Updated on 22 August 2026 | “Dyer” was the name on the quarterboard and on the captain’s log. This 87-ton, 78-foot-long, two-masted, billet-headed schooner was built in Essex in 1865. John James was the master carpenter. It went on seven whaling voyages before its withdrawal in 1872. On six of those voyages, the master was Isaac Atkins Dyer. And on the other, George W. Dyer had the helm. The agent was Alfred Cook.1
1 American Offshore Whaling Voyages: A Database, by Judith N. Lund, Elizabeth A. Josephson, Randall R. Reeves, and Tim D. Smith; and Mystic Seaport Museum Inc., New Bedford Whaling Museum, and Nantucket Historical Association and “Alphabetical List of Ship Registers, District of Barnstable, Massachusetts, 1814-1913, Compiled From Original Documents Stored in the New Bedford Custom House,” prepared by the National Archives Project, 1938, accessible through HathiTrust.