![]() ![]() The whale did this twice and the Essex was mortally wounded and began to sink. They ended up angering a enormous male who proceeded to attack the Essex by swimming full-speed toward it and striking the ship with his head. In November of 1819, while hunting in the Pacific, the Essex came upon a pod of sperm whales and began preparations for acquiring them. All four of Owen's brothers who survived to adulthood, and Owen himself, would eventually become Whaling Captains. Owen's family had a long seafaring history and the number of Chases associated with whaling was immense. Judah was the g reat-great-great-great Grandson of William Chase, the immigrant from England to America in 1630, the first of the family in the New World. Owen was born in December of 1797 on Nantucket Island and was the son of Judah Chase and Phoebe Meader. Owen was a Quaker by birth and was about 23 years old when the Essex set sail, and was a far more experienced whaler than Pollard. ![]() Pollard had just been made captain and this journey was his first in command of a ship. ![]() The Essex was captained by George Pollard and the First Mate was Owen Chase. Then, the ship had to round the Horn, and sail up along the coast of Chile, stopping one last time for supplies and to send letters home, and then out into the open ocean for up to two years or until the ship was full of whale oil and blubber. From the Atlantic Coast of New England, the Essex sailed south along the coastline of North America, continued through the Caribbean to the coast of South America along Venezuela, Suriname, Guiana, Brazil, Uruguay, reached Argentina and then finally Cape Horn, one of the most notoriously treacherous stretches of water in the world. It is difficult for us to imagine today just how far this journey really was at that time in history when there were no automobiles, no airplanes, no motor driven ships and just the wind to carry you along. In 1819, the Whaling Ship Essex set sail from Nantucket Island for what was expected to be a two and a half year journey to the whaling areas of the south Pacific where an abundance of the most prized prey, the sperm whale, could be found. ![]()
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