[publications

OF THE

University of Pennsylvania

SERIES IN

Political Economy and Public Law

No. 20.

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN
WHALE FISHERY

BY

WALTER S. TOWER,

Instructor in. Geography, University of Pennsylvania.

Puhiished for the. University
PHILADELPHIA
1907

THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO., Selling Agents,

1006-16 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa

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[Publications

University of Pennsylvania

SERIES IN

Political Economy and Public Law

No. 20.

AHISTORY OF THE AMERICAN
WHALE FISHERY

BY

WALTER S! TOWER,

. . : ’
Instructor in Geography, University of Pennsylvansu.

Published for the University
PHILADELPHIA
1907

THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO., Selling Agents,
1006-16 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

PREFACE.

Whaling was once a great industry in the United
States. Whole communities were dependent on its
success. When voyages were successful there was
prosperity and plenty. When voyages failed there was
hardship and hunger. Fortunes were made and lost.
The foundation of many a stately old mansion in New
England rests on “oil and bone.”” But whaling was not
a passing boom, not a thing apart from all other interests,
not local in nature and local in effect. Its influence as
a social and economic factor was widespread. Whaling
was a unit in a great whole—a part of the vast industrial
interests of a growingcountry. It isso no longer. Whal-
ing is practically dead. The almost complete cycle of
whaling activity is a good lesson in economics—the
lesson of a flourishing enterprise quickly wiped out by
changing economic conditions. The history of whaling
forms an important chapter in the commercial history
of the United States.

The history of the American whale fishery, however,
is not an untried field. From time to time discussions
of different phases or periods in the development of the
fishery have appeared in print. But there seems still
to be a field for further work along much the same lines.
On the whole these previous works on the whaling
industry are incomplete—incomplete as regards both
time and treatment. The most recent history was
published in 1876, but the discussion of the years subse-
quent to 1815 is unfinished. Furthermore none of the

iv Prejace.

authors have accorded whaling its proper significance
as a factor in commercial development. The histories
have been chronicles instead of interpretations.

The present history of the American whale fishery
aims to give a comprehensive idea of its origin and
growth from colonial times to the present, emphasizing
the economic aspects. A chapter on the origin of
whaling in Europe, which may seem not to belong here,
has been introduced at the outset as a background for
our own early colonial efforts. The subsequent chapters
deal solely with the ups and downs of the American
fishery, and they attempt to give an intelligent inter-
pretation of the conditions inducing prosperity or
depression in this rather typical New England industry.
The chapters on the ‘Rise of Pacific Whaling,’ the
“Decline of American Whaling’”’ and ‘‘Whaling Products
in Commerce,” will prove the most interesting and
most valuable to the economist or the student of trade
and industrial conditions. Appendix I will be found
to give practically all of the available statistics relating
to the whale fishery during the last century. Most of
these tables have never before appeared in print, being
compilations and combinations from a variety of sources.
Appendix II gives a rather full list of references to books
and articles about whaling. A critical analysis of the
most important will be found in the introductory chapter.

Much valuable information and important data have
been obtained from a wide range of sources, to which
reference has been made in every case. I am indebted
to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D. C., for
aid received in preparing this volume. I also owe
thanks to Professor Emory R. Johnson, of the Uni-

Preface. Vv

versity of Pennsylvania, who has kindly read the manu-
script and offered helpful suggestions and criticisms;
to Mr. George R. Phillips, editor of the ‘‘ Whalemen’s
Shipping List,” and especially to Mr. George H. Tripp,
Librarian of the New Bedford Public Library, and his
assistants, for their unfailing courtesy and readiness to
aid in facilitating my work.
WALTER S. TOWER.
PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 1, 1906.

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CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

PAGE
Original and secondary sources of data—William Scoresby, “An

Account of the Arctic Regions’—Origin and development of
whaling—Obed Macy, “History of Nantucket’—Early Amer-
ican whaling—Daniel Ricketson, “History of New Bedford’—
Lorenzo Sabine, “Report on the Principal Fisheries of the Amer-
can Seas’—C. M. Scammon, “An Account of the American
Whale Fishery’—Pacific whaling—Alexander Starbuck, “His-
tory of the American Whale Fishery”—Colonial whale fishery—
Criticism of Starbuck’s history—G. Browne Goode, “Fishing
Industries of the United States’—‘Whalemen’s Shipping List.” 1

CHAPTER il:
THE ORIGIN OF WHALING.

Early European whaling—Biscay fishermen—Hakluyt’s reference
to first whaling—Norwegian fishery—Early references to
French whale fishery—Danish record—Beginning of English
whaling—In the sixteenth century—Later Biscay fishery—
End of French Whaling—Rise of the English industry—Spitz-
bergen fishery—Rivalry for whaling supremacy—Russian Com-
pany—Dutch and Spanish competition—Division of Spitz-
bergen grounds—Dutch success—South Sea Company—Green-
land Company—English reverses—English bounties—Dutch
supremacy— Decline of Dutch industry—Similarity in histories
Greaauicn,. Enshsh and. Aamerican whaling, «0 i.:ch joes <eanseen eG

CHAPTER Iii.

THE RISE OF AMERICAN WHALING, FROM THE SETTLING
OF MASSACHUSETTS TO THE WAR OF 1812.

Abundant supply of whales—Colonists’ knowledge of whaling—
Early records in colonial laws—Ownership of drift whales
First whaling in Massachusetts—Plymouth colony—Salem—

Vii

Contents.

Early whaling in Connecticut—The Long Island fishery—
Shore whaling—Boat whaling—Whaling from Martha’s Vine-
yard—Nantucket whalers—Condition of the fishery at the end
of the seventeenth century—Subsequent develogment—Rapid
rise of Nantucket—Organization of “shore” whaling—Capture
of first sperm whale—Deep sea whaling begun—Extension of
the voyages—Nantucket whaling before the Revolution—The
Long Island fishery in the eighteenth century—The Cape Cod
industry after the year 1800—Provincetown and Davis Straits—
The fleet from Boston—Rhode Island whaling ports previous
to the Revolution—Other minor ports—New Bedford whaling
1755-1775—Whaling difficulties—French and Spanish pri-
vateers—Royal bounty—Embargo of 1755—Gulf of St. Law-
rence and Belle Isle fishing grounds—Navigation laws of 1757—
Importance of colonial whaling interests—Restrictions on
whaling—Prosperity of 1767-1775—The whaling fleet in 1774—
The embargo of 1775—The Revolutionary War—Suspension
of whaling—Nantucket crippled—Special privileges to Nan-
tucket in 1781—End of the war—Whaling losses during war—
Revival of whaling—Ports and fleets—Prices—British market
closed—Hopeless prospect—Massachusetts bounties—Small
demand and over-production—Depression in whaling—Whale-
men remove from Nantucket—French market opened—French
Revolution—Stagnation again—Ups and downs of whaling,
1800 to 1812—Embargo of 1807—Outbreak of hostilities—Con-
dition of whaling in 1812—Whaling suspended during the war.

CHAPTER IV.
THE GOLDEN ERA OF WHALING (1815-1860),

Whaling from 1811-1815—Revival of whaling—Nantucket and other

ports resume operations—Successful voyages, new grounds,
high prices, good markets—Nantucket in the lead—Growth
from 1820-1835—Extension in the Pacific—New ports engaged—
Fleets increased—Condition in 1835—From 1835-1860—The
industry in 1846—Prosperity after 1846—Causes of the boom of
1846—Distribution of the fleet—Minor ports 1820-1860—First
signs of decline—New Bedford as the center of whaling inter-
ests—The New Bedford district—Foundation of New Bedford
PLOSPELUY Cle Lie yes Papas t tele ad Shera eames Rieke hsb Slobeaie eneotam eeiaieltye

PAGE

19

Contents. 1x

CHAPTER V.
THE RISE OF PACIFIC WHALING.

. PAGE
First Pacific voyages—Extension of Pacific voyages—First Arctic
whaler—The first whaler from San Francisco—Shore whal-
ing at Monterey—The rise of the San Francisco fleet—The
steam whaler introduced—Wintering in the Arctic—San Fran-
cisco as a rendezvous—Refineries on the Pacific Coast—San
Francisco now leads—The Arctic fishery..................-. 58

CHAPTER: Vi:
THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN WHALING.

Statistics of whaling at its height—The decline after 1857—Statis-
tics for representative years, 1846 to 1906—Extent of the de-
cline—First ports to abandon the fishery, 1841-1846—More
rapid decline from 1848-1874—Decline since 1875—Status of
the fishery, January 1, 1906—Decreasing prices of whale pro-
ducts—More valuable bone—Causes of whaling decline—Un-
certainty of the industry—Longer and more expensive voy-
ages—The California gold fever—The rise of the cotton mill
in New England—The discovery of petroleum—Whale pro-
ducts supplanted by petroleum products—Fffects of Civil War—
Losses during the war—The disaster of 1871—Losses in the
ESE CUCMET SA eb Mcpsitere a Nia iia mr atals Aacrelary wiala emote Tarai paras meee citar 66

CHAPTER ‘VII

APPARATUS AND METHOD OF CAPTURE; BOATS;
CREWS; WHALE PRODUCTS AND THEIR USES.

Primitive instruments—First iron harpoons—The harpoon, line
and hand lance—The harpoon gun—American whaling guns—
Bomb lance—The darting gun for Arctic whaling—Whaling
rocket—Other devices, nets, electricity and poisoned harpoons—
Vessels used—The whaleboat—Power launches—Sloops—
Schooners—Ships, brigs and barks in the Pacific—Arctic whal-
ing and the introduction of steamers—Composition of the pre-
sent fleet—The fate of whaling vessels—Crews of whaling ves-
sels—Indians in the colonial fishery—Foreigners in later years—
“Lay” system of wages—Whaling grounds—Atlantic regions—
Expansion in the Pacific—Grounds now frequented—Whale
products—Sperm oil and its uses—Whale oil and its uses—
Process of refining—Spermaceti—Whalebone and its prepara-
tion—Increasing value—Uses—Ambergris—In Morocco...... 80

x Contents.

CHAPTER VIII.
WHALE PRODUCTS IN COMMERCE.

‘ PAGE
Meager records of early colonial trade—The Long Island industry—

Boston and Connecticut ports—Whale oil the important com-
modity—Trade to England and the West Indies—Beginning
of trade from Nantucket—Competition with the English fish-
ery—Prosperity previous to the Revolution—The European
market—Foreign trade stopped by the war—Stimulation after
the war—Depression due to heavy English duties—Encourage-
ment by bounties in Massachusetts—The commercial treaty
with France and the French market—Unstable conditions,
1790-1812—The effect of the War of 1812—The renewal of
trade in whale products—Foreign shipments increased—Domes-
tic consumption more important—Foreign trade during the
Golden Era—The rapid decline of foreign shipments after
1865—Present condition of the market—Disappearance of for-
eign market for oil—Bone the mainstay of whaling—The effects
Gr Ve laiaere* CONEIMONS . «os cae sible cies shine sansa ee Rome 98

CHAPTER TX;
PRESENT STATUS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS.

The fleet of 1906—Comparison with previous years—The ports
engaged in whaling—Distribution and composition of the
fleet—Imports in 1905 compared with previous years—Prices
in 1905—Ports of entry for whale products—Whaling in the
future—Dependence on bone—Mainly in the Pacific—The Atlan-
tic fishery—No sign of revival .......... SE NEE SE RNeasy 48 112

APPENDIX I.

Statistics of whaling—Table I, tonnage of, and number of vessels
in, the whaling fleet, 1794 to 1906—Table II, vessels from the
different ports, 1804-1905—Table III, annual imports of whale
products—Table IV, annual exports of whale products—Table
V, average prices of oil and bone—Table VI, vessels and ton-
nage of the San Francisco and North Pacific fleets—Table VII,
annual imports at New Bedford and at San Francisco—Table
VIII, the Nantucket fleet and annual imports, 1762-1772—Table
IX, the Massachusetts fleet and annual imports, 1771 to 1775—
Table X. the Massachusetts fleet and annual imports, 1787 to
ROM Nemes Ne esc ace Ma NS oh nl Shi hsm mrciagtherg in Graictalere die bites histotaniee eae 117

APPENDIX II.

Bibliography—Standard references—Minor references—Periodical
references: whale fishery; whales and whalers—Occasional
FERETENCES | beac awe ews wowed ty rhe die A wle cigs 4 Kobic ee ieee kine 132

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Like many other branches of industry in America, the
whale fishery has received much attention in the literature
of the country. Narrative writing, histories of localities,
histories of the fisheries, and magazine articles, have
found a fruitful theme in recounting one phase or
another of this strange industry. But, strange as it may
seem, there is practically no complete history of the
whale fishery in existence. It seems appropriate, there-
fore, to introduce here a somewhat detailed analysis or
critical survey of the most important literature on the
subject.

In the bibliography, which appears as Appendix II
of this volume, a certain number of works by different
authors are classed as standard references; that is, the
principal books dealing with the subject of the whale
fishery. To discuss the different works in chronological
order will be simplest.

The first important work to be noted is that by William
Scoresby, entitled ‘‘An Account of the Arctic Regions,”’
dated 1820. Scoresby was an English naval officer,
and in his discussion of the whale fishery he deals
solely with the European, and principally the British,
industries. By far the most valuable part of this history
is the complete and detailed treatment of the origin and
early development of whaling. Scoresby seems to have
covered the original sources with a great deal of exactness

2 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

and in most cases he cites the authority for, or the
source of, his facts. So far as could be determined
Scoresby furnishes the only available English account of
this phase of whaling. From him has been drawn almost
all of the first chapter in the following history. Several
American writers have touched upon the same phase
of whaling history, but, one and all, they have drawn
their material from this same source. Scoresby’s book
is a classic as regards the early history of whaling, and
in addition it gives a very good outline of the principal
European fisheries up to the second decade of the nine-
teenth century. —.

Macy, the historian of Nantucket, wrote a history of
his native island up to the year 1836, which is a valuable
source of information concerning the early development
of whaling in this country. Almost until the time
Macy wrote, Nantucket was the leader in the whale
fishery, so that whatever he records takes on a double
value. From the very nature of the book, a general
history of the whole island, the references to whaling
are necessarily scattered. But the fishing was so
important to the islanders that a fairly connected history
of it at that place is more or less constantly interwoven
with the rest.

The ‘“‘History of Nantucket,’’ by Macy, is one of the
few important original sources in the history of the
whale fishery. A large part of the facts presented
are the result of years of personal observation and
experience on the ground. Much of the rest was obtained
from local records. The fact that many of these records
have since been destroyed by fire makes Macy’s book
practically the only good source of information con-
cerning the Nantucket fishery. The book also gives
an intensely interesting portrayal of the conditions in a
community dependent on a single industry—and that
industry as full of ups and downs as was the whale

Introductory Chapter. 3

fishery. Nowhere else in the literature is there a more
vivid account of the way in which a people’s environ-
ment literally forced them to a particular industry, and
how that industry shaped and modified social and
economic conditions. As a real interpretation of the
whale fishery, Macy’s book stands practically alone.

The ‘‘History of New Bedford,” by Daniel Ricketson,
is unfortunately not so valuable as Macy’s history, in
its discussion of the whale fishery. New Bedford was
a greater whaling port than Nantucket ever was, but
Ricketson seems to have given the industry relatively less
attention. This fact is particularly to be regretted,
because, as in the case of Nantucket, many of the New
Bedford records were destroyed by fire. Ricketson
gives many interesting and valuable facts concerning
the local industry, but there is little beyond that—prac-
tically nothing, in fact, to give much suggestion about
the industry as a whole.

In the decade between 1870 and 1880 there were
printed the only histories of whaling which have appeared
in this country. They were: the ‘Report on the Prin-
cipal Fisheries of the American Seas,”’ by Lorenzo Sabine;
the ‘‘Marine Mammals of the Northwestern Coast of
North America, with an Account of the American Whale
Fishery,” by Scammon; and, finally, Alexander Star-
buck’s ‘‘History of the American Whale Fishery from
its Earliest Inception to the year 1876.”

Sabine’s work needs little mention since it is neither
as complete nor as thorough as the other two. Scammon,
on the other hand, gives a fairly good portrayal of cer-
tain phases of the subject. In the first part of his book
Scammon devotes himself almost entirely to the natural
history of the whales, the different species, their char-
acteristics, distribution and relative values. The more
valuable part of the discussion is that part dealing with
the Pacific whale fishery, to which branch of the industry
Scammon gives most of his attention. Nowhere else is

4 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

there such a complete statement of the origin and devel-
opment of the fishery on the west coast. The accounts of
shore and ‘‘between season”’ whaling are especially valu-
able and at the same time very interesting reading.
Scammon’s work is essentially the statement of the con-
ditions of the western fishery rather than in the nature
of a history of the whaling industry.

Alexander Starbuck may be said to be practically
the only one who has written an actual history of the
whale fishery. His book was published in 1876 under
the title, “History of the American Whale Fishery from
its Earliest Inception to the year 1876.” The title,
however, is somewhat pretentious, since in several ways
the history is rather incomplete. But whatever its
limitations, Starbuck’s work is now, and always must
be, the classic treatise on the American whale fishery.
The many references to Starbuck in the following
chapters will show how frequently he has been drawn
on for facts. Starbuck has been accused more than
ence of being inaccurate and unreliable. But if these
accusations are true they must be founded on minor
points. In the use of the book there was ample oppor-
tunity to judge of its value. In most important questions
the authority or source is stated. Whenever possible
these were verified before being accepted for this present
history, and almost without exception they were found
to be correct.

The most valuable part of Starbuck’s work is in his
history of the fishery in colonial times. This part of the
work is the most thorough and the most complete,
though in many places the general arrangement of topics
makes it rather difficult to follow the real course of
development. Starbuck drew quite extensively from
Macy, and in most cases he acknowledges the fact. But
in other cases, Macy was unmistakably the original
source though no reference is made to that author.
In some cases, also, Macy’s full presentation conveys a

Introductory Chapter. 5

better, if not a somewhat different, impression from
that gained in reading Starbuck’s adaptation of it.
That, however, is a rather unimportant matter, but for
an authority it is best to use Macy directly wherever
possible, rather than to use Starbuck’s more recent work.

In the chapters covering the period from the begin-
ning of whaling by the early colonists, down to the end
of the war of 1812, Starbuck’s history is generally ser-
viceable and satisfactory. But the history of whaling
subsequent to 1815 is by no means as adequately treated.
There is no clear statement of the conditions underlying
the great growth of whaling interests from 1825 onward,
in fact, there is very little said about the growth itself.
Starbuck touches on some of the important causes
which started the decline of whaling and there he stops.
In a book of nearly 800 pages, about 170 odd pages are
given up to the historical discussion, and the rest is
devoted to lists of clearances, entries and cargoes, of the
individual vessels from 1784 to 1876. These records
are valuable in a way, but not sufficiently important to
deserve so much space when the history of the industry
itself was left unfinished.

Three rather serious defects appear in Starbuck’s
work: (1) the fact, already noted, that the period
from 1825 to 1860 receives but little attention in spite
of the fact that it was the most important era in the
whole history of whaling. Why Starbuck did not
discuss it clearly is hard to understand. (2) He places
no emphasis whatever on the commercial and economic
aspects of the industry. In fact, he scarcely mentions
the development of trade in whale products. Yet the
whale fishery was one of the most important of the New
England fisheries and its products formed a large part
of the country’s export trade during the early days of
whaling. (3) And finally, from his more or less irreg-
ular arrangement of topics it is rather difficult to trace
the growth of whaling interests. Starbuck’s work was

6 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

the best of its time, but it unquestionably left the field
open for a more thoroughly analytical discussion of the
whale fishery, especially in its economic relations.

