Mariners’ Masterpieces D URING LONG whaling voyages in the 19th Century, bored but creative sailors filled their idle hours scratch- ing tusks and teeth and whaling waste into the artistic and functional objects we call scrim- shaw. The artists who created these objects are scrimshanders. “Mankind has always had a desire to create. Men away from home for a three- to five-year voyage with no pens and paper used what was plenti- ful around them—whale’s teeth and jawbones, which were nonporous and hard enough to engrave,” explained maritime expert Alan Granby. “Because there was no commercial value to them, ship owners allowed whalemen to use teeth and panbone to occupy their hands and express their creativity.” Beyond the beauty of their patient and practiced craftwork, scrimshaw objects also tell the stories of the men who crafted them, their lives aboard ship, and their travels. The technique of scratching images into ivory is ancient. Archae- ologists in Russia discovered a mam- moth tusk engraved with images of Bactrian camels dating about 13,000 years ago in Parusinka, in the lower E ngraving bonE , a tEchniquE tEns of thousands of yEars old , bEcamE a spEcializEd art whEn practicEd by sailors in thEir idlE timE aboard ( mostly a mErican ) whalEboats . E ach piEcE of this scrimshaw tElls a story about thE sEa , about thE whalE , and about thE mEn who madE it BY JEANMARIE ANDREWS A master crafted this 21-inch yarn swift and spool holder from the mid-1800s. The base disk holds eight turned and scribed polychrome support posts with acorn finials that connect the top disk and eight turned spools. The spool tops are removable for filling. A whale ivory-wrapped center shaft, crowned with a turned and scribed finial, holds the swift. The outer edges of each bone stay are scribed. PRIVATE COLLECTION 2 2 E A R LY A M E R I C A N L I F E | J U LY/AU G 2 0 2 2 The front and back of a 7-inch sperm whale tooth, engraved by James Adolphus Bute, depict the HMS Beagle —on which young naturalist Charles Darwin circumnavigated the globe—grounded on the shore of Argentina on April 16, 1834. The front side inscription reads, “Tracking the boats of H.M. Sloop ‘Beagle’ up the River Santa Cruz.” PRIVATE COLLECTION reaches of the Tom River in 1988. The origins of the word “scrim- shaw” are murky. Anecdotally some believe the word was derived from skrimshank , meaning (loosely) “a waste of time,” but research has shown scrimshank is a later, not earlier, word. “Scrimshaw” is known as an English family name from the 13th Century and, along with the related Scrymgeour , derives from the French for “fenc- ing master,” which somehow seems appropriate as both scrimshanders and swordsmen expertly scratch away with pointed tools. Many experts use “scrimshaw” more restrictively, defining it as ivory or bone from whales or walruses engraved or carved into artwork, usu- ally by whalers aboard whaling ships using whale by-products. A few utilitarian whale-based objects from the 17th Century are known—bone swifts, straight edges, and hand tools—but the first pictorial scrimshaw is a self-dated but anonymous sperm whale tooth depicting the whaleship Adam of Lon- don and the legend, “This is the tooth of a sperm whale that was caught near the Galápagos Islands by the crew of the ship Adam, and made 100 barrels of oil in the year 1817.” The first written reference to a term related to “scrimshaw” appears in the log of the brig By Chance of Dartmouth , which for May 20, 1826, reads, “All there 24 hours of small breezes and thick foggy weather made no sale. So ends this day, all hands employed Scrimshonting.” The first printed use of the word appears in 1841 in the book Inci- dents of a Whaling Voyage , by Francis Allyn Olmsted: “There are found aboard a whaler, a great variety of small tools expressly intended for This whale tooth, the earliest known piece of American scrimshaw, depicts the whaleship Japan of Nantucket homeward bound to the United States. Edward Burdett carved the 5.75-inch piece during the voyage, which lasted from 1825 to 1829. PRIVATE COLLECTION J U LY/AU G 2 0 2 2 | E A R LY A M E R I C A N L I F E 2 3 A mid-1800s heart-handled tub of whalebone and baleen is held together with iron bands and nails. It measures 7.5 inches high, 10.25 inches long, and 7.75 inches wide. PRIVATE COLLECTION A page from the journal of the 1827-30 whaling voyage aboard the ship Rodman offers a view of the main ship and a smaller boat attempting to harpoon whales. PRIVATE COLLECTION “Scrimshawing” or nice mechanical contrivances for fabricating various articles out of the teeth and jaw bone of the sperm whale.” More notably, the term “scrim- shander” appears in Herman Melville’s 1851 novel, The Whale, or Moby Dick OF WHALES AND MEN Whaling, as practiced by Europeans, came to America early. In Mourt’s Relation , published in 1622, Pilgrim leader William Bradford observed, “Cape Cod was like to be a place of good fishing, for we saw daily great whales, of the best kind for oil and bone, come close aboard our ship,” Although settlers in New Eng- land and the Mid-Atlantic region began hunting whales soon after arriving in America, they usually worked from shore. By the early 1700s, whales had become wary of men on the sand and swam farther from the beach. Whalers followed them, first in boats, then ships. As whalers depleted the nearby stocks, they designed larger ships that could sail for years to the farthest