the nantucket connection

7/23/2019 The Nantucket Connection

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Whaling ship Loper of Nantucket, capt. Obed Starbuck, sailed December 6th, 1824 and returned on October

19th, 1826. The original logbook of this voyage to the whaling grounds of the Pacific is believed to have

been lost but a journal kept on board by a then-15-year old Robert McCleave remarkably survived and it is

currently held [as well as the microfilm of this manuscript journal] by the Nantucket Historical Association:

Remarks on Board Friday August 19th,1825 . First part of these 24 hours commences with light wind AtEast tacked occasionly At 7 a.m. Discovered An Island which lay in lattitude 00° 12' N AndIn Longitude 176° 18' W We gave it the name of Lopers Isl.[SIC]

Remarks on Board Saturday Aug 20th, 1825. First part of these 24 hours commences with light wind

At NE at 5 p.m.went on shore with 2 boats got some fowls and Eggs...

This discovery and others were soon after Loper’s arrival reported to and published in the periodical The

Nantucket Inquirer (edition 25th of November 1826) but the rather attentive reader cannot fail to notice an

obvious discrepancy between Mccleave’s log and the newspaper clipping where it concerns Loper’s Island :

McCleave’s journal [which I reckon to be merely a copy of the missing logbook of the Loper] tells us that

the first four discoveries as listed in the paper can be attributed to Obed Starbuck - Oeno Island , Granger’s

Island and the last comer, A Rock , were not Starbuck’s reports. Decades later The Daily Mercury (New

Bedford, edition 28th of june, 1859) printed an article, featuring the middleaged captain Robert McCleave:

AN INTERESTING RELIC. The Josephine recently brought up from New Nantucket Island,the old ships record book, which purports to have been left there by Capt. Rob’t

M’Cleave, of the ship Richard Mitchell, of Nantucket, July 14th, 1850. It is simply anoctavo memorandum book, with a sail duck cover. On the first page it states that"New Nantucket or Lopers Island was discovered by Obed Starbuck in the ship Loper,in august 1825, Lat. 0 12 N.; Lon 176 18 W." It is a curious document, much weather!worn, having been kept on the island in a small kennel house, which also contained apen and inkstand without ink. The book is nearly full of reports of whaleships,dating from July 1851, but many of them are so defaced as to be unintelligible ...

Old McCleave equates Loper's Island to New Nantucket but what would he answer if we were to ask himabout its namesake island listed in the Nantucket Inquirer of November 25th, 1826, who’s coordinates matchthose of modern Niutao Island , one of the nine islands comprising modern Tuvalu? What would his answerbe? In their essay The "Mystery" of Gran Cocal: European Discovery and Mis-discovery in Tuvalu [Journalof the Polynesian Society vol.89, no. 2, 1980] Doug Munro and Keith S. Chamber wrote:

‘The log of the Loper (McCleave nd.) does not provide firm evidence for the sighting of Niutao, although this probably happened late in November 1825. We are grateful to H.E. Maude for allowing us to consult hismicrofilm copy of the Loper log’



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They were alluding to the below entries B and C of McCleave’s journal (do pay special attention to thedesignation of the longitudes in these late November 1825 entries):

A) Remarks On Board Friday Nov 18th 1825...Latt By Obs 5 ° 05' S Long In 177 ° 30' E

B) Remarks On Board Saturday Nov 19th 1825...At 9 AM Saw a Reef Of Rocks to the N E Part

Within 6 miles of them they lay In Latt 5 ° 29' S Long 175 ° 01' W So Ends C) Remarks On Board Sunday Nov 20th 1825...At 4 PM Saw Whales...Put Off at 7 AM Got 3

Whales to the ship...Latt By Obs 5 ° 05' S 175 ° 30' W D) Remarks On Board Monday Nov 21st 1825...Latt By Obs 7 ° 05' S Long 177 ° 45' E

Who was responsible for the lining-throughs I know not but in the margin of entry B we are summoned to

‘Turn to Feb. 19th 1826 ’

and really not by McCleave’s handwriting. What I think had happened is that McCleave, in the very act of

transcribing the original logbook of Loper, accidentally copied the entries for days February 19th and 20th

(1826)...to the tabulae rasae of November 19th and 20th (1825) of his own journal. Obeying the anonymous

request as shown above will thus give us the verbatim entries of B and C, except this time not scored out.

