Five Penniman Voyages

Captain Edward Penniman was born in Eastham (Cape Cod), Massachusetts, in 1831. In a career that lasted more than forty years, he became one of the most successful New England whalers of the 19th century. Penniman initially went to sea at the age of eleven, working as a cook on a fishing schooner and later as a fisherman in the New England area. His first whaling voyage came aboard the bark Isabella between 1852 and 1855, gaining experience as a boatsteerer, the crew member responsible for manning the forward oar and harpooning whales in the whaleboat. Between 1855 and 1859 Penniman served as a mate on the bark Minerva, then marrying Betsey Augusta Knowles following the voyage. In 1860, at the age of twenty-nine, Penniman would return to the Minerva as the ship’s captain. In total, over the next twenty years, Penniman would captain a total of five vessels: the Minerva (1860-1864; 1864-1868), the Cicero (1874-1875), the Europa (1876-1879), and the Jacob M. Howland (1881-1884). Among his many voyages, Penniman sailed twice to Alaska and through the Bering Strait from the North Pacific to the Arctic Ocean in search of new whaling grounds. In his second captaincy of the Minerva, Penniman and his crew were in the Bering Sea off Alaska toward the end of the American Civil War just as the Confederate ship CSS Shenandoah attacked the New England whaling fleet there that was intended to hurt a major industry in the Union economy. While the Minerva narrowly avoided capture, many other Yankee whaleships were caught and burned in June 1865 in the last hostile act of the Civil War.
As was common for many captains, who often spent years at sea away from home, Captain Penniman was accompanied by his wife and children on three of his voyages: the second Minerva voyage (1864-1868), the Europa (1876-1879), and Jacob M. Howland (1881-1884). Penniman’s wife Augusta (Betsey) kept records of her own along these voyages, including detailing the close call with the CSS Shenandoah in 1865. Penniman would return at the end of this voyage to Eastham, where his iconic French Second Empire home was built in 1868 and is now owned and maintained by the Cape Cod National Seashore of the National Park Service. This home is indicative of his success and wealth as a captain, as its elaborate style, unusual for Eastham at the time, reflected Penniman’s prosperity and the global reach of the industry in which he made his career. Indeed, over the course of his voyages, his vessels produced 4,237 barrels of sperm oil, 12,096 barrels of whale oil, and 166,871 pounds of whalebone, products that were central to the 19th century economy before the widespread replacement of whale oil by petroleum and other alternatives.
Penniman’s life is significant because it brings together several parts of 19th century maritime history: the New England whaling economy, family life aboard long-distance vessels, the expansion of American whaling into the Pacific and Arctic, and the disruption caused by Confederate commerce raiders during the Civil War. Penniman’s experience aboard the Minerva shows how the war reached civilian mariners thousands of miles from the main battlefields, while his career demonstrates how deeply Cape Cod communities were tied to global waters. Following his voyage in 1884, at the age of fifty-three, Penniman retired to his home in Eastham with his family as one of the most successful captains of his time.