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Charles Ramsdell, Rescued Survivor of the Essex Tragedy{"1804-1866") Herein lies the singular case of a sixteen-year-old who was forced to shoot and then cannibalize his friend, Owen Coffin. In February 1821, Charles Ramsdell, "a lad,"with Essex Captain George Pollard, Jr. were adrift in an open boat on the uncharted empty expanse of the Pacific Waters, fellow castaways from the their sunken whaler, Essex. For more 90 days, starvation, dehydration and death accompanied the two survivors in their longboat. 1. "New Bedford Mercury, June 15th, 1821.      What happened to Ramsdell afterwards? Controversy swirls around him. Did he sail a second time with Pollard, on the Ship Two Brothers, as some accounts suggest?     As we commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the Essex Tragedy, the true facts of the life of Charles Ramsdell surfaced  for this historian. She Calls Herself Betsey Stockton: The Illustrated Odyssey of a Princeton Slave, by Constance K. Escher, released in January 2022 by Resource Publications of Eugene, Oregon, documents the 2003 discovery of the afterlife of Charles Ramsdell. That year, author Escher viewed the authentic crew list of Thames whaler, Betsey Stockton's (1798-1865) outward board ship of missionaries during their 158-day voyage from Haven Connecticut to Honolulu, Hawaii. That list of crew members listed "Charles Ramsdell, Nantucket,Mass, boatsteerer, 19," standing 5'6" with light complexion and brown hair." 2. ""List of Persons Composing the Crew of the ship Thames of New Haven whereof Is Master Reuben Clasby Bound for the Pacific Ocean," Manuscript, Signed, October 8, 1822, E791, Box 16, National Archives and Records Administration, Northeast Region (Boston), cited in Escher,Bibliography.187.   It is a welcome surprise and a relief to know of Charles Ramsdell's second voyage with Betsey Stockton. An uplifting passage from Stockton's missionary brother, Rev. Charles Samuel Stewart,documents Ramsdell passage from the weight of his guilt the saving of his soul. On the Thames, after a gale off of Rio De La Platta, Ramsdell approached Rev. Stewart on deck in the moonlight. In his published account, A Private Journal to the Pacific Ocean and Residence at the Sandwich Islands, Stewart wrote, "Ramsdell said to him, 'I know my soul will live forever, and without the grace of God, I know it must eternally perish. O Mr. S— I have found the right way to believe—it was the rightousness of Jesus Christ I needed. Now, the whole Bible is not against me, as it used to be, but every word if for me; because I se and feel, how God can be just and yet justify an ungodly sinner." Stewart,March 1823,Italic text A Private Journal, 69.  Rescued from of his bloody past, Charles Ramsdell returned to Nantucket, married twice, and grew to become a whaling master, himself.

Voyages with Charles Ramsdell at command: ship Lydia departed from Salen MA, 1835,arrived Nov 1837 from the South Atlantic; and ship Lydia, departed from Salem,MA, Dec. 1837, arrived home March 1840. See hppt:integratedstatistics.com/ejosephs/v2pages in American Offshore Whaling Voyages. As Charles Dickens would add, "He was recalled to life." ```` Constance K. Escher, Author