It was stated that the works of Sabine, Scammon and
Starbuck were the only histories of whaling. The great
work on the ‘Fisheries and Fishing Industries of the
United States,’ compiled under the direction of G.
Brown Goode, in 1884, contains a history of whaling.
But in most respects it added practically nothing to
what had been done by Scammon and Starbuck. Page
after page are quoted directly from these two authors,
without going beyond what they wrote. Hence there is
essentially the same incomplete treatment of important
periods and important aspects of the industry.

This report is, however, very valuable in one respect,
that is, in its description of apparatus and methods of
capture. Scammon discussed that phase somewhat
and Starbuck touches it incidentally in a number of
places. But Goode’s compilation gives a very exhaus-
tive account of apparatus, boats, methods of capture,
and securing and preparing the products. On this
phase of the subject Goode is by far the best authority
up to 1884.

So much for the few works which have dealt with
the history of whaling. Only one other source needs
special mention, that is the ‘‘Whalemen’s Shipping List
and Merchants’ Transcript,’’ a trade journal published |
in New Bedford, Mass., since 1843. The ‘‘ Shipping List ”
began as a mere monthly transcript of clearances, entries
and cargoes—a small octavo pamphlet. Later on it
more than doubled in size and was enlarged to a quarto
Magazine, issued every week, which included important
discussions concerning the fishery. It is still issued
weekly, but itis now only a single sheet, the most eloquent
expression of the decline of whaling. The ‘Shipping List”
is without question the best single source of information
regarding the condition of the industry since 1845. Its

Introductory Chapter. Ys

files are a veritable mine of valuable facts and suggestions.
Its publication of statistics concerning the whale fishery
is alone ample justification for its existence. So far as
is known the New Bedford Public Library is the only
library having a complete file.

CHAPTER II.
THE ORIGIN OF WHALING.

A little over a half century ago the whale fishery was
one of the most prosperous and profitable industries of
Southern New England. The arrival and departure of
whaling vessels were everyday events at New Bedford,
then the greatest of all whaling ports. Now the coming
of a schooner full laden, from a short successful voyage
causes a flurry of comment as an unusual occurrence,
and the older generation recalls the days when whaling
was in its prime. The exciting stories of voyages, of
shipwreck, fierce encounters with whales, hairbreadth
escapes, as well as the more prosaic question of profits
and losses no longer furnish an important topic of con-
versation as they did in the younger days of our fathers
and grandfathers in many a New England town. Within
the history of this country whaling has risen, passed its
zenith and has now nearly sunk below the horizon of
industrial importance. Few industries offer an oppor-
tunity for such a complete study of the rise and decline.
No other industry’s history presents a more interesting
story.

It is a common thing to find, when whaling is men-
tioned, that many persons look upon it as having been
what might almost be called an American monopoly,
doing business mainly from New England ports. But
about the middle of the seventeenth century, when the
Massachusetts settlers were making their first attempt
in the capture of whales, the Biscay fishermen had
already extensively engaged in the whale fishery. The
Dutch and English had followed their examples. The

The Origin of Whaling. 9

Russia or Muscovy Company, of English merchant
adventurers, had succeeded in obtaining a royal charter
granting them a monopoly of whaling, and other mari-
time nations of Europe had turned their attention to
this new enterprise of capturing whales in the northern
seas. It seems appropriate, therefore, in a history of
the American whale fishery to trace briefly the origin
and earlier history of the industry in other countries,
for the sake of making clear whatever inter-relationship
there may be.

Most historians give the Biscayans the credit of being
the first to succeed in capturing whales, the date of their
operations being generally set as about 1575. It is hard
to tell, however, whether this Bay of Biscay enterprise
was the first regular whaling industry, for references to
the capture and killing of whales may be traced as far
back at least as the latter part of the ninth century.’

Probably the earliest authenticated account of a fishery
for whales is referred to by Hakluyt.? Ohthere, a native
of Halgoland, undertook a voyage to the north about
890 A. D., skirting the coast of Norway to the entrance
of the White Sea, until ‘She was come as far toward the
north as commonly the whale hunters used to travel.’’®

The fishery referred to was one carried on supposedly
by the Norwegians at that time, but the importance of
their industry is not known.

The Normans, in their invasions of France may have
carried with them the methods of harpooning and cap-
turing whales. It is possible, however, that the Bis-
cayans may have known these arts before the Normans

1Most of the following references to whaling previous to 1600 are
drawn from Scoresby: ‘‘A Voyage to the Arctic, and an Account of the
Northern Whale Fishery.’’ [Scoresby states (note, p. 10) that a work
by S. J. B. Noel, ‘‘ Mémoire sur 1’Antiquité de la Péche de la Baleine
par les Nations Européannes,’’ Paris, 1795, is the best authority on
ancient whale fisheries.]

?Hakluyt: ‘‘Voyages” Vol. 1, p. 4.

5 loc. cit.

IO A History of the American Whale Fishery.

came, for the French were undoubtedly acquainted
with the business at a very early date. Thus, in a book
entitled ‘‘Translation et des Miracles de Saint Vaast,”’
published about 875, mention is made of whale fishing
on the French coast; and in another book ‘‘Vie de Saint
Arnould Evéque de Soissons,’”’ printed in the eleventh
century, there is an account of a miracle performed by
the saint in helping to capture an escaping whale, in
which particular mention is made of the fishery with
the harpoon.‘ About the same time William the Con-
queror gave the Convent of the Holy Trinity of Caen
a tithe of the whales captured at or brought to Dive.'
This fact, with other similar entries in the records,
indicate that a more or less regular whale fishery was
then carried on near the coasts of Normandy and
Flanders. A French manuscript of the thirteenth century
makes mention of whale’s flesh being used for food.
The great D’Aussy, in his work “La vie privée des
Francais,’’ makes it appear that the flesh, and particu-
larly the tongue, was sold in the public markets of
Bayonne, Cibourre and Béariz, and that it was regarded
as a delicacy.* It is supposed that the whales were
taken along the coast and that the flesh was. therefore
sold ina fresh state. But whether whaling was a regular
industry is uncertain.

A Danish work, supposed to have been written
about the middle of the twelfth century, states that the
Icelanders were in the habit of pursuing whales and
that they lived on the flesh of some one of the species.’

It is not clear whether the English made any very
early attempts at actual whaling, the first references
to whales appearing in the fourteenth century. At that
time Edward III of England, had a revenue of £6 sterling

‘Scoresby, p. 12.

* Scoresby, p. 13.

* Scoresby, p. 14.
T Scoresby, p. 11

The Origin of Whaling. II

on every whale taken and brought into the French
port, Béariz. By 1338 this revenue was important
enough to be the subject of a petition by the English
admiral stationed at Bayonne, and it was awarded to
him in consideration of his naval services. By a royal
act in 1315 Edward II had reserved for himself the
rights to all whales cast by chance on the shore, and two
centuries later Henry IV gave the Church at Rochester
the tithe of whales taken along the shore of that bishopric.’°
But these and the other early English references, so few.
in number, all leave doubt whether the whales referred
to were pursued and killed in the open sea, or were
merely those accidentally run on shore.
Thus, up to the sixteenth century, the Norwegians,
French, Icelanders and English had in some degree
turned their attention to the revenue to be derived
from whales. Any estimation of the importance of the
whale fishery among these nations during the early
period is purely conjecture. About all the records show
is that the taking and utilization of whales was a common
practice at least among these four European nations,
and that the industry was apparently conducted on the
largest scale by the French. Certain it is that the
Biscayans, both French and Spanish, were the most
distinguished whalemen during the sixteenth century.
The Bay of Biscay fishery depended on a kind of
“fin whales”’ which were in the habit of frequenting the
bay at certain seasons of the year. When their capture
developed into a more regular industry, however, the
whales became shy and less abundant. The whalers,
desiring a more constant fishery than the brief season
in the bay, and being good sailors, pursued the whales
into the open sea. Before the end of the sixteenth
century, these Biscayans, following in the track of
Sebastian Cabot, had extended their voyages as far

® Scoresby, p. 14.
* Scoresby, p. 15-16.

12 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

west as the Banks of Newfoundland, touching Iceland
and Greenland on the way. From Gosnold’s journal
of his voyage in 1602 itis also probable that they cruised
southward along the New England coast.” It is impos-
sible to say what proportions the Biscayan industry
ever assumed, though it is unquestioned that the Biscay
whalers were the mainstays of many of the whaling
fleets of Europe for a long time after whaling became
an important industry. The Icelanders, with whom
the Biscayans came in contact, were attracted by the
prospect of a new branch of commerce. They fitted
out vessels, and uniting their energies with those of the
Biscayans, carried on such an extensive fishery that
toward the end of the sixteenth century the number
of vessels employed by the united nations amounted
to fifty or sixty sail annually." As late as 1721 twenty
ships were sent out on whaling voyages from different
ports in the Bay of Biscay, but toward the latter part
of the eighteenth century the occupation appears to have
been totally abandoned.”

The French in general had greatly neglected the
whale fishery during the seventeenth century. In 1784
they attempted to revive it, fitting out ships at Dunkirk
and offering inducements for Nantucket whalemen to
remove to that place, but before the project was well
begun it was interrupted by the French Revolution
and whaling as a French enterprise was practically
abandoned.

After the French, the English were the next important
nation to embark in the whaling industry. The first
English attempt of which there is any satisfactory
account, was made in 1594, when ships were fitted out
for Cape Breton, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence,
part of the vessels were to engage in hunting the walrus,

10 Ricketson: History of New Bedford, p. 56.

1 Scoresby, p. 18.
12 Scoresby, p. 163.

The Origin of Whaling. 13

the rest in the whale fishery. One of the vessels carried
home a large quantity of whalebone, which had been
cast up from the wreck of two large Biscay fishermen
in St. George’s Bay. This bone was probably the first,
at least the first recorded, importation of whalebone
into England."

It was the Spitzbergen fishery, however, which
attracted most of the English ventures, this northern
fishery growing out of the attempts to discover a north-
east passage to China and from the trading of the Russia
Company to Moscow by way of the White Sea and
Archangel. The discovery of the Greenland grounds
followed that of Spitzbergen as a natural outcome of
the spirit of adventure of the time. The merchants of
Hull fitted out whaling vessels as early as 1598, con-
tinuing regularly for several years, on the coasts of
Iceland, near North Cape, and about Spitzbergen after
its rediscovery by Hudson in 1607. In that short time
the whale fishery, as Scoresby says,“ “proved the most
lucrative and most important branch of national com-
merce, which had ever been offered to the industry of
man.” The English, however, had but little opportunity
to reap benefit from this trade before other nations ap-
peared as competitors.

Whaling was a novel enterprise in the commercial
world at the opening of the seventeenth century. It was
practical and easy because the whales were found in
abundance in convenient places, and the fishery was
expected to enrich the adventurers far beyond any other
branch of trade then carried on. It inevitably drew
the attention of all the commercial people of Europe,
Scarcely had the English established themselves in the
Spitzbergen fishery before they were followed by the
Dutch, Spanish, French, Danes and Hamburg mer-
chants.*

18 Scoresby, p. 18.

ky Oe
18 Scoresby, p. 100.

14 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

In 1612 the vessels of the Russia Company met off
Spitzbergen one Dutch and one Spanish ship from Biscay,
fitted for whaling. The Dutch vessel was driven off,
thus marking the beginning of a long struggle between
the two nations for possession of this much desired
trade. The next year, 1613, to protect itself from these
invaders, the Russia Company secured a royal monopoly
of the fishery. By this charter all other persons, whether
Englishmen or foreigners, were excluded from participa-
tion therein. The company prepared for an armed
enforcement of the monopoly. Again Dutch and
Spanish vessels were encountered with the addition of
some French," all of which were attacked and either
driven away or allowed to leave in peace on giving up
all or part of the cargoes they had secured. The con-
flicts, however, consumed much of the whaling season,
and in spite of the levies made on the foreign vessels the
venture ended in a financial loss for the company.

These conditions of rivalry, sometimes peaceable,
sometimes resulting in actual conflict and bloodshed,
continued until about 1619, when a conference was held
to adjust the differences. The English, Dutch and
Danes each claimed exclusive right to the fishery—the
first two basing their claim on priority of discovery,
the last on the supposition that Spitzbergen was a part
of Greenland. The coast of Spitzbergen is very irregular,
making many bays and harbors all of which were largely
resorted to by whales. It was finally agreed that these
bays and harbors were to be divided among the different
nations and were to be considered the sole possessions of
those to whom they were allotted.'7 These arrange-
ments having been adopted, whaling was carried on
more peacefully, each nation, including English, Dutch,
Danes, Hamburgers and Biscayans carrying on the

8 Scoresby, p. 25-26.
17 Scoresby, p. 36.

The Origin of Whaling. 15

fishery exclusively in its own possession or along the
sea coast, which was free for all.

After the division of the whaling grounds the Dutch
prosecuted their fishery with perseverance and profit.
They were successfully imitated by the Hamburg mer-
chants and by other Elbe fishermen. But the English
made only occasional voyages. Sometimes the Russia
Company and sometimes London merchants sent out
vessels, but more often the English vessels engaged in
other branches of trade. The English, as well as all
the other early adventurers in the whale fishery, were
dependent on the Biscayans, for they, from long years
of training, were skilled in the business. Harpooners,
coopers and cutters of fat, the most important officers,
were usually all Biscayans.* This dependence on
foreigners for help was one of the chief causes of the
early English failures in the whale fishery.

So consistently unsuccessful were the English whalers
that the British Parliament in 1672 deemed it necessary
to pass an act to stimulate the industry. All whale
products were exempted from import duties for a period
of ten years, except when imported through colonies.
Colonial imports paid duties of six shillings per ton for
oil and fifty shillings per ton for bone, while foreign
imports paid £9 and £18 respectively. But in spite
of the fact that the foreign whale fishery was successful,
the British attempts resulted mainly in failure.”

In 1725 the South Sea Company embarked in the
whaling business with twelve ships, but met with only
indifferent success. The company persevered, however,
for eight years, when, in 1732, whaling was abandoned
after the loss of large sums of money. Another company,
known as the Greenland Company, had been chartered

8 Scoresby, p. 38.

19 Scoresby, p. 46.

20 Scoresby, p. 39.
21 Scoresby, p. 64.

16 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

toward the end of the seventeenth century mainly with
a view to carrying on whaling in the Greenland and
Davis Straits fields. The company was chartered for
fourteen years with a capital of £82,000, but before
the expiration of the charter the capital was entirely
consumed by the heavy losses.” At the same time
the Dutch whalers were uniformly successful.

The same year that the South Sea Company abandoned
whaling, 1732, Parliament granted an annual bounty of
twenty shillings per ton on all British whaling vessels of
200 tons or upward. But only two vessels sent out by
private individuals benefited from it. In 1740 the
bounty was increased to thirty shillings per ton and
officers of fishing vessels were exempted from liability
of impressment into the British navy. Again, in 1749,
another ten shillings was added to the bounty, making
a total of forty shillings per ton annually.** The effects
of the bounty, with the other inducements, were such
that the British whaling industry again assumed a
respectable and hopeful appearance, and by 1755 it was
fairly well established.

The bounty was continued with some changes until
1798, when it was reduced to twenty shillings per ton,
where it remained for many years. After 1785 the
number of British ships fitted for whaling voyages rose
as high as 250 sail* in a single year, and for several
years it averaged over 150 ships annually. Thus, by
national support, in the form of bounties, the British
whale fishery was established on a firm basis, but only
after the lapse of almost two centuries of an intermittent,
precarious existence.

Among all the nations of Europe the Dutch stood
highest as whalers. They were in early days famous

3 Scoresby, p. 104.

* Scoresby, p. 72-73.

*% Scoresby, p. 75.

* Scoresby, p. 119-120.

The Origin of Whaling. 17

for their maritime exploits and they were more assiduous
in the northern whale fishery than any other nation,
pursuing the trade for a long time with great vigor. To
them is attributed the improvement of the harpoon,
the use of the reel and line and the lance. The Dutch
began whaling about 1612, following the English into
the Spitzbergen region, and they were consistently more
successful than any other nation. It was no uncommon
thing, says Scoresby,” for them to procure such vast
quantities of oil that empty ships were required to take
home the superabundance of the product.

During the early years the Dutch whaling industry
was a monopoly in the hands of a company similar to
the English Russia Company. In 1642 this monopoly was
removed, but the fishery continued to flourish with
even greater prosperity. Between 1660 and 1670, 400
to 500 Dutch and Hamburg ships visited the coast of
Spitzbergen yearly, while the English sometimes did not
send a single vessel.* But the inevitable consequence
of such activity was soon apparent, because of the con-
stant and vigorous pursuit, the whales became scarce,
receding first to the open sea and then to the protec-
tion of the ice. The fishery was more dangerous, and
where success had been so regular as to be regarded as
a certainty there were now frequent unsuccessful
voyages and losses from encounters with ice. The trade,
therefore, began to decline. But the decline of the
Spitzbergen fishery resulted in the opening of the Davis
Straits fishery, the Dutch, in 1719, being the first to send
vessels there.”

All through the seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries the Dutch whaling industry was in a pros-
perous condition, sending out an average of over 150

*® Ricketson, New Bedford, p. 55.

7b. 41-42.

#8 Scoresby, p. 56.

* Scoresby, p. 64.

18 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

ships annually up to about 1730.% After that year
the size of the fleet seems to have decreased gradually,
for by 1770 only about forty vessels a year were engaged,
in whaling from Dutch ports. From 1770 the Dutch
fishery began to decline more rapidly, following the
general decline of the Dutch commercial eminence.
Where the Dutch had held so marked superiority over
the English for more than a century and a half, the
conditions were now reversed, through the stimulus
given to English whaling by the royal bounties. By
1815 the Dutch industry had fallen so low that the
government deemed it necessary to give direct money
bounties for its encouragement, and provided for the
payment of 4,ooo florins towards outfitting every
whaling vessel. Thus the Dutch fishery passed in
reverse order through the same stages as did the English.

The history of the American whale fishery will reveal
many conditions analogous to the phases through which
the European fisheries passed. Beginning in the same
small way of carrying on operations from shore or near
the land, whaling in America grew to be a regular deep
sea fishery as whales grew scarce. It passed through
the same stages of years of fluctuating successes and
precarious existence, periods of prosperity and years
of support by bounties. Though the American fishery
began later, its growth was rather more rapid than the
English fishery. By the time that American whaling
ventures were entering on their period of greatest pros-
perity, the English activities were still receiving val-
uable support from the tonnage bounties paid to whaling
ships, and the Dutch strength was nearly expended.
History frequently repeated itself in the case of the
whale fisheries of different nations, but the conditions
under which it existed made the American industry the
greatest of all.

%° Scoresby, table, p. 156.

CHAPTER III.

THE RisE oF AMERICAN WHALING FROM THE SETTLING
oF MASSACHUSETTS TO THE WAR OF 1812.

