Captain Thomas P. Warren, 1852-96.
Even for the most experienced whaler, life on the sea trying to capture the gigantic mammals was a risky business. That lesson was learned the hard way by Captain Thomas P. Warren of Long Island, as evidenced by an article in the December 6, 1896 Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt:
“Southampton, L.I.–The news of the sudden death of Captain Thomas P. Warren of this village, while on a whaling voyage in the North Pacific, which reached here yesterday, has caused great sorrow among his many friends. The only details of the sad accident are contained in a letter received from one of his ship mates of the steam whaler Belvidere, who says that the remains will be sent home for burial in the family plot at Yaphank.
Captain Warren left for what he said would be his last whaling trip in 1892 and at its close he intended to come home and settle down for good, as he had a great attachment to his native place. With this end in view he planned the expedition of 1892. Taking as companions James and Steven Larry, whalemen from this village, whom he had known from boyhood, he engaged a vessel to leave them, with the necessary outfit, on St. Lawrence Island, near the mouth of the Behring Straits. It was their plan to whale from the shore, employing the native Esquimaux to assist them, but the natives took no interest in whaling and did not care to be employed, nor did whales come that way, so that when at the end of the season, the vessel returned by appointment to take them off, it found the men and their apparatus but no oil or bones to bring away.
"The whale struck and killed Captain Warren."
After the unsuccessful expedition Captain Warren and his friends decided to make one more venture. He left Southhampton with his two friends February 4, 1895, reaching Honolulu the 18th of the same month, where he joined the whaling steamer Belvidere of New Bedford bound for the Arctic Ocean. They wintered with the rest of the whaling fleet at the Herschel Islands off the mouth of the Mackenzie River. Late in July the ice broke up and they began their second season’s work. In the early fall they returned through the straits and cruised toward home, the hearts of all on board being made glad by a prosperous catch of ten good whales and the price of whalebone higher than ever before. Probably happiest among them was the boatheader, Captain Warren, now returning from his last voyage and bound home to his family to plan with them a convenient house to build and to stay at home with them hereafter. On October 14, the last before reaching port, another whale was captured to add to the good catch already on board but by some unlucky accident, the details of which have yet been learned, the whale struck and killed Captain Warren. Life lingered a few hours, long enough to send a last word to his family and to give directions as to the disposal of his remains.”