Unfortunately it’s impossible to reconstruct what these entries originally stated but if, however, we do

substitute the above coordinates [6° 07' S. 177° 44' E.] we find them to totally comply with the overall bearing

of the ship [ A and D] - nowhere in the journal the puzzle-piece-click sounds better - therefor I am inclined to

believe that Obed Starbuck sighted modern Niutao on one of the following days late in November 1825:

1.) November 19th 1825

2.) November 20th 1825

Munro and Chambers (I’m still referring to their monograph) would write about Obed Starbuck’s sighting:

‘since Mourelle discovered Niutao in 1781, the sighting of that island by Captain Obed Starbuck of

the Nantucket whaler Loper in 1825 [see Stackpole 1953:346; Sharp 1960:204-5; Maude 1968:126]

was not a discovery but a rediscovery. We need not remove Starbuck's name from the list of Euro-

pean discoverers of Tuvalu, however, for in late 1825 his sighting of Vaitupu, which he named

Tracy Island after his first mate [Jared Wentworth Tracy/Tracey?], was apparently the first instance

of a European chancing upon that island.’

They convinced me that Mourelle was the first European who saw Niutao Island (May 5th, 1781) but Robert

McCleave does away with their claim that Starbuck discovered modern Vaitupu Island late in 1825 because

his journal does not remark upon this event any time sooner than in the folllowing 1826 entries of which the

designations of longitude (absent below) are east of Greenwich:

Remarks On Board Wednesday April 26th 1826...At 7 AM Saw an Island to the W S W...Steered for it...Latt By Obs 7° 28' S

Remarks On Board Thursday April 27th 1826...At 5 PM Close in With The Island Went on Shorewith one Boat and Found it was Inhabited Came on Board The Natives Came Off with Coconuts toTrade...Latt 7° 43' S

Remarks On Board Friday April 28th 1826...At 7 AM Saw Elices Groupes [sic] to the S S E

Steered By The wind to the S E Lattitude By Obs 8° 29'S

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The combo of the coordinates [7° 30' S. 178° 45' E.] of inhabited Tracy's Island [see Nantucket Inquirer on

page 2] and the general heading of the ship leaves little doubt that modern Vaitupu was sighted by captain

Obed Starbuck on the day April 26th, 1826. So Starbuck had a visual of Vaitupu in early 1826 instead of late

1825 but wouldn’t that somewhat rock his status quo of official discoverer of this island? No: until the 21st

of August 1827 no other known ship’s logbook made mention of this island - it was on this day that William

Plaskett, as captain of the Nantucket whaling vessel Independence II , rediscovered modern Vaitupu:

At 9 P.M. man on the Fore-yard saw a light ahead, soon after saw two more. At 10 tack'd ship toSSW, At 1 A.M. tacked again to the ENE. At daylight found it to be a small low island about 6miles long. Dist. 12 miles, went within 7 miles of it. 2 canoes came off with a few cocoanuts. Having onenative and an interpreter on board who we brought from Rotumah, who formerly belonged to one of theislands about here and who understood their language we learned that they had never seen a ship be-

fore .The natives name of this island is Voytopo , It is not laid down on the Books or Charts so we call it anew discovery...Lat. 7 ° -25 south, Longitude 178 °-47' East.

Starbuck’s and Plaskett’s coordinates for their sightings are practically the same so must they not have seen

Obed Starbuck’s Loper then? I still think that, despite of this, both captains had seen the very same island.

Speaking of re-discoveries: the earliest known mention of New Nantucket [McCleave never mentioned thisname in his journal] in a logbook I could find is in that of the New Bedford whaler Minerva Smyth [- Smith],captain Daniel McKenzie, kept by Lewis Handy - its entry for March 8th, 1827:

Thursday, March the 8 - at 7 AM saw the island of New Nantucket in the Lat of 15 miles North Longby Acount 176:27 West. At 9 Lowrd the Boat and tried to Land but Couldnt the Surf run so high EndsPleasant lat 00:05 North Long 177:30 W

The log of the Nantucket whaler Harvest , captain David N. Edwards, kept by George Washington Gardner

Jr. (third mate), also equates Loper Island to New Nantucket just as McCleave did:

Wednesday December 22 [1830] at 4 AM saw an Island called by some Loper Island and Others NewNantucket to the WNW about 3 leagues at sunset passed to the Southward of it about 4 miles distant [...] Latt 5 miles N Longitude By Lunar obs [ervation] 177-30 West long of the Island 176 26 West.