By 1620 the English and Dutch Spitzbergen whale
fishery had assumed such importance that the methods
and advantages of the industry must have been well
known to the early New England colonists before they
came to America. Thatcher! says that the early settlers
were at first undecided whether to adopt Cape Cod for
their new home or to look for some more attractive site,
and that one of the main arguments in favor of the
Cape Cod locality was the prospect of profitable fishing
it afforded; “for large whales of the best kind for oil
and bone came daily alongside and played about the
ship. The master and his mate, and others experienced
tn fishing, preferred 1t to the Greenland whale fishery,?,and
asserted that were they provided with the proper imple-
ments £300 or £400 worth of oil might be secured.”’

That whales were abundant at this time both in deep
water and along the coast seems undoubted. According
to Starbuck,* Captain John Smith, in 1614, found whales
so plentiful along the coast that he turned aside from
the original object of his voyage to pursue them. And
Sabine quotes from the journal of Richard Mather, who
came to Massachusetts Bay colony in 1635, where the
latter tells of seeing, off the New England coast, “mighty
whales spewing up water in the air like the smoke of a
chimney . . . of such incredible bigness that I will

1 Thatcher: History of Plymouth, p. 21.

2 The italics are mine.
* Starbuck: History of American Whale Fishery. Footnote, p. 5.

20 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

never wonder that the body of Jonah could be in the
belly of a whale.’

It is evident from these facts that there was an abund-
ant source of a profitable whale fishery, while Thatcher’s
statement indicates that among the first colonists there
were men, at least well acquainted with, if not actually
experienced in, whaling. It is quite generally accepted
that along with the idea of religious freedom one of the
main purposes in the settlement of Massachusetts was
the founding of a fishing colony. The right to fish
without restriction of any kind was’one of the important
provisions of the royal charter. The first emigrants to
the Bermudas, about fifty in number, were sent out in
1612. Richard Moore, a ship’s carpenter, was the first
governor, and the instructions given to him specified
various sources of wealth which might be derived from
the colony. Among these sources ambergris and whale
oil were included as important. The history of American
whaling, therefore, may be said to begin almost with
the settlement of the New England colonies, though
several decades elapsed before it appears to have become
a regular or at all important pursuit. It is quite prob-
able, however, that some attempts at whaling were made
before the time of any recorded account now available.

Most of the early references to whales and whaling in
the Massachusetts colonies, now available, occur in the
legislative records. The subject of drift whales appears
to have attracted a good deal of attention in both the
Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay colonies, for there
are numerous instances of orders relating to their owner-
ship and disposal. Thus, according to Freeman,‘ the
town of Eastham, in 1662, voted that a part of every
whale cast ashore should be appropriated for the support
of the ministry. But almost without exception these
early references speak only of drift whales, thus making

‘Sabine: Fisheries of the American Seas, p. 42.
* Freeman: History of Cape Cod, II, p. 362.

The Rise of American Whaling. 21

it uncertain when the actual pursuit and capture of
whales began to be practiced by the inhabitants of
Massachusetts.

The first unmistakable indications that whaling had
become a regular business in Massachusetts appear in
1688 when Secretary Randolph wrote home to England:
“New Plimouth colony have great profit by whale
killing. I believe it will be one of our best returns, now
beaver and peltry fayle us.’* The records of the Massa-
chusetts colony for the same year show a memorandum
setting forth the principle that “each company’s harping
iron and lance be distinctly marked on ye heads and
socketts with a poblick mark.’’’? This principle is essen-
tially the long recognized law of whalemen that ‘“‘the
craft claims the whale.’”’ The Plymouth colony records
for 1690 show the appointment of ‘‘inspectors of whales”’
as a means of preventing suits by whalers.®

In 1688 an inhabitant of Salem, Mass., claiming that
he had been engaged*in whaling for twenty-two years,
petitioned the colonial authorities for a patent for
making oil. And four years later a number of Salem.
whalers complained that whales struck by them and
bearing their irons had been taken by Cape Cod whalers.®
From these facts it appears that whaling had come to
be a regular and plainly important business from several
towns in the Massachusetts colonies before the end of
the seventeenth century.

Whaling was early recognized as a regular pursuit in
the Connecticut and the New York colonies. In 1647
the general court at Hartford granted a sort of mono-
poly of whaling in Connecticut to one Whiting.” This
is the first record of whaling in that colony, and the

* Starbuck, p. 8.

Mass. Col. Mss., Treas., III, p. 80.

* Plymouth Col. Records, VI, p. 253.

* Starbuck, p. 18.

* Quoted by Starbuck, p. 9, from Conn. Col. Record, I, p. 14.

ea A History of the American Whale Fishery.

venture, if ever tried, probably amounted to little, since
there is no further reference to whaling until many
years later. It seems probable, however, as Starbuck
asserts" that the first really organized prosecution of the
whale fishery by Americans was made by the settlers
at the eastern end of Long Island. Howell” states
that the town of Southampton, on the southern shore
of Long Island, was founded in 1640 as an offshoot
from the colony at Lynn, Mass., and that almost from
the very first the settlers recognized the possibilities of
deriving revenue from the taking of whales. Accord-
ingly, in 1644, the town was divided into four wards
of eleven persons each, whose duty it was to attend to
all drift whales cast ashore in their ward. Whenever
a whale was secured, it was customary to select by lot
two persons from each ward to cut it up. Every inhab-
itant was to share equally in the division, except the
cutters, who had a double portion for their labor. This
cooperative industry may be regarded as the direct
ancestor of the famous system of a “‘lay’”’ or share of the
catch in vogue over a century later.

That the practice of taking only drift whales cast
ashore soon gave place to active pursuit of whales and
killing from boats is shown by a number of old records.
Thus, in 1672, the towns of Easthampton, Southampton
and Southwold, at the eastern end of Long Island, in a
memorial to the court at Whitehall, N. Y., stated that
they had “‘spent much time and pains . . . in settling the
trade of whale fishing in the adjacent seas, having
endeavored in it above these twenty years past.’’™
According to this statement boat whaling must have
commenced as early as 1650. In 1668 several inhabitants
of Easthampton formed a company and entered into
an agreement ‘“‘binding certain Indians to go to sea

1 Starbuck, p. 9.

1 Howell: History of Southampton, p. 179-180
Starbuck, p. 11.

The Rise of American Whaling. 23

whaling.’’* The Indians were to be paid three shillings
per day, the craft and necessary tackle being furnished
by the partners. Howell says that boat whaling soon
came to be of so much importance in the community
- that every able man in the town (Southampton) was
obliged to take his turn in watching for whales from
some prominent place on the shore, and to give the
alarm as soon as one was seen near'the coast. It was not
unusual for expeditions of several boats each to be
fitted out for whaling along the coast, the voyages
generally lasting about two weeks. The boats were
so small, however, that they never ventured far from
land, the men usually camping out on shore during the
night. Indians, under the command of one or two
white men, were largely employed in these early opera-
tions of boat whaling.®

The whaling business of Eastern Long Island had
become important enough in the last two decades of
the seventeenth century to be the cause of more or less
conflict with the authorities of the main New York
colony. The trouble arose largely from the practice of
the whalers in making Boston or some Connecticut port
their trading center, instead of taking their oil to New
York. As early as 1684 an act was passed laying a duty
of ro per cent on all oil and bone exported from New
York ports to any outside ports except directly to Eng-
land or to the West Indies.* But the act accomplished
very little in the way of forcing the Long Island whalers
to send their products to New York to be exported.
These records are chiefly valuable, however, because
they furnish about the only suggestion of the early trade
movements of whale products.

The only other place to engage in whaling previous
to 1700 was Nantucket, or Sherburne as it was called,

M4 Starbuck, p. 12.

18 Starbuck, p. ro.
16 Starbuck, p. 15.

24 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

until 1795. It is true that as early as 1652 ‘‘whale
cutters’? were appointed at Martha’s Vineyard,” and
that other orders dealing with the ownership and dis-
posal of whales appear occasionally from that time on,
but there does not seem to have been any regular busi-
ness of whaling before the end of the century.

With the Nantucket colony the conditions were quite
‘different. To quote from Macy,” the historian of the
island, the first whaling expedition in Nantucket “was
undertaken by some of the original purchasers of the
island; the circumstances of which are handed down
by tradition, and are as follows: A whale of the kind
called ‘scragg’ came into the harbor and continued there
three days. This excited the curiosity of the people and
led them to devise measures to prevent his return out
of the harbor. They accordingly invented and caused
to be wrought for them a harpoon with which they
attacked and killed the whale. This first success
encouraged them to undertake whaling as a permanent
business, whales being at that time numerous in the
vicinity of the shores.”

The date of this first venture is not known, but by
1672 the inhabitants of the island regarded whaling as
sufficiently important to warrant the making of a pro-
posal to one James Loper to carry on a regular whaling
business from that place. As an inducement to carry -
on whaling in all seasons for two years he was to receive
ten acres of land, enough common pasturage for three
cows, twenty sheep, one horse, and all the wood and
water he needed for his use. At the same time a similar
offer was made to a cooper if he would ply his trade in
the island. It is said that the latter accepted the pro-
posal while the former did not, hence the benefit to the
whale fishery was not marked.”

at Starbuck, p78.

% Macy: History of Nantucket, p. 28.
1° Macy, p. 42.

The Rise of American Whaling. 25

From that time until 1690 there is a lapse in the
history of Nantucket whaling. There is a tradition
among the islanders, says Macy,” that in 1690 several
persons were standing on a hill watching the whalers
off shore; one of the islanders, of prophetic soul, pointed
to the sea, saying ‘‘There is a green pasture, where our
children’s grand-children will go for bread.” However
true the tradition, the content of the supposed prophecy
was fully realized in later years.

In the same year (1690) the islanders found “‘that the
people of Cape Cod had made greater proficiency in the
art of whale catching,’ and sending thither, they .. .
“employed one Ichabod Paddock to remove to the island
and instruct them in the best method of killing whales
and obtaining the oil.’”* As Starbuck says,” “judging
from subsequent events he must have proved a good
teacher and they most apt pupils.”’

Thus, before the end of the century in which American
colonization began, whaling was established as a regular
business, if still on a small scale, in the different Massa-
chusetts colonies, especially from Cape Cod; from the
towns at the eastern end of Long Island, and from
Nantucket. At all these places the fishery had gone
through the same stages of first taking only whales cast
ashore, and later developing into a regular practice of
boat whaling. True it is that the industry was still very
much in its infancy, but it is interesting to note that
almost every locality subsequently to become important
in its whaling interests had begun the enterprise before
1700. The notable exceptions were New Bedford,
Mass., and New London, Conn.

With the opening years of the eighteenth century
Nantucket rapidly came to be the foremost whaling
port. The very situation and character of the island

2 Macy, p. 43.

1 Macy, Pp. 42.
2 Starbuck, p. 17.

26 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

seemed to favor, even to necessitate, the following of
fishing pursuits. The island was comparatively sterile,
making it difficult to gain a livelihood from tilling the
soil, and being small in area, less than fifty square miles,
meant a constant struggle with nature. It was but
natural therefore, for a large proportion of the inhabi-
tants to turn to the sea for their living, and whaling was
the most attractive and profitable pursuit. Whales were
so plentiful about the shores that at first the islanders
secured all the oil they desired without venturing out of
sight of land.

“The south side of the island,’ says Macy,” ‘‘was
divided into four equal parts, and each part was assigned
to a company of six, which, though thus separated,
carried on their business in common. In the middle
of this distance (about three and one-half miles to each
division) they erected a mast’? from which a lookout
kept constant watch for whales at.sea. As soon as a
whale was seen boats were sent out in pursuit, the whale
when captured, being towed ashore where the blubber
was tried out at the works on the beach. Many Indians
were employed in these boat-whaling operations, each
crew being composed partly of aborigines. It was not
long before the Nantucket people were the most expert
whalemen in the country, as a logical outcome of so
ardently following this one pursuit.

The year 1712 was epoch making in the history of
whaling. In that year a Nantucket whaleman, named
Christopher Hussey, while cruising along the coast, was
blown out to sea by a strong northerly wind. Inthe
course of his involuntary voyage he came across a number
of sperm whales, and killing one, brought it home with
him,™ the first sperm whale known to have been taken
by American whalers. As early as 1688, however, a
petition had been made to the Governor of New York

* Macy, p. 44.
Macy, p. 42.

The Rise of American Whaling. 27

asking for permission to carry on “‘a fishing Design about
the Bohames Islands and Cap florida, for sperma
Coeti whales and Racks.’ But there is no record to
show that the venture was ever carried out.

Hussey’s exploit, however, worked a radical change
in whaling methods. Up to that time whaling, wherever
it was followed in the colonies, had been confined to the
taking of drift whales and later the so-called shore or
boat whaling, the operations being carried on entirely
within sight of land. Now the Nantucket people began
immediately to fit vessels, usually sloops, of about
thirty tons, to whale out in the “deep” as it was called,
to distinguish it from shore whaling. The vessels were
fitted for cruises of about six weeks, the blubber of the
whales taken being stored in hogsheads and brought
back to the try works on shore where the oil was ex-
tracted. By 1715 Nantucket had six sloops engaged
in this new fishery, and by 1730 there were twenty-five
vessels of from thirty to fifty tons employed in deep-sea
whaling.

The shore fishery was still carried on even as late as
1760,” though Macy seems to imply that it reached its
greatest importance about 1726. But the inevitable
decrease in the number of whales near land soon became
apparent. The change of whaling from a shore to a
sea industry had already begun, the fitting of larger and
larger vessels and the extension of voyages was only a
question of added years. Perhaps of greatest impor-
tance, Hussey’s adventure introduced sperm oil, which
in its superiority over other oils was for many decades
to be the most important and most valuable product of
the whale fishery, while the pursuit of sperm whales was
to be one of the most powerful factors inducing the

28 Quoted by Starbuck, p. 15, from Mass. Col. Mss., Usurpation, VI,

LeO:
: 7% Macy, p. 46.

7 Macy, p. 44.

28 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

development of the business. Whaling was already on
the path which a little over a century later was to lead
it through many a hard struggle to its world-wide promi-
nence as an American industry.

As the large vessels were added to the fleet, the voy-
ages were increased and new regions were visited. During
the first few years of deep-sea whaling it was the general
practice for the vessels to go to the “‘southward,”’ as it
was called, where they cruised until July. Then they
returned, refitted, and went to the eastward of the
Grand Banks to finish the season.* Davis Straits were
visited by the whalemen as early as 1732,” and in 1737
the ‘‘Boston News Letter” records the entrances and
clearances of several vessels from that locality. Accord-
ing to Macy,® the Nantucket whalers extended their
cruises as follows: Coast of Guinea, 1763; Western
Islands, 1765; coast of Brazil, 1774. Local tradition
says that the first Nantucket whaler to ‘‘cross the line”’
arrived home on the day of the Battle of Lexington and
Concord.

“Between the years 1770 and 1775,’ says Macy,* in
writing of Nantucket whaling, ‘‘the whaling business
increased to an extent hitherto unparalleled. In 1770
there were a little more than 100 vessels engaged, and in
1775 the number exceeded 150, some of them large brigs.”’
Nantucket at the opening of the Revolution was enjoying
the full tide of success in her great whaling industry.
The Nantucket whaling interests were by far the most
important in the colonies. Nantucket led the way in
all things pertaining to whaling, and the whalers from
other ports followed its example. The whaling success
had turned the sterile island into a flourishing, pros-
perous community, when the war came and all was

7 Macy, p. 50.

” Starbuck, p. 24, note.

"Macy, pi 54.

1 Macy, p. 233.

The Rise of American Whaling. 29

changed. But before discussing the effects of the war,
it is necessary to consider the condition of some of the
other principal ports.

The Long Island fishery, which had been among the
most prominent at the close of the seventeenth century,
receives but meager mention in the records during the
eighteenth century. In the first decade or two there are
occasional orders relative to whales and whaling,” but
little to indicate that the business was growing to much
extent. During most of these early years, just as in
the century before, whaling was a constant source of
conflict between the whalemen and the colonial author-
ities. Thus in 1711 the latter issued a writ to the sheriffs
directing them to seize all whales. In later years,
Southampton, Easthampton and the other early whaling
towns seem to have been supplanted by the younger ’
port, Sag Harbor,** but even as late as 1760 only three
sloops were fitted from that port. Nantucket had far
outstripped its early rival.

On Cape Cod the fishery was more progressive. The
‘‘Boston News Letter,” in 1727, says, ‘“We hear from
the towns on the Cape that the whale fishery among
them has failed much this winter, as it has for several
winters past, but having found out the way of going to
sea upon that business, and having had much success in
it, they are now fitting out several vessels to sail :
this spring, more than have ever been sent out from
among them.’’ From this item it seems safe to conclude
that the people of Cape Cod had followed the example
of the Nantucket whalers, and that at least as early as
1726 the original shore whaling had been supplemented
by deep-sea whaling.

Ten years later the same authority states*® that a

= Starbuck, p. 26 ff:

38 Starbuck, p. 43.

84 Mar. 20, 1727, quoted by Starbuck, p. 31.

“Boston News Letter,’ Apr. 21, 1737, quoted by Starbuck,
MOLE p: 32.

30 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

dozen vessels, some of them of a hundred tons burden,
were fitting that spring at Provincetown for the Davis
Straits fishery. “So many men are going on these
voyages,’ says the account, ‘‘that not more than twelve
or fourteen men will be left at home.’’ During the next
two or three years the whaling seasons were poor, and
many of the people on the Cape were in straitened cir-
cumstances.* After 1741 the whaling voyages were
interfered with by the depredations of French and
Spanish privateers, and for some years the voyages to
distant grounds seem to have been abandoned, as there
were no reports of arrivals from or departures for the
Davis Straits fishery.”

The fishery seems to have survived in Cape Cod towns,
however, and to have been in a fairly prosperous state
‘ at the opening of the Revolution, for in 1775 there were
thirty-six vessels engaged in whaling from the towns of
Wellfleet, Barnstable and Falmouth. The vessels were
from 75 to 100 tons burden and were engaged mainly in
the northern fishery.

As regards the whaling operations from towns about
Boston, the facts are very meager during the years pre-
ceding the Revolution. Before the opening of the cen-
tury the business had been carried on in a small way at
Salem. It is probable, therefore, that it was continued
at that place and perhaps at other places along the
coast. But just where or to what extent it is impossible
to tell. Whether Boston was at this time an actual
participant in whaling is hard to determine, since it is
known that vessels from the whole colony were accus-
tomed to make that place their port of entry and clear-
ance. In 1775 Boston was credited with twenty vessels,
and Lynn with two, averaging 100 tons burden, but how
many of those registered from Boston were actually
Boston vessels no one knows.

86 Starbuck, p. 33.
37 Starbuck, p. 38.

The Rise of American Whaling. 31

The Rhode Island colonists had been carrying on a
whale fishery in a small way within the colony, probably
as a shore or boat fishery, for a number of years previous
to 1731,% when the colonial assembly passed an act
providing a bounty of five shillings a barrel for oil and
a penny a pound for bone.” Starbuck, however, states
that deep-sea whaling was carried on from Rhode Island
ports as early as 1723. To support his statement he
quotes the ‘‘Boston News Letter” of ‘that year, which
records the arrival of a whaling vessel at Newport “with
the largest sperm whale ever seen up to that time in
that region.”’

The reports of Rhode Island whaling during later
years are as unsatisfactory as the question about when
it really began. Occasional records are to be found of
the arrivals of whaling vessels,“ and during some years
quite a thriving business seems to have been done.
Before the war with England began, Newport, Provi-
dence, Warren and Tiverton, together with Swanzey,
across the line in Massachusetts, made Narragansett Bay
an active whaling locality.

