Morrell, Benjamin, , New York 1795 1839 Male Explorer Sea Captain sealing captain and explorer, was born in Rye, N. Y. , the son of Benjamin Morrell.
His father, a ship-builder, removed his family to Stonington, Connecticut, when Benjamin was less than one year old.
After a childhood of ill health and with only a village-school education, the boy ran away to sea at the age of sixteen (March 1812).
Sailing from New York on the ship Enterprise under Capt. Alexander Cartwright, with a cargo of contraband provisions for Spain, he reached Cadiz in the midst of a heavy bombardment by the French.
On the return voyage the ship was captured by a British sloop and Morrell and the rest of the crew were held in prison at St. John's, Newfoundland, for eight months.
He made a number of deep-sea voyages, always before the mast, since his education did not fit him to be an officer, until he shipped on the Edward of New York under Capt. Josiah Macy [q. v. ], who conceived a deep interest in the young man, taught him navigation and promoted him as rapidly as was fitting, until he became master of his own ship.
Morrell thereupon commenced a series of sealing voyages into the South Seas, in the Wasp (1822 - 24), the Tartar (1824 - 26), and the Antarctic (1828-29, 1829 - 31), and it is upon his written narrative of these voyages that his reputation rests (A Narrative of Four Voyages to the South Sea, 1832).
The South Seas at this period were little known.
According to Morrell's account he was the first American seacaptain to penetrate the Antarctic circle.
He reached 70° south which had been surpassed in that period only by Cook (71°) and Weddell (74° 15').
His voyages were made in typical sealers' small topsail schooners, the largest being the Antarctic of 175 tons.
Presumably he was on the lookout for pearls.
His voyages averaged about 6, 500 fur-seal skins.
It would appear that a number of the discoveries Morrell claimed were already known and possibly charted.
Morrell (1844); the Am.
Quart.
Rev. , June 1833; the Monthly Rev. (London), Oct. 1833; and the first census of the United States, 1790. ]
Morrell's later journeys included a voyage to the islands of the Pacific on the Margaret Oakley, which, according to rumor, he pirated, and which was wrecked at Madagascar.
Morrell married first in 1819.
Upon his return from his first voyage as master, in June 1824, he found that his wife and two children had died.
His wife accompanied him on his fourth voyage and in 1833 published a Narrative of the journey.
Before sailing on his second voyage he was married to a cousin barely fifteen years of age, named Abby Jane Wood.
In addition to Morrell's Narrative of Four Voyages and his wife's Narrative of a Voyage 1829, 1830, 1831, see T. J. Jacobs, Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures in the Pacific Ocean, under Capt. Benj.
Before sailing on his second voyage he was married to a cousin barely fifteen years of age, named Abby Jane Wood.
