Blog de Puree

It has recently been discovered that the whaleship Essex, who’s misadventure and destruction by a sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick, was built in Amesbury, Mass.

According to a recent article in the Newburyport Daily News, Steve Klomps, the Peabody Essex Museum‘s director of finance and a homeowner in the riverfront area of Amesbury that was the heart of the town’s shipbuilding industry, was prompted to research the Essex when he received a letter from a man in North Carolina looking for the ship’s plans to build a model.

Here are some other interesting Amesbury shipbuilding facts gleaned from the article:

• Amesbury was the second-largest source of ships in the Boston registry during the mid to late 18th century and early 19th century.
• Before 1812, more ships were built by Amesbury shipwrights than Newburyport shipwrights, mostly from the northern bank of the Merrimack River.
• During Salem’s merchant and marine hey-day, there were more Amesbury-built ships there, than Salem-built ships.
• Thousands of ships were built in Amesbury, which ended up sailing to all corners of the world.