In addition to the places already mentioned, New
London, Conn., entered the list toward the middle of
the century. At Williamsburg, Virginia, the stimulus
of whaling success was felt, and in 1751, a sloop was
fitted out for whaling along the southern coast. The
venture was successful, but there is ‘no record to show
how long the business was followed at that place.” At
Martha’s Vineyard deep-sea whaling appears to have
begun about 1738, when a Nantucket whaleman removed
there and began the fishery with his sloop. But for
some reason the fishery from the Vineyard never thrived

%® Arnold: ‘‘ History of Rhode Island,”’ II, p. rro.

5° Arnold, p. 103.

“ Starbuck, note, p. 35.

“| Starbuck, p. 43.
* loc. cit.

32 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

as it did from the sister island of Nantucket, perhaps
because the former, being larger and more fertile, did not
force the inhabitants to look to the sea for a livelihood.
In 1775, when Nantucket had a fleet of 150 vessels,
aggregating 15,000 tons, Martha’s Vineyard had but
_ twelve vessels with a total burden of 720 tons.*

New Bedford (then Dartmouth) was almost the last
place to appear as a whaling port before the outbreak
of the Revolution. The exact date of its beginning is
not known, though it was probably just prior to 1760.
In that year, says Starbuck,“ in the deed of a tract of
land located within the present town of Fairhaven there
was a clause reading, “‘always excepting and reserv-
ing . . . that part of the same where the Try house
and Oyl shed now stands.’’ How old these buildings were
is not known. Inthe history of New Bedford,* Joseph
Russell, the founder of the town, is also said to have been
the pioneer in the whale fishery from that place. “It is
well authenticated,” says the account, “‘that Joseph Rus-
sell had pursued the business as early as 1755.’’ The town
was then known as Dartmouth, and from just what part
of it these vessels were fitted is uncertain. In 1755 the
land now covered by the city of New Bedford was still
forest. Not a single house marked the place where less
than a century later was destined to stand the greatest
whaling port the world has ever known, the city which,
in the full glory of whaling prosperity, would send out
more vessels than all other American ports combined.

In 1765 four sloops from New Bedford were engaged
in the whale fishery,“ and ten years later the town of
Dartmouth was credited with eighty vessels with a
tonnage of 6,500 tons,” thus bringing this locality, in the

“ Starbuck, p. 41.

“Starbuck, p. 43.

“6 Ricketson: History of New Bedford, p. 58.
“6 Starbuck, p. 43.

“ Starbuck, p. 57, note.

The Rise of American Whaling. 33

space of two decades, into a rank second only to Nan-
tucket.

The actual condition of the whale fishery during these
years of growth and expansion cannot be traced with
any continuity from year to year, because of the absence
of records. It is worth while to note, however, certain
influences which were at work, affecting the fishery in
general, or in particular localities.

As early as 1741 the participation of England in the
war of the Austrian Succession gave France and Spain
the long desired opportunity to prey upon English com-
merce, and the colonial interests came in for their pro-
portion of loss. It was just at this time, too, that the
practice of deep-sea whaling was becoming fairly well
established. The presence of French and Spanish
privateers hovering near the coast, however, hindered
the development of this new phase of the industry,
especially in the Davis Straits region. As Starbuck says,“
“the period from 1750 to 1784. was the most eventful
era to the whale fishery that it ever passed through.
For a large proportion of the time the business was
carried on under imminent risk of capture, first by the
Spanish and French and after by the English.’”’ The
Davis Straits fishery was eventually quite abandoned,
the vessels frequenting the grounds in the vicinity of the
Western Islands were constantly liable to losses from
capture, and most of the operations were confined to
the Grand Banks, along the Gulf Stream and about the
Bahamas.®

But in spite of these unfavorable conditions the state
of the fishery was such that Hutchison could say of this
period,® “‘the increase in the consumption of oil
in Europe has been no small encouragement to our whale
fishery. The flourishing state of the island of Nantucket

Starbuck, p. 36.

® Starbuck, p. 56.
® Hutchison: History of Mass., III, p. 400.

34 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

must be attributed to it.” In addition to the advan-
tage of usually profitable markets, the colonial whalemen
could benefit from a royal bounty provided for by an
act of Parliament in 1748. The bounty amounted to
twenty shillings per ton, but in order to receive it the
vessels must be built and fitted in the colonies and must
remain in Davis Straits or vicinity from May until August,
unless they met with accident or secured a full cargo
before that date." It does not appear, however, that
the bounty had any marked effect on the colonial in-
dustry either in increasing the tonnage employed or in
adding to the Davis Straits fleet.

In 1755 the colonial whalemen were greatly restricted
by an embargo laid on the ‘“‘Banks’’ fishermen, during
the preparations for the expedition against Nova Scotia,
though, as Starbuck says,” “‘the risk of capture by French
drivateers was so great that it of itself must have quite
effectively embargoed many of them.” The embargo
was continued in 1757 in spite of the fact that in the
previous year the colonists had been subject to a duty
for the support of a frigate to defend the Banks fishery.

This same year, 1757, however, the people of Nan-
tucket were given permission to pursue their whaling
voyages, as the result of a petition to the Massachusetts
general court. One of the main reasons for granting
their request was that ‘“‘their livelihood entirely depends
on the whale fishery.’

When the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Straits of Belle
Isle were opened to the colonial fishermen in 1761, the
whalemen very quickly took advantage of the oppor-
tunity to share in the wealth of that fishery. But their
hopes of good profits were not realized, for in the same
year Parliament not only levied a duty on imports of
whale products from the colonies, but also prohibited

*! Starbuck, p. 37.

© Starbuck, p. 38.
8 Starbuck, p. 30.

The Rise of American Whaling. 35

their exportation to any other market. At the same
time the residents of Great Britain were benefiting from
a bounty in which the colonists were not allowed to
share.** These measures were evidently a part of Eng-
land’s policy in their rivalry with the Dutch for supremacy
in the whale fishery. But their efforts were in vain.
The American fishery was destined, in the face of every
difficulty, to far outrival either the English or the Dutch
interests.

One of the best indications of the state of the colonial
whale fishery at that time is found in the statements of a
petition to Parliament asking for the abolition of the
import duty on whale products from the colonies. It
says “‘in the year 1761 the province of Massachusetts
Bay fitted out from Boston and other ports ten vessels
of from seventy to ninety tons burden for this purpose.
That the success of these was such as to encourage the
sending out of fifty vessels in the year 1762 for the same
trade. That in the year 1763 more than eighty vessels
were employed in the same manner.’ This reference
to the number of vessels employed must refer solely to
the towns in the original Massachusetts Bay and Ply-
mouth colony, for in 1762 Nantucket alone had seventy-
eight vessels engaged in whaling.”

The colonial whalers who tried to take advantage of
the newly opened St. Lawrence and Belle Isle fisheries,
were subject to many irksome restrictions, such as to
remove all waste at least three leagues from shore, not
to winter on the coast and not to have any intercourse
with the French. A few whalemen visited these grounds
in spite of the restrictions, but even though they offered
convenient and profitable fisheries, the majority of the
fleet cruised along the gulf stream and other regions
farther south.

54 Starbuck, p. 39.

5 Quoted by Starbuck, p. 40.
5 Macy, p. 58.

36 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

In 1767 the report was circulated in the colonies that
the irksome restrictions on whaling were to be removed
entirely. Early in the spring of 1768, therefore, there
was increased activity in the whaling fleet, and vessels
again visited Davis Straits. During the year Nan-
tucket sent out eighty vessels averaging seventy-five
tons burden and “probably as many more from Cape
Cod, Dartmouth, Boston, Providence, Newport, Warren,
etc., most of them to the northern fishery.’’*” This year
marked the beginning of the unprecedented prosperity
that whaling interests enjoyed during the years imme-
diately previous to the Revolution.

Macy, in writing of this period in Nantucket, says :*
“The employment of so great and such an increasing
capital may lead our readers to suppose that a corre-
sponding profit was realized, but a careful examination
of the circumstances under which the business was
carried on will show the fallacy of such a conclusion.
Many branches of labor were conducted by those who
were immediately interested in the voyages. The
young men, with few exceptions, were brought up to
some trade necessary to the business. The ropemaker,
the cooper, the blacksmith, the carpenter, in fine, the
workmen were either the shipowners or their house-
holds; so were often the officers and men who navigated
the vessels and killed the whales. While a ship was at
sea, the owners at home were busily employed in the
manufacture of casks, iron work, cordage, blocks and
other articles for the succeeding voyage. Thus the
profits of the labor were enjoyed by those interested in
the fishery, and voyages were rendered advantageous,
even when the oil obtained was barely sufficient to pay
for the outfits, estimating the labor as part thereof. This
mode of conducting the business was universal . y

57 Starbuck, p. 50.
8 Macy, p. 233.

The Rise of American Whaling. 37

The colonial whale fishery in 1774, says Starbuck,”
‘‘must have been in the full tide of success. There were
probably fitted out annually at this time no less than
360 vessels of various kinds, with an aggregate burden
of 33,000 tons.” Of these at least 300 sail belonged to
Massachusetts ports, according to the figures given in
Jefferson’s report.” The rest were distributed among
the different ports in Rhode Island, Connecticut and
New York. The great superiority of Massachusetts
towns in owning five-sixths of the total fleet is an inter-
esting parallel to similar conditions three-quarters of a
century later.

Before the war there was thrift and happiness every-
where in the American whaling world, but the approach-
ing hostilities very early cast a shadow over the pros-
perity of the fisheries in general. They were the first
industry to feel the effects of the imminent war, for one
of the first steps taken by England to repress the colonies
was directed against the fishing interests of New England.
Massachusetts was regarded as the hotbed of the revolu-
tionary spirit, and that colony was also the center of
the fishing industries. Hence, in 1775, “to starve New
England,’’ Parliament passed the famous act restricting
colonial trade to British ports, and placing an embargo
on fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland or on any other
part of the North American coast.

Macy, quoting from a protest to Parliament against
the passage of this bill, gives an excellent picture of the
conditions in Nantucket at that time :*

“The case of the inhabitants of Nantucket was par-
ticularly hard. This extraordinary people, amounting to
between 5,000 and 6,000 in number, nine-tenths of whom
are Quakers, inhabit a barren island fifteen miles long by
three broad, the products of which were scarcely capable

Starbuck, p. 57.

. © See Table IX, in Appendix I.
SA Macy,.p: 82.

38 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

of maintaining twenty families. From the only harbor
which this sterile island contains, without natural pro-
ducts of any sort, the inhabitants, by an astonishing
industry, keep an 140 vessels in constant employment.
Of these, eight were employed in the importation of
provisions for the island and the rest in the whale
fishery.’ It was this same measure which inspired
Burke to his famous speech on ‘“‘Conciliation,”’ and one of
his most eloquent passages is where he refers to the
daring exploits of the American whalemen.

The beginning of actual hostilities effectually put a
stop to the whale fishery, except from Nantucket. Early
in the war a few vessels were sent out from other ports,
but the risks were so great that the business was quickly
abandoned. With Nantucket, however, it was a case
of necessity to keep up their whaling operations. The
whale fishery was practically the only business available
for them, for their constant following of this single pur-
suit had kept them comparatively ignorant of any other
way of gaining a living.* There were no other resources;
the business had to be carried on or the island be depopu-
lated; ‘‘starvation or removal were the only alternatives -
of inaction.’”’ Some of the people did remove to New
York, eventually establishing the whale fishery there,
but most of them preferred to remain even in the face
of great hardships.

The history of whaling during the Revolution is merely
a chronicle of a constant struggle against adverse con-
ditions by the Nantucket islanders. Early in the war
British ships made several forays along the New England
coast, capturing and burning vessels and cargoes, and
destroying other property at Nantucket, Martha’s Vine-
yard, and Dartmouth. The question at Nantucket was
not so much to make whaling profitable as it was to
carry on the business at all in the limited way to which

% Starbuck, p. 72.

The Rise of American Whaling. 39

they were restricted by the loss of their vessels. The
story of Nantucket during the Revolution, as told by
Macy, carries a powerful moral in the almost complete
and helpless stagnation in a place where prosperity
depended entirely on the success of a single industry.

So great were the hardships, and so pressing was the
need for whaling, as the only practicable means of
gaining a livelihood, that in 1781 the British admiral
at New York humanely granted the islanders permission
to employ twenty-four vessels unmolested by the Eng-
lish cruisers. Says Macy, ‘‘This privilege seemed to
give new life to the people. It produced a considerable
movement in business, but the resources of the island
had been so diminished, that but a small number of
vessels could take the benefit of these permits. Those
who had vessels and were possessed of the means, fitted
them out on short voyages, and had there been no
hindrance it is probable that they would have done
well; for the whales, having been unmolested for several
years, had become numerous and were pretty easily
caught.’’* But the vessels were interfered with by
American privateers and several of them were taken
and carried to port. In every case, however, they
were quickly liberated when it was found that they had
not been engaged in illicit trade. Again, in 1783, the
Continental Congress granted permits for thirty-five
vessels to engage in whaling,“ but there was hardly
time to take advantage of the opportunity before the
treaty was signed and the news of peace arrived in
this country.

Just as the fisheries had been an important issue in the
days before hostilities began, so in the making of peace
the settlement of the fisheries question was one of the
main causes of contention. The Americans demanded
the same freedom in fishing rights as had been enjoyed

8 Macy, p. 120.
*¢ Starbuck, p. 76.

40 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

before the war. Great Britain vainly tried to evade
this provision of the treaty, but was finally obliged
to yield.

The end of the war found the whaling business in a
nearly hopeless condition. Except for such of the
interest as had been kept up at Nantucket, the business
was almost totally ruined and had to be built up anew.
And at Nantucket not much had been saved. When the
war began, the island had a little over 150 vessels. In
1784 only two or three old hulks remained.® Of the
rest 134 had been captured or destroyed by the English
and fifteen more had been lost by shipwreck. As it was
at Nantucket, so it was in a way with all the whaling
ports. The industry which eight years before had been
enjoying the highest tide of its prosperity was now so
completely destroyed that hardly a vestige remained.
At the same time an almost total suspension of imports
of whaling products had led to the widespread use of
substitutes—one of the hardest factors with which the
revived industry would have to contend in re-establish-
ing the former demand and general consumption.

But whaling was destined to rise again, though its
existence for over two decades was to be a precarious
one, filled with the ups and downs of unsettled condi-
tions. The several years of almost complete immunity
from capture had resulted in a repopulation of the
whaling grounds.

The whales themselves were less shy and hence more
readily killed. With characteristic American energy
the whalemen set to work to make up for their losses
during the war; for the news of peace had hardly arrived
before vessels were being fitted anew for whaling voy-
ages. Nantucket was among the first to resume whaling,
the people who had any capital left resuming the business
with as many vessels as they could secure. New London
Sag Harbor, Hudson, N. Y., Boston, Hingham, Wellfleet,

8§ Macy, p. 124.

The Rise of American Whaling. 4I

Braintree, Plymouth and Bristol were soon added to
the list of whaling ports sending out one or more vessels.

The whale products commanded good prices during
the early years after the war, and for a time the business
gave promise of good profits. But the boom was short
lived. For many years sperm oil had been the most
valuable product of the fishery. The chief market for
sperm oil, however—the British market—had been
practically closed to American shipments by an alien
duty of £18 per ton. Oil which was easily worth £30
before the war now brought scarcely £17, while to give
a reasonable profit, over expenses, £25 was necessary.”
The excessive prices on oil and bone fell rapidly. A num-
ber of the ports which had entered the field so promptly
withdrew their vessels. Thus Hingham, Newburyport,
Braintree, Plymouth, Wellfleet, Mass., and Providence,
and Bristol, R. I., all sent out one or more vessels in
1784-1785, but none of them (except Wellfleet in 1786)
sent any more until several years later."

The condition of the industry again looked hopeless.
The neutralization of Nantucket was suggested as a
possible remedy for the unfortunate state of affairs,
but the suggestion met with nofavor.® Finally, in 1785,
the Massachusetts legislature came to the rescue with an
act establishing a bounty on whale products. For every
ton of oil imported into the commonwealth, the whale-
men were to receive a bounty of £5 on white spermaceti
oil; sixty shillings on brown or yellow sperm oil; and
forty shillings on whale oil.” The only conditions were
that the vessel be owned and manned wholly by inhabi-
tants of that state, and that the oil be landed in some
Massachusetts port. Inspectors were appointed by

® Starbuck, p. 78.

7 loc. cit.

88 See Table II in Appendix I.

® Macy, p. 129.

7 Starbuck, p. 79.

42 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

the towns, and certificates from the selectmen stating
kind and quantity of oil, and place where landed, were
required in order to secure the bounty.

The bounty was passed mainly to help the inhabitants
of Nantucket in firmly re-establishing their one valuable
industry. But in reality the working of the bounty was
far less desirable than it had appeared. As a result of
several years of doing without oil the use of tallow
candles had become quite general among the people.
There was also little demand for oil for lighting streets in
towns or for lighthouses.” In short the demand for
whale products was greatly limited, while at the same
time the bounty gave an unnatural stimulation to the
industry. Over-production was the result, and the
hopes of advanced profits were only slightly realized.
Scammon states that by 1787-1789 there were only 122
vessels engaged in whaling from Massachusetts ports.”
Dartmouth and New Bedford had fifty, Nantucket
thirty-six and various Cape Cod towns, but mainly
Wellfleet, had sixteen. In 1775 these same three impor-
tant towns had had fleets of 80, 150 and 30 sails respec-
tively. Starbuck, however, gives no record of vessels
sailing from any Cape Cod town from 1786 until 1794.
Hence it seems likely that Scammon has included many
small craft not engaged in making regular voyages. If
so, the contrast with pre-Revolutionary conditions is
still more marked.

The conditions of limited market and low prices were
so unfavorable that some of the Nantucket whalemen
went to Nova Scotia, settling the whaling town of Dart-
mouth, opposite Halifax, under inducements from the
English. Some accepted an offer of the French king to
carry on a whaling business from Dunkirk. And still
others, selling their vessels, abandoned a business in which
they could see no hope of betterment.”

™ Starbuck, p. 87.

7 Scammon, p. 209.
8 Starbuck, pp. 88-go.

The Rise of American Whaling. 43

The opening of the French market to American whale
products in 1789 temporarily brightened the prospects
for the whalemen. The business was somewhat stimu-
lated, and as whales were becoming scarce on the old
grounds, larger vessels were added to the fleet. Ships
and brigs were introduced and the voyages which had
reached the South Atlantic before the Revolution were
now extended until the Pacific Ocean was reached. Six
ships sailed for the Pacific from Nantucket and New
Bedford in 1791. They were not, however, the first
whalers in the Pacific, since English fitted vessels had
preceded them by at least four years.”

The prosperity which was expected from the opening
of the French market resulted in increased activity and
competition. The outbreak of the French Revolution,
however, put an end to all these favorable prospects,
and shipments sent there after 1792 did not pay costs.”
The markets were glutted, the price of bone was reduced
to ten cents per pound, instead of bringing one dollar
per pound as it had before the war, and oil was sold for
less than the cost of production.” And again there was
a temporary period of hauling up or selling vessels rather
than engage in the business at the risk of still further
losses. Soon after (1798) the prospects of trouble be-
tween France and the United States added another load
to the difficulties of the whaling interests. The depre-
dations of the French privateers on American commerce
were felt heavily in the whaling fleet. Several vessels
were captured, four from Nantucket; others were sold
because their owners would not send them out at the
risk of capture. This risk was so great, says Macy,”
that “‘the rates of insurance increased so that shipowners
must have been subject to a loss, according to prevail-

74 Starbuck, p. go.

% Macy, p. 141.

