08/17/2026
We know Cape Cod's maritime history. Or do we?
Whaling ships. Sea captains. Provincetown.
But did you know that seven Black whaling captains sailed out of Provincetown in the years after the Civil War?
One of them was Collins A. Stevenson, captain of the Carrie D. Knowles, pictured here. Stevenson made 16 voyages over 15 years and was one of the most accomplished whalers of his day.
His story is part of a much larger and more complicated history of Cape Cod—one that historian Dr. Michael Pregot explores in Slavery and Abolitionism on Cape Cod: A Massachusetts Incongruity.
Slavery and Abolition on Cape Cod with Dr. Michael Pregot
📍 West Dennis Library
📅 Sunday, August 23 | 2:00 PM
🎟️ Free & open to all
P.S. The Carrie D. Knowles is also the subject of one of Provincetown's great maritime mysteries. The schooner disappeared in 1904—and was never seen again. Five years later, a man named Elisha Payne claimed that Stevenson and his crew were being held in a Venezuelan prison. The story briefly revived hopes that the missing crew might still be alive, but it was ultimately dismissed as a hoax.
(Carrie D. Knowles and crew, courtesy of the Provincetown History Project.)
