Family Stories: The Whaler

Enos Pedro Goncalves was born in San Antonio, Cape Verde, Portugal on 16 May 1816. 

He was a whaler who came to Newport, RI in 1836 on the ship Roman. Upon arriving in the United States, he found that few people could pronounce his last name, so he used his middle name as his last name (with the first syllable having a long "e" sound like the word "pea"). 

Around 1840, Enos was a charter member of the first colored church in Newport, RI, the Union Colored Congregational Church.

Union Colored Congregational Church; 49 Division Street in Newport

Enos sailed the world. He sailed to Maui on the whaling ship Roman in 1843 and departed on the whaling ship Florida (both of which were later lost to Arctic ice in the Whaling Disaster of 1871). In 1850, he sailed on the brig Hallowell from Providence to San Francisco, where he might have done some prospecting for gold in Calaveras County. 

That's one trip across the Atlantic and then at least three (and likely four) trips around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America. Pretty remarkable travels.

Enos Pedro at his shoe shop in Newport (ca. 1888)

He eventually settled down in Newport and opened a shoe repair shop. Along the way, he and his first wife Cornelia Nokey had nine children in 15 years (only one of whom lived to adulthood) before she passed away in 1866. He married Experience Watson in 1868, and they had two more children (neither of whom lived to adulthood). Enos lived to the ripe old age of 90, and left a legacy of hard work, determination, and adventure that has inspired generations.