February 23, 2005
Westport in the Arctic
Someone left a clipping from the Personals section of a paper – no
doubt a New Bedford one – on a table in the Bell School. When it was
left, and why it had remained on that table, is just another of the
mysteries that one encounters in a society like our own. The paper
dates from September, 1916 but we do not know the day:
“Mrs. A. C. Sherman has announced the engagement of her daughter Helen
Herschel to Russell John Paul of Newport, N. H. It will be remembered
that Miss Sherman, the daughter of the late Captain Albert C. Sherman,
was born on the steam whaler Beluga at Herschel Island, and was the
first white child born north of the Arctic Circle.”
It should be remembered as well that Captain Sherman, a whaling captain
who visited the arctic frequently, sailing out of San Francisco, was
born in Westport June 23, 1849, son of Peleg and Hannah Allen Sherman;
he died in New Bedford in 1912. He was married (to his first wife) in
Westport August 5, 1880; she was Mollie Allen, and died May 17, 1881.
Helen was the product of his second wife, Carolyn L. Nye Kirschbaum
(1858-1896), who died in the Arctic. The Mrs. Sherman of the notice was
his third wife. Helen Herschel did indeed marry Mr. Paul, and lived in
various locations, particularly in Hartford CT.
Helen Herschel Sherman was thus a daughter of Westport, and Herschel
Island (in the arctic north of Alaska) is just another of the many spots
Westporters – or their descendants – have reached.