There is an old saying about the best-laid plans of men and mice – and I seem to be living proof of it.
Despite my best intentions, the blog of my adventures as I began this odyssey never eventuated.
And now, four years after beginning this journey, the book is complete and was launched at the Fiji Museum on 25 July 2018.
The event was very well-attended, with members of the Whippy clan coming in from Sydney, Brisbane, New zealand, Kadavu, and Vanua Levu to join others in Suva.
There are so many people to thank for making this such a memorable evening, and most especially Mr Sipiriano Nemani, the Director of the Fiji Museum, who gave the event his full support and very graciously joined us as the Chief Guest. My sincere thanks also go out to Tokani, the Friends of the Fiji Museum, who sponsored the launch. Mr Vereniki Nalio was our delightful Master of Ceremonies, and Mrs Prakashni Sharma worked tirelessly in the background to make sure everything ran smoothly.
The book is now available in Fiji from the Fiji Museum Book Shop. All other enquiries can be made to davidwhippybook@yahoo.com until such time as we have an online presence.
Future posts will be my reminiscences of the places I visited and people I met who have made my research so enjoyable and productive.
“If what you are following, however, is your own true adventure, if it is something appropriate to your deep spiritual need or readiness, then magical guides will appear to help you. If you’re ready for it, doors will open where there were no doors before, and where there would not be doors for anyone else. And you must have courage. It’s the call to adventure, which means there is no security, no rules.”
~Joseph Campbell
“If what you are following, however, is your own true adventure, if it is something appropriate to your deep spiritual need or readiness, then magical guides will appear to help you. If you’re ready for it, doors will open where there were no doors before, and where there would not be doors for anyone else. And you must have courage. It’s the call to adventure, which means there is no security, no rules.”
~Joseph Campbell
Thanks to a suggestion from Johnson, I met a young student from the University of the South Pacific who came from the island I next needed to go to – Ovalau Island. This was where David Whippy lived from 1825 until 1858 and where he rose to prominence both in Fijian circles and among the principal players in the Yankee maritime trading world based in Salem, Massachusetts.
Obviously I would need to go there and fortunately my new friend, Matai, was willing to accompany me and help me get around.
Most people making the trip out to Levuka go on the ferry and so Friday midday saw me packed and ready for my new adventure. With Matai’s assistance I clambered on board the bus from Suva to Natovi Jetty, the first leg of my journey. In hindsight, all I can say is, ‘Thank Heavens he accompanied me!’ I am sure I would still be wandering round the Suva Bus Stand looking for where the bus departed, and trying to put my luggage safely in the bus and find a seat. This was not for the faint-hearted I quickly learned!!
The trip to Natovi takes about three hours, and once there it is time to wait until the inter-island ferry arrives, which in our case, was over an hour. So plenty of time to walk around, chat to fellow passengers, and buy fresh fruit from the children selling their wares at the wharf.
The roll-on, roll-off ferry that would take us to Ovalau
Eventually it was time to embark. Our tickets were checked and then we climbed up the stairs to the lounge area, and awaited our departure.
Finally the ferry was loaded with buses, cars, cargo, and passengers and we left Natovi and the mainland, to begin the next episode of my epic voyage of discovery of the life of the ‘Old Gentleman’ of Levuka.
Life for a young lad in Nantucket in the 1800s was fairly well-defined. A minimum education based on Quaker principles and then at age 14 an apprenticeship, usually with your father, more often than not on a whaling ship, for whaling was the principal industry of Nantucket until the 1850s.
Young David Whippey [the name was spelled this way in Nantucket] followed in this tradition and was working on a whaler, the Elizabeth, in 1817. His brother, Josiah, was the Master or Captain of this ship. This trip was to the South Atlantic whaling grounds, which would have been a comparatively short trip of several months, as opposed to the journeys of 2-3 years that eventually became the norm as the whalers ventured into the Pacific Ocean over the early decades of the 19th century.
