New England Authors - 3rd in a series

New Bedford, Mass - New Bedford is trying really hard to establish itself as a tourist destination. Similar to Lowell, it has been declared a National Historic Park, as a former capital of the whaling industry. It does contain a wealth of extravagant neoclassical architecture from the early 19th century, as well as the cool Whaling Museum, featuring the massive skeleton of a blue whale. Now, there is a small Ocean Explorium with a few exhibits of living sea creatures too.

All this stuff is entertaining enough, but what really puts New Bedford on the map is its role in Moby-Dick. Herman Melville has been commended, not only for his literary genius but also for his indepth knowledge of the whaling industry. No big surprise - Melville knew so much about it because he spent 18 months on the whaling ship Acushnet, which set sail from this very port in 1841. "A whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard," he wrote years later.

I have to admit that I have not read Moby-Dick (not yet, anyway), but the first part of the novel vividly describes the New Bedford that we can still see today - the working waterfront, the Customs House, the boarding houses. The fancy homes that are set back from the waterfront were built by prosperous whaling merchants. "Yes," Melville wrote, "all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea."

The most evocative building in downtown New Bedford is the Seamen's Bethel, a small chapel that was built in 1832 by the Society for the Moral Improvement of Seamen. The idea was that this chapel would provide a respite "free from the demoralizing influences to which sailors are too often exposed."

In Moby-Dick, Melville wrote "[Few] are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot." With its pulpit shaped like the bow of a ship, the church is still open for services and special occasions.

This is also where Melville fans congregate for the Moby Dick Marathon, a non-stop reading of the hefty tome. The annual January-3rd event comemmorates the departure of the Acushnet from New Bedford and it takes about 25 hours. Just in case you don't get around to reading the novel yourself... here's another option.