What is the name of the chapel Ishmael visits in New Bedford?

The chapel Ishmael visits in New Bedford is called Whaleman’s Chapel.

In the early chapters of Moby-Dick, Ishmael and Queequeg attend a service at Whaleman’s Chapel before continuing toward Nantucket and their voyage aboard the Pequod. There they hear Father Mapple deliver his famous sermon on Jonah, using the biblical story to reflect on obedience, repentance, courage, and the dangers of the sea.

The chapel is fictionalized in Melville’s novel, but it was modeled on New Bedford’s real Seamen’s Bethel on Johnny Cake Hill. Melville visited that chapel in December 1840 and heard the preacher Enoch Mudge shortly before joining the Acushnet. The real building had memorial plaques honoring sailors lost at sea.

This connection explains a common mix-up: Seamen’s Bethel is the historical New Bedford chapel, while Whaleman’s Chapel is its name within Moby-Dick. The novel’s ship-shaped pulpit is also a literary embellishment, although the setting retains the atmosphere of an actual whaling port preparing sailors for dangerous voyages.