Step between the jawbones of a whale at the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum and you enter the world of the 19th century seafarers who put the village on international maps (back when its scruffy waterfront was often considered more dangerous than life at sea).
The imposing Greek temple-front mansion, its roofline ornamentation simulating whaling tools and whale teeth, was built in 1845 for ship-owner Benjamin Huntting when his industry seemed to promise everlasting prosperity (sort of like a dot-com). But by the end of the 19th century, it was on the skids -- victim of a triple whammy: the cost of chasing fewer whales in distant oceans and the discoveries of petroleum in Pennsylvania (providing a cheaper source of fuel oil) and gold in California (diverting seamen as well as whaling ships, which now carried them west to seek an easier fortune). The mansion then became the summer home of Sag Harbor's greatest benefactor, philanthropist Margaret (Mrs. Russell) Sage -- at one point one of America's 10 wealthiest women.
Outside are several large kettles called try-pots, used on ships to "try-out” whale oil from blubber, and a replica whaleboat in which six men would battle a whale five times its size. (American Indians, who taught white settlers how to harvest food and oil from whales, herded the animals into shallow water to die).
Not counting changing special exhibits, the museum's conglomeration of artifacts includes ship models, logbooks, harpoons, navigation instruments and medical kits (stocked with an unsettling array of cure-alls such as stryctnine and handcuffs). Among the delicately carved scrimshaw pieces are decorative objects, toys and everyday essentials ranging from canes to corset stays.
The museum's hodgepodge also embraces items unrelated to whaling: treasures such as documents signed by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as well as a mishmash of more dubious value (early household utensils, Indian arrowheads, rock and bird's egg collections). But it all adds up to as much fun as a rainy afternoon in Grandma's attic -- an aura the museum never wants to change.
Newsday Photo/J. Michael Dombroski
