Skip to main content

Item of the Week: Logbook of the Daniel Webster

Thu, 02/23/2023 - 10:41

From the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection

This logbook tracks the voyage of the Daniel Webster, which set out from Sag Harbor for the Pacific in 1833 seeking whales, and returned the next year. The ship’s captain, Philetus Pierson (1801-1879), came from Southampton. He was a direct descendant of two members of Southampton’s earliest European families, Henry Pierson (1615-1681) and Mary Cooper Pierson (1621-1687).

As captain of the Daniel Webster, it was Pierson’s responsibility to keep careful records of each day, including bearings, weather, notable events, and of course whale sightings and captures. This record splits the journey, with the first month of travel in 1833 recorded in the first part of the logbook, before it cuts off and picks up again later in December of that year. Captain Pierson’s writing pauses as one Capt. Stratton Harlow takes over the Daniel Webster for a journey, before Captain Pierson’s return.

On one page, he describes three days near the east coast of Japan. On the first day, the ship sights and chases a whale but fails to capture it. On each of the two following days, the captain writes of chasing, striking, and bringing in a whale, ending each daily log with “nothing more worth of remark.”

What is most interesting about these entries is the illustrated sperm whales. The first is only an outline, the second and third are filled in and black. With these drawings in the log’s margins, a reader could flip through the log quickly and easily spot the days on which a whale was sighted or caught.

Captain Pierson led several whaling voyages from 1830 to 1839 on the Daniel Webster, the Stonington, and the Columbia. This log and logs from his other voyages can be transcribed from home through the East Hampton Library’s website with FromThePage, a crowdsourcing platform for archives and libraries by which volunteers transcribe, index, and describe historical documents.


Moriah Moore is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.

 

Villages

Volunteers Take Up Invasives War at Morton

Most people go to the Elizabeth Morton Wildlife Refuge in Noyac, part of the National Wildlife Refuge system, to feed the friendly birds. On Saturday, however, 15 people showed up instead to rip invasive plants out of the ground.

Apr 24, 2025

Item of the Week: Wild Times at Jungle Pete’s

A highlight among Springs landmarks, here is a storied eatery and watering hole that served countless of the hamlet’s residents, including the Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock.

Apr 24, 2025

The Sweet Smell of Nostalgia at Sagaponack General

Stepping into the new Sagaponack General Store, which reopened yesterday after being closed since 2020, is a sweet experience, and not just because there’s a soft-serve ice cream station on the left and what promises to be the biggest penny candy selection on the South Fork on your right, but because it’s like seeing an old friend who, after some struggle, made it big. Really, really big.

Apr 17, 2025

 

Your support for The East Hampton Star helps us deliver the news, arts, and community information you need. Whether you are an online subscriber, get the paper in the mail, delivered to your door in Manhattan, or are just passing through, every reader counts. We value you for being part of The Star family.

Your subscription to The Star does more than get you great arts, news, sports, and outdoors stories. It makes everything we do possible.