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Mercator Cooper (September 29, 1803 – spring 1872) was a ship's captain who is credited with the first formal American visit near
Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...
(now Tokyo), Japan and the first formal landing on the mainland
East Antarctica East Antarctica, also called Greater Antarctica, constitutes the majority (two-thirds) of the Antarctic continent, lying on the Indian Ocean side of the continent, separated from West Antarctica by the Transantarctic Mountains. It lies almos ...
. Both events occurred while sailing ships out of
Sag Harbor, New York Sag Harbor is an incorporated village in Suffolk County, New York, United States, in the towns of Southampton and East Hampton on eastern Long Island. The village developed as a working port on Gardiner's Bay. The population was 2,772 at the 2 ...
.


Early life

Cooper was born in
Southampton, New York Southampton, officially the Town of Southampton, is a town in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, partly on the South Fork of Long Island. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the town had a population of 69,036. Southampton is included in the stret ...
, to Nathan and Olive (née Howell) Cooper, one of five children, three of whom survived to adulthood. He went to sea on a
whaling Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industr ...
vessel in the early 1820s. Records show that he visited
Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...
(China) and
Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...
(South America) on whaling expeditions, and that he became captain of a ship in 1832. He married Maria Green at the age of 24, and they had three children: Nathan (died in infancy), Maria, and Sarah.


Visit of the ''Manhattan'' to Japan

On November 9, 1843, Cooper left
Sag Harbor Sag Harbor is an incorporated village in Suffolk County, New York, United States, in the towns of Southampton and East Hampton on eastern Long Island. The village developed as a working port on Gardiner's Bay. The population was 2,772 at the 2 ...
as captain of the 440-ton ship ''Manhattan'' on a whaling voyage. The saved twenty-two Japanese sailors triggered the trip of Captain Mercator Cooper to Japan. It was about the first of April 1845 when Captain Cooper passed by the neighborhood of St. Peters (a small island lying a few degrees to the S. E of Japan)to the northern ocean for whaling. When Captain Cooper was exploring the shore to hunt turtles, he met eleven Japanese sailors on the coast who had been shipwrecked on St. Peters many months ago. He took them to the shore, showed his vessel and informed them he would take them back to Jeddo if they trusted him. Captain Mercator Cooper decided to proceed them to Jeddo, although there is a clear rule published by Japanese court that prohibiting foreigners going to Japan. After Captain Cooper left St. Peters and sailed a day or two en route to Japan, he found a wrecked vessel on the ocean. This ship was from a port in Northern Japan and was initially shipping pickled salmon to Jeddo. Captain Cooper saved eleven more sailors from this ship and made sail gain for the shore of Japan. The ''Manhattan'' set sail for Edo to repatriate the sailors. Outside Edo Bay four of the survivors took a Japanese boat with a message that Cooper wanted to deliver the remainder to the harbor. The Japanese normally wanted to avoid contact with outsiders due to the
Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...
's official policy of national isolation. However, on April 18, 1845, an emissary from the shogunate gave the ship permission to proceed. "About three hundred Japanese boats with about 15 men in each took the ship in tow", according to Cooper's log. "They took all our arms out to keep till we left. There were several of the nobility came on board to see the ship. They appeared very friendly." Moriyama (The student of Ranald MacDonald) was an interpreter on the occasion of Capt. Mercator Cooper’s visit to Japan in 1845, he translated the government orders to the Captain into English. Japanese accounts place the anchorage of ''Manhattan'' at Uraga, at the mouth of Tokyo Bay. It had been over 220 years since so many foreigners had been so close to the Japanese metropolis, but no one from the vessel was permitted to actually land in Japan. The Japanese examined his ship and took particular note of
Pyrrhus Concer Pyrrhus Concer (March 17, 1814 – August 23, 1897) was a former slave from Southampton, New York who was aboard the whaling ship ''Manhattan'' that was the first American ship to visit Tokyo in 1845. Concer belonged to the Pyrrhus family and wo ...
, a crewman from Southampton, Long Island, who was the only
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
on board, and of a Shinnecock Native American named Eleazar. They were the first dark skinned men the Japanese had seen and they wanted to touch their skin. The interpreter from the Japanese side was
Moriyama Einosuke was a samurai during the Tokugawa shogunate, and an interpreter of Dutch and English. He studied English under Dutch merchants and Ranald MacDonald. He was called upon to assist shogunate officials during the "Manhattan Incident" of 1845, dur ...
, who would later serve during the
Perry Expedition The Perry Expedition ( ja, 黒船来航, , "Arrival of the Black Ships") was a diplomatic and military expedition during 1853–1854 to the Tokugawa Shogunate involving two separate voyages by warships of the United States Navy. The goals of thi ...
. The Japanese refused payment for provisions and gave the ship water, 20 sacks of rice, two sacks of wheat, a box of flour, 11 sacks of sweet potatoes, 50 fowl, two cords of wood, radishes and 10 pounds of tea, and a set of lacquer bowls for the captain, together with a letter from the Shogun. They thanked the ''Manhattan's'' crew for returning the shipwrecked sailors and told them to never return, not even to bring back more castaways, on pain of death. On April 21, 500 small boats towed the ''Manhattan'' 20 miles out to sea. Cooper took with him the map that charted the islands of Japan that had been found on the disabled Japanese ship. This is now located in the
New Bedford Whaling Museum The New Bedford Whaling Museum is a museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States that focuses on the history, science, art, and culture of the international whaling industry, and the "Old Dartmouth" region (now the city of New Bedford and ...
. News of Cooper's encounter was extensively publicized in the United States.
Matthew Perry Matthew Langford Perry (born August 19, 1969) is an American-Canadian actor. He is best known for his role as Chandler Bing on the NBC television sitcom ''Friends'' (1994–2004). As well as starring in the short-lived television series '' St ...
was said to have used the map on his visit to Japan on July 8, 1853. Cooper's home in Southampton is now owned by the Rogers Memorial Library. Pyrrhus Concer is buried in the North End Cemetery in Southampton across from Cooper's home.


