Spotlight Talk: To the Other Side of the World: Captain Peleg W. Gifford, Whaling Master

Join Dr. Michael Coe as he offers an inside look at his family’s history and the world of whaling, the inspiration for our new exhibit, From Pursuit to Patronage:  Industries and Ambitions that Influenced the Legacy of Mai Coe.

The maternal grandfather of Mai Rogers Coe (and Dr. Coe’s great-great grandfather) was Peleg Winslow Gifford (1805-1888), a Yankee whaleman, who in his life made nine, immensely long whaling voyages to the far oceans of the earth. On the final six of these he was master, in search of sperm whales (and their valuable oil) in the Indian Ocean. During his active years, the South Coast of Massachusetts, in particular New Bedford and its harbor, was the whaling capital of the world. New Bedford alone had over 300 square-rigged ships and barques across the globe, and its wharves were crowded with oil-filled barrels.

This was a difficult and often truly dangerous occupation for both officers and men, and it was a gamble for the agents and ship owners whether at the end of voyages (which usually lasted over 3 years) there were any profits to be made. Uniformly bad food, crowded accommodations, and lack of modern medicine took their toll. As the decades of Yankee whaling progressed, the target species – immense sperm whales – fought back, and many men lost their lives.

Peleg Gifford had a wife and four daughters who stayed behind. Until he would return from a voyage, he would have had little or no idea of how they fared, nor they would know whether he lived or died. But he did return at the close of each voyage, and had a happy retirement after 1866.

Gifford’s youngest daughter, Abbie Palmer Gifford, married her childhood sweetheart Henry H. Rogers, and the young couple moved to the newly found petroleum fields of northwest Pennsylvania. The era of whale oil was ending, and that of petroleum oil was beginning. At the time of Abbie’s death in 1894, her husband Henry had become one of the richest men in the world.

Dr. Michael D. Coe, the son of William Rogers Coe, fondly recalls visiting his grandfather at Coe Hall as a child.  The author of many books and graduate of Harvard University with a PhD in anthropology, Michael Coe is Charles J. McCurdy Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, Yale University.  He served as Curator of the Peabody Museum of Natural History anthropology section from 1968-1994.  Michael Coe is Chairman Emeritus of Planting Fields Foundation, and continues to ensure that Coe Hall be preserved and interpreted for visitors.