Moby and Herman: Part Three - The Chase

Sep 12, 2023

We bring our investigation to a close, tracing Moby's tree back to Scotland and talk through all of Herman Melville's own family's ancestral hopes. 

• Gregor Ehrlich

• Background on Herman Melville’s genealogy and Thomas and Allan Melvill’s attempt to prove their relation to General Robert Melvill comes several sources, including: 

• “Data on the Melvill Family,” the research put together by Allan Melvill, courtesy of the Berkshire Athenaeum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts

• Herman Melville's Malcom Letter, (Hennig Cohen and Donald Yannella, 1992)

• “Hudson-Mohawk Genealogical and Family Memoirs: Melville,” (ed. Cuyler Reynolds, 1911)

• Jean F. Melvill, “Melvill Genealogy,” Melville Society Extracts Number 95, December 1993

• Merton Sealts Jr., “The Melvill Heritage,” Harvard Library Bulletin XXXIV (4), Fall 1986

• Hershel Parker, Herman Melville: A Biography (Volume 1), 1996

• John Bryant’s biography of Herman Melville is Herman Melville: A Half-Known Life (2021)

• Melville lineage back to 13th century from Sir Robert Douglas’ The Baronage of Scotland (1798)

• Letters between Allan and Thomas Melvill about their ancestry and heritage are collected in “Data on the Melvill Family” (Berkshire Athenaeum)

• Descendants of David Melvill of Boston, Massachusetts and Newport, Rhode Island, Helen S. Ullmann, 2021

• David Melville’s (1776-1793) pewter porringer and plate are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City

• Wikipedia page for David Melville (1773-1856), inventor of the first gas street lighting. For more information see Daniel W. Mattausch, “David Melville And The First American Gas Light Patents,” Rushlight Journal, December 1998

• Herman Melville, Redburn (1849)

• For more about Herman Melville’s choice of names for his children, and particularly Malcolm, see Herman Melville's Malcolm Letter: Man's Final Love, by Hennig Cohen and Donald Yanella (1993)

• Moby discussing Moby-Dick from a video made for LA Library Foundation

Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Breakmaster Cylinder. Special thanks to John Bryant, Hap Hall, Elizabeth Doss and Gregor Ehrlich.