Pursuing the Leviathan

Set in the golden age of whaling in the nineteenth century, this book brings to life the adventures of Benjamin Clough, best known for single-handedly rescuing the ship Sharon from mutineers in 1842. Clough's heroism earned him a whaling command, which led to a whaling career that for a quarter-century took him into the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans. The extraordinary event that merited Clough his promotion to a captaincy occurred when he was just twenty-three years old. At sea since the age of sixteen, by 1842 Clough's impressive skills and seamanship had earned him an appointment as third mate aboard the whaling ship Sharon. While most of the crew, including Clough, were in smaller boats pursuing whales, three Pacific Island crewmembers, enraged by their captain's wanton cruelty, mutinied and subsequently murdered him and seized the ship. Raising its sails, they prepared to abandon the other men to die a terrifying death on the open sea. The crew, cowed by the mutineers' ferocity, was at a loss as to what to do when Clough stepped up and volunteered to retake the vessel. Alone, he swam in the pitch-black of night through shark-infested waters, boarded the Sharon, overcame two of the Islanders in hand-to-hand combat, and recaptured the ship. The Sharon's owners rewarded his heroism by giving him command on its next voyage, launching him on the second phase of his whaling career as a successful, much-admired whaling captain. Drawing on whaling logs, journals, and family documents, author Paul Magid follows Clough from his first voyage in 1835 to his retirement from whaling in 1867. Clough's story is set in the context of the book's gritty portrayal of the dangerous and brutal conditions endured by whalers during this period. At the same time, Clough's time ashore on Martha's Vineyard allows the author to explore a little-known period in the island's history and the protagonist's role in transforming the Vineyard into a coveted destination for mainland vacationers.