The Seamen's Bethel was specifically constructed for the many sailors who called New Bedford their home port (mostly whalers), who considered it a matter of tradition that one visited the chapel before setting sail.

Melville wrote: In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot.In the novel, a nautically-themed sermon is given from a bow-shaped pulpit by a chaplain named Father Mapple.

The character is generally believed to be inspired by Father Edward Thompson Taylor, who Melville likely heard preaching in Boston.

However, he was likely also inspired to create the character after hearing Enoch Mudge preaching at the Seamen's Bethel on December 27, 1840, while in New Bedford awaiting his own departure on a whaling vessel.

[3] The pulpit shaped like the bow of a ship in the novel was a Melville invention, but a replica of the one described in the book was added to the chapel in 1961 by Robert Baker, boat builder and naval architect from Westport, MA.