Day 15 - Lewis Temple - Thar She Blows!

Source

I read Moby Dick in high school. It was not my favorite experience. The teachers knew we probably wouldn't like it, and they taught it together. All four English classes met in a large space to discuss and dissect the book.

As someone who loves whales and abhors the idea that anyone would kill and eat them, I was not best pleased to read the book, and the lengthy sections about skinning, processing and preparing the creatures were pretty horrible.



Recently, I read an article that said Herman Melville was not completely true to the ways of whaling, and that there is a great deal of fiction mixed in with what I was taught was an actual real-life look at whaling.

My response to this revelation that Melville - who wrote a fictional story about a white whale - might have also fictionalized parts of his story about whalers is - no surprise here - FICTION. He wrote fiction! I sometimes get annoyed that our instructors taught it as a true look at whaling, but in moments of clarity, I realize it wasn't their fault. American Whaling hasn't been a going concern in our society since the 1920s. They knew as much about whaling as the average person...which is nothing.

Why am I going on about this? Easy. There is a black man who revolutionized the whaling industry in the early 1800s.

His name was Lewis Temple. (1800 - 1854)

Lewis Temple was born in Richmond, Va. I have found sources that claim he was born enslaved, and other sources that claim he was born free and still other sources that just straight up say they have no idea. Based on all the available information I can find, there is no clear evidence either way.

The sources that claim Lewis was born enslaved skip over his life until the age of 29. There is no discussion about how he might have attained his freedom or what he was doing prior to that or who might have enslaved him or anything like that. This does not mean he wasn't enslaved, just that incidents surrounding his freedom are missing.

Either way, in 1829, Lewis Temple moved to New Bedford, MA. and found work as a blacksmith. He did well for himself and eventually opened a shop of his own on the waterfront in New Bedford. At the time, he was one of 315,000 free black men in America who were successful businessmen in their own right.

Whaling Ships at New Bedford

Being on the waterfront, much of Temple's smithing work evolved around the most profitable industry that did business there: the whaling industry.

Through discussions with whalers, he found out that the biggest problem they had with their craft was that they had a difficult time keeping the whales. Once harpooned, whales would roll, and the harpoons would come right out of their blubber. Their catch rate did not reflect the effort required to bring in a whale.

Temple Iron

As a blacksmith, Lewis was aware of various kinds of tools for hunting different types of game. He applied his knowledge of tools from First Nation hunters to whale hunting technology and came up with a newly designed harpoon. After entering the whale's blubber, the spearhead would rotate and lock in place, creating a secure hold in two directions that locked it into the whale's body.

Temple Iron

This innovation did not catch on at first. Whalers were two things: superstitious and stubborn.
I am not a fisherman, but I have always been fascinated by voyager superstitions. It seems to me that the less control people have over a thing, the more superstitions they will create in order to give themselves the illusion of control.

My first encounter with sailing superstitions was The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Killing an Albatross was considered a horrible transgression against the sea. Bad luck will follow you always if you kill one of these creatures. That was the Ancient Mariner's crime.

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink.
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

A few sailor superstitions - 

 - Throw oil into the sea to calm the waves
- Women on a boat are bad luck
- The sea is calmed when it sees bare-breasted women (This is why so many of the figures on the front of sea vessels were half-naked women)
- The one time women were allowed on the boat was after a long voyage. If you simply couldn't wait to be with a woman you could enjoy your partner on the gun deck. There is some speculation that this is the origin of the term "son of a gun".

All of that is to say that whalers, aside from a few modifications to the shape and size of their boats, had been whaling the same way for hundreds of years, and they weren't going to change what they were doing for anyone, thank you very much!

Then, as always, a few captains decided to try the new-fangled harpoons and it improved their hauls. Before long, word spread about these new Temple Toggle Irons, which was eventually shortened to Temple Irons. Overnight, everybody needed them right now.

Temple never patented his design and before long, they were the mainstay of every blacksmith on the port. Some smiths even gave them their own names, but everybody knew they were actually Temple Irons, and whalers never called them anything other than that.

Lewis was a well-respected businessman and abolitionist. In 1834 he was elected vice president of the New Bedford Union Society. It was the first black auxiliary group of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

With respect, funds, and plans, Lewis began construction of a larger, grander shop on the waterfront. Unfortunately, in 1854, he was walking down a street in New Bedford, when he fell through a plank that a city worker had placed over an open sewer. He was badly injured and never worked again.

He sued the city for negligence and won a settlement for two thousand dollars.

He died before the money could be paid. After his death, his wife, Mary Clark and her son Lewis Temple Jr, were forced to sell everything they had to cover his debts and were impoverished.

The City of New Bedford eventually paid the settlement to Mary and Lewis Jr. with interest.

Today, Lewis Temple is recognized as having revolutionized the whaling industry and bringing it to its height before whaling was abolished in the 1920s as other forms of fuel replaced whale oil, and overfishing of whales made the industry unsustainable.

Lewis Temple Memorial

Clifford Ashley, author of The Yankee Whaler has said that Temple's Harpoon was the single most important invention of the Whaling Industry. It was certainly the only improvement made to the industry in the 19th century.

in 1987, the city of New Bedford, MA dedicated a statue to Lewis Temple. It is on pleasant Street outside the New Bedford Free Public Library. It is based on a photograph of Lewis Jr. because no image of Lewis Temple Sr. survives.

So, when you see pictures of whalers beyond the 1830s, or you study the golden age of the whaling industry in America, you are looking at the work of an African American man who's ingenuity helped build fortunes for men in New England.



Celebrate Balck History!