#famtucket

[copperbadge]

You guys want to see something cool?

This is my six-times great-grandfather’s signature. 

It reads 

Hezekiah Starbuck    This journal Book Bought (at?) Boston in the year of our Lord one thousan Seven hundred And Sevente

It’s the first page of a whaling journal Hezekiah kept aboard the Sea Flower in 1770. Not sure what his position on the ship was, but I have the date and the ship’s name so probably I can find out. Also, there’s a goddamn spreadsheet in the back, so that might help. (I’m sure this is standard for this kind of book but I did have a real moment of “Now I know where I get it.”) 

Hezekiah (in this case, Hez Sr., father of my ancestor Hezekiah II) was the last of my line to ship from Nantucket. He eventually moved to North Carolina and from there the family were no longer sailors as far as I know. Hez II died in Iowa and there’s not a lot of ocean in Iowa. 

[copperbadge]

For those enjoying my research tales of the Nantucket Starbucks, now you can get your very own Whalersona....

As a byproduct of my….personal ‘random whaling motivation generator’ that involved putting little scraps of paper in a hat…here is a much more involved Whaling Lad Generator that I made, have fun.

[copperbadge]

May I suggest the excellent PBS Digital Studios series on piracy, “Rogue History”, particularly concerning the history of women and POC pirates? Quick, fun and inclusive. May I also note that the China trade sailed out of Boston, and female pirate king Zheng Yi Sao (1775-1844) was an absolute LEGEND. 🏴‍☠️⛵️

Oh, thank you! I found the page here in case others are interested, I don't know if viewing is free or geolocked but I'm sure I can find it elsewhere as well if need be.

This reminded me -- I didn't think most of my Starbuck ancestors actually went to sea, but now that I know Hezekiah the Quaker shipped on a whaler, I was wondering if the other side of the family, with the notorious Mennonite Pirate Niehls, was out on the water at the same time. I went in and checked and the dates don't quite line up -- Hezekiah was in his 30s in 1770, and Niehls wasn't born until 1774, but what this means is that I was more or less correct that I should set the pirate-whaler novel around 1790.

I did find a document that sadly contradicts the story that Niehls immigrated by abandoning ship and sneaking ashore in Pennsylvania -- there's an immigration record of him coming from Amsterdam through Salem, MA. It was attached to the wrong member of the family, which is why I hadn't seen it before. Not surprising -- his father was also called Niehls Peter. Niehls who immigrated had a lot of aliases including Niels Peter, Niehls Peter, Peder Niels, and Cornelius Niehls Peter. I suspect his actual birth name was Cornelius Peder, and "Niehls" was a nickname. In addition to his father Niehls Peter, he had sons named Niels and Peter, and if my sense of humor is inherited then he definitely did that because he thought it would be funny.

I also found out his mother's name was Mette Jensdr, which I cannot stop reading as Miette Gender.

You gender Miette? You assign them pronouns like a birth certificate? Jail for the cis! Jail for the cis for one thousand years!

[copperbadge]

My Ancestors Sure Did Hate Some Puritans

Notwithstanding the purpose of their emigration from the mother country was that they might enjoy liberty of conscience in religious matters, [the Puritans] commenced the work of persecution, and enacted laws to restrain people from worshipping God according to the dictates of their consciences. Among other restraints, a law was made, that any person, who should entertain one of the people called Quakers, should pay a fine of five pounds for every hour during which he so entertained them.

Obed Macy wrote The History Of Nantucket in 1835 and was already talking extremely justified shit about the Puritans, who left England so that they could freely persecute all other faiths.

The History of Nantucket was recommended by a couple of sites as having more information about the colonization of Nantucket and some of my family members and it's...a whole lot to read, but also I suspect cousin Obed (he's a third-cousin way back) has an extremely subtle and dry sense of humor. 

His great-great grandfather Thomas Macy, one of the first white colonists to settle on Nantucket, was also pretty fun. Thomas was called to pay the abovementioned fine because he sheltered a couple of Quakers during a rainstorm and responded thus:

This is to entreat the honoured Court not to be offended because of my non-appearance. It is not from my slighting the authority of the honoured Court, nor fear to answer the case; but have been for some weeks past very ill, and am so at present; and notwithstanding my illness, yet I, desirous to appear, have done my utmost endeavor to hire a horse, but cannot procure one at present. I, being at present destitute, have endeavored to purchase one, but at present cannot attain it....

"I'm sick and there are no horses to rent and I can't afford to buy one, so fuck off Puritans."