78 Starbuck, p. gr\

™ Macy, p. 150.

44 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

ing prices of oil, even if ships had arrived with full
cargoes.”

From this time until the outbreak of the War of 1812 the
whale fishery was carried on under uncertain and often-
times adverse conditions. Fora time—i.e., until about
1806 or 1807—the fleet was gradually increasing in
size from year to year,” as will appear from the figures
giving the tonnage of the fleet in Table I of Appendix I.
But after that year the tonnage appears to have declined
steadily. The Embargo of 1807 was the worst in its ef-
fects on the whale fishery. The act did not directly in-
clude whaling vessels in the prohibited list, but by stop-
ping the exportation of whale products the prices were
kept low. At first, also, the dangers of capture by Eng-
lish privateers were so great that no insurance could be
secured, and, unwilling to bear the entire risk, many of
the owners withdrew their vessels.” For a short time in
1809 and 1810 there were many prospects of peace, and
by the end of the latter year almost the whole fleet was
again in commission. Thus when the war did break out
in 1812 a large proportion of the whaling fleet was at
sea—many of the vessels having sailed for the Pacific
on voyages varying from two to two anda half years.”
Some of the vessels returned as soon as they learned
of the war, to lie idle in fortified ports until the coming
of peace again. Others were captured. Nantucket and
New Bedford, the chief whaling ports, suffering most
heavily.

In the two years just preceding the war the towns
sending out whaling vessels were, besides Nantucket
and New Bedford: Sag Harbor, N. Y., Greenwich, R. L.,
and Westport, Mass., according to Starbuck’s record of
vessels sailing.** In addition to the ports already men-

% Starbuck, p. or.

7” Macy, p. 159.

* Starbuck, p. 93.

*' Starbuck, p. 18off.

The Rise of American Whaling. 45

tioned the following places had sent out whaling vessels
between 1785 and 1812: In Massachusetts, Gloucester
and Wareham; in Rhode Island, Providence and Bristol;
in Connecticut, New London, Norwich and East Haddam;
in New York, Hudson and New York, none of which,
however, sent more than five vessels in a single year.
The relative importance of the different ports, the small
scale on which the fishery was conducted and the fluctua-
tions from year to year may be seen reflected in the
records of clearances from these ports during the unset-
tled period, as given in Table II of Appendix I.

For a second time whaling, except from Nantucket,
was stopped by war. There the people from force of
necessity were obliged to keep the interests alive, both
by whaling from sloops in neighboring waters and by
sending out an occasional vessel on a longer voyage.
Again, however, the islanders, knowing only the one
pursuit, through their shipping, found themselves facing
the hardships of actual want when this shipping wa-
interfered with. Of the forty-six whaling vessels bes
longing to the island when the war began, only twenty-
three remained when peace was declared.”

Through four decades the American whale fishery
had lived a precarious existence of constant ups and
downs. Foreign wars, unsettled conditions at home,
restricted markets and unnatural stimulation had kept
the business in a continual state of uncertainty. Imme-
diately before the outbreak of the Revolution the whale
fishery, after several years of unbroken success, had
reached the highest point in size and prosperity in its
whole history. But at no time in the thirty years from
1785 to 1815 were the conditions stable long enough for
the fishery to resume its former importance. Starbuck
regarded 360 sail as a conservative estimate of the size
of the fleet in 1775. Though exact figures are lacking

* Macy, p. 205.

46 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

for most of the period from 1785-1815, it seems doubtful
if the whaling fleet ever reached a total of 200 vessels.
The size of the vessels had increased and the length of
the voyages had been extended until whaling in the
Pacific was well established. But at best the towns
participating were few and the number of vessels was
small. It was truly a critical period in the history of the
whale fishery. In 1815, for the second time in a half
century, the declaration of peace found the whaling
industry in a practically ruined condition, to be rebuilt
almost anew. But from the ruins a whale fishery was to
grow up, slowly and steadily, during the next three
decades, of such importance and prosperity as no other
time or country has ever seen.

CHAPTER IV.
THE GOLDEN ERA OF WHALING. 1815-1860.

The War of 1812 quite effectually put a stop to extensive
whaling operations. In 1813, 1814 and 1815 the imports
of whale products fell to a small fraction of what they had

been even in the unsettled times of a few years before,
and the exports ceased almost entirely under the opera-
tion of the embargoes. A comparison of the amounts of
imports for two representative years will show the extent
of the war’s influence.

Imports OF WHALE PRODUCTS.

Gallons Gallons Pounds

Sperm Oil. Whale Oil. Bone.

DOU aes srayeve niece (OAL. 2OO 304,825 43,200
MCE aaayaie eideebelatece <p Oy SLO 4,347 Pa

From 1810 to 1815 Nantucket and New Bedford were
the only ports sending out more than a single vessel and
in 1812, 1813 and 1814, Nantucket alone kept any of its
whaling fleet employed.!

The news of the peace came early in the year 1815 and
brought almost immediate activity to the whale fishery.?
Ships were soon fitted and sent to sea both by the old
firms and by new adventurers who added to the fleet.
The belief that the first cargoes of oil would bring high
prices as they had at the close of the Revolution acted as
a powerful stimulus to the industry and led many to
venture beyond the extent of their funds. The result of
this condition at Nantucket, says Macy,’ was the intro-

1 Starbuck’s records of sailing, p. 18off.

7 Macy, p. 205.
* Macy, p. 207.

48 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

duction of “A system of doing business on long credits.’’
The fishery was benefited in a way, since more ships and
more men were thereby employed, but general business
interests suffered. Merchants were hampered by being
obliged to wait for bills to be paid and by having to
borrow money to purchase their own stocks of goods.
Owners of vessels who were not favored with successful
voyages were soon financially embarrassed, and a general
depression prevailed at Nantucket.

At other ports the industry was not resumed on such
an extensive scale as at Nantucket, and hence there were
not the same financial difficulties. By the end of the
year 1815 only five other ports besides Nantucket had
sent out whaling vessels: New Bedford, Fairhaven, Sag
Harbor, Hudson, and Westport—sending a total of
eighteen sail, a little over a third the number sent from
Nantucket.

In the following year, 1816, six more towns were added
to the list of whaling ports—Boston, Edgartown, New-
port, Wareham, Rochester and Holmes Hole. But only
the first three mentioned continued the business in the
years immediately following. It was not until about
two years afterward that whaling was once more on a firm
basis, with prosperity again promising to smile on the
industry. In 1818 the vessels began to return with
good cargoes from profitable voyages. In the same year
the “offshore fishing grounds’’ in the Pacific were first
visited, and the plentiful supply of whales was reported.
The prices of oil still remained relatively high, and though
bone was not yet an important product, its price was
higher than it had been before the war. The British
northern whale fishery had failed during two successive
years,‘ and in addition to the other European markets,
there was a large demand for oil from the English mar-
kets. These conditions seemed to give whaling the

“Macy, p. 209.

The Golden Era of Whaling. 49

impetus which it had needed. New life was given to the
business and the ascendency of whaling prosperity was
fairly begun.

The Nantucket fleet had numbered only twenty-three
sail at the close of the war in 1815.5 By 1819, however,
there were sixty-one ships and brigs employed,® and by
1821 the fleet had increased to eighty-four.’ The success
of the fishery from Nantucket was an important factor
in stimulating the industry at other ports. For over a
century Nantucket had been the leader in the realm of
whaling ventures. When the Nantucket fishermen made
profitable voyages, merchants from other ports were quick
to follow their example. In fact the whale fishery, per-
haps more than any other industry, was at all times easily
stimulated and easily depressed. This period was no ex-
ception to the rule. For two or three years about 1820
there were over a score of ports sending out whale ships
more or less regularly, mainly from Southern New Eng-
land and New York points. Other places entered the
field during the years following, though from many of
them the fishery was carried on intermittently for some
time. Nantucket and New Bedford far outranked all
other places in the magnitude of their whaling interests.
While Fairhaven; New London, Sag Harbor and West-
port were employing gradually increasing fleets each year.

Between 1820 and 1835 was an uneventful period in
the whaling business, marked mainly by stable conditions
and by steady but gradual growth. In 1820 the Pacific
whaling was extended to the coast of Japan, and within
the next few years the whalers were going to all parts of
the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. There were hardly
a half dozen ports from which whaling was regularly
pursued in 1820. During the early twenties the num-
ber of important whaling ports was not greatly increased.

5 Macy, p. 205. |

® Macy, p. 209.

‘Macy, p, 2254

50 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

Toward 1830, however, the generally prosperous condi-
tions of the whaling interests began to be reflected in the
larger number of ports from which vessels were regularly
sent on whaling voyages year after year. Thus from 1830
on, regular fleets were employed from Falmouth, Fall
River, Lynn, Plymouth, and Salem, in Massachusetts;
from Bristol and Warren, in Rhode Island; from Hudson,
Greenport and Poughkeepsie, in New York; from Ports-
mouth, New Hampshire; and from Stonington, Connecti-
cut. From several of these ports the fishery had been
carried on intermittently at different times for many
years previous to 1830. By 1835 the number of ports
had increased to nearly thirty, with fleets varying from
two or three sail to nearly two hundred. In 1835, for ex-
ample, the fleet from New Bedford and Fairhaven num-
bered 178 vessels and in 1836 it was 208.8 In 1829 the
combined total fleet was 203 sail, including ships, brigs
and schooners. During the next five years the number
more than doubled, there being 421 sail in the whaling
fleet of 1834.° :
The year 1835 marks the beginning of a period of
almost phenomenal growth and prosperity in the whale
fishery, the effects of which lasted for two decades—the
culmination of the Golden Age of whaling. For a number
of years previous to 1835 whaling had met with fairly uni-
form success. New grounds where whales were very
abundant had been successively opened. The industry
had enjoyed settled and generally favorable conditions
both at home and in foreign markets. Whalebone had
eome to have an increasingly large use in various indus-
tries and from being regarded as waste it was beginning
to rank as an important product. The markets for oil
were good, and in the years just previous to 1835 the
prices had shown an upward tendency. Sperm oil was

8 Starbuck, p. 702.
® Hunt’s Magazine, XVI, p. go.

The Golden Era of Whaling. 51

noticeably higher, and bone was bringing twice as much
as it had in 1820. At the same time the quantities
of whale products imported was increasing rapidly,
though not constantly, from year to year. In 1835, also,
a Nantucket whaler captured the first right whale on the
northwest coast of America, thereby opening one of the
most important grounds ever visited by the whaling
fleet. Under these favorable conditions the rapid growth
of the next few years was almost inevitable.

From 1835 to 1860 the whaling fleet averaged about
620 vessels annually with a tonnage aggregating 190,500
tons. The annual imports averaged 117,950 barrels of
sperm oil, 215,913 barrels of whale oil and 2,323,512
pounds of bone—with a total average value of over
$8,000,000 a year.!®

The six years from 1834 to 1840 witnessed an increase of
the fleet from 421 to 552 vessels. In the latter year there
were thirty-eight different ports regularly engaged in
whaling, though about two-thirds of the total fleet were
owned at New Bedford and Fairhaven, Nantucket, New
London and Sag Harbor." Another six years and the
whaling fleet had assumed the greatest proportions it was
ever to know. In 1846 the fleet numbered 680 ships and
barks, 34 brigs and 22 schooners, with a total tonnage of
233,262 tons.” The value of the fleet alone at this time
exceeded $21,000,000," while all the investments con-
nected with the business were estimated to have a value
of at least $70,000,000, furnishing the chief support for
70,000 persons. But as was characteristic of the whale
fishery, in spite of the greater number of vessels employed
and the larger amount of capital invested, the importa-
tions in 1846 were less than for the years just previous;
and less than the quantities imported in some of the suc-

* Compiled from Scammon’s figures, p. 243.
™ Goode, p. 171.

12 ““Whalemen’s Shipping List.”

48 Scammon, p. 213.

52 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

ceeding years when the size of the fleet was distinctly
smaller.

Though 1846 or 1847 is generally regarded as marking
the year when the whale fishery reached its greatest
prosperity, the conclusion is a mistaken one. The year
1846 marks only the year when the largest fleet was em-
ployed and the amount of invested capital was therefore
greatest. The real value of the fishery as a commercial
enterprise continued to remain high for a number of years
afterward. Prices of oil and bone continued to rise quite
steadily year after year during the next decade. Between
1846 and 1856 sperm oil rose from 88 cents to $1.62 per
gallon; whale oil rose from 34 cents to 79 cents and bone
rose from 34 cents to 58 cents a pound. In the latter
year, despite the smaller importations than for some of
the previous years, the actual value of the products was
greater. These highly prosperous conditions were the
direct result of the ready markets and increased consump-
tion of whale products throughout the country. In
1857, however, the financial depression brought a sudden
slump in prices of oil, and sounded the doom of whaling
interests.

The whaling boom in 1846 and 1847 was the outcome
partly of the previous years of success and prosperity,
encouraging new ventures, and partly of the opening of
the new grounds for bowhead whales in the Okhotsk and
Kamtchatka Seas. The opening of the Arctic fishery
two years later gave another impetus to the industry.
The importance of the Pacific grounds at this time may
be seen from the number of vessels cruising in the differ-
ent regions in the year 1847. About sixty small barks,
brigs and schooners were cruising in the Atlantic for
sperm whales, and one ship was engaged in the Davis
Straits fishery. Some thirty-two barks were in the In-
dian Ocean after sperm whales, while a single schooner
was sperm whaling in the Pacific and a dozen other
whalers were temporarily engaged in the merchant ser-

The Golden Era of Whaling. 53

vice or acting as tenders to the whaling fleet. Practically
all of the remaining 600 vessels were cruising on the dif-
ferent grounds in the North and South Pacific. About
a fifth of these were sperm whaling only, and the rest
were fitted for both sperm and right whaling. The first
whaling vessels had entered the Pacific in 1791 and now,
a little over half a century later, more than six-sevenths
of the fleet were frequenting those grounds.

The Golden Age of whaling was marked by numerous
small experiments in the fishery from a large number of
ports. Maine, a great fishing state in other branches of
the fisheries, was never prominent in whaling. Accord-
ing to some accounts whaling was carried on for many
years after 1810 from Prospect Harbor, while shore whal-
ing in the vicinity of Tremont was begun about 1840 and
continued for nearly twenty years. Between 1835 and
1845 Bath, Bucksport, Portland and Wiscasset had
vessels engaged in whaling, but none of them had more
than a single vessel in any one year. Whaling was soon
abandoned from all Maine ports.

The only other whaling port north of the Massachusetts
coast was Portsmouth, N. H. The fishery from there
was begun in 1832, and, with the exception of one year,
one or two vessels were fitted for whaling annually until
1848.

Newark, N. J., and Wilmington, Del., were also added
to the list during this time, Wilmington having five
vessels in its fleet from 1840 to 1842. But for the most
part the minor ports were in Southern New England and
New York where the influence of the greater successes
was more strongly felt.

A glance at the figures showing the fleet for each year
at the different whaling ports (Table II in Appendix I)
shows a number of cases where whaling became a regular
industry between 1830 and 1840; the fleet reached its

™ Goode, pp. 40-41.

54 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

greatest size in 1845 to 1848 and the industry was finally
abandoned in the next ten or fifteen years. Fall River,
Lynn, Holmes Hole; Mystic and Stonington, Conn., and
Greenport, New York, all furnish typical examples of the
stimulation of whaling enterprises from 1835 onward. At
several of these places the whole history of whaling opera-
tions falls within the limits of the Golden Age. They
were enterprises which came into existence on the full
tide of prosperity reflected from other ports. They.
disappeared as quickly as they came when that pros-
perity began to totter.

The whaling industry from practically all of the smaller
ports began to fall off after 1847 or 1848, while in a few
places there had been a decline for some years previous.
But not so with New Bedford. As far back as 1820
the New Bedford interests had become a close rival
of Nantucket; by 1830 New Bedford was supreme in
_importance in the whale fishery, and by- 1840 the New
Bedford fleet was more than twice as large as the Nan-
tucket fleet, its nearest rival. When the business began
to fall off at other places, it kept on increasing in the New
Bedford district. After 1847 Nantucket, New London,
and Sag Harbor, following the great majority, were yearly
decreasing their whaling fleets. But the highest point of
whaling prosperity, in the size of the fleet, amount of
capital invested, and value of imports, was not reached
at New Bedford until 1857. In that year the fleet
numbered 329 sail, valued at over $12,000,000, and
employing some 10,000 seamen alone.* Whaling with its
associated industries was the main commercial and indus-
trial interest of the city, and thousands of busy workers
had been employed during the preceding century in ~
trades and professions closely related to the whaling
industry.

During the Golden Age the New Bedford district was
the center of the greatest whaling operations ever carried

18 Pease, p. 30.

The Golden Era of Whaling. 55

on from any region in the world. Just previous to the
Revolution Nantucket had stood forth resplendent in the
prosperity of her daring whalemen. But in all her glory
Nantucket had not risen even to a semblance of the
industry as prosecuted from the New Bedford district.

Within a radius of ten miles of New Bedford were
Fairhaven, Dartmouth, Westport, Mattapoisett and
Seppican, making up a whaling fleet from Buzzard’s Bay
that totaled 426 sail in 1857, ten years after the fleets of
other ports had begun to decrease. Rochester in the
same circle had been a flourishing whaling town—in fact
there was hardly a town in this area which had not taken
an active part in whaling enterprises.

It seems safe to assert that no other industry so wide
spread in its operation has been so closely restricted in the
places from which it was carried on. Even in its greatest
development the charmed circle of important whaling
ports was not’ widely extended. Outside of the ports
along the southern New England coast from Cape Cod to
New York, and on the islands to the south, there was
hardly a single important port, until the rise of San
Francisco, after 1880. And the center of all from 1820
onward was at New Bedford.

The continued growth of the New Bedford interests,
after the other fleets had begun to decrease, kept up the
industry to a high rank of commercial importance, and
through a whole decade had warded off the rapidly
approaching decline. But on all sides whaling vessels
were being sold or withdrawn. Partners were dropping
out of the whaling companies. Old companies ceased
to exist at ports where they had conducted the business
for years. And finally, at port after port, the industry
was entirely abandoned. The changed economic condi-
tions were steadily and surely undermining whaling
prosperity. New Bedford, the queen of whaling ports,
could no longer turn the tide.

It is not at all easy to explain why the New Bedford

56 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

region so far outranked all others in the magnitude of her
whaling interests. The great prosperity of the Golden
Age had grown out of stable economic conditions in a
time of no important wars either at home or abroad.
Industrial prosperity had been general. The demands for,
and consumption of, oils and bone had increased on all
sides. The European markets were quite largely depen-
dent on the American supply. Prices were good, and the
opening of successive whaling regions made successful
and profitable voyages the rule. All the ports alike
carried on their operations under these same favorable
conditions. But New Bedford rapidly outstripped them
all.

