Owen Chase

Owen Chase was the first mate of the whaler Essex, which was rammed and sank by a sperm whale 2,000 miles off the coast of South America on October 28, 1820. His Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex recounts that disaster. Chase passed away in 1869 at the age of seventy-one in Nantucket, MA.