Anyway the court case over him sheltering some Quakers during a rainstorm drove him off the mainland and led him to sail to Nantucket with Edward Starbuck (hey 10th great-grandfather!) to settle there. Which is just...really...Yankee. Like the spirit of New England was with Thomas Macy as he told the whole-ass government, such as it was, to go fuck itself, and straight up flounced off the mainland entirely.  

[copperbadge]

If you wanted to write a pirate whaling sailor novel, there's always explaining what the Dychev was doing before they entered the field of education. Something gay, no doubt.

The Dychev definitely has had an adventurous past. I specifically designed it as a brigantine (which technically is a type of rigging but shh) because they were made for speed and aggression -- the Dychev is extremely large, so not exactly for espionage as some brigantines were, but probably did a lot of armed escort and similar. Not a whaling boat, but possibly a privateer.

Be awfully funny to send a Starbuck to Askazer-Shivadlakia. Maybe connect them up with one of the proliferating Welsh pirates of the golden age of piracy. Quite a few Jewish pirates, too; a Jewish, Welsh transplant sailing home to Fons-Askaz with a hold full of gold and a random Nantucker Quaker he picked up off the wreck of a whaler would be good fun. Sort of regency romance meets The Sea Wolf.

(I should re-read The Sea Wolf. I do about every five years and always find something new and weird to enjoy about it.)

I don't know how well I'd do at a period piece outside of my areas of specific interest, which are basically WWII Art Looting and Classical History, but there are plenty of resources for historical research these days.

[copperbadge]

Did a bit more diving into family tree stuff today -- as long as I’ve paid for a month of Ancestry I might as well get my money’s worth -- and it is hilarious to watch the industrial revolution hit the various families. 

For centuries EVERYONE married and EVERYONE had 15 kids, and then suddenly anyone born after about 1870 or so has maybe two to four kids, and a lot of them either don’t marry, or there’s no records of their marriages. 

Also fun names I have found:

A guy named Columbus, nicknamed “Lum”

A guy named Hamilton, nicknamed “Matt”

Twins named Ily and Lily

Definitely going to at some point put someone in a book named Columbine (maybe Columbia) and nickname them Lum. 

[copperbadge]

I went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole with that article you linked on Mary Dyer ... and discovered in the process that I'm directly descended from Anne Hutchinson, who is considered one of America's first feminists and one of the founders of Rhode Island!

Oh, that's fun! What a neat thing to learn.

It's been a real Family Tree February, which feels like perhaps it has staved off the essential horror that is February most years. Perhaps every year as an apotropaic act I should simply spend February researching the lives of my ancestors and being grateful for indoor plumbing and that I will never have to kill a whale.

[copperbadge]

Your tag about you should really be tagging family and nantucket stuff did leave my brain shouting "Famtucket!" at me, so enjoy that portmanteau if you can. I also enjoyed the puritans info in that post because I routinely blame the puritans for everything even slightly annoying in MA, just on the theory that it is probably their fault somehow.

FAMTUCKET. I love that.

The other suggestion (thank you other anon in my askbox!) was *waits for sam to decide on nantucket tag involving a limerick* :D :D :D and believe me I tried my best. The best I came up with was "As for the bucket samtucket". :D So I'm torn between Famtucket and Samtucket but I think Famtucket is more accurate.

I've been entertaining myself lately by imagining a television series based on the colonization of Nantucket. There's potential there -- it's a period piece without most of the expensive period set dressing (no old-timey cars or carriages, no fancy homes, no need to take an existing city and make it look historical). Tons of roles for Indigenous actors, because there was a community of about 1500 Indigenous people on Nantucket when the white colonists arrived. And you only have about ten white families, so not a lot of need for background extras there.

There's so much scope for storytelling too -- the tension between the white colonists and the Indigenous people, interpersonal dynamics in both communities, religious tensions with the mainland, the eventual drama of whaling coming to the island. Lots of excitement to be had, lots of opportunity for character-driven storytelling.

[copperbadge]

Sam this is wild, I have been following you since lj (as a baby fan I corrected a britishism on a Torchwood fic not realising that was not good fandom etiquette) and today I have learned we are related- I am a descendant of the the Samuel Starbuck abolitionist family who went to Milford haven in Wales. Hello distant cousin! You may be interested to learn that a more direct branch of descendants recently sold of a whole load of papers about the Starbucks at auction.

HELLO COUSIN! That's what got this whole thing started, unless there's a different set of papers -- this one was mostly about your direct ancestor Samuel and his abolitionist activity, or at least that's how it was reported.