destina- tions, as far as the edge of Antarctica. Their ships became floating facto- ries, outfitted with tryworks, a brick hearth with large iron vats used to render blubber. Voyages grew longer, and by the “golden age of Yankee whaling”— stretching from the end of the War of 1812 through the 1870s—whalers were spending several years at sea. By about 1860, three-quarters of all whaling ships, about 640 of them, flew the American flag. Their hunt focused on the sperm whale. The oil rendered from its blubber provided the cleanest and brightest fuel for lamps and proved a superior lubricant for machinery. Spermaceti from the sperm whale’s head produced the finest grade of candles, and ambergris from the whale’s intestinal tract served as a perfume fixative, though it was found so rarely it was valued as dearly as gold. “Whaling was extremely profit- able, which is why people were will- ing to have such a hard life living on a ship in tight quarters,” said Granby, 2 4 E A R LY A M E R I C A N L I F E | J U LY/AU G 2 0 2 2 L E F T Whaleships, King Neptune, and a sailor and his girl are among the decorations engraved on this 14.5-inch-long whalebone busk attributed to William Hill, c. 1835. PRIVATE COLLECTION C E N T E R A 35-inch whale ivory cane carved into the shape of a fist crushing a serpent dates to the mid- 1800s. The piece is inlaid with silver and tortoiseshell. PRIVATE COLLECTION R I G H T A talented mid-19th-Century engraver embellished a panbone busk with a butterfly, bird, flowers, vines, a heart, and a tree-shaded memorial to someone with the initials “M.S.” It is about 13 inches long. PRIVATE COLLECTION J U LY/AU G 2 0 2 2 | E A R LY A M E R I C A N L I F E 2 5 an author and antiques dealer who has studied and sold maritime art for more than four decades. The trade drew sailors from many nations and races. For example, mem- bers of the Wampanoag Indian tribe in Mashpee, across the sound from Nantucket, sometimes joined Euro- pean whalers on their hunts. Many African Americans also sailed from New England aboard whaling ships. So many whaleships fished the same waters that sailors from various countries would anchor their ships next to each other so they could visit, an exchange called a “gam.” “Some ships used a gamming chair or plank bridge to transport individuals from one ship to another,” explained Sarah Johnson, executive director and curator of the Cahoon Museum of American Art, which examines some of the finest examples of scrimshaw in its current exhibi- tion, Scrimshaw: The Whaler’s Art “The term is unique to whaling, and it was a way to socialize, share information about the price of oil and profitable hunting spots, as well as exchange goods and reading material. Contact with another ship at sea pro- vided some relief from the isolation of ocean voyages.” But for the bulk of the whaling voyage—months and often, years— ships sailed alone and left sailors with nothing but labor and long idle hours. To keep occupied, many sailors opted to carve and scratch the only materials at hand, the scraps from the tryworks. “Few if any of these whalers were trained as artists or would have con- sidered themselves artists,” Johnson noted, “but being onboard ship for so long with only the raw material left- over from whales, there emerged this beautiful artwork. Some of it, like yarn swifts, was incredibly complex and intricately carved. It makes you wonder how they did it on the ship.” What they made can be divided into two forms, pictoral and utilitar- ian scrimshaw. Pictoral items include engraved and colored teeth, pan- bones, and busks. Among the images favored by scrimshanders were por- traits of loved ones or famous people. A c. 1850s scrimshaw basket, 17.5 inches high and 11 inches in diameter, might have been used as a waste basket. It has 13 pierced stays with heart-shaped feet and reversed heart-shaped tops. Two ivory hoops are attached top and bottom with metal pins. The center of the wooden base has an inlaid whalebone star. A rare checkerboard, made from a single sheet of panbone cut to a 12.25 square, has whalebone feet, applied whalebone molding, and a small whalebone drawer to hold the playing pieces. Half of the checkers and board squares are stained black. PRIVATE COLLECTION COLLECTION OF NEW BEDFORD WHALING MUSEUM 2 6 E A R LY A M E R I C A N L I F E | J U LY/AU G 2 0 2 2 A dipper made from coconut shell and whale ivory dates to about 1840. In the 1800s, people believed drinking from coconut dippers was healthier than from metal or wood. Factories and woodworking shops from New England to the Mid-Atlantic produced them. A mid-1800s running dog crimper with a forked horn and whale fluke was crafted from two sections of whale ivory joined by a baleen band. The front legs hold a V-grooved ivory wheel. PRIVATE COLLECTION, JIM GOODNOUGH PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION OF THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Manuel Sylvia, an Azorean whaleman who sometimes worked aboard New Bedford vessels, is credited with this trinket box, made from a whale tooth in the 1860s. The hull has six guns etched on each side and an elaborate design of roses and leaves on the lid. He inscribed it “FLORINDA” for his wife, also born in the Azores. In 1873, she petitioned authorities so sell a tract of her husband’s New Bedford land after he had been at sea for four years and hadn’t contacted her. She received $400 for the land. COLLECTION