically for some time, his faculties had remained active until his death. As an authority on the Arctic, his last days had been spent in the dictation of a volume on Arctic phenomena and his Alaskan experiences. He was also collaborating with Vilhjalmur Stefansson the explorer, in recreating in print various phrases of the whaling era.