Tryworks from whaling brig Industry
The shipwreck in 6,000 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico, 70 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River, had first been spotted in 2011, by a geological data company scanning an oil lease area. The wreck was logged in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management database and left alone. The wreck was later seen again by an autonomous vehicle in 2017.
In February of 2022, while testing new equipment, SEARCH Inc., a firm that manages archaeological sites and artifacts, partnering with NOAA, identified the wreck as probably that of the whaling brig Industry, built in 1815 in Westport, Massachusetts, and lost in the Gulf of Mexico in 1836.
The wreck is of the right size and includes a tryworks, used for rendering whale blubber that was unique to whaling ships. The Industry is the only whaler known to have sunk in the Gulf of Mexico.
When the whaling brig Industry was caught in a Gulf storm and began to founder in 1836, the officers and crew faced not only the hazards of the sea but perils ashore as well. Based on crew lists from previous voyages, the crew of the Industry was of mixed race, including Blacks and Native Americans. While slavery had been abolished in Massachusetts in the early 1780s and all those aboard the whaleship were free men, if they had gone ashore in the slave states of Mississippi or Louisiana, there was a very real risk that the people of color could have been sold into slavery.
What happened to the officers and crew of the Industry? Until recently, that was also a mystery. James Delgado, senior vice president of SEARCH Inc. asked Robin Winters, a librarian from the Westport Free Public Library, to research the crew’s fate.
The ship’s articles and crew list were lost when the ship sank. Nevertheless, Ms. Winters tracked down an article published by the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror on June 17, 1836, which reported the Industry‘s crew being picked up by another Westport, Massachusetts, whaling ship Elizabeth. Rather than dropping off the crew in a Southern port, the Elizabeth returned them safely to Westport.
As noted by CNN, Industry was connected to Paul Cuffe, a mariner, entrepreneur, abolitionist and philanthropist whose father was a freed slave and mother was a Wampanoag Native American, according to Monica Allen, the director of public affairs for NOAA research.
Records shows that Cuffe’s son William was a navigator on Industry. Pardon Cook, Cuffe’s son-in-law, was an officer on the brig. Cook is thought to have made the most whaling voyages of any Black person in American history.
“The news of this discovery is exciting, as it allows us to explore the early relationships of the men who worked on these ships, which is a lesson for us today as we deal with diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace,” Carl J. Cruz said in a statement. Cruz is a New Bedford-based independent historian and a descendent of the family of Paul Cuffe.
The Lost Whaler: NOAA & Partners Discover Wreck of 207-Year-Old Whaling Ship