Benjamin Morrell - Later Life, Death and Commemoration

Later Life, Death and Commemoration

After his return to New York, Morrell produced his Narrative of Four Voyages, a detailed account of his travels during the previous nine years, which was published in 1832. The book draws on Morrell's journals, but it is likely that much of the final text was ghost-written for him by a journalist, Samuel Wordsworth. There is no record concerning the book's reception on publication, except the comment of explorer and journalist Jeremiah Reynolds to Morrell's fellow-explorer Nathaniel Palmer that the account had more poetry than truth. However, a few years later Edgar Allan Poe drew heavily on the book (and other maritime narratives) when compiling his fictitious The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838).

Morrell's seafaring career continued, first with a voyage to the Pacific in the schooner Mary Oakley. This ship was wrecked on the shores of Madagascar. He then sought employment with the London-based shipping firm of Enderby Brothers, but Charles Enderby said that "he had heard so much of that he did not think fit to enter into any engagement with him." A few years later Morrell applied for a place on a French expedition, led by Jules Dumont D'Urville, to the Weddell Sea, but again found himself unwanted. He attempted to return to the Pacific in 1839, but contracted a fever in Mozambique and died there, aged 43 or 44.

As a reminder of his brief Antarctic exploits, Morrell Island, at 59°27'S, 27°19'W, is the alternative name for Thule Island in the Southern Thule sub-group of the South Sandwich Islands. During his Pacific travels Morrell encountered groups of islands that were not on his charts, treated them as new discoveries and named them after various New York acquaintances – Westervelt, Bergh, Livingstone, Skiddy. One was named "Young William Group" after Morrell's infant son. None of these names appear in modern maps, although the "Livingstone group" has been identified with Namonuito Atoll, and "Bergh's Group" with the Chuuk Islands.