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Volume CXXXIII, Number 2 |
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The world they left ashore
KATHRYN OSTROFSKY
STAFF WRITER
On June 27, 1860 the expedition left Thomaston for the open sea. Life in the United States was fast paced, constantly moving, and constantly changing. At sea, they left that life behind for an ocean whose enduring beauty and power never fades.
The United States of America that the boys left behind was a very different place than it is today. Tensions were mounting in the debate over slavery-- the debate that would in the next year erupt into a bloody civil war.
In an article titled "Pro-Slavery Tyranny," the Franklin Repository, a weekly newspaper from Pennsylvania, explained why the slave states were so devoid of Republicans. The culture of fear was so widespread and strong that "no one can be an active Republican and stay there, save a few localities along the border, unless he takes his life in his hand and holds it at the mouth of a pistol."
The title referred to the tyrannical practice of control that pro-slavery forces had on the press. The article explains that "hundreds who have subscribed and paid for the Tribune [a northern newspaper] are not allowed to receive it; thousands who would gladly take and pay for it are deterred from doing so by terror." The country, spiraling downward in turmoil, was near its breaking point, but the further the Nautilus sailed from port, the more peaceful the country looked.
The state of Maine was also vastly different in 1860. Agriculture was a main concern-as reported in the Richmond (Maine) Sun, "There will be two-thirds as much hay this year as there was last," but because of the favorable weather, the hay will be worth more than last year, so "taking into account the promising crop of corn, apples, etc., we shall not be so very poorly provided for, after all." Other than the crops, the most exciting breaking stories in small-town Maine were mere trivialities. For example, a blurb entitled "Cold" reported that "on Tuesday, the 24th, it was cold enough for fires, and overcoats were not uncomfortable in the daytime. Such a climate as we enjoy."
Another newsworthy story featured a man who frequented the Brunswick Telegraph office to check the time on the Mason Street Church's clock. He purportedly "desires to have the clock, building and all, removed so far west into the street, that he can gain a look at the same, from his own window."
Bowdoin College in 1860 also differed from the college that we know today. With President Leonard Woods at the helm, the College steered its undergraduates through a rigorous program where they could take Ancient Languages and Classical Literature from Professor Alpheus Spring Packard Sr., Chemistry and Natural History from Professor Paul A. Chadbourne, and Rhetoric and Oratory from Professor Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Bowdoin students had the opportunity to be involved in, among other things, fraternities, the Literary Athenian and Peucinian Societies, the Praying Circle, the Temperance Society, the Bowdoin Boat Club, the Olympic Cricket Club, the King Chapel Choir, the College Glee Club, or the Republican Campaign Club. A group of students including Professor Packard's son, Alpheus Spring Packard Jr., had recently formed the Cleaveland Society of Natural History in honor of the venerated professor Parker Cleaveland, who launched Bowdoin's science program. The Society noted in the June 1860 Bowdoin Bugle, "We expect great things - and small, from our delegate to the Greenland Expedition set on foot by the Williams Natural History Society."
Although today ships have more modern equipment, a sailor embarking on
an ocean voyage still sees the same view as his predecessors from the
Nautilus-- the same view as their predecessors, the pilgrims on the Mayflower,
or John Cabot on the Matthew, or Columbus on the Santa Maria. From serene
doldrums, to brisk breezes over white-capped waves, to fierce and menacing
stormy swells, being out on the Atlantic is timeless. Into this world
seemingly bereft of human intervention, these three Bowdoin men set out
to learn all they could about the natural world that lay beyond the boundaries
seen by most men.
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