George Pollard
Books
- Struck by a Whale The Essex Disaster and the True Story Behind Moby-Dick · Liszt Think
On November 20, 1820, a sperm whale rammed and sank the Nantucket whaleship Essex in the remote Pacific. Twenty men took to three open whaleboats, choosing a perilous eastward course over feared cannibal islands.
- The Endless Green Meadow…lled with spermaceti oil, and she carried twenty men whose names appeared in the ship’s register with the same precision as her dimensions: George Pollard, master; Owen Chase, first mate; Matthew Joy, second; and seventeen others including Thomas Nickerson, a fourteen-year-old cabin boy from H…
- A Vessel Fitted for the Sea…e Essex required twenty men to work her, and twenty men presented themselves, each with his own calculation of what the voyage might yield. George Pollard Jr., twenty-eight years old, assumed command on April 5, 1819. The appointment was businesslike. He had served on the Essex for four years…
- The Blank Page of the Ocean…ble return, the insurance against the risk, the careful calibration of credit and expectation that made Nantucket’s fleet possible. Captain George Pollard Jr., newly promoted at twenty-eight, commanded a vessel that represented the accumulated capital and confidence of the island’s whaling eco…