Also, I hope I was at least polite in my response to the correction :D

[copperbadge]

re: the quaker whaler ancestry thing. You might enjoy looking up the song "Nantucket" by the folk shanty group The Longest Johns if you're not familiar - it's based on the real story of Matthew Starbuck from Nantucket, who left his family whaling business to join the continental navy during the American revolution. Cool group, good song, possibly relevant to you.

Ah, I am familiar with the Longest Johns, but hadn't heard this one. How fun! It's not I think their best work, but I dig the vibe they were going for.

Mind you, I did find Matthew on the family tree; there's only one (for once) who was born at the right time to participate. He's not much to me -- we share an ancestor in Nathaniel (again; I think pretty much every Starbuck in America comes from Nathaniel) -- but interestingly he's first-cousins with Samuel II, the Abolitionist. Their fathers Edward and Samuel I were brothers.

A socially earnest lot, those Nantucketer Quaker Starbucks. :)

[copperbadge]

I truly thought Starbuck came from a ship name for Captain America/Bucky Barnes, since you used to write a lot in the MCU. You learn something new every day!

That's a totally valid assumption! I know a lot of people have always thought I took it from Starbucks, like I'm just a really big coffee fan (ironic since I don't drink coffee). It is funny that it legit could have been from the MCU since I was in it for so long -- I mean, that's ten years ago now when I joined the fandom. But yeah, I've been Sam Starbuck since my Harry Potter days in like 2003, I've just always used Copperbadge as my handle. (Well, except for FFN, where I was samvimes for a bit, but copperbadge is an easier handle to get, "samvimes" tends to get snapped up quickly.)

[copperbadge]

I had always wonder if you were related to the starbuck (valentine) who gave his name to the starbuck island (kiribari)

I'd never heard of this, I had to look it up! Fascinating reading. And it's a wildlife sanctuary now!

I'm related to Valentine, but not directly -- he's the great-grandson of Thomas Starbuck and Rachel Allen, my 7x great-grandcestors, but down a different line. Valentine was second-cousin to Joseph, my 4x great-grandfather.

My direct Starbuck ancestors weren't homebodies but they do seem to have been a bit quieter about their misadventures than Valentine or Samuel. Thomas Starbuck and Rachel Allen's son, Hezekiah I, is the one who left Nantucket, and since then that line has done the thing the whole family tree above me (including me, actually) has done, where nobody dies in the same place their parents did, and very rarely are two generations born in the same place.

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Seaman’s Bank in context of being at the heart of Cape Cod’s whole-town-sized gayborhood is objectively funny! 

I refuse to believe men who spent months and years together in a tiny isolated tall ship didn’t snigger when they saw Seaman’s Bank. I would argue my sense of humor about Seaman’s Bank is directly related to my impetus to go down to the sea. All I ask is a tall ship, a star to steer her by, and the opportunity to make a deposit at Seaman’s Bank when my journey is through. 

https://historyfirst.com/quaker-abolitionists-unseen-anti-slavery-archive-to-go-under-the-hammer/

Saw the name and thought of you - since I know you’ve mentioned Starbuck being a family name before

Huh. WELL. TIL that my ancestors were possibly Quakers!

Which is a dumb thing to realize this late -- I've known the Starbucks were whalers since I was a kid, and I've known that a lot of whalers were Nantucket Quakers since my 20s, so I don't know why I never put the two together.

This Samuel Starbuck might actually be an ancestor, I don't know -- "Sam" wasn't given to me as a family name, so I wasn't like, named for him, although if I do find out he's an ancestor I'm very much going to claim I was...

I should dig out my old family tree documents and give them a dusting-off, there's bound to be more data out there now than there was when I was making my family tree for school in the 90s.

Good on Samuel Starbuck, anyway, for his abolitionist activism! Well done old man. Proud to bear the name.

Someday I'm going to have to write a whaling novel. Or at the very least a sailing novel. Between the Mennonite Pirate on Mum's side and the Starbucks on my father's, it's a shock I have not already put to sea to seek my fortune there.

[copperbadge]

I had an idea for this story this morning, but in trying just to write out the idea I had to look up:

The colonization of Nantucket

My own goddamn family tree 

The golden age of piracy

The golden age of whaling 

The actual full dates of the Revolutionary War

I also needed the dates of the War of the Spanish Succession, but I looked that up just the other day so I just added it into the timeline, along with the date info for Shivadh unification. I had to make a timeline before I could write the prologue. 

It turns out that if you want a prominent Nantucket ship captain meeting a stereotypical pirate on the high seas, you’re working with a window of about 1750 to 1820. Even if the Nantucketer isn’t a whaler himself, Nantucket wasn’t really known for its sailors until the industry developed.