First visitor to Antarctica

In August 1851, Cooper again left Sag Harbor, this time as captain of the 382-ton ship ''Levant'' on a mixed whaling and sealing voyage. Making a quick passage through the belt of pack ice in the
Ross Sea The Ross Sea is a deep bay of the Southern Ocean in Antarctica, between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land and within the Ross Embayment, and is the southernmost sea on Earth. It derives its name from the British explorer James Clark Ross who ...
, on January 26, 1853, he sighted land, an ice shelf backed by a high mountain some distant. The next morning, the ice shelf still in sight, with high mountains looming behind it, he sailed the ship close inshore and ordered a boat to be lowered. They made a landing on the ice shelf, reportedly seeing numerous penguins, but no seals – their chief objective. The landing occurred on what is now known as the Oates Coast of
Victoria Land Victoria Land is a region in eastern Antarctica which fronts the western side of the Ross Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf, extending southward from about 70°30'S to 78°00'S, and westward from the Ross Sea to the edge of the Antarctic Plateau. I ...
, in East Antarctica. It is arguably "the first adequately documented continental landing" in not only this area, but on the mainland of Antarctica itself. They stayed within sight of land for several days, sighting the
Balleny Islands The Balleny Islands () are a series of uninhabited islands in the Southern Ocean extending from 66°15' to 67°35'S and 162°30' to 165°00'E. The group extends for about in a northwest-southeast direction. The islands are heavily glaciated an ...
on February 2. At the conclusion of the voyage the ''Levant'' was sold in China. The logbook from the voyage is in the Long Island Room of the East Hampton Library in
East Hampton (village), New York The Village of East Hampton is a village in Suffolk County, New York. It is located in the town of East Hampton on the South Fork of eastern Long Island. The population was 1,083 at the time of the 2010 census, 251 less than in the year 200 ...
.


Death

Cooper died in
Barranquilla Barranquilla () is the capital district of Atlántico Department in Colombia. It is located near the Caribbean Sea and is the largest city and third port in the Caribbean Coast region; as of 2018 it had a population of 1,206,319, making it Co ...
, Colombia, South America. His date of death is sometimes reported as March 23, 1872, or April 24, 1872.


Notes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Mercator 1803 births 1872 deaths Southampton (village), New York People from Sag Harbor, New York Explorers of Antarctica American people in whaling 1845 in Japan Sea captains People from Southampton (town), New York