The purpose of the Quigley Institute for Non-Heterosexual Archival Archaeology is to restore history as it was, correct the accepted historical record, and to be honest with any findings concerning Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Gender Expression initially in regard to Whaling in the 18th through 20th Centuries, and eventually in all areas of history.
As I previously stated, inquiries about Homosexuality on whaling ships were answered not with cited instances but with assumptions implied in Moby Dick and just accepting it had to have happened as men were on long, all-male voyages with few choices for sexual release, following the laws of the sea regarding sex as opposed those on land, and, not being out of the ordinary or worth note, just happened and nothing was said, at least not in log books.
For me, this accepted assumption became reality with the Newport Log entry I had come upon when transcribing that log in 2016.
Until the summer of 2023, any of my inquiries to see if this was the first entry found related to Homosexuality got the same answer about assumptions and implications expressing the required interest without actually appreciating the significance, until I received a log entry from a professor of UMass Dartmouth, a friend, who while doing research on climate based on the readings of wind and weather contained in whale ship logs since they would return annually to the same areas to hunt, and their readings, compared over the years, showed changes over time that had been, had come across the log entry dealing with Mr. Smith getting lashes on the Charles Phelps among some papers someone he knew who was researching punishments and the reasons for them onboard whale ships had written down.
The book, “Unruly Desires, American Sailors and Homosexualities in the Age of Sail” by William Benemann was recommended by Silas Costello, a writer, illustrator, museum educator, and historical tour guide (https://www.sj-costello.com) who also has an interest in whaling History, deals with Homosexuality in the navy, a different culture at sea than whaling, has a chapter with other instances of Homosexuality.
I have expressed a concern that many log entries may have had references to Homosexuality that might have used terms unfamiliar to a transcriber or reader, perhaps code words, and were just glossed over, a common practice now, as so long as you get the letters of the words right so there is a transcript with no reason for a transcriber to actually understand what is transcribed. I did have to explain Onanism to quite a few well educated people, and have myself transcribed what seemed gibberish until after my transcription time at the museum I went back to figure out what I had just described. There was, also, the possibility that as a researcher might be looking for information relative to a specific topic, they might overlook something significant because it is not their topic.
“Worked the lathe” remained something transcribed at the end of quite a few entries informing the reader that an activity was taking place, but it was cross referencing with the writings of Sophie Porter that I found the captain was making replacement baseball bats. Whether I took the time to reveal the purpose of the lathe work or not, the action had been a definite one with a definite purpose that could have remained unknown if my curiosity was not peaked or if a transcriber other than myself were just dealing with producing a typed page with or without understanding what was typed.
This might not have grabbed the curiosity of another transcriber as I am sure there are things significant to someone or even a group of people of which I am not one that I sail right by.
In one scenario we know the nature of the activity, in another, it would be mentioned but open.
In blogs and on this site I have made references to the diary of Sophie Porter, which is actually the official log book of the Jesse H Freeman, which I consulted to fill in the details about social life that were not in the other ship logs at Herschel Island the winter of 1894-1895 as they were kept by the busy captains and first mates as business documents and contained the required information on weather, location etc. while Sophie Porter, accompanying her husband on the voyage had plenty of time to spend writing about daily life.
The only transcript I had found of “Sophie Porter’s Diary”, which I had accidentally found a link to when researching something else, was that done by Dr. Walter Vanast of McGill University who, according to his bio on www.academia.edu, is a Medical Specialist (General Adult Neurology), working at Kateri Memorial Hospital in Kahnawake, with mostly Mohawk patients. His Phd is in history of science and medicine and he writes mainly about early contact dynamics in Canada’s Western Arctic, especially the Mackenzie Delta Region, with its Inuit and Gwich’in peoples whose native community he is hoping could be reconstructed from the written record.
As a result, his transcription of what is the log of the Jesse n H Freeman concentrates on things connected to the Indigenous People while leaving out much that could have been in the original but not necessary for his purposes. As he states at the beginning of his transcription, “I have taken out sentences referring to the barometer and temperature, removing the former entirely and replacing the latter /with a numerical figure immediately after each date. I’ve also removed most wind directions which are highly repetitive and soon annoying. I’ve kept references to wind volumes airs light fresh blow and blizzards”
He also left out minor details in Sophie’s Log, as a multi-sentence description of a celebration on board ship attended by all the captains whose names and ships are mentioned, as were the details of the gathering including descriptions of food and decorations in her writing is reduced to the single sentence,”We had a party on board….” and that is all.
He would often mention an event like this, giving the Topic sentence, but leaving out the paragraph, to get closer to a more relevant entry that he would transcribe and include in detail.
When it came to mentions of Indigenous People he was more detailed and complete as that was his interest. He made sure to include the names of individual “Natives” and any medical situations and cultural practices Mrs. Porter wrote about while leaving out much of the detail in the entry that was about the crew and officers.
