Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here this whale of a tale from the nineteenth century is actually true. At the close of the Civil War, a whaling ship captain died at sea, thousands of miles from his home in Lebanon, Connecticut. To preserve his body, they sealed his corpse in a barrel of rum, where it remained for more than a year until it was finally interred barrel and all in a Connecticut cemetery.
Captain Slumin Gray was fifty one years old when he, his wife Sarah, and three of their eight children set sail on the James Morey from New Bedford, Connecticut, in June of eighteen sixty four. Whaling voyages could take years, and Gray, known as a demanding and borderline cruel captain, was a softie for his family, who he liked to take along for his far flong expeditions. After nine months at sea, Captain Gray took ill with what was recorded as an inflammation of the bowels in the South Pacific
near Guam. Two days later, he was dead. It was Sarah who decided to preserve his body in a barrel of rum rather than giving him a burial at sea. The ship's log for March fourth of eighteen sixty four read simply, light winds from the eastward and pleasant weather. Made a cask and put the captain in with spirits if the body in a barrel story wasn't strange enough. The James Morey was then captured by a Confederate warship
tasked with disrupting Yankee shipping and whaling roots. This was June of eighteen sixty five, two months after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. But Lieutenant Commander James Waddell of the c SS Shenandoah either didn't get the news about the war being over or didn't care. He captured and burned twenty four whaling vessels in June
of eighteen sixty five alone. He and his crew would fire the final shots of the Civil War in August of eighteen sixty five, and then escaped to England to avoid the Hangman's news. But in the meanwhile, Wadell spared Sarah and the James Morey. He wrote, men of the South did not make war on women and children. He transported the ship and its pickled human cargo to Hawaii, from which Captain Gray's barrel continued. It's a long journey home.
The story goes that Captain Gray was buried in his run barrel in March of eighteen sixty six, but nothing at the Liberty Hill Cemetery indicates anything unusual. New England historian Alicia Wayland told the publication Damned Connecticut that there are no records of Sarah buying a casket or paying a carpenter to construct one, but the only way to confirm the barrel story would be to dig up or
old pickled Captain Gray. Today's episode is based on the article The Ballad of the Pickled Whaling Captain from Connecticut on how stuff works dot com, written by Dave Rouse. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.