Scrimshaw Sperm Whale Tooth, 19th-20th Centuries
date: label: date made
content: 19th-20th century
notes: label: Description
content: The obverse of this sperm whale tooth is filled with a freehand etching of a large whaling ship with all sails set moving from right to left. Below is carved the name "JOSH-HEWITT" in a pennant. On the other side is a set piece of four whaling tools: a harpoon, a boat hook, two head spades and a boat spade, loosely bundled together vertically on their handles by a pennant marked "THE FLORIDA NEW BEDFORD/ SEP 1858 To OCT 1861."
label: Description
content: Built at New York in 1821, this whaling ship named <i>Florida</i> (there were others as well) was already very old in the 1850s. Hailing from Fairhaven, MA (not New Bedford, on the other side of the Acushnet River) in 1858, this <i>Florida</i> did undertake a whaling voyage in the North Pacific from September 1858 to October 1861, collecting 750 barrels of sperm oil and 1660 barrels of whale oil. However, there is no one named Hewitt in the New Bedford Whaling Museum Whaling Crew List Database for this ship. The <i>Florida</i> was sold at San Francisco upon its arrival in October 1861, and its oil was shipped back east via another vessel. <i>Florida</i> was finally abandoned in 1871, after a remarkable 50-year career.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Maritime
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content: Cultures & Communities
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content: Scrimshaw
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content: Transportation
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content: Art
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: From the collection of Dr. and Mrs. Wilbur J. Gould
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1978.0052.31
label: accession number
content: 1978.0052
label: catalog number
content: 1978.0052.31
objectType: label: Object Name
content: scrimshaw
label: Object Name
content: scrimshaw tooth, whale
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: whale tooth (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 1/2 in x 2 7/8 in x 1 3/4 in; 13.97 cm x 7.3025 cm x 4.445 cm