Falmouth Whaling Wives: Back by popular demand, whaling scholar Carolyn Partan will  share stories about the adventurous lives of Falmouth’s whaling wives and children.

Carolyn Partan Bio:

Carolyn retired in 1999 from working as a real estate attorney in Boston and has been an active volunteer for the Falmouth Historical Society ever since. Like many others, she has taken on multiple roles. She revived and expanded the third grade program plus participated in other school collaborations. She has worked on fundraising, including as co-chair of the 2016 renovations of Conant House. Other positions she has held include Interim Executive Director (2000-2001), Secretary of the Board (2000-2006) and most recently as President (June 2022 – January 2023). She has done extensive research on Falmouth’s whaling history, among other topics. For the new Falmouth Art Center, Carolyn was a key person in its building and fundraising. Prior to moving year-around to Falmouth, she served on the Massport Board by gubernatorial appointment. Carolyn has degrees from Wellesley College (BA) and NYU School of Law (JD).

Falmouth’s Whaling Heritage

In the early 19th century, Falmouth remained a remote farming and fishing community. But then the growing New England whaling industry began to capture the imagination of Falmouth youth who dreamed of adventure as Cape Horn sailors searching the Pacific Ocean for whales and whale oil. Falmouth was no competition for New Bedford, the “city that lit the world,” but whaling and whaling-related trades became Falmouth’s principal business. Falmouth was the home port of 13 whaling ships that made 52 whaling voyages, mainly to the Pacific, between 1820 and 1860. Six whalers were built in Falmouth, most of them at Bar Neck Wharf in Woods Hole, under the oversight of the patriarch of Falmouth whaling, Elijah Swift. With a total population of no more than 2600, Falmouth produced an astounding 65 whaling ship captains, some of whom took their wives on whaling voyages of three to five years and had children born at sea. In this presentation, you will compare the Falmouth boys’ dreams of glory and adventure with the hard, punishing realities of whaling.

Jos Mattingly Bio:

Joe Mattingly is a docent at Falmouth Museums on the Green with a special interest in the history and culture of New England and Falmouth whaling. Joe has himself recently traveled several of the whaling grounds of the Pacific and once lived for two and a half years in the Republic of the Philippines as a U. S. Air Force officer following an initial assignment at Otis AFB here on the Cape. Joe is a native son of Maryland, a long-time docent for Historic Annapolis, and a retired lawyer. He and his wife returned part-time to the Cape in 2011 and have lived here permanently since 2019. Knowing what he does, Joe still has difficulty understanding why a young man who went on a four-year whaling voyage to the Pacific in the 1800s would want to go again.

Fair Winds and Following Seas: Uncovering History & Climate Clues from our Whaling Past

Timothy D. Walker^1,2 and Caroline C. Ummenhofer²

¹Department of History, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, MA

²Department of Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA

A trove of whaling ship logbooks spanning the period 1790 to 1910 exists in New England archives, such as Falmouth Historical Society, Martha’s Vineyard Museum, Nantucket Historical Association, New Bedford Whaling Museum, and Providence Public Library. Whaling records also are also key source materials for the Sailing to Freedom project, which highlights little-known stories of freedom-seeking by sea and describes the less-understood maritime side of the Underground Railroad. This new research, directed and explained by Dr. Timothy Walker, Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, expands our understanding of how freedom was achieved by sea – and why the whaling industry is an important component of this emerging story.

Jointly with oceanographer Dr. Caroline Ummenhofer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the talk also highlights that whaling ship logbooks do not only hold value for historical, genealogical, economic, and ecological research, but can also be of use to climate scientists. From each logbook, researchers can gather unique historical weather data from key climate zones covering Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean whaling grounds. Further, unlike merchant or military vessels, whaling ships did not follow established sea lanes, but instead visited some of the most remote waters on earth, opening a window into past climate conditions. The logbooks contain systematic daily weather observations, such as wind strength/direction, rainfall, and cloudiness. The talk demonstrates how the historical records provide an important long-term context for changing weather patterns over the world’s oceans lacking instrumental observations during the 18^th-19^th centuries. It will discuss challenges and opportunities for climate research through data rescue and digitization of these under-utilized historical ship logbooks.