1 126 
of sperm oil. 40 barrels baled from the 
case. 
“After fighting the whale for four 
hours using 15 bomb lances while he 
was in his flurry or dying throes, he 
made a dive for the boat it being the 
starboard boat with the captain, on the 
steering oar. The whale wi«.n a, j. 5- 
foot jaw wide open and teeth a 
gleaming, made one grab and r pped 
the side of the boat to the water line, 
breaking my oar in four pieces and 
throwing me across the boat, landing 
on an oar lock, face down, and I wear 
the scar today on my upper lip, as a 
reminder of the battle 
“During the voyage our ship was 
cruising near WAst India Island,' 
South of Bermuda, when we were 
caught in a hurricane at 3 a. m. with 
rain, thunder and lightning. We ran 
on the bare poles, every inch of the 
canvass stored down snug, y hatches, 
battened down, a man lashed to the 
rail at every mast, with an axe ready 
to cut away the shrouds in case the 
ship should flounder, and two men 
lashed to the wheel to keep steerage 
way, and relieved every half-hour. W e 
ran 24 hours dead before the moun¬ 
tainous seas, expecting to be swamped 
every minute. 
“One more dangerous feature ot a 
whaleman’s life is when cutting in a 
whale, the boat steerer goes over the 
side to place the blubber in the first 
blanket piece, to come over the side 
and on deck. Think of a man over¬ 
board performing that duty with the 
water alive with sharks, swimming 
around the ship picking up stray bits 
of blubber. It requires two men to 
guard the man in his> work, one hold¬ 
ing a lfte line made fast around his 
body, while the other man stands by 
with’a cutting spade to ward off the 
sharks. Not a very pleasant job for 
a man to do, but still Mr. WAters says 
there are no hardships in the whaling 
business, and any dangers are only a 
myth of the sea."’ 
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E 
i.' U i i. 
U] 
Was Six Weeks on Schooner John R. Manta on 
Hatteras Ground - Captain George Fred Tilton 
Reminiscent as to His Early Whaling Days and 
During His Naval Reserve Enlistment. t jvjj^ 
Nearly 100 members of the New 
Bedford Whalemen's club enjoyed a 
clambake at Grimshaw’s, Fort Phoe¬ 
nix last evening. 
It had been announced that Wil¬ 
liam H. Tripp and Don Waters, who 
recently made a six-week cruise in 
The whaling schooner John R. Manta 
out of this port, would be present to 
tell some of their experiences. Mr. 
Tripp was on hand, but Mr. Waters 
has •gone on a cruise and could not 
be preseiit. Mr. Tripp and Captain 
George Fred Tilton kept the mem¬ 
bers of the club interested for ovei 
an hour with their yarns. 
Mr. Tripp said he shipped as boat- 
header on the Manta, whild^ v W alters 
shipped as boatsteerer. The two 
were a week on board befoie the 
schooner finally got her anchoi and 
on May 2d she went to sea, under 
command of Captain Antonio J- 
Mandly. They lost sight of land at 
4 p. mu and he described the ex¬ 
periences of several, or in fact, all 
the green hands who were seasick. 
This condition lasted a week, when 
finally the cabin boy came to him 
and asked if he could have some 
King Phillip spring water, which Mr. 
Tripp gave him and the boy after¬ 
wards told him that it saved his life. 
They sailed. Saturday and on Mon¬ 
day the masthead was manned and 
at 7 a. m., the well known sound 
a-h-h blo-oo-o-s was heard and the 
crew on deck found out that a school 
of finbacks had been sighted or 
raised. On Wednesday the first sperm 
whales were seen. The boats were 
lowered and the whales chased a 
half hour when the boats came back 
to the vessel. On Thursday whales 
were seen again but it was not good 
whaling weather. But on Friday the 
boats chased whales and took two, 
one to the larboard and one to the 
starboard boat. 