Now, those dates span seventy years, but there’s the Revolutionary War to contend with plus a few other limiters -- the golden age of piracy actually ends around 1730, but you can stretch it if you look at the death dates of some of the famous latter pirates (Jean Lafitte, for example, who wasn’t even born until the late 18th century). 

On the one hand, I think I can get away with it in all the specific ways that I need to if I set it around 1790. On the other hand, if I have to google historical references every fifth sentence I’m going to lose my mind. 

I’ll tuck these notes and the start of the story away for a later date when I don’t already have two books that need finishing and one that needs typesetting. But I do think I will enjoy writing about Macy Starbuck, Nantucket Quaker and continental navy veteran, and Marcus Salomon, the Shivadh pirate captain who takes him prisoner. They’re both extremely tired. 

If you wanted to write a pirate whaling sailor novel, there's always explaining what the Dychev was doing before they entered the field of education. Something gay, no doubt.

The Dychev definitely has had an adventurous past. I specifically designed it as a brigantine (which technically is a type of rigging but shh) because they were made for speed and aggression -- the Dychev is extremely large, so not exactly for espionage as some brigantines were, but probably did a lot of armed escort and similar. Not a whaling boat, but possibly a privateer.

Be awfully funny to send a Starbuck to Askazer-Shivadlakia. Maybe connect them up with one of the proliferating Welsh pirates of the golden age of piracy. Quite a few Jewish pirates, too; a Jewish, Welsh transplant sailing home to Fons-Askaz with a hold full of gold and a random Nantucker Quaker he picked up off the wreck of a whaler would be good fun. Sort of regency romance meets The Sea Wolf.

(I should re-read The Sea Wolf. I do about every five years and always find something new and weird to enjoy about it.)

I don't know how well I'd do at a period piece outside of my areas of specific interest, which are basically WWII Art Looting and Classical History, but there are plenty of resources for historical research these days.

[copperbadge]

cucurbitapuella

Ooooh! I'm not an expert on historical Friends from that area by a long shot but now I'm so deeply curious about Quaker naval involvement? Like how does that jive with calls to peace and simplicity at the time (I know it's pretty personal now, but we loosened up on a lot, and I ALSO know of a great many Friends who did jail time for draft dodging before conscientious objection was recognized)

You have in fact put your finger on the crux of Macy Starbuck’s character :D There were Friends who fought in the Revolution -- that aspect is based on Matthew Starbuck, in fact, who purportedly went and did exactly this -- although not many. From what I’ve read preliminarily, they were generally disowned by their Meetings for it, as much for supporting independence as for entering combat, but could be received back if they renounced their oath to the military. Many, many more Friends did indeed suffer for refusal to fight and have down the ages. 

All that said, Macy Starbuck, who goes by Nat, considers himself to be a “bad” Quaker in any case. He believes in the faith and even in pacifism but he also is keenly aware that Quakers are human and he has his limit. He didn’t have scruples about going off to fight, but because of his pacifism he tended to enter into battle with the goal of as few deaths as possible. He thus spent a lot of his time on things that aren’t “sporting” like sabotage and spying. And after the war he went into espionage with the explicit intent of preventing more war, and he’s had to get his hands a little dirty to do that. 

So yeah -- objectively he is not a bad person, not even a bad Quaker by many measures, but he thinks of himself as such and considers it a sacrifice he’s made for his community. Which Marcus Salomon, who is Jewish and ready to fistfight G-d should it be necessary and has already duelled at least one Rabbi, finds very attractive. 

If you wanted to write a pirate whaling sailor novel, there's always explaining what the Dychev was doing before they entered the field of education. Something gay, no doubt.

The Dychev definitely has had an adventurous past. I specifically designed it as a brigantine (which technically is a type of rigging but shh) because they were made for speed and aggression -- the Dychev is extremely large, so not exactly for espionage as some brigantines were, but probably did a lot of armed escort and similar. Not a whaling boat, but possibly a privateer.

Be awfully funny to send a Starbuck to Askazer-Shivadlakia. Maybe connect them up with one of the proliferating Welsh pirates of the golden age of piracy. Quite a few Jewish pirates, too; a Jewish, Welsh transplant sailing home to Fons-Askaz with a hold full of gold and a random Nantucker Quaker he picked up off the wreck of a whaler would be good fun. Sort of regency romance meets The Sea Wolf.

(I should re-read The Sea Wolf. I do about every five years and always find something new and weird to enjoy about it.)

I don't know how well I'd do at a period piece outside of my areas of specific interest, which are basically WWII Art Looting and Classical History, but there are plenty of resources for historical research these days.