The New Bedford supremacy could not be due to closer
proximity to the whaling grounds, for nearly all the
important grounds were in the Pacific. Nor could it be
due to priority in the fishery, for Nantucket was sending
out half a hundred vessels yearly before the first house
was built in New Bedford. In Nantucket necessity had
been the mother of the fisheries, for no other means of a
livelihood was offered. But at New Bedford the necessity
was no greater than at a hundred other New England
ports. The harbor was no better than many others
along the coast. Boston and New York had harbors
far superior to New Bedford, yet neither was ever a
great whaling port. The facilities for refining, for manu-
facture or for communication were no better than at other
places. No regular maritime commerce was established
until the trade in whale products developed it, and the
railroad was not built until nearly 1850. In fact there
does not seem to be any good reason why New Bedford
should have been the greatest whaling center any more
than Boston, or Provincetown, or New London. About
the only plausible explanation seems to be that it was
largely due to the proximity to Nantucket. At Nan-
tucket whaling had sprung up from a natural stimulus
and met with success. It was quite logical therefore for

The Golden Era of Whaling. 57

the New Bedford harbor to be used as a whaling port.
As the industry flourished, its promoters and followers
did not have to contend with the same unfavorable
natural conditions as those which had to be met on barren
Nantucket. Success created new capital and attracted
still more for investment in whaling ventures. The
New Bedford whalemen soon became well known for
their skill and success. Because there were important
interests at New Bedford others were attracted. Hence
the fact that the Golden Age of whaling was very largely
the prosperity of the New Bedford fishery.

CHAPTER V.
THE Rise oF Paciric WHALING.

Deep-sea whaling had been carried on in the Atlantic
for nearly three-quarters of a century, before the whalers,
led by their desire for more rapid returns and greater
profits, rounded Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean. In
1791 six ships from Nantucket and one from New Bedford
sailed for the Pacific on sperm whaling voyages. It was
an epoch-making step in the history of whaling, since out
of the abundance of these distant grounds was to grow
a fishery of far-reaching commercial importance.

These first Pacific whalers found plenty of sperm whales
along the coast of Chili and returned home with full
cargoes after successful voyages. The news soon spread
through the fleet, and each year saw an increasing number
of vessels clearing for the Pacific grounds. Later voyages
were extended farther and farther north along the coast
until the equator was reached. The cruising grounds at
first were confined mainly to the waters up to a distance
of too leagues from land,’ and in this region whaling
continued until the fishery was temporarily stopped
during the war of 1812.

Whaling was resumed again in 1815 and the years
following, and the fleet resorted to the old Pacific grounds.
But with the increasing activity of the whalemen, whales
began to be scarce, and the voyages were extended in the
search for new grounds. In 1818 the so-called “offshore
grounds’’ were discovered with sperm whales in large
numbers, and by 1820 upwards of fifty ships were cruis-
ing in that region. But in a short time those grounds

‘Macy, p. 217.

The Rise of Pacific Whaling. 59

were also practically exhausted, and the pursuit of whales
led the adventurous whalemen farther and farther into
the Pacific. Between 1820 and 1821 the first vessels
went to the Japanese coast and in the following year more
than thirty vessels cruised there.2, From that time on the
voyages were extended rapidly to other parts of the North
and South Pacific, while some vessels, going out by way
of the eastern route, cruised for a time in the Indian
Ocean, mainly about Madagascar and the mouth of the
Red Sea.

The steadily increasing prosperity of whaling after the
war was reflected in the growth of the Pacific fishery.
About 1830 to 1835 the Nantucket fleet went mainly to
the Pacific, and after 1840 they went there almost exclu-
sively. The Nantucket fleet was also soon followed by
the majority of the New Bedford fleet, and a large part
of the New London and the Sag Harbor vessels. In fact
it was largely due to the vessels from these latter ports
that the Pacific fishery was so rapidly and successfully
extended. The Nantucket whalemen, on. the other
hand, persisted in resorting to the older grounds often
for many years after new grounds were proving more
profitable to the vessels from other ports. This fact alone
was an important factor in bringing about the early
reverses in whaling enterprises from Nantucket.

About 1838 the great northwest coast whaling grounds
were discovered. Five years later whales were first
taken along the coast of Kamtchatka and in the Okhotsk
Sea, and ten years later, 1848, a Sag Harbor vessel made
a very successful voyage in the Arctic Ocean north of
Bering Strait. For several years previous to that date
the chief cruising grounds in the North Pacific had been
along the northwest coast and south of Bering Strait.*
Thus it had taken only a little over half a century from
the time the first whalers entered the Pacific until they

4 Macy, p. 218.
* Goode, note, p. 85.

60 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

had penetrated as far as the Arctic. From the very first
the value of the Arctic fishery was apparent, and the
fleet frequenting the Arctic grounds increased rapidly in
numbers. In the last few decades it has been the most
important of all whaling regions, almost all the Pacific
fleet cruising in Arctic waters.

Up to the time that whaling was begun in the Arctic,
the whole Pacific fishery had been carried on from the
whaling ports on the Atlantic. Though the whalers often
put into Pacific ports, or wintered along the coast, it was
from the New England ports that the vessels sailed and to
them that they returned with their cargoes of oil and
bone. Many months of valuable time were thus con-
sumed in the long voyages out and in around Cape Horn.

Two years after the first whaler entered the Arctic
region whaling was begun as a Pacific coast industry.
Late in 1850 an old whaling vessel, the Popmunnett, was
fitted and sent out from San Francisco on a sperm whal-
ing voyage to the Gallipagos Islands, and the coasts of
Chili and Peru. A bark soon followed, but what success
these voyages met is not recorded. And it was not until
fifteen years later that San Francisco again appeared as a
whaling port.

In 1851, however, shore whaling was tried at Monterey.
The whales were pursued in boats and when captured
were towed ashore where the blubber was removed.
In fact the whole experiment was carried on in essentially
the same way as it had been done by the New England
whalers more than 150 years before. Out of this exper-
iment arose a regular system of shore whaling which in the
course of twenty years was carried on from eleven sta-
tions.’ These stations were located along the coast from
Half Moon Bay, on the north, to Point Abanda, in Lower
California, on the south. They were situated near Half
Moon Bay, Pigeon Point, two at Monterey Bay, Carmel

* Starbuck, p. 100.
*’Scammon, p. 247.

The Rise of Pacific Whaling. 61

Bay, San Simeon, San Louis Obispo, Goleta, Portuguese
Bend, San Diego, and Point Abanda. The organization
of each party was patterned after that of a whaling vessel,
with officers and crew being paid their regular “lay.”’
Many of the whalers were Portuguese and Italians.*
But like all other shore whaling operations its success was
only temporary and the dying out of the industry was
soon foreshadowed by the increasing scarcity of whales
near the coast. In 1874, Scammon says, “having been
so long and constantly pursued (the whales), are exceed-
ingly wild and difficult of approach, and were it not for
the utility of Greener’s gun (harpoon gun) the coast
fishery would be abandoned, it being now next to impos-
sible to “strike’’ with the hand harpoon.’ Before 1888
the entire shore fishery had been given up, San Simeon,
in 1887, being the last station abandoned.®

Though San Francisco first began as a whaling port in
1850, it was not until two decades later that the industry
was regularly carried on. There are various references to
whaling vessels sailing from that port during the years
from 1850 to 1869,° but there does not appear to have been
any permanent fleet employed until 1869 and the years
following.” By 1869 the decline of whaling interests
was well under way—in fact had gone so far that the
Nantucket industry was finally abandoned in that year,”
though according to Goode’s table” there was a whaling
fleet at’ Nantucket until 1873. Stonington, Mystic,
Greenport, Cold Spring, Warren, Wareham, Fall River,
Seppican, Falmouth, Holmes Hole, Providence, Newport,
Lynn, Quincy, Mattapoisett, Yarmouth and Somerset,

* Scammon, p. 250.

7Scammon, p. 248.

8 Fish Comm. Rep., 1888, p. 44.

* Starbuck, pp. 490, 608, 630.

10 «“Whalemen’s Shipping List.’

1! Macy, p. 301.

12 Goode, p. 171.

62 A History of the American Whale Fishery. °

mustering a fleet of ninety-two vessels in 1850, no longer
sent out a single whaler. Thus whaling as a true Paci-
fic coast industry was not regularly established until after
the decline of whaling had become marked at the Atlan-
tic ports, and whatever growth was shown was in the face
of adverse conditions.

During the succeeding years there were spasmodic
movements in the whaling business, as the result of some
rise in prices or some new instance of a phenomenal
voyage. But on the whole the San Francisco fleet alone
showed any steady growth. From 1869 to 1880 the
fleet from that port was never larger than eight sail, and
during most of the time it numbered only one or two
sail. But after 1880 the growth was fairly rapid for a
number of years.

The steam whaling vessel was introduced into the fleet
in 1880, bringing about a sort of revolution in Arctic
whaling. Up to this time the northern fleet had been
accustomed to winter in San Francisco or at some other
port in the Pacific, spending the time either in refitting
or perhaps in short cruises for whales in the milder
latitudes. The so-called “lagoon whaling,’’ in the arms
and lagoons of Magdalena Bay was a favorite form of
employment during the winter season. As early as 1848,
fifty ships were anchored there for this purpose, the whal-
ing being done entirely from boats.* As soon as spring
opened, the vessels went north again to wait for the ice
to break up so that they could pass through Bering Strait.
In the autumn the vessels returned with their cargoes,
which were transshiped to the east from San Francisco,
Panama, Honolulu and other points.*

With the introduction of the steam whaling vessel,
however, arose the practice of remaining in the Arctic
during the winter in order to be earlier on the grounds

18 “Shipping List,’’ 1850. Scammon, p. 241.

1 Scammon, p. 268.

18 Goode, p. 26.

The Rise of Pacific Whaling. 63

when the ice broke up in the spring. And by 1893 one-
fourth the vessels whaling in the North Pacific and
Arctic Oceans wintered off the mouth of the Mackenzie
River.* A steamer visited the absent vessels to carry
supplies and to receive any oil or bone taken. As a
result the interests of San Francisco in the whale fishery
could not be accurately measured by the size of the fleet
owned there. The greater part of the northern fleet was
accustomed to resort to that port as headquarters both
for refitting and for transshipment of their cargoes to the
Atlantic seaboard.

The facilities for shipment afforded by the trans-
continental railroads also had a marked influence on the
industry. Formerly all transshipment of cargoes to the
home ports had been across the Isthmus of Panama or
by vessel around Cape Horn. The railroads from San
Francisco changed all this and from a minor whaling
port, San Francisco rapidly came to be the foremost
whaling rendezvous in the country. ‘True it is that New
Bedford still possessed a larger fleet, but a great many
of its vessels carried on the business from San Francisco
as their headquarters.

Still another favorable circumstance was the establish-
ment of extensive refineries near San Francisco. For
some years after the beginning of whaling from San
Francisco all the manufacturing of whale and sperm oils
had continued to be done exclusively in the neighborhood
of the Atlantic ports—largely at New Bedford. In 1883,
however, refineries were built near San Francisco,”
thereby enabling the western owners to find a market
for their manufactured products without paying the
heavy costs of shipping them east to the refineries of New
Bedford. In addition to the refining plants, there were
also large works for the manufacture of sperm candles,

© Fish Comm. Rep., 1894, p. 153.

” Fish Comm. Rep., 1883, p. 327.

64 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

so that the western industry in almost every way was
made independent of the eastern ports.

Under these favorable conditions the San Francisco
fleet grew rapidly after 1880, increasing from three vessels
in that year to thirty-three vessels in 1893, about two-
thirds of which number were steamers. That the San
Francisco fleet should grow while all other fleets were de-
creasing from year to year may seem unnatural, since all
alike had to meet practically the same economic con-
ditions. From all indications the explanation seems to
be clearly enough in the fact that the rise of the San
Francisco fishery was a transferring of interests. Instead
of being owned in New Bedford and New London, and
making their headquarters at San Francisco—the eastern
interests were transferred to vessels registered directly
from the Pacific port.

The fishery from the western coast has therefore
almost entirely superseded that from the Atlantic ports.
Since 1895 Boston, New Bedford, Provincetown and San
Francisco have been the only ports from which whaling
vessels were regularly registered, and ‘in 1903 the business
at Boston was abandoned. New Bedford and San
Francisco alone are now important. Provincetown has
only three schooners, all employed in sperm whaling in
the Atlantic, along with two schooners and seven barks
from New Bedford, and one brig from Norwich, Conn.

At present practically all the large vessels in the whal-
ing fleet operate from San Francisco. The North Pacific-
Arctic fleet numbered twenty vessels in 1905 out of a
total fleet of forty-two vessels. The principal whaling
ground is now along the ice fields of the Arctic Ocean,
where the ships cruise from the time the ice breaks up in
the spring until winter sets in again in October. The
season for Arctic whaling is therefore short, and the
pursuit of the whales is at times extremely dangerous.

18 “Whalemen’s Shipping List, 1906.”

The Rise of Pacific Whaling. 65

The dense Arctic fogs are a frequent menace to the boats
until the fog lifts. The supplies are carried out from
home by tenders which in turn bring back the oil and
bone resulting from the season’s work. But an occasional
closing in of the ice upon vessels but partly provisioned
often means hardship and suffering for the whalemen.
Thus in the past winter several vessels, having on board
some 450 men were imprisoned at Herschel and at
Bailey Islands, only about half provisioned.* The
more serious side of the Arctic fishery, the disasters
resulting from encounters with the ice, as in 1871 and
1876, makes one of the saddest chapters in the story of
American whaling. The losses resulting from this
cause were a powerful factor in bringing about the decline
of the business. In other words, the whale fishery of the
future, whatever that may be, must almost inevitably be
largely the San Francisco or Pacific coast industry, de-
pending on a fair supply and a favorable market for
whalebone.

19 Manchester (N.H.) ‘‘Union,” July 15, 1906 ; ‘‘Whalemen’s Ship-
ping List, 1906.

CHAPTER VI.
THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN WHALING.

Sixty years ago the American whaling fishery was in
the full height of its greatest prosperity, with the largest
number of vessels ever employed in whaling. Now its
glory is gone and the fleet both in number and tonnage
of vessels is smaller than at almost any other time since
the Revolution. To trace the progress of this decline and
the economic changes which have induced it, is one of the
most important phases in the history of the whaling
industry.

During the height of whaling, the industry had grown
with remarkable rapidity to proportions far beyond all
expectations. The climax was reached in 1846 when the
fleet numbered 736 sail, with an aggregate tonnage of
Over 230,000 tons.’ The sudden increase of the fleet in
1846,—an increase of forty-one over 1845 and of ninety-
one over 1844—Wwas the result of a demand for more ships
in the lucrative, newly opened fisheries for bowhead
whales in Okhotsk Sea, along the Kamtchatkan coast
and in Bering Strait. But the very causes which had
helped to bring about this rapid growth, operated event-
ually toward the beginning of the decline.

The prosperity continued for several years, almost a
decade in fact, until the returning vessels brought such
great quantities of oil and bone that the market was
glutted and prices of oil fell. Voyages that would
formerly have yielded good profits were made at a loss,
and the condition of success and prosperity became one of

+ ““Whalemen’s Shipping List,’’ Mar. 7, rgos.

Decline of American Whaling. 67

uncertainty and anxiety. Almost coincident with this
depression came the financial crisis of 1857 with the
general depression of industries throughout the country.
The whaling industry never fully recovered from the
setback it received then. New conditions unfavorable to
whaling interests soon arose, and within a few years the
decline of the industry had begun, to continue almost
without interruption down to the present day.

Before entering into the detailed discussion of the
phases and causes of the decline, a general view of its
extent may be had from a table showing the size and
tonnage of the fleet in a few representative years. The
progress from year to year may be seen in the table of
statistics for the whole fleet given in Table I of Appendix
I, from which these figures are selected:

DECLINE OF THE WHALING FLEET.

Ships and
Barks. Brigs. Schooners. Total. Tonnage.
1846 680 34 22 736 233,262
1861 459 14 41 514 158,745
1869 223 25 88 330 74,512
1873 153 12 38 203 47,996
1890 65 6 26 97 22,718
IQoI 27 ° 13 40 8,746
1906 25 2 14 42 9,878

The years here given may be regarded as milestones in
the decline, since each marks an important downward
step. Thus after 1869 the fleet never numbered over
300 sail; after 1873 it never reached 200 again; since
1890 it has been less than 100, and in the last five years
it has been below fifty vessels. The same rule also holds
for the figures of tonnage.

First, to consider the extent of the decline more in detail.
Between 1846 and 1850 there were nearly fifty different
ports in southern New England and New York sending
out whaling vessels. The fleet averaged over 600 sail
each year, bringing in a product with an average annual

68 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

value of about $8,000,000.? Many of the ports, however,
employed less than a half dozen vessels, perhaps only one
or two, the industry having been undertaken as a result
of the great whaling prosperity beginning in the early
forties. The industry was abandoned from some of these
minor posts before the climax of whaling prosperity was
reached in 1846. Thus there is no record of vessels
sailing from the following ports after the dates given:*

1841 1845
Hudson, N. Y. Portsmouth, N. H.
Poughkeepsie, N. Y.

Newark, N. J. 1846
Wilmington, Del. Barnstable, Mass.
Bucksport, Me. Plymouth, Mass.
Bristol, R. I.
1844 Bridgeport, Conn.

Duxbury, Mass.
Freetown, Mass.

But most of the ports continued to send out their
vessels until a change in conditions began to be felt.
The minor ports seemed almost to foretell the approaching
depression, for at one after another the business was
abandoned, in most cases never to be resumed. The
business at a number of these ports was given up while
whaling was still enjoying remarkable prosperity at
New Bedford and other places. Why it should have been
so is hard to tell. The suggestion that the smaller
enterprises were crowded out by the larger seems to
be refuted by the very nature of the industry and the
fact that market prices were steadily rising. The most
logical conclusion apparently is that these vessels from
small ports really made the large ports their headquarters,
and it was only an easy step for them to be transferred or
sold to the larger companies operating from New Bedford,
Sag Harbor or New London. Hence what is commonly

?Scammon, p. 243.
Compiled from Starbuck’s records of sailing.

———————— ee

Decline of American Whaling. 69

called the first stage of the decline was only a phase in
whaling development. Later on, however, it was ap-
parent that the industry was actually on the decline;
that the abandonment of the business at different ports
was the result of adverse conditions which the small
ports were the first to feel. The following table gives the
names of the ports and the respective dates of the last
recorded clearances:

1848
Somerset, Mass.
Chilmark, Mass.

1849
Quincy, Mass.
Yarmouth, Mass.

1850

New Suffolk, N. Y.

1852
Truro, Mass.

1853
Gloucester, Mass.
Lynn, Mass.

1854
Providence, R. I.

1856
Newport, R. I.
1857

Wareham, Mass.
Greenport, N. Y.

Cold Spring, N. Y.

1858

New Haven, Conn.

1859
Falmouth, Mass.

1860
Fall River, Mass.
Stonington, Conn.
Mystic, Conn.

1861
Orleans, Mass.
Warren, R. I.

1862
Sandwich, Mass.
Holmes Hole, Mass.

1864
Mattapoisett, Mass.

1867
Wellfleet, Mass.

1868
Salem, Mass.
Tisbury, Mass.
Groton, Conn.

1869
Newburyport, Mass.
Nantucket, Mass.

1871
Sag Harbor, N. Y.

1873
Beverly, Mass.

1874
New York. N. Y.

* Compiled from Starbuck’s records of clearances.

