The Sag Harbor Whaling Museum. Whaling Museum in the front. Secret Society party in the back.
Next time you’re in the Hamptons, try to tear yourself away from the pool at Diddy’s place long enough to check out the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum. It only costs five bucks to get in. Eight dollars gets you a ticket to the Whaling Museum and to the Customs House museum next door.
The Sag Harbor Whaling Museum is open daily during Spring, Summer and Fall months.
The jaw bone of a what’s left of a right whale welcomes visitors.
The jaw bone of a right whale says hello
The building, designed by architect Minard Lafever, was built in 1845 for Benjamin Huntting II, one of the principals of the S. & B. Huntting whaling company. The building changed hands a few times over the years, serving as a home for Sag Harbor philanthropist Mrs. Russell Sage and as a masonic lodge before becoming a full time museum back in the 40′s. (The Masons do still meet upstairs there – I’m still waiting for someone to recruit me by the way, a lot of my people were Masons)
Today, Sag Harbor‘s marina is full of ridiculously expensive yachts (and people trying to figure out who the yachts belong too), but in the 19th century, Sag harbor was an important part of America’s maritime commerce system, serving as an official port of entry into the United States and as the home of a significant whaling fleet.
Native Americans on Long Island had been shore whaling and drift whaling for centuries, and not long after settlement, Europeans got in on the act. In 1761, the Europeans built a wharf with tryworks in Sag Harbor. The Hope, the first Sag Harbor ship to leave port with a tryworks and furnace on board, sailed in 1784 and made it as far south as Brazil. In 1789, Sag Harbor was named a port of entry by Congress, and it remained a port of entry until 1913. In 1848, James Fenimore Cooper, author of Last of the Mohicans, established a whaling company in Sag Harbor. And really, from about that time, Sag Harbor’s whaling industry went into decline, due mostly to the usual suspects and factors; the gold rush, the Civil War, depleted whale stocks, more competitive options to whale hunting, etc.
If you were to ask me, “What did you learn today?” I would respond, “I learned that James Fenimore Cooper started a whaling company. Before today, I did not know that.”
The interior of the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum sort of reminds me of the cluttered antique shops that you find throughout coastal cities in the northeast and New England, and it sort of works actually. It’s a hodgepodge of stuff, and probably only about half of it has anything to do with whaling, but there’s some pretty interesting stuff there. E.g., it’s not every day you get to see George Washington‘s autograph (they’ve got a few other presidents’ signatures as well, what with all the port of entry documents and certificates).
George Washington loved freedom (and didn't entirely hate slavery).
I recall this room containing antique toys, a gun exhibit, a bunch of documents signed by dead presidents, some classroom-type information on whales, some natural curiosities (e.g., an ostrich egg), and some Indian artifacts.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen painted whale’s eardrums before.
Painted whale eardrums with scrimshaw and narwhal tusk
Some daguerreotypes and an old Edison phonograph record.
Some stuff...
I’m sorry but “table croquet” seems like the worst idea that anybody ever had, ever.
I think they are building a new Strawberry at 42 E. 14th Street right now
I had no idea that hardtack was shaped like a giant saltine cracker. It actually looks better than I’d expected.
Eating too much hardtack - or not enough hardtack - gave sailors blurry vision
You want implements? They got your implements right here.
Whaling implements
And here’s something I’ve never seen before; a case containing different varieties and qualities of whale oils used by whale oil salesmen.
Samples of whale oils
Those are transcripts of the museums documents on top of that case. Pretty cool. Easy to get sucked in for a few minutes.
That dude was checking me out the whole time I was in there...
After checking out the whaling museum, I bailed on the custom’s house. I just don’t dig showing up at some old house and getting a one-on-one tour from some old lady, and that’s what I think was going to happen there. Instead, I bought this amazing antique wiener dog boot scraper at an antiques store.
Yes!
I had lunch at a place called the Dock House. It’s basically a clam shack right on the water, but since I ate and drank huge the night before, I didn’t get anything fried, just some grilled scallops and a salad. Weak, I know. But I make up for it with this ice cream cone.
At this point, I'd eaten half.
I know that I bought at least two other things; a marked-down piece of bean bag furniture, and something else that escapes me now. Actually, it was some locally produced honey. Sag Harbor seemed pretty cool to me. The little downtown/city center area has all the obligatory items; drugstore, market, antique shops, boutiques, and restaurants. Oh, and galleries. As an example, it’s neither the best nor the worst. It’s kind of like Cape Cod mixed with wine country. Right out of town there’s some farmland, produce stands, vineyards, etc. Actually, now that I think about it, it seemed a lot less crowded and busy than the Cape, even middle of the week during the summer. There’s definitely some Hamptons-trash spillover walking about, but I suppose I’d prefer French girls with gigantic sunglasses, high-heels and hot pants to packs of dudes in Red Sox caps any day.
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