Life on board was extremely arduous, and very dangerous once in the whaling grounds. When a pod of whales was spotted, the men launched their open whaling boats from the mother ship and rowed in the open ocean towards the whales, and then harpooned them once close enough. The harpooned whale would try to escape, dragging the boat and the men on it on what was known as a ‘Nantucket Sleigh-ride’.
Not for the faint-hearted!
Once the whale was killed, it was hauled on board, and then the task of defleshing and obtaining the prized oil began.
Discipline on board ships was harsh, for these were the days men were flogged for any breach in discipline. Ships’ captains had to be strict to preserve the ship and to preserve the life of the crew. Long days at sea were usually filled in by mending sails, painting and varnishing the decking and woodwork. As the old saying goes – ‘Idle hands make the Devil’s work’ and no captain could run the risk of giving men time to think about their situation and foster mutiny.
David made one other trip out of Nantucket, that we know about. This was on the Francis, another whaler, captained by his brother-in-law, Timothy Fitzgerald, with his brother Josiah Whippey as first mate. The Francis left Nantucket in November 1818 and did not return until November 1821.
David did not return on her. For various reasons, no doubt including the harsh discipline on board, he jumped ship in Quayaquil in Ecuador. His brother and Captain Fitzgerald did look for him and delayed their departure from port in an attempt to give him time to return, but his fear of the punishment waiting him on board overrode any desire to return home to Nantucket.
And so the Francis set sail for Nantucket without David Whippey. At 19 years of age the young lad found himself thrown onto his own resources in a foreign city, forced to fend for himself. There can be little doubt such an experience, in what was assuredly a rough and tumble port city, sharpened his wits and taught him resilience and ‘street-smarts’, all of which he was certainly going to need in later life, as it turned out.
David never saw Nantucket and his family again. Life and Destiny had other things in store for him in a group of islands in the south-west Pacific – islands we now call Fiji and which, in 1821, were virtually unknown to Yankee shipping. They were the home of a people who had had very little contact with the outside world, and where cannibalism and inter-tribal warfare were the norm of daily life. No missionary had ever been there and no European nation had made any attempt to colonise the islands, nor did any have any interest in them.
Little could the 19 year-old David Whippey have known that within a few years it would be he who would come to have an extraordinary influence in shaping the future of these people and their islands.
We have seen how Herman Melville waxed lyrical about the prodigious skills of the Nantucket men who navigated the world’s oceans in search of the oil of the sperm whale, likening them to Alexander the Great. We have also seen that he wrote of their exploits in the novel Moby Dick, the story of Captain Ahab’s search to take revenge on the great white whale which had destroyed his ship on an earlier voyage.
To many this notion that a whale would deliberately destroy a whaling vessel is fantastical, but not so. Such an event did occur to a Nantucket ship. Her name was the Essex, which set forth from Nantucket bound for the South Pacific Ocean in August 1819. Under the command of Captain George Pollard, she had a total of 20 crew members, named here in a letter dated 13 February 1821.
Like all such journeys it was of many months duration and not especially noteworthy. This is, until 20th November 1820, when the Essex was thousands of miles off the coast of South America.
On that momentous day the crew had spotted a pod of whales and dispatched their 3 small whaleboats in pursuit. The mate’s boat was damaged by a whale and as he was repairing it, the crew noticed a whale acting most strangely. By all accounts the animal was very large – some 85 feet or 26 m in length. It appeared to lie quietly and then swam towards the ship, rapidly picking up speed and rammed it, before coming up underneath and almost flipping the ship over. Swimming away, it turned for one final attack and in the words of the mate, Owen Chase, “I turned around and saw him about one hundred rods [500 m or 550 yards] directly ahead of us, coming down with twice his ordinary speed of around 24 knots (44 km/h), and it appeared with tenfold fury and vengeance in his aspect. The surf flew in all directions about him with the continual violent thrashing of his tail. His head about half out of the water, and in that way he came upon us, and again struck the ship.”
