Exploring Links between Nantucket and Japan

NHA University Webinar TONIGHT!

Western Whalers in 1860s Hakodate: How the Nantucket of the North Pacific Linked Japan to the World with Noell Wilson
Tuesday, April 6, at 5:30pm EST
Held via Zoom
Free for Members
$5 for Non-Members

This presentation examines the emergence of Hakodate Japan as a central whaling port in the North Pacific and its role in linking mid-nineteenth century Japan to global flows of trade and people. Through interactions with US whalers, Hakodate-based merchants, port officials and Japanese whaler-apprentices became core historical agents who precipitated dynamic changes within Japan, integrating the nation into the transmarine Pacific. While historians have long explained Japan’s emergence as a Pacific nation through events which occurred in its core, more southern islands, this talk highlights the significance of northern Japan in that process.

Noell Wilson is Chair of the Arch Dalrymple III Department of History and Croft Associate Professor of History and International Studies at the University of Mississippi. 
Artifact Highlight

Spermo Cutting In Whales On Japan, 1822
J. Fisher
Gift of the Friends of the NHA, 2008.31.2.


The 296-ton whaling ship Spermo was launched in June 1820 at the shipyard of John B. and Elijah Barstow on North River, Scituate, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Owned by Aaron Mitchell, the ship made its only whaling voyage between 1820 and 1823, sailing to the Pacific from Nantucket under the command of Capt. James Bunker. After this voyage the ship was sold into merchant service and foundered at sea on a crossing from Liverpool to New York, with the loss of all hands, in 1825.

Four canvases are known that depict events from the Spermo's sole whaling voyage: two in the NHA's collection signed by J. Fisher, one in private hands signed (in ink) by G. C. Colesworthy, and one, unsigned, at the Nantucket Athenaeum. The canvases, which may all be by the same hand, reveal an eye for detail of a seasoned mariner and whaler, and are among the earliest oil paintings illustrating American whaling. They rank as masterpieces of whaling art and are among the finest folk depictions of the fishery produced by a whaleman artist. The voyage of the Spermo occurred at a propitious time for the whaling industry. Nantucket was recovering from the damage to her business resulting from the War of 1812, and in the early 1820s had reinvigorated its quest for exploration and profit. Ships were fitting out in droves and capturing record numbers of sperm whales from the vast Pacific waters. In the year of the Spermo's departure, 1820, the rich Japan Grounds were discovered by Capt. Joseph Allen of the Nantucket ship Maro. Spermo had “greasy luck” on its voyage, returning 1,920 barrels of sperm oil.
Set Sail!
Explore the Log of the Vessel Mariner
  • Vessel Name: Mariner
  • Dates of Log: 28 August 1836 – 24 June 1840
  • Keeper: William H. Hoeg
  • Purpose of Voyage: Whaling
  • Port of Origin: Nantucket, Mass.
  • Master: George W. Gardner Jr.
  • Owner-Agent: Christopher Mitchell and Co.
  • Range of Voyage: Peru; Tahiti; Japan

The Whaling Bark Lagoda
The Lagoda was built in Scituate, MA by shipbuilder Ezra Weston of Maine. The first phase of its life was spent in the coastal trading business. The original source of the ship’s interesting name has been a mystery for decades. One theory is that the builder was intending the vessel to be used in the Baltic trade, and named the ship after the Lagoda Mines near St. Petersburg, Russia.
Another naming theory holds that the ship’s stern carving was a typo by the ship's painter for the intended name Ladoga.

The Lagoda was purchased by whaling agent Jonathan Bourne of New Bedford in 1841, and refitted for whaling purposes with the help of part owner Captain James Townsend, an experienced whaling master. The Lagoda would become one of the most profitable whaling ships in Bourne’s fleet, which included the whaler Northern Light, purchased in 1861. On its first whaling trip, the Lagoda returned to New Bedford with 2,000 barrels of oil and 19,000 pounds of whalebone. In 1864, Capt. Townsend changed the Lagoda’s rigging to make it into a bark, which could be handled by a smaller (and cheaper) crew.

Several trips to the northern Pacific and Japan were especially profitable, with the ship helping Commodore Matthew Perry to open the Japanese markets to Westerners when the U.S. fleet visited in 1864 to force trade agreements. In 1871 the crew of the Lagoda helped rescue the crews of 32 whaling vessels trapped in the ice off Alaska, transporting hundreds of survivors of the wrecked ships to Hawaii and San Francisco. The Lagoda was sold in 1886, as the whaling industry was declining; it became part of the San Francisco bone fleet. The final voyage of the Lagoda was in 1889. After it hit a reef and was condemned in Yokahama, Japan, the ship was repaired and refitted as a coal carrier, ending its career as a collier whose new name is lost to history, [Mike Dyer, Presentation at the Fairhaven Historical Society, July 15, 2016].

Photo: Model of the whaling bark Lagoda, 1850-1890. 1993.103.1.
Artifact Highlight 
Engraved whale tooth engraved on board the whale ship Susan, February 6th, 1829
Frederick Myrick
Bequest of Winthrop Williams, 1991.101.176.

This scrimshawed sperm whale tooth engraved on board the whale ship Susan, displays the cutting in of a sperm whale. Obverse with three whale boats and two whales, eagle with flag shield, arrows, and banner reading "E PLURIBUS UNUM."

The panel near tip of tooth has two crossed American flags and the banner over ship reads "The Susan whaling on the coast of Japan."
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