"The first mere mention of the White Whale’s name"
; or, the very first tribute to Moby-Dick
Last week, I looked back at some notable restaurants and bars throughout the 20th century, trying to find the very first establishment to take inspiration for its name — and often, its menu — from Moby-Dick. As far as I could discover, the trend began in the late 1920s with Frederic C. Howe’s Moby Dick Tea Room, fittingly on the island of Nantucket.
But I still wanted to know how far back the trend of naming anything after Moby-Dick actually went. The book was a commercial failure when it was published in 1851, and sold just 3,715 copies in his lifetime. But even if the Melville revival didn’t begin until the 1920s, might there have been some Melville superfans naming things after the white whale when he was still alive? Let’s jump back in the time machine and find out, starting around the end of WWII.
Moby Dick Naval Rocket (1946)
In May 1946, the U.S. Navy revealed its “newest and most powerful rocket motor in the world,” an experimental rocket dubbed “Moby Dick” capable of delivering 66,000 pounds of thrust tested for use in jet takeoffs and missiles. Moby Dick tripled the power of its previous rocket, “Tiny Tim,” and out-powered the German’s V-2 rocket by a third.
Despite the name, Moby Dick was not quite as massive as you might have been led to believe, coming in at just under 9 feet long and 17 inches in diameter, and weighing about 1,500 pounds. From what I can tell, though, the rocket was never actually used.
Moby Dick Book Shop (1935)
The Moby Dick Book Shop opened in 1935 in Los Angeles’ downtown Financial District. The shop was owned by Bill Shuman, an immigrant from Basel, Switzerland who was involved in several somewhat confused retail ventures in Southern California, including a pet shop called Puppyland (which sold all kinds of animals), a used furniture store in Long Beach (which he transformed into a book store), a new bookstore in San Diego (called Ye Olde Book Shoppe), and finally the Moby Dick Book Shop in Los Angeles.
The shop was initially located at 641 S. Grand Avenue in Los Angeles but agonizingly forced to move several more times. According to an oral history from a colleague, Shuman’s frequent moves were the result of some bad luck, like leasing space in a building selected to be razed to extend Wilshire Boulevard. In fact, he only moved back to L.A. at the insistence of his wife, who allegedly took large sums of money from his businesses to give to Aimee Semple McPherson, a Pentecostal evangelist and early religious media sensation.
In its day, though, the shop frequently placed ads in the paper looking for books to buy, open to seemingly any and every genre and even buying entire libraries wholesale.
Shuman also wasn’t above some cheeky, eye-grabbing classified ads, such as this one asking us to ponder the question: what if used books from the thousands of different homes could tell of what they had seen?
In another ad, Shuman asked: why not bring home a new friend — at 20% off, no less?
This classified ad I initially read as a threat (bring in your books or we’ll call the big guy…) but actually I think it just means they would come to you to pick them up.
Sadly, the Moby Dick Book Shop closed in June 1942, shortly after Shuman died of pneumonia at the age of 56.
Moby Dick Jr. (1895)
In April 1895, the Boston Globe reported that Frank Chase, captain of the tug boat Peter B. Bradley, killed a right whale which had been "many months meandering about the local harbor and bay” but keeping “playfully out of reach.” Chase was eventually able to close in on the whale and kill it with a bomb lance, an exploding projectile weapon used in whale hunts in the mid-to-late 19th century.
The whale, measuring about 45-50 feet long, was dubbed “Moby Dick Jr.” perhaps due to his “waistcoat pattern of white,” and slowly towed into port. Chase commented on the haul, "The only way you can describe it to landsmen is that he towed harder than a loaded sled over a gravel walk." Another report called it “the deadest whale seen here in many day” and let the jokes in poor taste fly like exploding harpoons.
He lies on his side in the still waters of Provincetown harbor, the deadest whale seen here in many a day. What killed him is not known, but he is supposed to have been bored to death by the attentions paid to him by Swampscott fishermen, whalers from cape Cod and others, coming at a time when there was an excess of iron in his blood.
However this may be, he is as dead as he ever will be, for already the aroma of his personality pervades the waterfront in the vicinity of his anchorage… The whale is of the masculine gender, beautifully decorated with a waistcoat pattern of white, which, with a very aldermanic look about the stomach, would inspire respect and invite closer inspection, were he not so very dead.
But in a scene plucked out of Chapter 89: Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, a controversy arose as soon as the whale came to shore. Capt. Charles Jones, Capt. Blaney, and Capt. J. L. Horton all met Chase on board his boat each claiming to have delivered the fatal blow with their own lances and harpoons, which a coroner’s examination would show as soon as one could dig out their implements from the carcass. All the while, crowds gathered at the North End park to catch a glimpse of Moby Dick Jr. and the failed attempts to lift him out of the water. The captains eventually agreed to split the profits.
Moby Dick the Parade Float (1884)
Traveling back another 11 years, in May 1884 the Galveston Daily News in Texas reported on a parade held by the Sons of Malta, a secret society whose mission it seems that to this day no one quite understands, but might have mostly been poking fun at other secret societies. Regardless, the parade, which was “interrupted by frequent and brilliant pyrotechnic displays,” was led by a Grand Marshall and staff on white horses, followed by:
A band,
“Traitor’s wagon, escorted by by six devils”
“Traitor’s coffin on wagon”
“Death, on a white horse”
“Houston Lodge #1,” and
“Wagon with Moby Dick”
And so on. As there were no photos or other record of this strange parade, we can only imagine what this Moby Dick on wheels might have looked like. Instead, please enjoy this Moby Dick float from Pasadena’s Tournament of Roses in 1954. The float was ridden by four “San Pedro princesses,” with steam jets sending a shower of spray from his spout.
Moby Dick the Sunken Schooner (1869)
Going back another 15 years, in September 1869 the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier reported that a schooner named Moby Dick collided with a large vessel off Maine’s Cranberry Isle during a storm. The ship’s captain and another man were “washed overboard and drowned.”
Moby Dick the Yacht (1854)
Finally, coming shockingly close to when Moby-Dick was still relatively fresh off the printing press are two mentions of what might be the very first thing ever named for the white whale. Fittingly, it was a boat. Although there’s unfortunately not much story to share, in August 1854 a yacht named Moby Dick was mentioned as having left the Port of Boston on a “pleasure excursion,” piloted by Andrew Trefethen of Saco, Maine.
There was another mention in the May 27, 1854 issue of New England Farmer of the same yacht (or was it a different one?) and its successful fishing trip, catching 310 cod and haddock in the span of a single morning, “the best haul of the season.”
Although I couldn’t find an exact match for an Andrew Trefethen from Saco, there was one born in 1821 in Newmarket, New Hampshire about 52 miles away. Several sources list this Trefethen as a seaman/boatman, mostly living in the Boston area not far from the water. In addition to the Moby Dick, he was also master of the Schooner “William Penn”. And to bring it all back around, it seems that — at least briefly — Trefethen owned a saloon on the corner of Emerson and Broadway in South Boston.
Sadly, there’s little else to report or from which to explain his early interest in Moby-Dick. But the history of things named Moby Dick, from kabob houses to cocktail lounges to amusement park rides to military rockets — until proven otherwise — begins with Capt. Andrew Trefethen and his Moby Dick yacht.
Excellent fun again. Don’t think I will find equivalents in Australia.