Young McCleave William Plaskett Retired McCleave



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Robert & Eliza Ann McCleave (nee Chase) - what is his index finger trying to bring to our attention?

Capt. William Tolley Brookes (see pp. 6-7) - H.E. Maude [1968, p. 110] somehow failed to identify him.



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Late in February, 1826, the Loper, capt. Obed Starbuck, sailed into the modern Phoenix Islands territory:

Remarks On Board Sunday Feb 19th 1826 ...Saw A Reef of Rocks to the N.N.E. within 6 miles ofthem the Reef lay in Latt 5 ° 29' S Long In 175 ° 01' W

The one reef known to exist in this vicinity today is Carondelet Reef (5° 34! 0" S, 173° 51! 0" W.) and

inspite of the given longitude of A Reef (page 2) is off by one degree it’s no doubt this very same reef.

The log of Nantucket whaler India, capt. Joshua Coffin, contains a list of ’Islands, Reefs, Rocks and Shoals’

and from this the image above was taken and it’s the one document I know of containing the name Starbucks

Reef . The paper clipping below uniquely testifies as to why this reef is currently known as Carondelet Reef :

[This captain was W.F. (Wilder Francis) Stetson]

A BRIEF AND THUS INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF THE MODERN CARONDELET REEF:

A captain Kemin is said to have seen it in 1824 in 5° 38' S. 187° 06' 15" E. [172° 53' 45" W.] of Greenwich -1 some sources have it that he was in fact the briton Charles Kem(m)ish of the London whaler Eliza Ann.

Krusenstern mentioned a rock ‘also named Mary Reef ’ in position 5° 35' S. 186° 30' E. [173° 30' W.] 2 and

old maps show Mary’s (or Mary) Reef in roughly this position but the origin of this name and that of Mary

Letitia's Rock [Island], also placed in this area, is unknown. Captain William Tolley Brookes of the London

whaler Matilda saw an ‘extensive reef in 5° 36' S. 173° 58' W.’ which was ‘erroneously laid down by Norie25 miles eastward of its proper position’ - Brookes left London the 1st of August 1832 and he made Sydney

October 8th 1834 where he also reported two other discoveries made during this voyage: in coordinates they

are Howland and Mckean islands.3 Capt. Crocker of the General Jackson saw it on June 4th, 18394

and on

June 12th, 1841, capt. William Swain of the New Bedford whaler William Hamilton Saw Mary’s Reef - entry

June 11th ends with 5 ° 44' S. longitude 173 ° 07' W. 5 , her general heading at that very moment was southbound.

1 Krusenstern, A.J., Recueil de mémoires hydrographiques..., vol. 2, pp. 427-430-435. [St.-Pétersbourg, 1827].

2 Krusenstern, A.J., Supplémens au Recueil de mémoires hydrographiques..., p. 157 [A. Pluchart, 1835].

3 Sydney Gazette and New South Whales Advertiser, Tuesday, October 14, 1834; The Sydney Herald , Thursday, Oct. 9, 1834.

He named modern Mckean Island "Wigrams Island" (after the owner of the ship) and modern Howland Island "Brookes Island".

4 Journal of whaler General Jackson of Bristol, Rhode Island (July 31, 1836 - Dec. 6, 1839). Captain Stephen R. Crocker

5 Journal of whaler William Hamilton of New Bedford, Massachusetts (May 1, 1838 - May 31, 1842) kept by George M. Kimbal.



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Merely two days after capt. Starbuck’s sighting of modern Carondelet Reef an unknown island was descried:

A Remarks On Board Monday Feb 20th 1826...At 4 PM Saw Whales...Put Off at 7 AM Got 3Whales to the ship...Latt By Obs 5 ° 05' S 175 ° 30' W

B Remarks On Board Tuesday Feb 21st 1826 ...At 5 PM Saw Land to the East ...At 4 [AM] Fin-ished Boiling... At Daylight Saw Land ...So Ends...Latt By Obs 4 ° 29' S Long In 175 ° 10' W

C Remarks On Board Wednesday Feb 22nd 1826...At 1 PM Saw The Land Went on Shore with 2Boats Got some Fowls and Fish...Latt By Obs 4 ° 40' S Long In 175 ° 05' W

Stackpole [ibid. p. 375] wrote somewhat scatterbrained (as is his wont) about this Pacific neck of the woods:

‘The Equator of Nantucket, under captain Joseph Barney, cruised here in 1823-24, and so did captain ObedStarbuck in the Loper [?], who probably did not have the correct longitude when he plotted the position oftwo islands [?] which he found. Reynolds attributes the discoveries to a "Captain Emmett," but gives nodates[?]’

