Isaac Whittemore

American sea captain Isaac Whittemore worked with the Russian American Company transporting sea otter hunters and trading furs. Whittemore was wrongly connected to the massacre of the Nicoleños. In 1856, a Santa Barbara Gazette article falsely claimed that Whittemore left sea otter hunters on San Nicolas Island in 1811 and picked them up after a massacre occurred. This event occurred in 1814 and Whittemore was not involved.

DATE OF BIRTH: Unknown
PLACE OF BIRTH: USA
DATE OF DEATH: 1818 (off the coast of South America)
PLACE OF BURIAL: Unknown


References
Howay, Frederick W. A List of Trading Vessels in the Maritime Fur Trade, 1785–1825 (Materials for the Study of Alaskan History). Kingston, Ontario: The Limestone Press 2 (1973): 93–94.

Morris, Susan L., Glenn J. Farris, Steven J. Schwartz, Irina V. L. Wender, and Boris Dralyuk. “Murder, Massacre, and Mayhem on the California Coast, 1814–1815: Newly Translated Russian Documents Reveal Company Concern Over Violent Clashes.” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 34, 1 (2014): 97–98n1.

Ogden, Adele. The California Sea Otter Trade: 1784–1848. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1941: 164.

Pierce, Richard A. Russian-America: A Biographical Dictionary. Kingston, Ontario: The Limestone Press, 1990: 538–39.

“The Lone Woman of San Nicolas.” Santa Barbara Gazette, 11 December 1856, p. 2, col. 2.

Last updated: November 17, 2018