With great fanfare, Melville returns home to his Whaling City

Today a new set of eyes turns toward New Bedford’s harbor. 

The long awaited statue of Herman Melville, forged in bronze and gazing toward the sea, was unveiled Friday at the Seamen’s Bethel in front of a crowd of hundreds of dignitaries and fans. 

The 8½-foot installation, created by Stefanie Rocknak, features the celebrated Melville on a granite base with inscriptions from his famed tome “Moby-Dick.” He looks towards the port, across Buzzards Bay, and out to the sea where he would have sailed on a whaling ship almost two centuries ago, said Rocknak in an interview.

The Melville sculpture is flanked by whale ribs that curl around his body, with his hand on one rib and another hand in his pocket. Waves crest over his feet, making it appear as though Melville is emerging from the ocean.

Rocknak said that this visual element was meant to represent the transformative journey that Jonah undertook biblically and that Melville undertook when he stepped onto the whaling ship, Acushnet, here at New Bedford harbor, just over 185 years ago. Her design for the statue was selected out of a pool of 41 applicants and announced in early 2025. 

The design is largely inspired by Chapter 9 of “Moby-Dick,” where Ishmael and Queequeg sit separately in the Whaleman’s Chapel in New Bedford, listening to Father Mapple’s sermon about Jonah, the Old Testament character who was swallowed by a whale and later spat out. The fictional service includes a hymn that references the ribs of a whale, an image that immediately stuck out to Rocknak, she said.

“I think that this idea of Jonah and Melville … going through this journey, this tremendous journey, and coming out the other end, enlightened — it’s a pivotal moment in ‘Moby-Dick,’” Rocknak said. “In fact, I think it frames the entire novel.” 

Rocknak herself is not a Melville scholar, she admits, but she has read “Moby-Dick” twice, including the audio version as she created the sculpture, tuning in to mentions of New Bedford. 

She said she wanted to capture the essence of the writer with respect to its location, similar to the Edgar Allan Poe statue she created in Boston. She said New Bedford is not “just some incidental place where he stayed” but instead a central setting for Melville in telling the famed whaling story. 

A full congregation filed into the Seamen’s Bethel, which can hold around 180 people, said Phil Oliveira, president of the New Bedford Port Society. Visitors listened to soft organ music as they waited to hear speeches from the organizers and supporters that made the statue possible. The New Bedford Cable Network livestreamed the event, and it was streamed in the theater at the Whaling Museum for more guests to watch.

Speakers included Robert K. Wallace, Melville scholar and founding member of the Melville Society Cultural Project; Mayor Jon Mitchell; and other local leaders integral in the project. 

The event held within the Bethel closed with a dramatic reading of Father Mapple’s sermon in Chapter 9 by actor Sam Waterston, commanding full attention of the room just as it would have in the days Melville sat in these same pews. 

Wallace watched with a particular reverence, nodding as if he was hearing it for the first time.

“Melville died in 1891 with Moby-Dick largely unknown,” Wallace said in his speech. “Since then a growing number of artists, in a growing number of genres, have resurrected his life, his work and his spirit in creations of their own.” 

Mitchell underscored how intertwined Melville and the City of New Bedford are. The mayor said the statue is meant “to tell the story of the New Bedford that Melville recognized: audacious, outward looking, diverse, egalitarian and resolute.” 

The mayor also praised “Moby-Dick” as the “most famous work of prose in the English language.”

“It has inspired the emulation of countless authors, playwrights, musicians and painters the world over; it is the most assigned novel on college campuses… it has shaped America’s identity,” Mitchell said. “So, it is entirely fitting that today on the grounds of this chapel where he once worshipped, having been drawn to New Bedford’s great whale fishery, we dedicate a statue of Herman Melville, whose magnum opus continues to call us to reflect deeply on our place in the world.”

Another crowd of viewers waited outside in the sunny, mid-day heat for the black veil to be removed from the figure. As Rocknak and Mitchell pulled the cloth from the statue, there were whispers and proclamations of “how beautiful,” and “that’s amazing.” Melville was unfazed by the attention of the large crowd, phones pointed at him from every direction. 

The register that Melville signed to join the ship’s crew in December 1840 is housed in the archives of the New Bedford Port Society. Oliveira said this piece of history reinforces the integral importance of Melville to New Bedford’s history, and New Bedford to Melville’s. 

The expression on the statue’s face is what struck Oliveira most, he said.

“It’s powerful,” Oliveira said. “It’s deep, you know what I mean? There’s something going on there, it’s not just a face … so it’s appropriate that he’s looking out at the opening of the harbor.” 

Rocknak said she wanted to capture “the awesomeness of the whale, and Melville reacting to the awesomeness of the whale.”

The sculpture took two years to complete and was the biggest and most ambitious project she has done to date, she said. She hopes that visitors and passersby can come to understand that Melville “wasn’t just a guy who stayed there for a few days.” She wants visitors to truly understand that New Bedford made an impression on Melville.

Email Anna Albrecht at aalbrecht@newbedfordlight.org.