Peleg Nye: The Jonah of Cape Cod - Nils Böckmann

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.

Peleg Nye: The Jonah of Cape Cod:

• Amazon Kindle

Supplemental:

• lecture by Nils Böckmann
• Massachusetts house of famous sea captain is for sale

Extracts:

• "Do you know, gentlemen, that the digestive organs of the whale are so inscrutably constructed by Divine Providence, that it is quite impossible for him to completely digest even a man's arm? And he knows it too. So that what you take for the White Whale's malice is only his awkwardness. For he never means to swallow a single limb; he only thinks to terrify by feints. But sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow, formerly a patient of mine in Ceylon, that making believe swallow jack-knives, once upon a time let one drop into him in good earnest, and there it stayed for a twelvemonth or more; when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small tacks, d'ye see?" (Moby-Dick, 100)
• "After sitting a long time listening to the long stories of some sailors who had just come from a plum-pudding voyage, as they called it (that is, a short whaling-voyage in a schooner or brig, confined to the north of the line, in the Atlantic Ocean only); after listening to these plum-puddingers till nearly eleven o’clock, I went up stairs to go to bed..." (Moby-Dick, 17)

This meetup is part of the series In the Belly of the Whale.