FISHERMAN'S LUCK 155 



second vessel, and, in the years following, five vessels, all told, 

 three of which were built, as well as owned, in Lynn. Because 

 of the shallow harbour of Lynn proper, the vessels, when in 

 port, lay in the Saugus River. In 1838 the railroad threw a 

 bridge across the river and the little fleet thenceforth sailed 

 from Boston, although Lynn continued to own whaling vessels 

 until 1857, when the Commodore Preble brought home one 

 hundred and eight barrels of sperm oil, two thousand five 

 hundred and fifty barrels of whale oil, and seventeen thousand 

 two hundred pounds of bone, and was withdrawn from the 

 whaling fleet. 



On January 3, 1841, the ship Acushnet, of 359 tons. Captain 

 Pease, weighed anchor in the river from which she took her 

 name, and put to sea on her maiden voyage. After four 

 years and four months she returned from a very ordinary 

 voyage, with such ups and downs as were likely to befall any 

 whaling vessel of the time. But she had carried in her crew 

 two lads, one of twenty-two years, the other of sixteen, Herman 

 Melville and Richard Tobias Greene, who ran away at the 

 Marquesas Islands, and having shared various adventures 

 placed the Acushnet, by grace of Melville's pen, among the no- 

 table ships of history. 



Very little is known in detail of the voyage — there are pas- 

 sages in "Moby Dick," '' Typee," and '' Omoo" that may or may 

 not concern it — but Melville's own record, compiled years later, 

 gives the most comprehensive account of it: 



''What became of the ship's company on the whale-ship 

 Acushnet, according to Hubbard who came back home in her 

 (more than a four years' voyage) and visited me in Pittsfield 

 in 1850. 



Captain Pease — returned & lives in asylum at the Vineyard. 

 Raymond, 1st Mate — had a fight with the captain & went ashore at Payta. 

 Boatswain, either ran away or killed at Ropo, one of the Marquesas. 

 Smith, went ashore at Santa, coast of Peru, afterwards committed suicide 



at Mobile. 

 Barney, boatswain, came home. 



Carpenter, went ashore at Morvee half dead with disreputable disease. 

 The Czar. 



