Brunswick (1827 ship)

History
United States
Name	Brunswick
Builder	Maine[1]
Completed	1827[1]
Captured	June 1865; burnt[1]
General characteristics
Tons burthen	295[1] (bm)

Brunswick was launched in Maine in 1827. She completed twelve whaling voyages before CSS Shenandoah burnt her in the Bering Straits in June 1865 on Brunswick's 13th voyage.

It is currently unclear what Brunswick did between her launch in 1827 and her first voyage as a whaler in 1834. As a whaler, most of her whale hunting took place in the North Pacific, though she also hunted in the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean on occasion. All the data below is from the American Whaling Voyages Database.^[1]

On 28 June, CSS Shenandoah burnt Brunswick, Alden T. Potter, master, in Bering Straits Narrows near Mys Dezhneva (“East Cape”), Chukotka.^[2] Brunswick was disabled. The night before she had run into ice and was stove in. A number of other whalers were around her rendering assistance when CSS Shenandoah arrived. Brunswick was beyond salvaging though Captain Potter had heeled her over to keep more water from coming in. The captains of the other whalers had come aboard to purchase at auction her cargo and moveable gear. Two heads of baleen had been sold and transferred to James Maury when a steamer approached. Suggestions by some of the captains that she might be a Confederate raider that had been at Sydney in February were dismissed. Shenandoah launched her boats and captured all 10 whalers. She burnt eight of them; she put the captured crews on two and sent them south.^[3] In all, CSS Shenandoah burnt 20 whale ships, occasioning one of the greatest episodes of losses in the region.^[4]

• Bockstoce, John R. (1995). Whales, Ice, and Men: the history of Whaling in the Western Arctic. University of Washington.
• Bockstoce, John R. (2006). "Nineteenth century commercial shipping losses in the northern Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, and Beaufort Sea". The Northern Mariner. 16 (2): 53–68. doi:10.25071/2561-5467.395. S2CID 247460066.