The ship sank and the crew took to their whaleboats with what few supplies they could find. Their subsequent story is one of desperation and despair, as they attempted to sail back to South America. As men died of thirst and starvation, some were buried at sea, but in the end, the survivors resorted to cannibalism in a bid to remain alive.
Owen Chase, Benjamin Lawrence and the cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, survived this ordeal. Their boat was separated from the other 2 whaleboats, and they were eventually picked up by the British whaleship Indian, after 90 days at sea.
The second whaleboat, under the command of Obed Hendricks was separated from that of Captain Pollard and its crew were never seen again.
Pollard’s whaleboat was rescued by the Nantucket whaleship Dauphin, on February 23, 95 days after their ordeal commenced.
The story has now been brought to life on the big screen in a movie called ‘In the Heart of the Sea’, directed by Ron Howard. Scheduled for release in March 2015, here is a preview.
I arrived in Suva in early February at the height of a very severe outbreak of dengue fever. Hospitals and medical centres across the country were struggling to treat those affected and calls for blood donors were a regular occurrence. Forewarned, I had brought my can of DEET repellent from Brisbane but found I could not abide the smell. Luckily I soon discovered a local product made with essential oils that kept the mozzies at bay.
The mosquito problem under control, it was time to renew old friendships and establish networks to assist my research. As it turned out, establishing new contacts was remarkably easy, partly because of the many friendships I had established on Facebook over the previous years.
One such contact was a man called Johnson Seeto, a member of the academic staff at the University of the South Pacific. Amongst his many interests and abilities, Johnson loved photography and I always looked forward to his regular postings on Facebook. His photos captured day to day life in Suva and he also had a remarkable ability to capture nature in its perfection. I meet this gentle, softly-spoken man for coffee on my first Saturday in town. As ever he had his camera around his neck and he advised me then to always have a camera with me.
Eventually the conversation turned to my project and what I hoped to achieve while I was in Fiji. I mentioned my disappointment about not being able to get permission to visit Wakaya Island, now privately owned, which is a short distance from Levuka, and where David Whippy and the other white men of Levuka lived in the early 1860s. Johnson recommended I contact a particular lecturer at the University who owned land on Wakaya Island and might be able to help. From this contact I met people from Toki Village near Levuka who were of invaluable assistance to me over the months to come.
Sadly, I never saw Johnson again. While I was out on the islands in March and April, this very special man had a debilitating stroke which left him wheelchair-bound. Undaunted, he fought back and continued to post his photos, a series he called From My Wheelchair for Now.
This gentle, generous man passed away on 20 May. The night before he died, he posted this photograph on his Facebook page. To this day, it remains one of my favourite photographs.
Stilt-legged Fly with a huge tongue, drinking water – from my Wheelchair For Now
The picturesque historic island of Nantucket lies some 30 miles off the coast of Boston, Massachusetts. Originally the home of the Wampanoag people, the island was purchased by a consortium of English settlers in 1659.Their names were Tristram Coffin, Thomas Macy, Christopher Hussey, Richard Swain, Thomas Barnard, Peter Coffin, Stephen Greenleaf, John Swain, and William Pile. When it came time to settle in 1660, each of the men sold a half-share of their portion, so bringing the numbers to 20.
By 1700 the focus of the settlers had moved from agriculture to the ocean, and the whales that could be seen out to sea from the shores of Nantucket Island. The oil of the sperm whale was a highly valued commodity and the astute businessmen among the Nantucket founders realised they had a potentially lucrative commodity virtually on their doorsteps. Not being seafarers themselves, they looked for mariners from neighbouring settlements to work this lucrative trade for them.
It is highly probable that one such mariner was the first of the Whippeys to come to Nantucket. (Note that the name was Whippey in America, but came to be Whippy in Fiji).
