The Charles W. Morgan : The World's Last Wooden Whaleship

As America’s oldest merchant ship still afloat and the only wooden survivor of the once-vital whaling industry, Mystic Seaport Museum’s flagship vessel, the Charles W. Morgan, tells a complex story—one that reflects our changing relationship with the natural world and with the diverse populations of the globe over two centuries of American history.

As America’s oldest merchant ship still afloat and the only wooden survivor of the once-vital whaling industry, the Charles W. Morgan has a complex story to tell.

Elaborating on earlier volumes on the ship''s history at Mystic Seaport Museum, this new book offers an expanded account, chronicling the ship''s construction and launch in 1841 through its Thirty-Eighth Voyage in 2014—the first time the Morgan had been sailed in more than ninety years—and its continuing role today as an historic icon and the Museum’s flagship vessel. Chapters paint a picture of how whaling developed in Europe and the ways New England colonists adopted it as a profitable venture, and then, through the ship’s own story, proceed to sketch the evolution of America’s relationship with nature—and the whale, specifically—and with the many peoples of the world who were encountered by, or served aboard, a whaleship.

This is the story of a National Historic Landmark—one that reflects our changing relationship with the natural world and with the diverse populations of the globe through two centuries of American history.