THE VOYAGE OF THE HURON AND THE HUNTRESS 



It is not at all strange that these staunch sealing craft came to untimely ends. The very 

 nature of their calling made every voyage extremely hazardous. The Huntress, however, was 

 sold by Captain Burdick upon his return to Nantucket and became a packet between that 

 Island port and Boston and the Maine coast. The schooner met her fate on Cape Cod during 

 a blizzard in December, 1825, all hands perishing. When discovered on the beach a day 

 after the storm, the helmsman was found frozen to death at the wheel, and only three bodies 

 were recovered from the wreck. Thus, after going through the dangers of uncharted Ant- 

 arctic seas, the Huntress met an untimely fate only four years after her return from the 

 South Shetlands. 



Captain Christopher Burdick lived less than ten years following his voyage in the Huntress. 

 He entered the coasting trade in 1822, and was quite successful. That he had a brig named 

 after him is some indication of his ability as a mariner, and of the esteem in which he was 

 held by his contemporaries. On a voyage to Tampico, Mexico, in 1831, he contracted yellow 

 fever and died at that port. His body was brought home in a barrel of pickle and was interred 

 at the Prospect Hill Cemetery, Nantucket. He left a widow and three children. 



As for the Englishman, Captain William Smith, the discoverer of the South Shetlands, 

 his last days in England were clouded by the refusal of the Admiralty to pay him any re- 

 muneration for the use of his brig Williams during the Bransfield exploration in 1819-20, 

 beyond the regular charter price. Smith ended his days in a British charity home or almshouse. 



Captain George Powell, the British sealer, during the season of 1820-21 was at the 

 South Shetlands first in the cutter Eliza and (in the 1821-22 season) in the Dove. It was 

 during his second season in the South Shetlands, 1821—22, that he discovered the South 

 Orkneys with Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer of Stonington, then in the James Monroe. 

 Powell's cruisings in the Shetlands were along the northern shores of the islands, and his 

 famous map was a combination of his own observations and descriptions given him by his 

 contemporaries who had sailed south of the Shetland chain. His chart was published in 

 November, 1822, by Laurie of London. On it is shown that portion of the Antarctic Penin- 

 sula to which Powell affixed the name Palmer Land, obviously from the fact the informa- 

 tion obtained came from his fellow sealer and explorer. Captain Palmer. It is this chart 

 which states, in part: "We are equally ignorant of the extent of Palmer's Land, both to 

 the South, east and west, the latter having been seen at a great distance only." Another edition 

 of this chart, published in 1828, had the Hughes Bay area added. One has only to compare 

 the outline of Livingston Island's southern coast with that portion as shown on Weddell's 

 chart to see that the latter had been there while Powell probably had not. Captain Powell 

 might have been, like Captain Robert Johnson, a notable explorer but for his early death at 

 the hands of South Sea natives only two years after this last voyage to the South Shetlands. 



The British sealer Captain James Weddell was the first sealing master to proceed directly 

 from London to the South Shetlands, according to the late Arthur R. Hinks. His book, already 

 cited, published in 1825, tells of work there for three seasons 1820-21, 1821-22, and 1822-23, 

 but has more information on the later voyage when he penetrated to 74° south latitude 

 to the east of the Antarctic Peninsula to what is now called the Weddell Sea. It should 

 be noted that in drafting his chart of the South Shetlands, Weddell was aided by Captain 

 Charles Barnard, the American master of the brig Charity, who wrote: "This gentleman 

 Weddell was my particular friend, and meeting with him in the Falklands, I furnished him 

 with some sketches for his chart of the South Shetland Islands, and several other places 

 which he has not mentioned in his narrative." This statement may be found in Barnard's 

 book, "A Narrative of Suffering and Adventures," cited in the Notes. 



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