Footnotes to L.I. History

              ddle Islander a Whalei
By Thomas R. Bayleg
D;.niel H. Buckingham was born in Middle Island on December
27, 1823, in the old family homestead on the Bartlett road south of
Bartlett'! pond.    This was later owned by Willard Bartlett, Supreme
Court judge,  now is the spring lake golf club.	
Daniel received his education in'?—~"— '   " \
1 school and grew up
Middle Island until he was 17
years old, when he went to Port
Jefferson and served as apprentice to John W. Mather, the
shipbuilder,  for about two  years.
This was the period when the
whaling business was booming, so
he went to Sag Harbor and shipped on the ship Henry Esquire,
sailing from Sag Harbor on July
5, 1439. This voyage ended on May
9, 1845, and on October 10 of that
year he shipped out of Greenport
on the ship Nile, with Captain
Isaac Case. This vessel carried
4 boats, 3 mates and 4 boat steer-
ers.
The following account of this
voyage is given in Mr. Buckingham's own words as related in a
short history of his life written
by him in 1909. u
"After leaving Greenport on
October 10th, 1845 we Soon rounded Montauk Point and encountered a very severe gale which did
much damage to our ship in the
loss of one boat, two spars, and
the rudder was so badly damaged
that it was difficult to (rteer with
it. It was a question whether we
should return home for' repairs vt
continue to Rio de Janiero and
piake_ repairs. It was decided to
continue and we arrived there on
Christmas day, and after making
repairs we left there on January
1st,  184G.
"When five days out we lost our
second mate Frank Aekerly overboard one morning while his
; watch were reefing the fore top-
! sail. The wind was blowin™ fresh
and the main tack of the main
sail rove through the sail and belayed to a wooden pin which broke
and the main sail slatted heavily
and threw Mr. Aekerly across tlie
deck and overboard. He never
| came up and must have been
killed when he struck the davit
head. A fine man and officer, the
bop of Rev. Aekerly of Greenport,  a   llaptist minister.
"We proceeded on to Cape Horn
which we rounded after some
forty days, fighting our way
ftgWDSt heavy seas, and a head
current of 2 knots out of the
Pacific into the Atlantic. We got
around and sailed north reaching
the Island of Yahiti in the Bpring
of 1846, . .    ■
"We left, two men in the hospital there. There was one New
Bedford   whale   ship   there.     The
French had sentinels all around
and forbade trading with the
natives without a permit, but
Captain Case bought a boat load
of  oranges  of  a  native.
"After staying there about a
week we sailed north across the
line for the Sandwich Islands.
After recruiting at Lahaina we
started for the whale ground up'
north near Siberia. When the season came to a close and we were
not full of oil on account of the
weather, we sailed down to the
New Zealand whale grounds for
a season, and then north again
for another season before going
home. While stopping at Lahaina
one time we spoke and visited my
old ship the Henry, with my
brother  Buel on  board.
"I do not give any particulars
about stopping at islands in the
Pacific, the small ones at least.
We spent our last season whaling in the sea of Okotsk up north
of China, adjoining Siberia. We
had much fog and gales there and
when the season ended we headed for home, stopping at Honolu-'
hi.
"Uncle Sam at home was fight-1
ing the Mexicans but we lu>e\y I
nothing of it until it was all o»er.
There were no ocean cables then
and no canned goods, so our living was coarse. I never received.
but one letter in my two Voyages
and that was at Honolulu and
had been written about a year
and a half before.
"We sailed for home around
Cape Horn again and up the
coast of South America towards
the equator. When off the coast
of Brazil the men aloft raised
a sperm whale and when near
enough we lowered away the boats
and I put a couple of irons into
him and killed him. When his
blubber was tried out it netted
us 70 barrels of sperm oil. We
headed for home as fast as the
Nile could travel and she was a
good sailing craft. I remember
when we were bound out of Rio
on New Year's day we were in
company with a number of vessels and the Nile was as good as
the best of them. This was her
first voyage as a whale ship and
she was six years old.
"We arrived home on the fitii
of June 1818 after 32 months.
Captain Case's wife had died
while we'■■ were 'gone , end I had
lost  some' friends.'* ' ■    •