In 1705 the Nantucket records recorded the birth of a James Whippey, but unfortunately did not name his parents. James married Patience Long in Nantucket in1727, thus founding a family that remained in Nantucket for over a century.
A few years before the birth of James Whippey, the Nantucketers adopted the Quaker religion, replacing the Puritan and Baptist faiths of the colony’s founders. Quakerism, with its fundamental philosophy that each individual should have direct communication with God, rather than allow a priest or minister to mediate, shaped the values of the Nantucket community for two centuries.
The Nantucketers dominated the whaling industry throughout the world until the mid-1850s, at which time demand for whale oil declined worldwide. Their remarkable achievements so inspired the writer Herman Melville that he wrote in his novel, Moby Dick, ‘What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should take to the sea for a livelihood!… Two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer’s. For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires …Thus have these . . . Nantucketers overrun and conquered the watery world like so many Alexanders.’
Indeed Melville was so inspired by the Nantucketers that he named the first mate of the ship Pequod Starbuck, the surname of one of the first settlers on Nantucket, Edward Starbuck. Edward Starbuck was a direct ancestor of David Whippy.
The perilous voyages undertaken by the Nantucketers inevitably brought their ships into the south-west Pacific Ocean, and were instrumental in opening up the Fiji islands to European influence. A young David Whippy would play an essential part in this, as we shall see.
All stories have a beginning, a middle and an end, and the story of David Whippy is no exception. Nor is the story of my interest in his life, albeit it has yet to end.
Thinking back, I realise that the first time I heard of this man was in 1980 when I was teaching at a school near Sydney, Australia. A new member of staff joined us that year and during the course of a conversation with her, Isobel told me how she had taught in Fiji a few years earlier and had married a Fijian man, whose ancestor was a white man who had come to Fiji in the early days and had fathered a lot of children.
She then told me that her married name was Whippy, but she used her maiden name because she didn’t want the children running after her in the playground singing ‘Greensleeves’!
Years passed and I forgot about this Whippy story until, in 2002, I found a brief account of David Whippy’s life in several Fijian history books. I was intrigued, and, as an historian, felt his story should be more fully told, but left it at that as I pursued other interests.
Unknown to me, in 2010 the descendants of David Whippy erected a memorial to him at the family cemetery in Wainunu, Fiji. The President of Fiji, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, was the chief guest on this occasion and in his speech, stated that,”There isn’t enough done to fully commemorate and give this great man the credit that he deserves.” And so the wheels were set in motion.
Imagine my delight when, in September 2013, I received an email asking if I would be willing to undertake this project of researching and writing a book about David Whippy? Would I what??!!
On 4 February 2014, the journey began in earnest as I sat at Brisbane International Airport and watched with mixed emotions as the Fiji Airways plane, in its distinctive livery of brown and white ‘masikesa’ designs, taxied into place, ready to whisk me away to commence my journey, following in David Whippy’s footsteps and researching the book I know I was born to write.
That day in February when I set out on this adventure was possibly even the same date that, 212 years previously, in 1802, a baby boy was born on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, to David Whippy and his wife Kezia, nee Bunker. Their third child, he was named David. Little could this deeply religious couple, themselves descendants of pioneers, know that destiny had marked this child for a very important role in the history of a group of islands in the remote South Pacific; islands whose peoples were only beginning to have any significant contact with the outside world. Captain James Cook had named the archipelago Feejee and today we know it as Fiji.
Ni sa bula vinaka from Levuka, the old capital of Fiji.
I am here on a very special journey, to trace the life and adventures of a man who was an important part of the history of Fiji prior to Cession to Great Britain in 1874.
That man’s name was David Whippy, who, in around 1825, as a very young man, found himself stranded in Fiji. How he survived, and how he came to be an important person in the affairs of his community here in Levuka, is the stuff that fiction is made of – but David Whippy’s story was not fictional … it happened and I am thrilled to be able to walk in his footsteps some 190 years after he first came to these islands.
