On August 26, 1924, the last of New Bedford’s square-rigged whaleships wrecked on Cuttyhunk. The wreck is remembered as a fitting ending for a storied industry, though it wasn’t really the last whaling trip from New Bedford. A new exhibit at the Mattapoisett Museum explores the ways the ship has lived on in people’s memories.
Contrary to the motto on its municipal seal, New Bedford was no longer the city that lit the world by the 1920s.
“It was predicted by the papers that it would probably be sold to a motion picture company or something,” said Connor Gaudet, a curator at the Mattapoisett Museum. The Wanderer proved to be a resilient ship, making 23 whaling voyages in a 46-year career and landing more than 900,000 gallons of oil. She survived an attack from an aggressive whale in the Caribbean; she was iced into the Arctic Ocean several times; and she dodged German submarines during World War I. Some scholars, including the former curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, William H. Tripp, suspect that in 1917 the Wanderer landed the largest-ever cargo of whale oil for a single trip.
Edwards tried to round up willing sailors for the trip, but on the day the Wanderer was supposed to set sail, Edwards only had a skeleton crew. A traditional sea service was still held for the ship’s departure. It was near the shoals that the Wanderer’s crew decided to abandon ship in two of the smaller boats typically used for approaching whales at close range and harpooning them.
Allie Thurston, a volunteer at the Cuttyhunk Historical Society, said other items salvaged from the Wanderer will likely be kept as secrets by island residents.
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