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## III. The Maritime Thread (1,380 words)

The history of the Williams and Church Cemetery is inextricably linked to the maritime economy that dominated New London County during the nineteenth century. While the burying ground sits on agricultural land in Quaker Hill, the lives commemorated on its stones were shaped by the rise of New London as a global whaling power. By the 1840s, the city ranked as the second-largest whaling port in the world, surpassed only by Nantucket. This industry employed thousands of men, including many from the inland farms of Waterford and Montville, and its hazards frequently determined the dates engraved on the cemetery’s monuments[^8].

### The Capture of the Alert

The most dramatic intersection of the Church family with naval history occurred during the American Civil War. On August 20, 1862, Captain Edwin Church, aged thirty-five, sailed from New London in command of the bark *Alert*. The vessel was bound for the Desolation Islands (Kerguelen Islands) in the southern Indian Ocean, a desolate whaling ground known for elephant seals and rough weather. However, the voyage lasted only twenty days[^9].

On September 9, 1862, the *Alert* was cruising approximately fifteen miles northwest of the island of Flores in the Azores. According to Church’s statement given upon his return, the crew had spotted a school of sperm whales and lowered the boats in pursuit. While the boats were away, a steamer approached flying the British ensign. As the vessel drew closer, it dropped the British flag and raised the Confederate stars and bars. It was the CSS *Alabama*, the notorious commerce raider commanded by Captain Raphael Semmes[^10].

The *Alert*, carrying a modest cargo of twenty barrels of oil from its recent catch, was defenseless against the steam-powered warship. An armed boarding party from the *Alabama* seized the vessel, ordering Church to report to Semmes with his ship’s papers. While Semmes received Church "civilly," he declared the *Alert* a prize of war. The Confederate officers ransacked the bark, prying open chests and drawers with crowbars and axes to seize nautical instruments and private letters. The crew was permitted to save only their clothing before being ordered into the lifeboats[^11].

The Confederate officers offered the *Alert*’s crew a choice: they could sign a parole and be released, or they could enlist in the Confederate Navy. The ship’s log, preserved by the owners, recorded the crew’s unanimous decision: "Thank God no one accepted the former of these offers." At 2:00 PM, the raiders set fire to the *Alert*. Captain Church and his men rowed fifteen miles to the safety of Flores, watching from the open boats as their ship burned to the waterline. It was one of eight vessels destroyed by the *Alabama* in that vicinity between September 5 and September 16, 1862[^12].

### A Literary Legacy

The destruction of the *Alert* resonated beyond the local maritime community because of the ship’s literary fame. This was the same vessel Richard Henry Dana Jr. had immortalized in his 1840 memoir, *Two Years Before the Mast*. Dana had served aboard the *Alert* during its earlier career as a merchant vessel in the California hide trade, describing it as a ship of "remarkable speed and beauty." In 1843, the Boston firm of Bryant & Sturgis sold the ship to Thomas W. Williams, a prominent New London merchant, who converted her for the Pacific whaling trade. Over the next nineteen years, the *Alert* proved highly profitable, delivering more than 25,000 barrels of oil to New London before her final voyage under Captain Church[^13].

Following the loss, Thomas Williams wrote to Dana to inform him of the ship's fate. In his correspondence, Williams expressed the bitterness felt by the New London maritime community, noting that the famous vessel had been destroyed "by wicked acts of our own countrymen." Dana later included this account in the "Twenty-Four Years After" appendix to the 1869 edition of his book, permanently linking Captain Edwin Church’s name to one of the most widely read American maritime narratives[^14].

### Return and Professional Standing

Captain Church arrived in Boston on October 28, 1862, seven weeks after the burning of his ship. Despite the loss of the *Alert*, his professional reputation remained intact. Just months prior, in September 1862, the Mercantile Insurance Company of New York had awarded Church a check for $100—a substantial sum at the time—in recognition of his seamanship during a previous voyage. Commanding the schooner *Franklin* from Desolation Island in February 1862, Church had encountered severe gales that left the vessel leaking badly. Rather than incur the expense of stopping for repairs in Cape Town, Church rigged extra pumps and kept the crew working them night and day, successfully bringing the ship and its cargo home to New London. Elwood Walter, president of the insurance company, cited Church’s "good judgment, energy, and courage" in saving the underwriters from loss[^15].

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### Footnotes
[^8]: Robert O. Decker, *The Whaling City: A History of New London* (Chester, CT: Pequot Press, 1976), 104.
[^9]: "Statement of Capt. Edwin Church, of the Bark Alert, Captured by Pirate Alabama," *The New London Chronicle*, 6 November 1862.
[^10]: Marc Songini, *The Lost Fleet: A Yankee Whaler’s Struggle Against the Confederate Navy and Arctic Disaster* (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007), 182.
[^11]: *The New London Chronicle*, 6 November 1862.
[^12]: "The Alert in Dana’s Book Later Owned in This Port," *The Day* (New London), 19 January 1935, 12.
[^13]: Richard Henry Dana Jr., *Two Years Before the Mast*, New Edition with Subsequent Matter by the Author (Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co., 1869), 458.
[^14]: Ibid, 459.
[^15]: "Insurance Testimonial," *New-London Daily Chronicle*, 17 September 1862, 2.