Did You Know? The United States Exploring Expedition

Call Him Ahab, But make sure you spell it right Lt. Charles Wilkes’ United States Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842 was a moonshot for its time, journeying from Virginia to Chile and Peru, Australia and Antarctica, through the Hawaiian Islands, around the Cape of Good Hope and eventually back to New York. Along the way, it made America’s first formal entry into Puget Sound. History remembers Wilkes as a tough skipper—supposedly the inspiration for Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.  His other legacies were detailed charts of the Oregon Territory, which included Puget Sound, and the 360-page Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition. He also left a lot of misspellings. Precision was not Wilkes’ defining trait. Like sailors before him—Christopher Columbus’ Indies/India gaffe comes to mind—when Wilkes came upon land, he sketched it on the chart, slapped a name on it and moved on. Of course there was Wilkes Land, which covers Antarctica’s eastern coast, but there were also more creative naming forays. You might expect an orchard in Appletree Cove, in Kingston on the Kitsap Peninsula, but there are no such earthly delights. Wilkes mistook dogwood blossoms for those of the apple tree. William Kittson may well have had a hard time convincing those back at his home port that yes, the New World’s Ketron Island was named for him. Midshipman George Hammersly was honored at Hammersley Inlet, and Colvos was all that Greek crewman George Musolas Colvocoresses would get for his namesake passage. And if spelling was not the forte of Wilkes, who nonetheless bestowed 261 names during his four-year expedition, neither was compassion. According to Seattle historian Junius Rochester, disobedient crewmembers were lashed with a cat-o’-nine-tails—a whip of nine knotted cords capable of nine times the flogging. But the Columbia River dealt the expedition’s greatest blow. There, Wilkes’ six-ship flotilla was reduced to five. The ships Peacock and Flying Fish tried to enter the bar, but only the Flying Fish made it through the high seas and harrowing shoals. All the men were safe, but the Peacock and its cargo of scientific specimens and navigational guides were a total loss.

 

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