Bark MORNING STAR on Hudson Bay, 1865

oil, 36” x 48”

$50,000

The New Bedford whaler Morning Star was built at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in 1853 and rigged as a three-masted bark. On her first voyage - to the whaling grounds of the Pacific, via Cape Horn - she left New Bedford on the 10th of November, 1853 and returned home on the 18th of May, 1857 after a very successful trip. Her last recorded voyage, she left New Bedford for Hudson's Bay under the command of Captain Charles Allen on the 14th of May, 1864 and was back in her home port on the 14th of October, 1865, her holds packed with 1,170 barrels of whale oil as well as 17,900 pounds of whalebone. Thereafter disappearing from record, it is assumed she was broken up as being no longer fit for service after twenty-two grueling years hunting whales.