Jul 12, 2025
Captain William T. Shorey and family 1890s
William T. Shorey was a late 19th-century Caribbean-American whaling ship captain affectionately known to his crew as the Black Ahab, after Moby Dick’s protagonist. He was born in Barbados on July 13, 1859, and spent his life at sea. He learned navigation from a British ship captain and became a ship’s officer by the age of 21. After only a decade at sea, he rose to command whaling ships sailing out of San Francisco.