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The Plough Boy Journals
of Lewis Monto

Two Voyages of a Nantucket Whaleship
to the North and South Pacific
in 1827-1830 and 1830-1834

      The Plough Boy was built at Haddam, Connecticut in 1821. It was a ship-rigged vessel with a registered displacement of 391 3/95 tons. The ship was 109 ft. in length, 28 feet, 5 inches in width, and 14 feet in depth. It had two decks, a square stern, no galleries, and a "man bust" figurehead. The Plough Boy probably sailed with a crew of about thirty officers and men.

      Between 1821 and 1843 the Plough Boy was registered at Nantucket from where it made voyages in 1821, 1824, 1827, 1830, 1834 and 1839. In the early 1840s she was sold to New Bedford owners and sailed from that port in 1843 and 1848.

      On the Plough Boy's final voyage in 1849, she grounded and broke up on a shoal in the Bay of Guayaquil while en route to Tumbes, Peru. Part of this voyage is documented in: In A Sperm Whale's Jaws: An Episode in the Life of Captain Albert Wood of Nantucket, Mass, Edited by George C. Wood (Hanover, New Hampshire: Friends of Dartmouth Library, Dartmouth College) which was first published in 1954.

      There is no known image of the Plough Boy. The image at the left has been taken from the William Swain (1803-1847) Portrait of Captain Nathan Chase at the Nantucket Historical Society Whaling Museum.

A whale ship's boat signals were the way the ship keeper used to communicate with the boats that had been lowered to pursue whales. It was a system of using flags at different positions on different masts to convey information to the boats. Lanterns and torches were used if the boats were still out in the night.

This document was found in one of Lewis Monto's journals yet it was written by another person.

This journal covers the period June 23, 1827 to July 15, 1830 — 1,119 days. Like all the Plough Boy's voyages this was to the Pacific Ocean for sperm whales. The ship returned to the Nantucket bar with 2,522 barrels of sperm whale oil which was the product of eighty-two whales. For the time, this was considered a successful voyage.

A PDF version of Lewis Monto's journal from the NHA collection is available at the Internet Archive.

This sketch, used as the logo for these pages, accompanied his journal entry for the 'latter part' of January 10, 1828 – i.e. the morning of January 11th. At this time the Ploughboy was cruising the "Off Shore Ground" between the continent of South America and the Sandwich Islands which it reached two months later.

This journal includes the period October 1, 1830 until March 25, 1834 — 1,257 days or three years, 5 months, 10 days. Unlike other Pacific voyages of the period the Plough Boy the ship passed through islands of the central Pacific and northward to Guam and the Marianas, the Volcano Islands, and the Bonin Islands en route to the Japan Grounds before returning to the Sandwich Islands. The voyage was only moderatly successful returning with 1,741 barrels of sperm oil.

A PDF version of Lewis Monto's journal from the NHA collection is available at the Internet Archive.

Notes made from a partial journal or log book of the Plough Boy's 1830-1834 voyage which was published in the American Neptune in attempt to locate the missing part. Only a few of the incidents listed were noted in Lewis Monto's journal.

Because Maloney's fragment does not show the name of the replacement second mate (later made first mate) it is possible the author of the fragment was William Jay, the first mate discharged at Charles Island, Galapagos.

The location of either part of this journal or log book is unknown. If the loss of sperm oil is as represented, then the voyage was certainly not as represented by Monto in his journal.

"Ascension Island ... Latt 7:02 N Long 158:15 East" is Lewis Monto's caption for this sketch probably done in mid-March 1832. Wikipedia gives the location as 6 53'N & 158 14'E.

This island, also called Pouynipete, Panape, and Pohnpei since it was first visied by Fyodor Litke of the Senyavin in January 1828, is now part of the Federated States of Micronesia.

The Bonin Islands were not generally known until 1832 when Captain Frederick Beechy, the modern discoverer of the islands in June 1827 published his account of his voyage. However, the Islands were known to Japanese and, from the early 1820's, to French orientalists who had translated texts from China and Japan.