70 A History of the American Whale Fishery. »

Thus in twenty-five years whaling was finally aban-
doned from thirty ports, including some of the oldest
whaling towns in New England. Practically all the
Cape Cod industry was gone except the Provincetown
fleet. Nantucket, the queen of whaling ports a century
before, had sent her last whaler. All the New York
industry was abandoned, even from Sag Harbor, whence
it had been carried on almost constantly since the begin- _
ning of the previous century. And of the Connecticut
ports, New London alone still had a whaling fleet. In
short, by 1875 the only important whaling interests still
remaining were the Provincetown fleet of schooners and
the fleet owned in what might be styled the New Bedford
district, comprising the ports of New Bedford, Fairhaven,
Dartmouth, Marion and Westport. Edgartown had
one vessel; Boston, three; New London, six; and San
Francisco, two. The fleet then numbered 163 sail,
aggregating 37,733 tons—a decrease of over seventy-five
per cent in numbers and over eighty per cent in tonnage
in less than thirty years. Of this fleet nearly two-thirds,
107 vessels, belonged in New Bedford alone.

But as sweeping as these changes had been, the down-
ward movement was not complete. Out of the half score
of ports still carrying on whaling in 1875, only New Bed-
ford, Provincetown, Boston and San Francisco were to
continue until the end of the century, the others met the
same fate as had befallen many before them—the in-
ability to carry on whaling any longer as a profitable
business. Fairhaven dropped out in 1879, Westport in
1881, Dartmouth in 1882, Marion in 1886, New London
in 1893, Edgartown in 1895, and Boston in 1903. Ston-
ington, from which whaling was resumed in 1878, after
a lapse of seventeen years, again dropped from the list
in 1893. During the whole period none of these ports
was important, since there was hardly a year when any
individual fleet exceeded five sail, or the total fleet from
the minor ports was over a score of vessels.

Decline of American Whaling. 71

On January 1, 1906, there were three whaling ports
employing fleets as follows: New Bedford twenty-four
vessels, tonnage 5,618; San Francisco fourteen vessels,
tonnage 3,626; Provincetown three vessels, tonnage 340.
Norwich, Conn., again appeared as a whaling port with
one brig of 294 tons, after a lapse of seventy years. For
the ten years ending 1905 the whaling fleet has aver-
aged fifty-one sail with a tonnage of 10,184 tons, yield-
ing an average annual product valued at nearly $1,000,-
ooo. When compared with the annual averages for a
half century ago it seems hard to realize that the figures
apply to the same industry.

Accompanying the decline in the size of the fleet and
the amount and value of the annual product of the whale
fishery, there has been a similar decline in the market
price of oil. The price of bone, however, has steadily
risen, a fact of the utmost significance to the industry.
After 1847 the price of sperm oil never fell below $1.00
per gallon for thirty consecutive years—a good part of
the time it ranged between $1.30 and $1.60 per gallon,
while after the war it rose as high as $2.55 per gallon.§
During the same period the price of whale oil fluctuated
generally between 50 and 80 cents per gallon, going as
high as $1.45 per gallon at the close of the war. Since
about 1875, though the prices of sperm and whale oils
have varied up and down from year to year, the tendency
on the whole has been a steady decline. In 1895 whale
oil went the lowest that it has been since 1834, falling to
28 cents per gallon, and in the year following, sperm
oil fell to the lowest price recorded in a hundred years,
40 cents per gallon. At present (1905) the average
prices are: sperm oil 46 cents per gallon, and whale
oil 31 cents per gallon.

On the other hand the price of bone has tended steadily
upward, though showing wide fluctuations from year to

* See complete table of average annual prices, Table V of Appendix I.

72 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

year. Thus for several years, just in the height of whaling
prosperity, the average annual price of bone was less than
40 cents per pound. In 1891 it touched $5.38, and
in 1904, $5.80, per pound, the latter being the highest
annual average ever recorded. In 1905, the average
price was $4.90 per pound. Often during recent years
only the bone has been saved, the remainder of the carcass
being cast adrift if other whales are in sight,® because
the bone is so much more valuable than the oil. It
seems almost unquestionable that with the low prices
and limited demand for oil the whale fishery would cease
entirely but for the more valuable whale bone.

Practically no other industry in the country can present
any parallel to the revolution that the whale fishery has
undergone in the space of sixty years. From a business
representing an invested capital of tens of millions of
dollars, and giving employment to tens of thousands of
men, it has fallen to a place where whaling is no longer
of any great importance even to the communities from
which it is carried on. In fact whaling is kept alive at
all only by the demand for a product which a century
ago was regarded as hardly worth saving. To work such
changes in a once great industry powerful factors have
been at work, undermining from all sides the foundation
on which whaling prosperity rested.

One of the most potent causes working toward the
downfall of whaling is found in the nature of the industry
itself—the uncertainty of the business. It would be
hard to find any other business, employing so much
capital, where the uncertainty of profitable returns is so
great as has always been the case with the whale fishery.
One year, may bring successful voyages and good profits,
only to be offset the next year by heavy losses of life,
money and property. This has been especially true since
the opening of the Arctic fishery in 1848. ‘To illustrate

6 Fish Comm. Rep., 1893, p. 202.

Decline of American Whaling. 73

the point, in April, 1866, two New Bedford ships, the
Corinthian and the George Howland, arrived within five
days of each other—the gross value of each of the two
cargoes was $250,000, and it is said that $125,000 profit
was made on each, on a capital of $25,000. Again, in
1886 the bark Europa returned from a voyage in Japan
and Okhotsk Seas with a cargo valued at $248,000.7. On
the other hand, out of sixty-eight vessels due to arrive
in New Bedford and Fairhaven in 1858, forty-four were
calculated as making losing voyages, representing an
aggregate loss of about $1,000,000.8 And in 1871 the
entire Arctic fleet of thirty-four vessels was completely
destroyed by pack ice, entailing an absolute loss of nearly
$2,000,000, including vessels and cost of outfitting. In
an industry subject to such fluctuations, however, a
rapid decline and withdrawal of capital was inevitable
as soon as other conditions became unfavorable.

As long as the prices were high and the demand was
great and fairly certain, the chance of large profits from
phenomenal voyages was sufficient to tempt continually
increasing investments even in the face of all natural
risks.

In addition to the uncertainty of the business, various
changes had been at work to necessitate the assumption of
greater risks to carry it on. The first vessels whaling in
the Pacific made voyages in two or two and a half years,
and their fitting did not represent so large an outlay.
Thus the first Pacific whaler, the Beaver, 240 tons, sail-
ing from Nantucket in 1791, represented a whole cost of
$10,212 for the ship completely fitted for the voyage.
But as the industry was pursued with increasing vigor
whales became scarce and more shy each year, making
it harder to secure a full cargo, the voyages were in-
creased in length and duration to three, four and even

7 Ellis, p. 450.

§ Starbuck, p. 149.

74 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

more years each. The vessels were larger, 300 to 500
tons about the middle of the last century, and the cost
of fitting for a three years voyage was increased to $30,-
000 to $60,000 each.® The rivalry of different captains
in trying to secure the most luxurious fittings often added
unnecessarily to the expenses of fitting and refitting.
As these changes were going on the North Pacific and
especially the Arctic fisheries were becoming more and
more the only profitable cruising grounds. But there
the danger of losses was increased because of encounters
with the ice, and every vessel wrecked meant a greater
financial loss than before. The two factors of uncertainty
of profits and risk of losses of whole investments, were
strong arguments for capital to seek employment else-
where.

Outside the fishery itself several factors were at work
to accomplish its downfall. In 1849 gold had been dis-
covered in California, and the great rush to the gold
fields began. For years it had been the custom among
the Pacific whalers to touch at some Pacific port, either
for water, to refit, or to spend the ‘between seasons’”’
when the northern grounds were closed by ice. The
whalers offered an easy means of reaching California and
its gold deposits. Starbuck says’ that whole crews ap-
parently shipped merely as a cheap means of reaching
the mines, that desertions from the ships were numerous,
often in such numbers as to actually cripple the efficiency
of the ship. “In this way many voyages were broken
up and hundreds of thousands of dollars were sunk by
the owners.”’ Ships were fired by mutinous crews, some
even entirely destroyed. In fact, so complete was the
demoralization of the fleet that captains and officers left
their ships to seek for gold. :

The rise of the cotton cloth industry was also a potent

*Scammon, p. 216. :

10 Starbuck, p. 112.

Dechne of American Whaling. 75

factor in hastening the decline of whaling, though to
what extent it operated is hard to tell. To suggest what
might have happened under different economic conditions
fifty years ago may appear to be dangerous speculation.
Yet had not the cotton mills sprung up, it seems safe to
say the whaling fleet would have decreased less rapidly
even in the face of increasingly adverse conditions. This
is especially true of New Bedford, from which port more
than half the fleet hailed subsequent to 1860. For
many years the whale fishery and its allied industries of
oil refining, cordage manufacture, boat and ship building
and such like, had been the most important, almost
the only important, business interests in the city. And
the capital was repeatedly employed in the whaling
business because the investors had grown up with it and
had come to accept whaling ventures as the most natural
thing in the world.

About 1846, however, in the very year when whaling
reached the climax of its glory, the manufacture of cotton
goods was begun in New Bedford. Cotton milling was
successful and profitable almost from the very start,
and additional mills were put up from year to year.
Among the names of the early financial promoters of
cotton manufactures are many which had long been
intimately associated with the whaling industry. As
each additional year meant increasing risks on invest-
ments in whaling, the surer field for capital in the local
mills must have inevitably drawn capital away from the
former industry. How great this factor was can never
be known, but that it was an important one seems
unquestionable. .The ‘‘Whalemen’s Shipping List,’’ for
Febuary 4, 1873 says" “The continued purpose to sell
whalers . . . shows the judgment of those who have
long and successfully been engaged in the business

1 “Whalemen’s Shipping List,’’ Annual Review for 1872, February
4, 1873.

76 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

that it has become too hazardous, and its results too un-
certain to continue it, when capital is promised a safer
employment, and surer rewards in enterprises on the
land, and in our own city where the products of two large
cotton mills equal very nearly the aggregate value of the
imports of the fishery yearly.’”’ In that year alone the
records show that no less than twenty vessels were sold
out of the whaling fleet because the business no longer
warranted the continuance of the investment. The mills
at home, however, meant a sure income. But it is not
altogether unfitting that out of the decline of the great
whaling interests of New Bedford should grow the indus-
try, which, above all others, was destined to save the
city from the fate of being a deserted fishing Ga oeag
rise of the cotton mills.

As great and potent as were all these factors, however,
the most important has yet to be mentioned—the intro-
duction of the new illuminant, kerosene. For many de-
cades previous to 1860 oil had been the most valuable
product of the fishery, and one of its chief uses had been
as an illuminant, both in sperm candles and in the
“whale oil” lamps. Much of the export trade had been
to supply the European demand for oil for lighting pur-
poses. Its use as an illuminant, however, had been di-
minished early in the last century by the introduction of
gas distilled from coal. Coal gas seems to have been
more generally adopted in spite of Scoresby’s statement”
that where coal was not cheap gas could be manufactured
from whale oil at about the same expense; and that hav-
ing many advantages over the former, it was preferred.
As early as 1819 Ipswich, Norwich and other towns in
England lighted their streets with gas made from oil.

In this country there does not appear to have been any
very severe encroachment on the uses of whale products
as illuminants until after the discovery of petroleum in

2 Scoresby, p. 428.

Dechne of American Whaling. iy

1859. The date of opening the first oil well in Pennsyl-
vania may be regarded as the day when the fate of the
whale fishery was decided. Even in the face of the other
unfavorable conditions, the fishery must certainly have
prospered but for the discovery of petroleum. The
population of the country was increasing; the people
would have had light without much regard to the neces-
sarily high prices of oil, and the market demand would
undoubtedly have increased beyond the supply. At this
critical time the Pennsylvania oil fields were discovered
and at once a plentiful, and cheap illuminant was in the
market as a competitor of the whale oils. As soon as the
processes of refining were improved, the disagreeable
and dangerous qualities were no longer a handicap to
kerosene and it became a relentless rival of the other oils.
The struggle for supremacy was fierce but short and
ended in the only way that it could—in favor of the
better, more easily obtained and then seemingly in-
exhaustible kerosene. Sperm candles were dedicated to
ornamental uses and whale oil lamps were discarded to
become interesting relics for succeeding generations.
But the encroachment of petroleum products on the
domains formerly monopolized by whale oils was not to
end with superseding the latter in their use as an illum-
inant. Kerosene came rapidly into general use. Then
lubricating oils began to be made from the residuum; and
finally the utilization of the wax or paraffine in making
candles and in other arts, robbed the whale products of
their last strongholds in the markets of the world.

Just after the introduction of petroleum oils, as if to
make sure of the overthrow of whaling prosperity, the
Civil War broke out. Always adversely affected by
warfare, no industry was then less able to withstand the
effects of war than was the whale fishery. A large
proportion of the fleet was at sea. Many of the vessels
were in the Pacific on voyages of three or four years

78 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

duration, and often did not return to port for months at a
time. If they did return to port the lying idle there was
little better than risking capture by Southern privateers. .

The Atlantic whalers felt the effects of war very early in
the struggle, Southern privateers capturing vessels as
early as 1862. The feeling of the whalemen toward the
Southern depredations is illustrated in a quotation from
the ‘‘Shipping List,” for January 13, 1863. Inthe annual
review for 1862 it says ‘That Southern pirate, Semmes,
has already made frightful havoc with whaling vessels,
and his piratical ship—the Alabarna—threatens to be-
come the scourge of the seas.’’ These operations were
carried on throughout the war, especially by the famous
Alabama and the Shenandoah. The latter entered Ber-
ing Sea late in the war, captured and burned twenty-five
vessels, mainly large ships, and took four others for pur-
poses of transportation.* No less than fifty whaling
vessels were captured or destroyed during the war—
more than half of which were owned by New Bedford
merchants. Many other vessels were sold—forty to the
government for the famous Charleston stone fleet—and
others were transferred to the merchant marine. On
January 1, 1861, the whaling fleet had numbered 514
vessels with an aggregate tonnage of 158,745 tons. Five
years later, January 1, 1866, there were 263 vessels with a
tonnage of 68,535 tons—a decline of almost 50 per cent
in the number of vessels and of over 60 per cent in the
tonnage. At least half of this decline was the direct
result of the war.

At the end of the war the depleted stocks of whale
products, and the prevailing high prices greatly aided in
reviving the industry. Vessels that had been lying idle
at the wharves were again fitted and sent out, while some
new ships were added to the fleet. It seemed as if
prosperity would once more smile on the industry, but

18 Pease, p. 31.

Decline of American Whaling. 79

the conditions which had been working against the fishery
before the war were still operating with renewed vigor.
The merchants were becoming more wary and cautious in
their whaling ventures. Then came the disaster of 1871,
destroying the Arctic fleet of thirty-four vessels, and
though the Arctic fishery was renewed with twenty-seven
vessels in 1872 and twenty-nine vessels in 1873, greatly
increased rates of insurance were added to the already
heavy burden of the whaling interests.

The fact that the whale fishery had entered upon a
steady and permanent decline could no longer be denied.
The generally adopted use of petroleum oils had destroyed
the chief market for two-thirds of the products of the
industry—sperm and whale oil. But the steadily in-
creasing value of whale bone was a powerful incentive
to carry on the business, though not sufficient to stem the
tide. The decline has continued almost without inter-
ruption down to the present time with the constant
operation of the economic changes by which the decline
was induced. From time to time there have been revivals
of activity as the result of temporary advances in prices ,
or the reports of phenomenal voyages. But year after
year the decline has continued, carrying whaling steadily
down toward the lowest rank of commercial insignificance.

CHAPTER. VIL,

APPARATUS AND METHODS OF CAPTURE; Boats; CREWS;
AND WHALE PRODUCTS AND THEIR USES.

At first thought a discussion of the instruments used
in whaling seems to have but little relation either to the
history of the industry or to its various economic phases.
Yet in the course of time the growth of the whale fishery
has resulted in innovations in implements and methods
which seem worthy of at least brief notice. At other
times the successful continuation of the fishery has
depended largely on the improvement of implements of
capture.

The primitive method of capturing whales appears
from all accounts to have been by means of the harpoon
and lance. It is not quite clear, however, whether the
line was at first used with the harpoon to fasten to the
whale. Some writers say that the Indians of this coun-
try were in the habit of capturing whales by the use of
wooden harpoons to which logs of wood were attached as
floats, and that by repeated attacks they occasionally
succeeded in harrying a whale to death. It is also some-
times stated that the American colonists followed the In-
dian mode of capture.1 But the harping iron is referred
to even before the first settlement of New England.? In
the first account of whaling at Nantucket Macy’ tells of
the harpoon being wrought, and as early as 1669, in an
account of whaling ventures from Long Island, it is re-
corded that of two whales attacked, “the iron broke in

1Scammon, note, p. 204.
2 Starbuck, p. 6.
* Macy, p. 28.

Apparatus and Methods of Capture. 8I

one, the other broke the warpe.’’* Hence it seems un-
questionable that long before whaling became at all im-
portant as a regular industry, the implements used in
capture had the essential characteristics of those that
were to be used for many decades thereafter.

Scoresby® says that as early as 1607 “the harpoon
consisted of a barbed or arrow-shaped iron dart, two or
three feet in length with a wooden handle and a line”’
three hundred fathoms long. The hand harpoon could
be used effectively at distances up to fifteen yards. With
the exception of some small changes and additions to the
barbs, and variations in dimensions, the harpoon is still
essentially the same weapon as it was then. Now, three
centuries later, the initial step in the capture of a whale
remains unchanged, for the harpoon has always been and
is still used to fasten the whale to the boat. Along with
the harpoon and line a hand lance was used, it consisting
of an iron spear with a wooden handle ten or twelve
feetlong. These implements were used almost exclusively
until well along in the eighteenth century.

The first change was in the introduction of the harpoon
gun to replace the old method of hurling the harpoon
from the hand. It was followed by the bomb gun, the
darting gun, and by the whaling rocket, while the hand
lance gave place to the bomb lance. The whaling or
harpoon gun, intended to shoot harpoons, was a British
invention about 1730. Its invention appears to have
been prompted by the increasing shyness of the whales
in the northern fishery, and the consequent need of some
instrument to facilitate the capture. Beginning with
the year 1700 the whales had almost abandoned the
shore grounds previously frequented and had retreated
to the sheltered situations afforded by the ice fields.’

* Quoted by Starbuck from N. Y. Col. Record, III, p. 183.

5 Scoresby, p. 173.

5 Macy, p. 220.
Scoresby, p. 181.

’

82 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

But the old whalers were reluctant to adopt the gun and
it apparently fell entirely out of use for Scoresby says,®
‘‘The method of shooting harpoons . . . froma sort
of swivel-gun, was, in the year 1772, reintroduced. In-
deed this instrument had been so long laid aside, that
the present was considered a new discovery.’ And the
inventor was given a premiun of twenty guineas by the
Society of Arts. These early harpoon guns were heavy
swivel-guns, mounted in the bow of the whale boat.
Their chief advantage was in the power to launch the
harpoon at distances as great as eighty-four yards.* The
weight of the line attached to the harpoon, however, de-
flected the missile to a serious extent. The gun was first
used by Scotch whalers.” It was occasionally used by
Americans but never came into general use. The Amer-
ican whaler preferred the later ‘‘shoulder guns’’ in spite
of the fact that they often fired “‘aft’’ with more emphasis
than they did forward."