As part of his ongoing study of the Indigenous People on the Western end of Canada, Dr. Vanast also transcribed the Western Arctic logs of Captain Hartford Bodfish who spent seven winters at Herschel Island, five at Baillie Island, and eleven summers in the Beaufort Sea, kept from 1893 through 1899
Bodfish had begun as a deckhand, moved up to the rank of Mate, and eventually to captain of the Newport where he included in the logbook,
“Monday Feb 11th: A light breeze from the W.N.W. Cloudy and misty Bar. 30.10. Ther. -4 Got a load of meat put the Steward (Scott) forward for Sodomy and Onanism of Bark Wanderer one of the men deserted but was overtaken and brought back.”
Omitting the wind, weather and a reference to the meat delivery, Dr. Vanast, in accordance with his purpose, reduced the entry to
“Put the steward Scott forward for sodomy and onanism on Bark Wanderer one of the men deserted was overtaken and brought back.”
And the inclusion of this log entry, though not complete, kept the log entries sequential and complete.
This collection of Bodfish log transcriptions, just as with Sophie Porter, had major points with few details, except when it came to the Indigenous People.
The truth of what had been an ongoing assumption should have been a known fact as the abbreviated entry, as quoted above, appeared in the collection of logs the professor had transcribed 10 years before I had come across it while doing a transcription of that very same log, not known to have been transcribed in any form, when I was doing mine in 2006, one brief sentence, nine significant words in a 135 page document.
Either because of it being of no importance to his interest in Indigenous medicine and as important to him as was the meat delivery, it went by unnoticed and had been there while people claimed there were no such known entries.
Doing my transcriptions I noticed the terms ”sodomy” and “Onanism” as I was familiar with them for a variety of reasons, and took notice where the Doctor had not.
It sat unnoticed for 10 years but was there and visible, able to answer the question about Homosexuality as a real thing on whaling ships, but no one saw it. It would have been the same if he had chosen to delete the reference to the Homosexual activity so that we might only know that, on that day, the ship got a load of meat, the omitted fact to be discovered a decade later for the first time when I was making my faithful transcription.
Which is basically what happened.
So the conundrum.
The reference to Sodomy and Onanism was typed out in 2006 by someone who saw just words and attached no meaning or significance, thus not letting the world know that Homosexuality was no longer an assumption but a fact because he did not notice what he had found.
It was as if it wasn’t there while it actually was.
This might become an annoyingly common occurrence as with a new system of crowdsourcing transcriptions with, as the head of the department in the museum that does transcriptions explained, “our final edited product is crowdsourced, worked on by multiple people”, resulting in just transcribing random pages, not necessity connected as the claim, in spite of past realities including this one, now is, this is better than if one person “owned” a page or a whole log/journal” which seems to be countered by what has been found by transcribers working on whole logs over the years and the fact that an important piece of historical information had been in plain site without notice while people sought an answer that entry could have supplied and could when found.
I came along to the same log entry, transcribed it in full and made the discovery which technically had already been made with the person discovering it just moving on with no idea of its value. If he knew its value, he certainly would have offered it as the answer to the question he would have to know was being asked, even if only from having read Moby Dick in high school, and would seem to have erred by saying nothing.
Consider this.
Because it was on my radar, I saw the significance of the two terms and saw their place in correcting the accepted historical record. The original transcriber did not, so the log entry had been there but unseen.
In the dividing up of the Newport log into two parts, by total chance I got the section with the entry which might have been glossed over as just more words whose meaning may be known or unknown as part of the document and so are deciphered and typed with no other attention given if it had gone to the other transcriber who may or may not have seen the importance, while I was skimming past something extremely important to him as his family goes back to whaling on Nantucket.
This would mean not only was the partially transcribed entry left obscure for 10 years, but it could have been transcribed in its entirety and still have remained available but unseen with the knowledge simply overlooked.
This is why the Institute is important. We need to restore our place in history, finding us with our own eyes and replacing vocabulary and removing the veil.
So I amend my original claim when creating this site.
Dr. Walter Vanast typed the first found reference to Homosexuality on whale ships without, apparently, assigning any significance to it, and I came along and, when transcribing the same entry, saw it for what it was.
If his transcription of the Newport had been deemed sufficient enough to not call for a further transcription, in 2016 instead of being assigned the Newport log I would have been assigned the next one on the list, and this entry would have continued present but hidden until some future date beyond now.
That is why we as a Community, whatever we call ourselves, whatever flag we prefer, whoever we like to think started Stonewall must go back into the historical record and find us.
Obviously, others have found us but told no one, not even us.
I am sure it was not a conscious thing as I know my own experiences as a transcriber, but it is a good indication that we are the ones who need to start looking.
As it is not about credit but fact, and the fact is that two people of different ages, interests, and countries, had found the same fact and assumption definitely died, and the need to find ourselves has another illustration of need that goes far beyond whaling into the very fabric of history.
I will be an adult about this, and while still loving the idea I am, now at least, the first to see the significance of what is now fact, I will keep the tiara, but let the Doctor have it on weekends and major holidays.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
