Four Language Whaling Passport for the Bark Mary & Susan, Signed by Rutherford B. Hayes as President

In the 1840s, around the time Herman Melville was completing Moby Dick, whaling was a booming worldwide business and the United States was the global behemoth. The U.S. whaling industry grew by a factor of fourteen between 1816 and 1850, and New Bedford, Massachusetts, accounted for half of America’s whaling output. In 1846, the U.S. owned 640 whaling ships, more than the rest of the world put together and tripled. Demand for New Bedford’s haul came from all over the country. Sperm oil could lubricate fancy new machinery. Inferior whale oil could light up a room. Whale cartilage could hold together a corset or umbrella. At its height, the whaling industry contributed $10 million (in 1880 dollars), enough to make it the fifth largest sector of the U.S. economy.

In the 1870s, however, the industry started to decline as whale resources decreased and the price of whale oil fell as a result of increased petroleum production. Capitalists began to funnel their cash into other domestic industries, notably railroads, oil, and steel. When New Bedford’s whaling elite opened the city’s first cotton mill and petroleum-refining plant, the handwriting was on the wall. By the late 1890s, the industry was virtually dead.

The Bark Mary & Susan was a whaler whose career was cut short in August 1888 when it was lost on a reef four miles south of Point Barrow, Alaska, during a storm. The vessel had departed San Francisco on March 9, 1888 with a crew of 31 bound for the Arctic. At the time of the loss, the Mary and Susan was carrying $12,000 worth of “whaling supplies”. The vessel was valued at $8,000 and became a total loss along with her cargo. The crew was saved. Edward E. Jennings was a whaling captain with decades of experience. He was also something of an artist, and kept a journal that contains a famous watercolor.

Document signed, as President, Washington, August 14, 1877, being a passport providing that “Leave and permission are hereby given to Edward E. Jennings, master or commander of the Bark called Mary & Susan of the burthen of 327 tons, lying at present in the port of New Bedford bound for the Pacific Ocean and laden with Provisions, utensils and stores for a whaling voyage, to depart and proceed…on his said voyage…” The document is countersigned by William Evarts as Secretary of State, and by John P. Allen, Collector of the port of New Bedford. The passport is in four languages (English, Spanish, French, and Dutch), as befits a ship’s traveling in international waters.

Passports for whaling ships signed by Hayes as President are very rare, which is hardly surprising considering that fewer whaling passports were being given out by the late 1870s. This is our first, and a search of public sale records going back over 40 years shows none ever having reached that marketplace.