Female Sailors, Cont.

Captain John Adams Luce, however, didn’t immediately return her to shore like Ann Johnson. Instead, he ordered her to swap jobs with the cabin boy, while they completed the whaling season. Georgiana continued to wear sailor’s clothing and be her feisty self for six months. After the America sailed into Port Louis on the island of Mauritius, Captain Luce arranged for her to have a job as a stewardess on a home-bound clipper ship.

Ironically, a year later both the clipper ship and the whaling bark were again in Port Louis. Georgiana was still serving as stewardess, having been signed on for another voyage. During a visit with Captain Luce, she told him that she had fallen in love with the second officer and they were going to be married. Years later, she and her husband often visited Luce on his farm on Martha's Vineyard where he had retired.

The ships, the sea, and the work of whaling were primarily a man's world. It’s not surprising that more women didn't attempt to do what Ann Johnson or Georgiana Leonard did – and that women like Eliza Brock, Mary Russell, Abby Jane Morrell, and Helen Jernegan felt so torn between land and sea.

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