Andrew Sharp leaned heavily on Stackpole in his book Discovery of the Pacific Islands, 1960, pp. 205-211:

‘Starbuck’s report of two islands in the main area of the Phoenix group are mentioned in section 106’

This section 106 (situated on page 210 of Sharp’s book) reads:

‘Two islands reputed to be rediscoveries of Emmett’s islands but of doubtful longitude were seen by ObedStarbuck.’

On modern maps these so called "Emmett’s islands" correspond to modern Manra and Birnie but was there areason why [if Starbuck really saw two islands here] they per se had to have been these two? What wasEdouard Stackpole’s source? - see on page 1 how he wrote that a captain landed on Dangerous Reef and

Nantucket (did he mean modern Carondelet reef and Baker Island?). I can’t imagine that a landing wasattempted on a Dangerous Reef but we just read Obed Starbuck landing on an island on February 22nd 1826.

Do McCleave’s entries B and C suggest that three islands were seen? They might but I doubt it for all in allthe three cries of "land-ho" culminated in only one landfall: that of modern Nikumaroro Island . McCleave’s

journal, it must be borne in mind, makes no mention of any other sightings of islands within the Phoenixterritory, let alone another landing and unless you reckon modern Baker Island belonging to this group ofislands I don’t know which other island Starbuck could have possibly seen here. Further information needed!

In the satellite image D, E , and F correspond to Starbuck’s coordinates when given a one degree correctionin their longitudes. This demonstrates that it was Nikumaroro Island ( Noriti/Norish = a site on the island

phonetically named after the Norwich City wreck) that Starbuck saw. I’m not saying that no other land was

seen by him in those 3 days but based on the information gathered so far a sighting of modern Nikumaroro

should be doubted less (or given quite more credibility) than his presumed sightings of Manra and Birnie.

So, if Starbuck saw modern Nikumaroro (or possibly other islands within the Phoenix Group) then why was

the Nantucket Inquirer (page 2) silent? The most logical explanation for this omission would be that Obed

Starbuck in the end no longer deemed his sighting of modern Nikumaroro a discovery and this is where capt.Joshua Coffin of ship Ganges comes in, because it so happened that he reported his sighting of (among other



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islands) modern Nikumaroro to The Nantucket Inquirer of December 8th, 1827):

The islands seen on ‘his last cruise in the Pacific’ correspond to the ones on the modern maps like this:

- Gardner’s Island = Nikumaroro in the Phoenix Group.- Coffin’s Island = L’esperance Rock (with a reef named L’Havre Rock ‘about 12 miles W. by N.’)

in the modern Kermadec Group.- Ganges Islands = Rakahanga (which he named Little Ganges) + Manihiki (which he named

Great Ganges) in the Cook Islands.

One can deduce from the above information that Joshua Coffin saw all of them between roughly June 1825 -November 1827 and thus all sources claiming any of these islands were discovered in 1828 are simplyflawed. Although all his sightings were re-discoveries, it would still be nice to know on which days each ofthem were seen by Coffin. The log of the Ganges doesn’t exist anymore but scrutinizing the newspapers ofold can sometimes prove surprisingly rewarding in the effort of reconstructing a (whaling) vessel’s voyage.The whereabouts of whaler Ganges, capt. Coffin, according to miscellaneous Eastern Seaboard newspapers:

1825 May 25/June 16 - her respective departures from Nantucket/Edgartown, Ma.

(17 days hence: she had reached Flores Island / 42 days hence: she had reached the isle of Mayo)1825 On October 1st, in lat. 57 S. Lon 67 W. she was bound to round Cape Horn.

1825 In November she arrived at Payta (Paita, Peru) - 0 BBLS.

1825 In December she was spoken in latitude 4 30 S. longitude 108 W - 50 BBLS.1825-6 Coffin probably cruised down latitude 4 30 S. here...untill he came to modern Nikumaroro. 1826 From February 28th - March (??) she apparently resided at Tahiti - 500 BBLS.

1826 On May 10th the New Bedford whaler George & Susan, capt. Upham spoke her in latitude 1 S.

longitude 160 (W. or E.?) - 650 BBLS.

