The tavern was dim and close, thick with the smell of rum and woodsmoke. In the darkest corner sat an old salt, bent over a long pipe. His beard was white and bristly, his face deeply lined and weathered, like leather tanned by forty years of sun and spray. His eyes squinted, nearly hidden under his brow, and they gave the impression of a man who had stared too long at the horizon, waiting for a spout to rise from the waves.
The greenhorn hesitated, a tin mug of sour ale in his grip. Then approached the old man and asked his question. And when he had asked, the old man leaned back, drew on his pipe, and let the smoke curl from his lips.
“Ye want to hear ’bout Plymouth’s whalin’ fleet, do ye? I’ll tell ye, but mind ye, ‘twas cursed, sure as I’m sittin’ here. An’ to share a gam of curses has a way of bringin’ ‘em to ye. Won’t be these tired bones it’ll come for…” One of the salt’s eyebrows raised and he fixed the greenhorn with a gleaming eye. “Ye’r sure?”
The greenhorn nodded and sat across from him. The old man leaned forward, pipe stem pointing at the lad like a bowsprit.
“Twas in ’43 the trouble first showed its teeth. An’ it took the littlest one first. Just a mite of a schooner, fit for nothin’ but short hauls in near waters. She never should’ve strayed far. Caught in a blow, she went clean over—capsized in a heartbeat—an’ down she went, straight to Davy Jones’s cold parlor, without so much as a partin’ cry.
“Three months later, another whalin’ schooner got herself dismasted in a gale. The blow tore her masts out by the roots. Lost near all her cargo—barrels of oil rollin’ off into the deep, an’ even a whale she’d had lashed alongside. The sea took the lot. Some say it was just foul luck. But I tell ye, the ocean don’t forget the blood in her waters. She’ll have her due.
“Before ’43 was out, another Plymouth whaler was condemned in Bahia. Rotted timbers and sprung seams, four thousand miles from home. The crew—poor boys—was left to fend for themselves, sweatin’ and starvin’ in them fever ports, while their ship rotted to bits.”
“Aye, an’ there was one more gone that year, too. Not wrecked but sold off quick, as if her owners knew somethin’ ill was in the wind. Those new owners, big men in New Bedford, didn’t know about the curse. New owners or not, didn’t matter. For a time she sailed fine, fillin’ her hold with oil, her new owners smilin’ fat on the profits. But the curse, lad—the curse bides its time. Few years later, out in the Gilbert Islands, it bared its teeth. Way off in the Pacific, the Yeoman, she come under attack, natives swarmin’ aboard. Five men cut down, seven more gashed an’ bleedin’, an’ the cap’n barely made off with his life. The sea don’t give back what she’s claimed.”
The greenhorn shifted on his bench.
“Then come ’45, an’ the big owner himself—Bartlett, the man who set the first, and the biggest, and the greasiest of Plymouth’s whaleships afloat, well, he dropped dead afore his time. The sea don’t just claim men on the rollin’ decks. His heart gave out sudden, like a mast splinterin’ in a squall. Folks said it were nothin’ but a sickness o’ the chest…but them of us what’s sailed knew better. The curse had reached into his very ribs an’ hauled him under, same as the rest. Grease never bought him no years.
“Then come ’46, the Maracaibo met her doom. Went aground hard, timbers grindin’ like bones. The second mate an’ two poor lads washed clean off the decks, swept into the black water. Three more souls to pay the sea’s toll. Aye, by then the curse were gnawin’ marrow—takin’ not just barrels an’ spars, but the very men what wielded the irons.
“Then come ’47 and another Plymouth whaler runs aground at Margarita, crushed on coral jaws, timbers splintered and casks stove, sea boilin’ with oil. Some made it ashore, half-drowned. Took ‘em months to scrape passage home, if they made it at all.”
The old salt’s pipe burned low. He drew deep, sending up a thin ribbon of smoke that writhed in the rafters.
“Mark me, lad, the sea didn’t just take ships from Plymouth—it scattered her sons across the world like driftwood. And the owners…two years more and the last of the Plymouth whalers had been sold off. Guttered out, the whole fleet, like a lantern in the gale, leavin’ nothin’ but a wisp o’ greasy smoke in the dark.”
The greenhorn sat stiff, his ale untouched. The salt only stared at him, eyes like storm-dark water, and said nothing more.
…Now, you’ll forgive me this little flight of fancy. The tale of Plymouth’s whaling fleet is so strange it almost begs to be told as a mariner’s yarn. No such “curse” has ever been mentioned in the books. No old salt ever told such a tale—at least none that I know about. But every calamity I’ve included here is true (with maybe a touch of the old salt’s embellishment). Between 1843 and 1847, Plymouth’s whaling ventures suffered a run of disasters so sudden and unrelenting it almost makes one wonder. But the hour grows late, and the true story of Plymouth’s whaling fleet must wait for the next telling…see Part Two for the rise of Plymouth’s whaling fleet…
Historical Digression 
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