Peleg Nye: The Jonah of Cape Cod - Nils Böckmann

This meetup is hosted by Wisdom and Woe. For more details and to sign up for this event, go to: https://www.meetup.com/wisdom-and-woe/events/306147893

Peleg Nye first shipped out of New Bedford as a young whaler in 1834. By 1865, he was a veteran. As the first mate, he was responsible for firing an explosive lance to kill harpooned whales. It was dangerous work at the best of times, but on one particular trip, disaster struck. The whale hit the prow of Nye's small whaleboat, sending him over the side and into the animal's mouth. The dying whale slipped beneath the surface, Nye's legs protruding between its teeth.

Miraculously, he survived and returned home a celebrity, the "Jonah of Cape Cod." His story immediately reignited theological and scientific debates regarding the plausibility of the Biblical Jonah. But the next year, he was back at sea, commanding four more whaling voyages over the next five years.

Long known only through oral history, Nye's story is historical fact, revealed in Peleg Nye: The Jonah of Cape Cod (2015). Through Nils V. Böckmann's meticulous research, the intricate world of eighteenth-century whalers and the dangerous industry they served is (like another Peleg Nye) brought back to life.

Wisdom and Woe is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."