Mercator Cooper

Mercator Cooper (born September 29, 1803 in Southampton (New York) , † March or April 1872 in Barranquilla , Colombia ) was an American ship captain . He became known in connection with two events: the first official visit by an American ship to Tokyo and the first landing on the Antarctic mainland.

Mercator Cooper

family

He was the second of his parents' five children and married in 1830. He had three children with his first wife. After his first wife died in 1858, he married a second time.

First visit by an American ship to Tokyo

As captain of the whaler Manhattan , he was able to take on the crews of two unseaworthy Japanese merchant ships south of the Japanese mainland on March 14 or 15, 1845. On this occasion he took a card from one of the abandoned ships, which he gave to the US government on his return home . This exact map of the Japanese islands was used by US warships on their voyage to Japan a few years later.

With the Japanese sailors on board, he set course for Tokyo Bay . Shortly before reaching the bay, four of the rescued disembarked and sent a message that the large sailing ship wanted to deliver the remaining survivors directly to Tokyo.

On April 16, 1845, an envoy from the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyoshi informed him that he had permission to enter Tokyo Bay. This was an absolutely unusual process since Japan practiced sakoku politics during the Edo period and strictly avoided any contact with strangers. When Cooper entered the bay, he was accompanied by about 300 smaller and larger Japanese boats.

He was warmly received, a Japanese delegation came on board and inspected his ship. The Japanese were particularly interested in the Afro-American crew member Pyrrhus Concer - apparently the Japanese had never seen a person with black skin before. He was thanked for rescuing the sailors and generously given supplies: water, 20 sacks of rice, two sacks of wheat, one sack of flour, eleven sacks of sweet potatoes, 50 chickens, two fathoms of wood and ten pounds of tea. On April 21, 1845, the ship was accompanied out of the bay by hundreds of boats.

First shore leave in Antarctica

A few years later, Mercator Cooper made history again. This time he was on the way as the captain of the ship Levant , which had the task of hunting whales and seals . On his journey through the Ross Sea he came very close to the mainland of Antarctica. On January 26, 1853 (in the summer of the southern hemisphere) land was sighted, he anchored and went ashore in a dinghy. Numerous penguins were found, but no seals - the ultimate goal of the mission. It was actually Antarctic mainland and not just ice shelf . The shore leave took place at Oates-Coast in Victoria Land and was the first documented shore leave of humans in the Antarctic. The logbook of this trip has been preserved and is now available online.

Cooper died in Colombia, where he retired. The time of death is given differently. Partly March 23, 1872 is mentioned, partly April 24, 1872.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.antarctic-circle.org/firsts.htm
2. ↑ https://archive.org/details/logbookoflevants00leva
3. ↑ http://www.longislandsurnames.com/getperson.php?personID=I07200&tree=Cooper#cite3
4. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

Web links

• Image on Flickr with biography