OF THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Alternately the scrimshander might make something useful—gadgets, tools, or toys. Common among antique scrim- shaw household objects are baskets, boxes, candlesticks, canes, coat racks, crimpers, dippers, and rolling pins. Sailors might make tools for them- selves or for sale, for example fids for splicing rope, pickwicks to pull up lamp wicks, rope blocks, seam rubbers, even buggy whip handles. Scrimshaw work could be as complex as intricate multi-piece birdcages, children’s toys, hourglasses, wall pockets, watch cases, and yarn swifts. Granby, who is serving as guest curator for the exhibition, noted that some pieces were made in miniature as children’s toys, citing his favorite as the sled bearing the painted name of the whaleship Commodore Mor- ris . The ship’s captain made it for his son Neddie and embellished it with carved whale’s teeth in the form of fists at the upturned runners. SEEING THE SEA The child’s sled is among some 250 examples of scrimshaw that the Cahoon Museum assembled for the J U LY/AU G 2 0 2 2 | E A R LY A M E R I C A N L I F E 2 7 This intricately designed wall pocket was crafted entirely from whalebone. The front pocked is attached to the frame with turned ivory pegs. Dating to the last quarter of the 19th Century, it measures 29 inches high and nearly 26 inches wide. PRIVATE COLLECTION exhibition, which runs from June 29 through October 30. Another notable piece is the earliest known piece of American scrimshaw, a whale’s tooth engraved by Edward Burdett between 1825 and 1828 while aboard the Japan . The ship, named for its destination, set out from Nantucket and was one of three different whaling ships on which Burdett worked. Alas, his career ended abruptly when he was still in his twen- ties—a harpoon rope caught around his ankle and pulled him overboard. The first scrimshander to sign and date his work was Frederick Myrick, who also sailed from Nan- tucket. Now one of the best known scrimshanders, Myrick carved some three dozen teeth between 1828 and 1829 aboard the whaleship Susan , several of which are part of the exhi- bition. In November 2018, a Myrick tooth depicting the Susan sold for $192,000. “In the world of scrimshaw teeth, some are utterly spectacular with details and sometimes color adorn- ment,” Granby said. “Others are shockingly interesting primitives and are just as impactful. “We want to wake people up to the greatness of 19th-Century scrimshaw, mostly made by Ameri- can whalemen.” Granby continued. “Scrimshaw gets down to the theory of art. Sailors were so removed from art on a commercial venture, it’s amazing to see what they turned out.” Johnson added, “We want visitors to learn a little bit about the regional and social history of whal- ing. We want them to see that out of unusual circumstances, art can emerge, that artists just using what was available to them can trans- form it into all these types of items. There’s more interest in folk art now, and we’re looking to be more inclu- sive. This kind of work expands our understanding of art.” The pandemic postponed the exhibition’s planned 2020 opening and provided extra time for museum staff to assemble the objects and display them to full advantage in the 19th-Century building once owned by local folk artists Ralph and Mar- tha Cahoon in the 20th Century. “We’ve dedicated our whole museum space to it,” Johnson said. “Part of the history of the museum is that it was the home and studio of the Cahoons. Folk art is in our DNA, and we like to mix the historical with the contemporary. “Our location on Cape Cod is the home of scrimshaw, so it’s an art form that relates to our regional his- tory,” she continued. “The exhibition is a great combination of history and art. There was a long time in his- tory when scrimshaw was treated as a curiosity. We’re focusing on it as an art form.” The exhibition catalogue, Wandering Whalemen and Their Art: A Collection of Scrimshaw Masterpieces , written by Alan Granby with an introduction by Stuart M. Frank, features all 300 objects Granby initially selected for the exhibition. All are shown in color, many at full size. You can order the book from the museum at info@cahoonmuseum.org There is also a speaker series: On July 14, Alan Granby will share stories about some of the most intricate objects in the exhibition and catalogue. On July 28, William Bourne of Eldred’s Auction Gallery will highlight transformations in the maritime and scrimshaw markets, including new laws, sales of major collections, and record- breaking prices. On August 18, Stuart M. Frank, considered the foremost historian of scrimshaw, will share intricate and fascinating examples from his experiences as a curator, author, and director of the Scrimshaw Forensics Laboratory. On September 15, Michael J. Moore, senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, will discuss how ongoing human activities have impacted the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, and what we can do about it. On October 13, Skip Finley, author of Whaling Captains of Color: America’s First Meritocracy , will present stories drawn from the lives of more than 50 whaling captains of color working in the whaling industry. The speaker series will be held at Freedom Hall, 976 Main Street, Cotuit, Massachusetts. To register, call the museum at 508.428.7581 2 8 E A R LY A M E R I C A N L I F E | J U LY/AU G 2 0 2 2