Mr. Tripp said that while the 
schooner was headed towards the 
boats and while he had a good oppor¬ 
tunity to watch all the operations 
through a marine glass, he did not 
then get a chance to take any photo¬ 
graphs. , , , . 
On Friday another whale was tak¬ 
en and the blubber was tried out all 
together. The smoke began to come 
from the try works and the well 
known cry was started, “there comes 
Old Hallett.” 
Mr. Tripp said he could not ex¬ 
plain this cry and nobody on boai d 
seemed to know just what it meant, 
only that it had something to do 
with the starting of the try works. 
“I can tell,” broke in Captain 
George Fred Tilton, and asked to do 
so by Mr. Tripp, Captain George Fred 
said that there w T as an old sea captain 
hailing from New Bedford who could 
boil more oil in four hours than any 
other whaleman ever heard of, and 
when one whaler sighted another in 
those early clays, and a considerable 
quantity of smoke was seen coming 
from the other whaler the cry would 
go up “there goes Old Hallett.” 
Mr. Tripp told about the funny 
sayings of one green hand from 
Boston named Jim Hennessey, who 
often told Mr. Tripp that he couldn't 
understand how he got mi such a 
hard boiled gang. One day Mr. 
Tripp said that Hennessey remarked 
after cutting in a whale and after 
a hard time at the windlass, tliat he 
never knew before why it was 
named a windlass, hut he knew now, 
and it was because it left him wind¬ 
less. , 
After the first little spurt Mr. 
Tripp said no w T hales were taken foi 
a week but that more whales were 
captured from 18 to 2 5 barrels, and 
the mates estimated the catch at 
about HO barrels of oil when Mr. 
Tripp left. In the 40 days at sea, 
Mr. Tripp said whales were sighted 
2 5 times, but 'many of the times it 
was too late to cfiase tnem or too 
rugged to lower. He said the Hat- 
teras Grounds is called a ground full 
of life, and he said it certainly was, 
for besides sperm whales, grampuses, 
porpoises, finbacks and killer whales 
were all sighted. 
He told about a boat being cap¬ 
sized one day. The boat had just 
grazed the small of a whale, and all 
the green hands jumped the wrong 
way and the boat was-capsized and 
the whale passed over it. One other 
day a whale lifted a boat on the 
small and capsized it, and he said 
one of the young fellows was so act¬ 
ive and quick in getting on the bot¬ 
tom of the overturned craft that he 
didn't even get his shirt wet. Very 
few vessels were sighted, and but 
few steamers came near them. To¬ 
wards the end of May and having 
seen the whaling process and se¬ 
cured any number of photographs. 
Mr. Tripp said he and Waters tried 
to get a vessel home. The first 
steamer refused to take them, an¬ 
other was sighted and it even re¬ 
fused to recognize the U. S. flag that 
the Manta was flying. 
Finally a fruit steamer came along 
hound from British Honduras to 
New York, and the captain, a Nor¬ 
wegian, took ' them on board, and 
they were landed at New York 13 
hours after getting on board. 
Waters, Mr. Tripp said, on a visit 
to the mate’s room saw a group of 
four handsome pineapples hanging 
up, and he had been hankering for 
just such fruit. He remarked to 
the mate about his longing, and the 
mate said: “Take them, I only hung 
them up there because they smelled 
good.” Mr. Tripp said his first re¬ 
quest was for a glass of water that 
a person could see through, as most 
of the water on board a whaler is 
about a third sperm oT. He. said 
that it was quite a change to sit 
down to a four course dinner with 
a printed menu on board the Vir¬ 
ginia after the fare of the Manta', 
which for a whaler, he wanted to sdy 
was first class. 
Captain George Fred Tilton was 
called upon by Mr. Tripp for a few 
stories, and the captain thought it 
an outrage to interrupt a tender¬ 
foot in the midst of a good yarn 
to hear an old fellow like himself. 
The captain said he understood 