From here on the maritime press remains silent about her movements for quite an extended period.1827 Mid-July she sailed from the Society Islands (127 days before her arrival at Edgartown, Ma.).

1827 In October she was spoken in latitude 23 N. longitude 0 (Greenwich Meridian) - 1450 BBLS.

1827 Tuesday November 20th at 8 P.M. she returned at Edgartown, Ma, and soon after at Nantucket, Ma.

...but alas to no avail this time: the data is too anemic to work with for me but Edouard Stackpole’s educated

guess that Coffin saw his Gardner’s Island in late 1825 can’t be far from the truth save it was indeed the first

seen of his reported discoveries. Coffin called it Gardner’s Island after his owner, Gideon Gardner. The fewclaims made that a Joshua Gardner was in fact the captain during this voyage, I wasn’t able to substantiate.



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The Loper was then steered North-West, which maneuver took her from the Phoenix Group to the Gilbert

Islands. It was here that captain Starbuck made his final discovery, which was reported and consequently

mapped as Starbuck’s Group. [In the old chart below the Loper sailed from Gardner I. to Starbuck Gpe]

( A ) Remarks on Board Saturday April 1st 1826...Latitude by Obs 00° 19' S. Longitude in 175°

30' E."

( B ) Remarks on Board Sunday April 2nd 1826 ...At 1 A.M. Saw 3 Islands to the Northward...At4 A.M. saw a Large whale...At Sunrise saw the Land...Latt 00° 10 m[iles] North."

( C ) Remarks on Board Monday April 3rd 1826...Saw Halls Island ...Latt by Obs 00° 40' N.

Longitude in 172° 40' E."

My conjecture is that Starbuck only saw modern Aranuka and Kuria and that Abemama was not even seen

by him. Since Loper’s path past these islands knows an uncanny resemblance with the trails of the Britishships Charlotte and Scarborough in the year 1788, I do strongly suggest that you also read...

- Harry Evans Maude - Of Islands & Men, 1968, pp. 96-100

- Andrew Sharp - The Discovery of the Pacific Islands, 1960, pp. 152-155.- Edouard Alexander Stackpole - The Sea-Hunters, 1953, pp. 346-347

- C.M. Woodford - !"# %#&'()*"+,)- .&/(0)- + ,-./ '+ 0-/ % 1234/+ ")*&5+ 66/ $#&7$&8

...and judge for yourself. One may justly wonder why these islands apparently were not laid down on Obed

Starbuck’s maps and books in 1826...40 years after their discovery. Merely a handfull of antique maps are

known that literally depict a Starbuck Group in this area, most of them seem to be made from the similar

1830's mold, indicating most mapmakers never considered Starbuck’s sighting a discovery in the first place.



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According to McCleave the Loper (Bound For Otaheite ) came to modern Tubuai Island on the very day of:

Tuesday June 13th 1826...At daylight saw the Isl. of Toeboua Bearing N E by E Steered for it. Sawa Schooner beating up to the Island...Lattitude by Obs 23 27 S. Long 150 10 W.

Remarks On Board Wednesday June 14th 1826...The Schooner sent a Boat On Board of Us. We foundher to be the United States Schooner Daulphin [ sic] from the Sandwich Isl. bound for Valparaiso. Shehad been to the Mulgrave Islands after the crew that was left from the Globe...

All of the sudden McCleave skips weeks worth of entries but this silence only mirrors his sojourn at Tahiti

(where it says Sandwich Islands in the paper clipping below it should in fact have read Society Islands). The

U.S. schooner Dolphin, capt. John "Mad Jack" Percival, had on board two of the surviving crew of the Globe

mutiny [Providence Patriot of October 28th, 1826].

Loper From Otaheite,Bound for Home with 2000 Bbls of Oil

SO ENDS

If one has questions/remarks regarding this essay one can address them to me directly via:

- [email protected]

- [email protected]

Additional intelligence is wanted for "Ph(o)ebe Island", an old whaler’s report of presumably modern Baker

Island. Any hitherto untold historical information which may contribute to completing the discovery-history

of the Pacific Islands is more than welcome also. More than that I want to be contested in whatever I wrote

above with solid proof whenever you think what I wrote was beside the truth...and my "truth" will be altered

accordingly. Although this essay was mainly about modern Baker Island the reader must know McCleave’s

journal contains more interesting landfalls, some of which will be elaborately remarked upon in other, future

essays. I apologize "in hindsight" for my rather poor English but I've tried my best without help of others.

-Steve Dehner-



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