Whale ships were visiting the islands in the period following Beechey's visit. In 1830 a colony of europeans and Sandwich Islanders was established from Honolulu encouraged by Richard Charlton, the British Consul.

The South Island location is give by Monto as "Latt 26:00 N Long 142:50 East"; now called Haha Shima, its location is 26°39'N., 142°09'E. The North Island location is given as "Latt 26:40 N Long 142:50 East"; now known as Chichi Shima, its location is 27°04'N., 142°12'E.

See this page for when the Ploughboy was at the Bonins in May 1832.

Lewis Monto sketched these islands from the Ploughboy as the ship sailed north to south on the west side of the islands.

The Japanese named these islands as: Kita no shima, Muko Jima, Hari no iwa, Nakoudo Jima, and Yome Jima. Only one of these islands was named by Beechey — Kater Island (the island Muko Jima).

See this page for when the Ploughboy was at the Bonins in May 1832.

This sketch was probably made on November 13, 1833, when the Ploughboy was going around Cape Horn.

Monto gives it location as: "Longitude by Chro 68:20 W Latt by Obs 56:58 S" Wikipedia gives the location 56°29'S 68°44'W for the Diego Ramirez Islands (Islas Diego Ramírez).

The Ploughboy was near this location on January 29, 1834. Fernando de Noronha lies 220 miles off the Brazilian coast at 03°51'18"S 32°25'30"W (Wikipedia).

The Ploughboy was here on December 11,1830.

The archipelago Trindade e Martim Vaz lies 680 miles east of Brazilian state of Espirito Santo at 20°31'30"S 29°19'30"W (Wikipedia)

The Plough Boy was at Pitcairn's Island at the end of July 1833 where it obtained yams and potatos.

"Pitcairns Island West 5 miles Long by Chro 129:50 W Latt 25:00 S" is Monto's caption; the island's current website gives the location as 130.06 west and 25.04 south.

'Oreehoua', now called Lehua, was sighted by the Ploughboy on November 17 1832 after departing Atooi (Kauai)

Lehua Island is a small, crescent-shaped island in the Hawaiian islands, 0.7 miles (1.1 km) north of Ni‘ihau, due west of Kauai. The uninhabited, 285-acre (1.15 km2) barren island is a tuff cone which is part of the active Ni‘ihau volcano. (Wikipedia)

This island was one of the first five islands sighted by Captain James Cook in 1778. Lewis Monto generally followed Cooks orthography for the Sandwich Islands — thus Oreehoua for Lehua, Atooi for Kauai, Mowee for Maui, Owhyhee for Hawaii, etc.

The Plough Boy raised Tahiti on January 30, 1830, and eventually anchored in Taloo harbor, Eimeo (Moorea). On February 19 a cyclone or strong gale hit the ship and parted the hawser. The anchor draged and the ship grounded, breaking three pintles on the rudder. As repairs required sending a boat to Point Venus on the island of Tahiti, the ship remained there until March 12, 1830.

On February 23rd, in order to repair the pintles of the rudder, it was necessary for the Plough Boy to send two boats to Point Venus — 25 to 30 miles away. It was March 4th before the repairs were completed. After another week the repairs were completed and the ship sailed for the coast of South America prior to going around Cape Horn.

The Plough Boy passed through the Volcano or Sulpher Islands in early May 1832. On May 4th all three islands were visible. Lewis sketched the north and south islands. The middle island – Iwo Jima – was not sketched, possibly because William Blight had done so on Cook's last voyage and that view had been published in 1785.

This fragment in Lewis Monto's hand is essentially a textual "snapshot" of vessels in the harbor at Honolulu in the morning of November 10, 1828.

Generally the larger vessels – whaleships – are on the north side of the harbor. Merchant and trading vessels are anchored on the south side.

Similar to the note above, this fraqment is from November-December, 1829.

"The English ship Pusie Hall can tell a story on that head" writes Herman Melville in Moby-Dick". This ship was one of the few actual ships that were named in that book and it was a ship that turned out to be very important to the Ploughboy.

