The Last Voyage of the Whaling Bark Progress: New Bedford, Chicago and the Twilight of an Industry by Daniel Gifford. McFarland Press, 2020. ISBN: 9781476682150. Softcover, 204 pages. $45.00.

Along the eastern edge of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition were four different exhibits of sea craft, each with a unique story to share. The reproductions of the Spanish Caravels—the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria—served as a fitting commemoration of the theme of World’s Fair, Columbus’ 1492 voyage. The Viking reproduction offered a contrasting narrative of which European explorer may have landed on the North American continent first. The U.S. battleship Illinois was not actually a ship, but a 348-foot replica built on top of a stationary foundation in the water. Moored along the eastern side of the South Pond was the only authentic ship exhibit. Here the Progress, an original whaling ship from New Bedford, Massachusetts, set our her gang plank to welcome World’s Fair guests aboard. Her story has been forgotten until now.

In The Last Voyage of the Whaling Bark Progress, Daniel Gifford brings to the surface the lost history of the Progress. His monograph traces the journey from active whaling vessel in New England to a floating museum at the World’s Fair in Chicago to her “ignominious finale” in the mouth of the Calumet River. This research also details the rise, fall, and eventual demise of the whaling industry in America.

The author has kindly provided permission for us to reprint for this excerpt from the opening chapter of The Last Voyage.

“Last Farewell to New Bedford” The Progress on her day of departure from New Bedford, with a portion of the nearly 3,000 spectators on hand for the occasion. Although uncredited, the photograph was likely taken by the prominent African American photographer James E. Reed, who had been contracted to record the festive day. From “There She Blows” (Chicago: Arctic Whaling Exhibit, Co. 1893).

New Bedford—June 8, 1892

It seemed as if the entire harbor had spontaneously erupted into a palette of red, white, and blue. The colors gleamed in the bright sunlight and a stiff southeastern breeze tugged at the streamers and bunting that were generously affixed to nearly any object or edifice the decorators could find. The summer gusts also played with countless hats, jackets, dresses, and ribbons among the tightly-packed crowds who had congregated along the wharves by mid-morning. A few stalwart boys who sat at water’s edge minded their fishing poles rather than the estimated 3,000 onlookers packed behind them. But they too could not keep their eyes off the gleaming hulk of red and white that sat just off to their right. The whaling bark Progress had also been festooned with bunting and streamers, which snapped in the wind from mast heads and yardarms. A large signal flag waving from the mainmast declared in bright, tall letters the name of the bark, although she needed no introduction to those who had gathered. The crack of American flags echoed off the façade of the New Bedford Cordage Company, before which the Progress lay in wait. Her hull had been painted a bright brick red. Her davits holding the six-man whaleboats gleamed white, as did the deckhouse. James E. Reed, the prominent African American photographer who had co-founded Headley & Reed on Purchase Street, ensured that the proceedings were photographed to his exacting specification and with his famous eye for detail.

As the Progress was towed away from Rotch’s Wharf, the crowd erupted into a deafening cheer, which gave way to song. After a turn of “Life on the Ocean Wave,” Hill’s brass band led the New Bedford throngs though the melancholy words of “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” Harbor traffic—also bedecked in the decorative finery of signal flags and bright colors—added to the cacophony. Bells and whistles accompanied the multitude’s rendition of the well-known tune: “Ye gods above oh hear my prayer, to my beauteous fair to find me; and send me safely back again, to the girl I left behind me.” Ladies pulled out handkerchiefs to wave as the bark was pulled towards Buzzard’s Bay.

By that blustery day in June 1892, New Bedford had been launching whaling ships to every part of the globe for a century. Thousands of voyages had begun from the same wharves that the Progress now passed on her way down to the Bay—the Central Wharf, the Taber Wharf, the Atlantic Wharf. Tens of thousands of men had unmoored from New Bedford docks, knowing the passage of time that marked distance from loved ones would typically be measured in years, not weeks or months. An incalculable number of people in New Bedford had watched whalers disappear onto the horizon, wondering if they would ever return. And yet, no single departure of a whaling ship had ever generated the sort of holiday atmosphere that surrounded the departure of this particular whaling ship. This departure was different. It was special. And it carried with it the legacies, dreams, and memories of an entire community.

The Progress was not going to sea to hunt for whales, as so many whaleships had done before. She was going to Chicago to be displayed like a crown jewel for all the world to see. She was going to the Columbian Exposition of 1893, and New Bedforders were sure she would be one of the most popular attractions at a world’s fair that promised to be the event of the decade, perhaps even the century. She would tell American visitors from Maine to California a story about New Bedford’s whaling heritage and history, and she would remind the world how New Bedford had once lit the globe and lubricated the industrial revolution with whale oil. The cheers and huzzahs and whistles gave voice to a civic pride that brought many New Bedforders to tears that day. The Progress would mark their place in history.

The remains of the Progress at the mouth of the Calumet River. Photograph by E.C. Greenman, circa 1902. Greenman’s grandfather helped build the whaleship in Rhode Island during the 1840s. Launched in 1842, she was original named the Charles Phelps. While Greenman was in Chicago he visited what was left of the whaleship (courtesy of Westerly Library & Wilcox Park).

Chicago—April 14, 1900

Spring was slowly working its way into Chicago’s frigid bones. The day had been mild and pleasant, and that night a full moon rose and shone down from clear skies. The skybound sentry cast a pale light over the lapping waters of the southwest shore of Lake Michigan. It was quiet save for the calls and beating wings of various ducks, gulls, and herons. They would occasionally alight on the now-unrecognizable husk of the Progress.

She rested on her side in the mud of the Harbor of the Calumet, a stench-filled point where the mouth of the Calumet River vainly tried to discharge an accumulation of industrial waste and sewage into Lake Michigan. But the current of the river was not strong enough, and inky pools of oil, livestock blood, and muck collected and shimmered in the moonlight. While steel mills, chemical plants, and packinghouses upriver belched and buzzed as busy hives of modern labor, the atmosphere here was decidedly more graveyard-esque. Surrounding the Progress were the moribund bodies of other vessels in varying states of decay and disrepair. Here was the derelict schooner Mary E. Dykes, damaged in a storm and now poking out of the fetid waters. Over there, just a few feet away from the Progress, was the John A. Dix, a Civil War-era cutter that was falling apart bit by bit.

The motley collection had all long ago been picked over for anything of worth, but the Progress especially had proven a boon for scavengers over the years. The copper from her hull had disappeared early on. Most of the usable wood went next, taken by men and women who lived on the margins and needed the easily burnable kindling to stay warm. The remaining shell was rank and rotting, part of an inconvenient assemblage that made navigating the Calumet difficult for modern ships.

This was where the Progress’s story ended, on her side in the foul, frigid waters around Chicago. It would be nearly two years longer before fire and dynamite would finally finish the job, and the few scraps of remaining wood—long-since shed of their gleaming red paint—would settle into the muddy bottom. Only the demolition team and flocks of startled birds would bear witness to this ignominious finale.

In between these two moments is a rich tapestry of expectations and disappointments, assumptions and failures that carry a deep resonance today. The sentiments of the whaling industry in the 1890s echo across modern communities of coal miners and steel workers, newspaper journalists and video store owners. Those who find themselves in a dying industry are often beset by more than just questions about economic security and hope for the future. They also begin to ask questions about their legacy and place in the larger narrative of American history. Will they be forgotten? Will they be understood? Will they be pitied or celebrated? Who gets to decide?