IN MAY 1835, an American sailor named John Fryer swallowed four spoonfuls of turpentine and quicksilver, and hid himself under a berth in the fo’c’sle of the whaler Emily Morgan. For a second time, Fryer had been caught “trying to have connection with David Stanton in his hindermost parts.” Fryer was humiliated and miserably unhappy, and he wanted to die.
Same-sex encounters were fairly common aboard American ships in the 19th century, most frequently mutual masturbation, which was known by the seamen as “going chaw for chaw.” There were also shipboard romances, though these required a good deal of discretion, as they were officially forbidden by the captain and generally disparaged by the crew. Privacy on a crowded ship was at a premium, but aboard a U.S. Navy vessel, sexual encounters could be managed “between the guns,” i.e., in the shielded space between cannons. On merchant ships, which lacked these armaments, there was always a large cargo hold where trysting space could be found. The overarching rule was that all sexual encounters must be consensual, and it was this rule that John Fryer had violated, twice. It seems his shipmate, David Stanton, did not wish to have connection in his hindermost parts.
Fryer’s story is one of hundreds hidden in the logbooks of America’s maritime history. There was no convention of officially reporting such sexual misconduct that occurred at sea, and transgressions were often recorded only in the captain’s log, considered his personal property. Many logs were simply burned or pulped when they were no longer needed, but many survive, and they can provide an intimate view of life aboard America’s merchant ships. Occasionally a researcher runs across other sources as well. John Fryer’s story is related in an extraordinary affidavit prepared by the captain of the whaler Emily Morgan, and it is of particular interest because Fryer was a person of color.
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The enlistment description of David Stanton, who was assaulted by Fryer, reveals one of the more sinister aspects of the maritime trade. Though he was sixteen at the time of the assaults (and Fryer 21), when he joined the Emily Morgan’s crew Stanton was only fourteen, and at four feet, six inches, he was small for his age. Boys were a frequent sexual target of the older sailors, though many were able to hold their own through a practice known as “chickenship,” in which a boy provided sexual services for a shipmate (or shipmates) in return for money or goods. Though the full agency of the boys is definitely debatable, this arrangement was viewed as consensual at the time.
In Stanton’s case, he was not interested in Fryer’s attentions, and when the youth reported the second assault, Fryer attempted to end his own life with the turpentine and quicksilver. For Fryer, it had been an unhappy and tempestuous voyage. He had already been punished for fighting with other crew members, had stabbed a man in Paita, Peru, for which he was thrown into a Peruvian jail, and had tried twice to desert. The crew were aware of his wretchedness, and when he failed to appear for the 2:00 am watch, they thought he might have jumped overboard. The captain tacked the ship and steered back the same course for thirty minutes, tacked and returned, but there was no sign of Fryer in the dark water. He was discovered the next morning concealed under a berth, and was brought on deck, but “in coming aft was taken mad in consequence of the poison in which [it]took 4 men to hold him for an hour and a half.” When he recovered, Fryer drew a knife and tried to stab the shipmates restraining him.
Captain George Ray decided to put the troubled sailor ashore, and Fryer agreed that this was the best course of action. An affidavit was drawn up in which Fryer renounced all claim on the ship’s profits. (He had signed on for a one hundred sixtieth “lay,” which meant his potential share was meager at best.) The affidavit was signed by the entire crew, including the boy Stanton, and was then registered with the American Consul in Paita. John Fryer was left behind in Peru when his ship sailed away.
His story is particularly noteworthy because of what it suggests about life aboard an American whaler in the 19th century. John Fryer was a man of color, deeply troubled, and yet treated by his captain and shipmates with extraordinary forbearance. He was combative and unreliable, he tried twice to rape the youngest member of the crew, and yet when it was thought he had jumped overboard, the captain turned the ship around to search for him. Only when the crew felt he had become a hazard to them all was he separated from the ship. On British vessels at the time, men accused of even consensual sodomy were being flogged and hanged, but American sailors found much more compassion for their lot.
It is likely that John Fryer returned to America. As indicated by the presence of a United States Consul there, in 1835 Paita, Peru, was a busy trading seaport with many American vessels heading home each month. Fryer does not appear on any other crew list of whaling ships in online resources, and his name is unfortunately too common, and the facts about him too sparse, to trace him with confidence through the U.S. census. There is a burial entry for a “John Frier,” a native of Philadelphia, who died in New Orleans in 1837 at the approximate age of 22, a description that matches the sailor closely. He was buried in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, which from its inception welcomed strangers of all races. The unhappy sailor who attempted to end his life off the coast of Peru may have found a final resting place there.
Maritime history is a tangle of sailors’ stories. One of the shipmates who signed the affidavit concerning John Fryer was Jethro Hussey, a member of one of Nantucket’s close-knit whaling families. When the Emily Morgan returned to port and then almost immediately left on another voyage, Hussey chose not to re-up, but he perhaps recommended the ship to a fifteen-year-old relative, Rowland Hussey Macy. (Jethro’s mother was a Macy.) During this subsequent voyage of the Emily Morgan, Rowland had a red star tattooed on his hand. The tattoo became something of a personal symbol for the youth, and when later in life he opened his own emporium, Macy chose as the store’s logo a red star.
William Benemann is the author of Unruly Desires: American Sailors and Homosexualities in the Age of Sail (2019).
Discussion1 Comment
Hello Bill! Enjoyed the book very much. Happy birthday, too.