Seamen's Bethel
Seamen's Bethel
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File:Exterior seamensbethelnewbedford2006.jpg | |
Front elevation, 2006
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Location | New Bedford, Massachusetts |
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Coordinates | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
Area | New Bedford Historic District |
Built | 1832 |
NRHP Reference # | 66000773 |
Added to NRHP | 1966 |
The Seamen's Bethel (or Seaman's Bethel) is a chapel in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, located at 15 Johnny Cake Hill.
Contents
History of building
Built by the New Bedford Port Society, it was completed on May 2, 1832. It is a contributing property to the New Bedford Historic District, a National Historic Landmark.
The Seamen's Bethel was specifically constructed for the many sailors who called New Bedford their home port (mostly whalers), who considered it a matter of tradition that one visited the chapel before setting sail.[1]
The bethel was immortalized in Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick as the "Whaleman's Chapel", in a scene where a nautically themed sermon is given from a bow-shaped pulpit.
The pulpit was a Melville invention, but a replica of the one described in the book was added to the chapel in 1961. Other changes were made when the structure was repaired after a fire in 1866. The names of New Bedford whalers killed, and later all area fishermen, are noted on the walls of the bethel. Also noted is the pew that Melville sat in when he visited in 1840.
Moby-Dick
In 1851, Herman Melville published his famous tale of the white whale. In it he wrote:
- "In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot."
- - Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville
From this point on, the Seamen's Bethel came to be widely seen as a symbol of the whalers, and later as a symbol of their history.
In film
In 1956, John Huston shot a scene from the movie adaptation of Moby-Dick (with Gregory Peck & Orson Welles), in front of the real Seamen's Bethel, but interior shots in the movie were not shot on-location. This revitalized tourism to the area.
National Park
In 1996 the Seamen's Bethel, along with the New Bedford Whaling Museum (located across the street), the historic district and other icons of New Bedford whaling were collectively made into the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park.
Images
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Exterior seamensbethelnewbedford2006.jpg
exterior
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Interior seamensbethelnewbedford2006.jpg
interior, with bow shaped pulpit in front
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Epitaph1 seamensbethelnewbedford2006.jpg
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Epitaph2 seamensbethelnewbedford2006.jpg
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Seaman's Bethel, New Bedford, MA, 1968.jpg
Plaques at doorway, as seen in 1968
See also
References
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to [[commons:Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 506: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).|Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 506: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).]]. |
- Pages with broken file links
- Historic district contributing properties
- Commons category link from Wikidata
- Churches completed in 1832
- Landmarks in Massachusetts
- Churches in New Bedford, Massachusetts
- Chapels in the United States
- Moby-Dick
- Whaling
- New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park
- National Historical Parks in Massachusetts
- 19th-century American novels
- 1832 establishments in the United States
- Historic district contributing properties in Massachusetts
- History of Bristol County, Massachusetts
- Properties of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts