Thomas Long (captain)

Thomas W. Long was an American whaling ship master.[1][2]

Thomas W. Long
Bornunknown
Diedunknown
Resting place71°39′N 129°8′E
OccupationWhaler
Known forDiscoverer of Wrangel Island

Among his commands was the barque Nile.[3] In 1867, as captain of Nile during a whaling voyage in the North Pacific Ocean, Long entered the Chukchi Sea and sighted Wrangel Island. He described its southern shores, deeming it was a bigger landmass. Long named it "Wrangel Land" after Russian Navy seaman Ferdinand Wrangel (1797 - 1870).[4] He also named Cape Hawaii and Cape Thomas on the same island.[5]

...sailed to the eastward along the land during the fifteenth and part of the sixteenth (August 1867), and in some places approached it as near as fifteen miles. I have named this northern land Wrangell Land as an appropriate tribute to the memory of a man who spent three consecutive years north of latitude 68°, and demonstrated the problem of this open polar sea forty-five years ago, although others of much later date have endeavored to claim the merit of this discovery. The west cape of this land I have named Cape Thomas, after the man who first reported the land from the masthead of my ship, and the southeastern cape I have named after the largest island in this group (Hawaii).[6]

Thomas Long died at Tiksi Bay, then known as "Gorely Bay", by the Laptev Sea. There is a cross there marking the site where he perished.[7]

Honors

The Long Strait, connecting the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea, was named after him.[8]

References

  1. Directory of Whaling Masters, Federal Writers' Project, p. 184
  2. Wrangel Island, The Geographical Journal. Vol. 62, No. 6 (Dec., 1923), pp. 440-444
  3. Oil Painting of Bark Nile
  4. A journey to the end of the world: The Arctic Sea's Wrangel Island
  5. John Muir, S. Hall Young<, The Alaska Route: The Cruise of the Corwin, Travels in Alaska,
  6. Text by Captain Long published in The Honolulu Advertiser, November, 1867
  7. Soviet Life, Issues 7-12
  8. William J. Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia, vol. 1 Google Books


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