As told by Samuel Berry to Lizbeth Halsey White
April twelfth, 1873, was a beautiful day. The farmers were
getting their ground ready for the oat crop and some were sowing oats; others
were working on the steamer Alexander LaValley—the French steamer that came
ashore at Southampton the twenty-third of January that year. The wages the men got
working on the wrecked steamer paid better than farming.
Edgar Green was aboard the wreck. He looked south over the
ocean and thought he saw a whale spout. He kept looking and he was sure there
was a right whale. . .
I steered Captain Barney Green that day. Our boat’s crew was
made up as follows: Captain Green boat herder, Samuel Berry boatsteerer, James
A. Hildreth, Edward J. Halsey, Emmett Sayre, and Edward H. Foster.
….
On that twelfth of April in 1873 the boats kept chasing the
whales but could not get near her. The men were getting discouraged. Captain
Green and the boat crew held a council of war and we made up our minds that we
could chase that whale till doomsday and then not get her, so we started in
towards the shore. We went about a mile and a half from the other boats and lay
there, lighted our pipes, and had a good smoke.
I was just about turning around to ask the captian to go
alongside the wreck and get some beer to put new life in us. What is that ahead
of us under water? There is the whale. Pull ahead.
….
Some wanted to take boats out and try to get the whale but
it was foolish to think of such a thing, the sea was too rough. Pyrrhus Concer,
a colored man who had steered one of the boats at the time we killed the whale,
took the train to Westhampton and got Capt. Frank Jessup to take him over to
the beach. He found the whale and was just in time for a few minutes later a
boat came from Pine Neck and if they had found the whale first probably we
would have had to pay salvage. Of course our harpoon was in the whale but the
could have cut them out and we had had one case of that kind and that was
enough.
When Pyrrhus left for Westhampton he could have bought whale
shares cheap but after he got back and told about finding the whale there was
great rejoicing.
Courtesy Lizbeth Halsey White Files,
Southampton Historical Museum Archives and Research Center
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