The Pusey Hall, Captain Robert Newby, met the Ploughboy on two occasions — June 18, 1830 and September 2, 1833. The second meeting was especially fortuitous because the surgeon of the English ship was present to amputate the leg of second mate James H. Briggs who was severely injured by a whale. American whaling ships had no surgeons on board.

The Plough Boy, Henry Phelon master, sailed from New Bedford on June 16, 1848 on what would be its final voyage. This was a disastrous cruise. First, when attacking whales boats were destroyed or upset, the first officer was taken in the jaw of the whale and injured before he was released, and a boat-steerer was killed by the same whale. Later on this voyage the Ploughboy grounded and broke up on a shoal in the Bay of Guayaquil in 1849, en route to Tumbes, Peru.

The booklet In A Sperm Whale's Jaws: An Episode in the Life of Captain Albert Wood of Nantucket, Mass, Edited by George C. Wood (Hanover, New Hampshire: Friends of Dartmouth Library, Dartmouth College, 1954, is the general source for these disasters. It is not transcribed here because it is currently in copyright and permission has not been given to reproduce it.

The source used for this publication was the journal originally written by Henry A. Phelon, the teenage son of the Ploughboy's captain who was a witness to the incident with the destructive whale. A transcription of part of this journal which is held by the New Bedford Whaling Museum is available as Henry A. Phelon's journal.

A second description of these events is found in the transcription of a journal by an unknown writer which is held at the Nicholson Collection, Providence Public Libary Journal of an educated young man. The author was also a teenage member of the Ploughboy's crew who was not a direct witness, but who wrote of events as reported by others on board.

The life of Henry A. Phelon is sketched in Life of Henry A. Phelon. Before his distinguished service in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War, he invested in and joined E. C. Williams' panorama show of a "South Sea Whaling Voyage" which was presented in major cities from Maryland to Maine. After service as the postmaster of West Springfield, Massachusetts, he became a customs inspector in Boston. A sketch of Phelon may be seen here.

There is no single place where the story of the 1837 'mutiny' on the Ploughboy is told in full. Like the parable of the blind men and the elephant, the perspective of the event varies.

In Australia, it was a story of three wounded New Zealand natives found in open ocean in a Ploughboy whale boat with whaling craft carrying Ploughboy markings. They were rescued and later arrested for possible murder and possession of property clearly not theirs. Their defense was that they had been mistreated by the captain and some of the officers and in their escape had been fired upon from the ship. After going before a judge they were aquitted as there was no witness against them.

In the United States what transpired on board the ship was related in gruesome detail. Two seamen had been killed and one seriously wounded. The New Zealanders had set loose all the other boats before they made their escape. After a chase by the ship which was not successful, nothing more was known about the mutineers.

In Great Britain, only the American newspaper coverage of 1837 was used in their papers. As the British press usually included material from Australian papers, they do not appear to have recognized that accounts of the fugitive New Zealanders from papers dated more than a month earlier were related to this story.

It was only in 1889 that a more complete account of the mutiny on Ploughboy was published in the United States. The source was a log-book or journal entry for April 18, 1837 — the date of the uprising. The keeper of the journal is not given.

An article in the June 18, 1890, Nantucket Journal tells the tale of an exciting bit of the ship Ploughboy's history almost 70 years after the event. The problem with the story is that it had nothing to do with the Ploughboy which at the time (1821) was on its first voyage and was rounding Cape Horn on the 1st of November, 1821, before stopping at Coquimbo, Chile on November 27th, while en route to the Off Shore whaling ground.

A news report from the February 15, 1822, New Bedford Mercury gives the real story of 'mutiny' and rescue at Juan Fernandez island which actually happeded to the ship Persia of New Bedford.

      The original journals were owned by two great-granddaughters of Lewis Monto – Marjorie Monto Tyler and Susan J. Monto. I would like to thank them for the privilege and opportunity to transcribe two unique documents documenting a piece of American life and culture.

      The journals and associated material are now in the collections of the Nantucket Historical Association.

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