Spelling Counts

I have one small correction to make concerning the article “The Essex Disaster” (April/May). The seventeen-year-old Thomas Nicholson was actually Thomas Nickerson . I believe the spelling error was originally made by Captain Chase in his Narrative of the Whaleship Essex .

It might also interest you to know that Nickerson, too, wrote down the story of the shipwreck in his own words—and that his memoirs are at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Incidentally, I am a proud member of the Nickerson Family Association of Cape Cod.