Shoulder guns were an American invention; meeting
the demand for a weapon to kill the whale as well as to
fasten it to the boat. They appear to have been intro-
duced at about the same time as the bomb lance. The
whaling gun” was invented and introduced into the
market about 1850. From that year onward advertise-
ments appear in the ‘‘Whalemen’s Shipping List” setting
forth the superior qualities of this new instrument for
killing whales. The American guns were of two sorts,
the plain bomb gun and the so-called darting gun. Their
invention seems to have been prompted by the same
conditions that led to the English invention of 1730—
the pressing need for improved facilities for killing the
whales.

® Scoresby, p. 79.

®*Scammon, p. 27.

10 Scammon, p. 226.

1! Goode, p. 252.

2 Ellis: History of New Bedford, p. 419.

Apparatus and Methods of Capture. 83

In 1846 one Robert Allen of Norwich, Conn., invented -
the first bomb lance, to kill whales by explosives instead
of by the old hand lance thrust into the vital parts of the
whale.’ Used with a bomb gun, firing the missile from
greater distances, the bomb lance became a much more
effective means of killing whales than had ever before
been available. There have been several types of bomb
lances and bomb guns. Of the latter some of the best
known are the original muzzle-loading “Brand” gun,
the Pierce & Eggers gun—probably the most popular and
effective gun ever introduced, and the Cunningham and
Cogan gun, largely used by the steam whaling vessels in
the Arctic regions.4 With these guns bomb lances of
varying sizes are used, a common length being about
twenty-one inches, while the diameter and the size of the
charge depends on the particular gun employed.

The increasing scarcity and shyness of whales, combined
with the desire for sure and more ready means of killing
whales, resulted in the invention of the whaling gun and
bomb lance. In the same way the exigencies of Arctic
whaling led to still further perfection of whaling imple-
ments. After the introduction of the bomb lance it had
been the custom” to fasten to the whale with the harpoon,
and then from a safe distance to kill it with a bomb lance.
Hand lancing had almost gone out of practice by 1875.%

By that time, however, Arctic whaling had become
important and profitable. The great baleen or bowhead
whale gave excellent bone as well as oil that was next in
quality to sperm oil. But when fastened to with a
common harpoon the whales might succeed in getting
under the ice before there was any chance to kill them,
even with the bomb gun. As a result, many valuable
whales, as well as much fishing apparatus was lost. The

3 Goode, p. 253.

Goode, p. 253.

8 Goode, p. 254.
18 Scammon, p. 228.

84 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

darting gun was invented about 1880, expressely to meet
the needs of this fishery, by Captain Eben Pierce and
Mr. Patrick Cunningham of New Bedford.” The gun
consists of.a stockless barrel, of gun metal, attached to a
regular wooden harpoon pole. A harpoon with whale
line attached fits loosely in lugs on the side of the barrel.
The apparatus is loaded with a charge of powder and a
bomb lance and then the whole is darted at the whale.
The harpoon entering the whale’s body springs the trigger,
which appears as a long wire rod projecting beyond the
muzzle of the gun, and the bomb lance is automatically
discharged into the whale. Under ordinary circum-
stances the whale is killed or severely wounded by the
explosion of the bomb, at the same time that it is fastened
to the boat by the harpoon and line. In this way whales
are rarely lost. Were it not for the darting gun, however,
whaling could not be successfully carried on amid the
Arctic ice packs, now the most important whaling
ground for the American fleet."

The most destructive weapon ever used in killing whales
is the whaling rocket, invented about 1880. It consists
of a large rocket, harpoon and bomb lance, having a total
weight of about eighteen or twenty pounds. It was
intended to be fired from the deck of the whaling vessel
itself, thus doing away with the necessity of pursuit in
boats. But as far as records go the rocket does not
appear to have come into very general use.

Aside from these regular whaling implements, nets,
electricity and poisoned harpoons have been advanced as
experiments in capturing whales. Scoresby in writing of
the methods of capture at the opening of the seventeenth
century says,” ‘The Dutch inform us that the English
made use of nets made of strong ropes for the purpose.”

11 Goode, p. 254.

18 For a more detailed discussion of this gun see Goode, p. 254, or
Scammon, p. 228.

1° Scoresby, p. 173. t

Apparatus and Methods of Capture. 85

But there is no reference to their use in later years. In
this country nets of strong manila twine were tried at the
mouths of the rivers emptying into Cumberland Inlet.”
At one setting 500 white whales or grampuses were
captured and killed. Other experiments were tried in
the same year and the year following, but the scheme does
not seem to have been satisfactory to the promoters, for
it was abandoned. |

In 1852 the United States patent office granted a
patent on a whaling apparatus which was to employ
electricity. It consisted of a wired harpoon to be used
from a copper sheathed boat, making a circuit from the
generating machine in the boat through the wire, whale,
water and boat to the machine again, The device was
calculated to facilitate the killing of whales by electrocu-
tion as soon as struck by the harpoon.” But as far as is
known it was never used, though one author says,” “In
1851 the first experiments in killing whales by electricity
were tried.”

The use of harpoons poisoned with prussic acid is
variously attributed to the French and to the Scotch, and
it is also claimed that it was never used by the American
whalemen. Goode* states that as early as 1833 Nan-
tucket whalemen went equipped with poisoned harpoons,
but that they were not used, as the crew “ were frightened
by reports concerning the death of men from handling
poisoned blubber.’’ Such news spread rapidly through
the whale fleet and suddenly brought to an end a practice
which, almost beyond doubt, must have proved a very
effective means of killing whales.

The boats and vessels engaged in the whaling fleet have
also undergone marked changes since the fishery began.

*® Goode, pp. 247-248.
71 Goode, p. 250.

2 Ellis, p. 420.

8 Goode, p. 248.

86 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

In the whaleboats themselves the two centuries of Ameri-
can deep-sea whaling have witnessed little change. They
are still the same round-bottomed type, pointed at both
ends, to facilitate movement either forward or backward,
and propelled both by oars and sails. About the only
change has been in size, increasing from a length of
twenty feet, about 1720, to an average of about twenty-
eight feet at present, though whaleboats as long as
thirty-eight feet have been used at times.% They are
usually made of white oak, cedar, spruce or hard pine,
weigh about 500-600 pounds and cost upwards of $100
each. They are the most seaworthy small craft known,
yet their usage is so severe that they usually last but a
single voyage.

Launches propelled by steam were first introduced into
the Norwegian whale fishery, with guns mounted on deck
to throw the projectiles. And about 1880 American
whalers tried the experiment of using whaling rockets
from steam launches. The noise made by power boats,
however, is a disadvantage, and launches, wherever
employed, have been used mainly to tow whaling boats
near the whales, to aid in approach during calms when
sails are useless and to tow dead whales to the vessel.
So far as is known no launches are at present employed by
the whaling fleet.”

The whaling vessel has undergone a marked evolution
since the beginning of deep-sea whaling about 1715. The
earliest vessels fitted for whaling ‘out in the deep”’ were
sloops of thirty to forty tons burden.” The size was
gradually increased to fifty, sixty and seventy tons,
as the industry grew and voyages were made longer; and,
probably, by 1730, schooners had been added. The next

74 Goode, p. 240.

75 Goode, p. 246.

Letter of Mr. George R Phillips, editor of the ‘‘Whalemen’s
Shipping List.”

™ Macy, Pp. 49.

Apparatus and Methods of Capture. 87

step appears to have been about twenty years later, for in
writing of Nantucket whaling in the period about 1750,
Macy says,” ‘“‘ They began now to employ vessels of larger
size, some of roo tons burden, and a few were square
rigged.’’ At that time Nantucket was leading in every-
thing that pertained to the whale fishery, hence the
growth of the Nantucket fleet may be regarded as typical
of all. For over a century thereafter the changes in
whaling vessels were almost solely in size. In 1791 the
Pacific fishery was opened, and immediately the longer
voyages and the desire for larger cargoes led to the
employment of bigger vessels. The first Nantucket ship
sailing to the Pacific, 1791, was of 240 tons burden.”
By 1820 Nantucket had seventy-two ships averaging
over 280 tons each.” Ships, brigs and barks now rapidly
came to predominate in the whaling fleet, and before
1850 vessels of 400 to 500 tons burden were not unusual.

It has already been seen how the development of
Arctic whaling resulted in important modifications in
the nature and quantity of the whaling apparatus. It
extended in a similar way to the construction of the ships,
for the encounters with the ice necessitated even more
sturdy and substantial vessels than had ever before been
used. As Arctic whaling became more common it was
soon found of prime importance to enter and leave the
ice-frequented regions with the least possible delay.
For nearly fifty years steam vessels had been used in the
merchant marine of this country and of England. The
application of steam to whaling vessels suggested the
possibility of a quicker voyage to the whaling grounds,
greater facility in cruising for whales among the ice
floes, and a longer stay with less danger of being caught in
the pack ice as winter sets in. In 1880 the first steam
propelled vessel used in the American whale fishery was

28 Macy, p. 64.
2 Macy, p. 216.
Starbuck. p. 95.

88 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

added to the New Bedford fleet.** The voyage was
very successful, securing in one season a cargo valued at
$100,000, and fully demonstrating the practicability of
using steam in the whaling fleet.

It seems strange, however, that the experiment had not
been tried before, for the English had sent out a steam
whaler to Davis Strait as early as 1857.% The experi-
ment proved so advantageous that new wooden steam
vessels were built and old vessels were converted, so that
in 1869 the whole Dundee fleet was composed of screw
steamers—ten vessels in all.** The explanation for the
American tardiness probably lies in the decline of Ameri-
can ship building, then just beginning, and especially in
its almost total suspension immediately after the Civil
War. The first steam whaler was soon followed by others
and the catch was temporarily increased by the new
methods. Now the fleet of steam whalers is one of the
most important in the whole fishery.

The vessels comprising the fleet during the last two
decades may be divided into the two classes, sailing vessels
and steamers. The sailing vessels are mainly schooners
and square rigged vessels, no sloops having been employed
for many years. The schooners cruise chiefly in the
Atlantic grounds and the others are engaged in the Pacific.
The steam vessels are almost without exception entirely
engaged in Arctic whaling from San Francisco as their
port.

The size of the fleet at present is, of course, but a mere
fraction of what it was fifty or sixty years ago. It is only
natural, therefore, to wonder what became of the hundreds
of ships which were once engaged in the whale fishery.
Probably the greatest number would be accounted for by
wrecks in all parts of the world. For example, in the
autumn of 1871 a sudden setting in of the pack ice de-

a ols. “p> 433.

* Goode, p. 237.

8 Simmonds: Animal Products, p. 369.

Apparatus and Methods of Capture. 89

stroyed thirty-four ships, the whole Arctic fleet, in the
greatest disaster known in the history of whaling.™
Again, in 1876, twelve vessels were destroyed in almost
exactly the same way. Forty whalers went to make up a
part of the famous stone fleet sunk’ by the United States
government in the attempt to blockade Charleston harbor
during the Civil War. Many of the whaling vessels were
sold at different times into the merchant marine, or were
withdrawn from service and broken up in various ports.
And finally a good many vessels were destroyed at sea
by Confederate cruisers during the Civil War; while these
different causes were at work to decrease the fleet, every
year after 1860 saw fewer and fewer new vessels added to
replace the loss.

The crew of a whaler varies in size and personnel
according to the number of boats carried. An average
complement consists of a mate, a boat steerer and four or
five seamen for each whale boat, in addition to the cap-
tain, cooper, carpenter, cook, steward and often black-
smith and cabin boys. Thus a ship carrying four boats
would have a crew of about thirty-two men.

At first the colonial whaling vessels were manned
almost entirely by colonists and Indians. But as the
fishery grew, and the number of vessels increased, the
supply of hands was inadequate. As early as about
1750 the Nantucket fishery had attained such proportions
that it was necessary to secure men from Cape Cod and
Long Island to man the vessels.* Less than a century
later the crews were made up of representatives of all
nations, while only the principal officers were Amer-
icans.** Goode says, “Captain Isaiah West, now eighty-
six years of age (i. e. in 1880), tell me that he remembers
when he picked his crew within a radius of sixty miles of

Starbuck, ‘p. 103.

*° Macy, p. 61.
© Scammon, p. 255.

go A History of the American Whale Fishery.

New Bedford; oftentimes he was acquainted, either per-
sonally or through report, with the social standing or busi-
ness qualifications of every man on his vessel; and also
that he remembers the first foreigner—an Irishman—that
shipped with him, the circumstance being commented
on at that time as a remarkable one.” The Spanish,
Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, English, Scotch,
Irish, in fact men of almost every country in Europe,
from Africa and Asia, from the Sandwich Islands, from:
New Zealand and other Pacific islands, were to be found
in the whaling fleet during the days of its greatest pros-
perity. After the development of deep-sea whaling the
vessels made a quite general practice of touching at the
Azores or Cape Verde Islands to obtain supplies and
complete their crews, if full crews had not been shipped
at the home port.®

The great variety of nationalities represented in the
fleet gave the whaling ports, and especially New Bedford,
a foreign air, for more or less of the foreigners were in
port the greater part of the time. In fact a part of
New Bedford near the south end of Water Street became
known locally as Fayal, from the large number of Portu-
guese, from that and other ports, living in the vicinity.
Even at the present day the mere casual observer on the
street can not fail to notice the unmistakable sturdy
figure and swarthy skin of the “Western Islanders,”
making an important element in the population.

It is still true that the Americans in the whaling fleet
are generally the officers, while the crews are made up of
the different nationalities of foreigners. So great has
been the change in the industry where once “New Eng-
land’s best sons were trained.”’

Sometimes the men in the crew have been paid regular
wages at so much per month, but the more common

37 Goode, p. 220.

38 Scammon, note, p. 255.
3 Ricketson, p. 55.

< ————EEeeeeecoooe

Apparatus and Methods of Capture. gI
custom has always been the famous “lay,’’ or certain
share in the proceeds of the voyage. This system, as
applied to the crews of whaling vessels, matured late in
the eighteenth century. But in reality it was nothing
new, being rather only an adaptation of the co-operative
system of shore whaling in vogue at the eastern end of
Long Island as far back as the middle of the seventeenth
century. The prices of oil and bone were generally
agreed upon before the voyage began, and were placed
low enough to give a safe magrin of profit above any
ordinary fluctuation in the market. Average ‘“‘lays’’
varied from about 7's for the captain to as little as 14s for
a green foremast hand. Of the system of “lay’’ wages,
Weeden® says, it was ‘The best co-operation of capital,
capitalizer and laborer ever accomplished.’’ But so far
as the laborer—the ordinary seaman—was concerned,
the system was not so perfect. It was not at all unusual
for the foremast hand to receive as little as two or three
dollars, sometimes nothing at all, as his share. True
it is that there had been advances during the voyage,
but at best the total return was exceedingly small when
one considers the dangers and hardships, the poor food
and confined quarters on shipboard for voyages of often
three or four years’ duration. Former whalemen state
that even on a lay of z4;, their share of the proceeds from
an eighteen months voyage was seldom more than two
hundred and fifty dollars. All they received in addition
was their food, and food of such a character that they
“would not have touched it at home.’’ A “lay” of zs
in a cargo valued at $100,000 is only $572. Divide this
figure by three or even two, representing the years ordi-
narily taken by such a voyage, and the disproportion
between the risk and the return appears at once. Fur-
thermore, the cargo worth $100,000 was not very common.

Deep-sea whaling began from Nantucket about 1715

® Weeden: Econ. and Soc. History of New England, Vol. I, p. 430.

92 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

with sloops of thirty to forty tons going to the “South-
ward,’’ and later to the Grand Banks. By 1850 ships of
400 to 500 tons were whaling in the Arctic beyond Bering
Strait. Between these two dates many grounds were
frequented, soon exhausted and abandoned for others.
The principal whaling grounds have been taken from
Scammon as follows: For sperm whales in the Atlantic
the order of occupation was approximately as follows:
Carolina coasts, Bahamas, West Indies, Gulf of Mexico,
Caribbean Sea, Azores, Cape Verde Islands, and the
coast of Africa. In the Pacific Ocean the order was:
South American coast—Chili and Peru, west to Juan
Fernandez Island and the Galapagos group, known as the
on-shore ground; off-shore ground, lying between
longitudes 90° and 120° west and latitudes 5° and 10°
south; about the different groups of islands, as the Sand-
wich Islands, the Fiji, Society and Navigator groups;
in the China Sea and along the Japan coasts; the Cali-
fornia coast, and the northwest coast of America. In
the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, mouth of the Red Sea,
Java, Malacca Straits, and into the Pacific about Austra-
lia, Tasmania and New Zealand. Practically all these
sperm whaling grounds are in warm latitudes, either
tropical or temperate, while the right whaling grounds
will be seen to lie generally in colder regions. The north-

ern grounds for right whales included the Atlantic coast.

from Newfoundland to the Bahamas, Davis Straits,
the coast of Greenland, about Spitzbergen, Baffin’s
Bay and Hudson’s Bay. In the Pacific, the northwest
coast of America, including Bering Sea, the coast of
Kamtchatka, in Okhotsk Sea, Japan Sea, and through
Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean were the places most
frequented. The southern grounds included, in the Atlan-
tic, the Brazil Banks, the coast of Africa, the coast of
Patagonia, and about the various island groups, as the

41 Scammon, p. 214-215.
) 4

—————

Apparatus and Methods of Capture. 93

Falklands, Tristan d’Acunha, etc., and in the Pacific
the coast of Chili, Australia and New Zealand. Many of
these grounds included great stretches of ocean within
which the favorite feeding grounds were found. Most of
them were long since abandoned because of the practical
extermination of the whales.

It is difficult to tell the precise date when each of the
different whaling grounds was first visited, but the dates
of the more important advances are preserved in the
records. Previous to 1791 all the whaling was confined
to the Atlantic, and until about 1773 or 1774 it had been
wholly in the North Atlantic.” In 1791 the first whaling
vessels went to the Pacific—six from Nantucket and one
from New Bedford.“ The “on-shore’’ grounds were
the only ones visited for a number of years. The “‘off-
shore”? grounds were visited about 1818,“ and within
three years over fifty ships were cruising in that region.
In 1820 the first vessels sailed for the Japanese coast, and
by 1822 between thirty and forty vessels were whaling
there.” From that time on the whalers spread rapidly
to all parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. In 1835
whaling was begun by a Nantucket vessel on the great
ground along the northwest coast. And in 1848 a
Sag Harbor whaler passed through Bering Strait into the
Arctic,” thus completing the last stage of advance in the
pursuit of whales. As early as 1835 the Nantucket fleet
went mainly to the Pacific, and after 1840 it went almost
entirely to those grounds, while before 1850 a large pro-
portion of the New Bedford fleet had followed this ex-
ample. Since that time the Arctic grounds have been
frequented each year by an increasing proportion of the

= Macy, Dp. 54:

8 Starbuck, p. go.

“ Macy, p. 217.

Macy, p. 218.

“6 Scammon, p. 212.
“ Starbuck, p. go.

94 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

fleet, though for the last decade or two there have
still been some vessels cruising in the North Pacific in
addition to a small fleet from New Bedford, Province-
town and an occasional other port, sperm whaling on the
old grounds in the Atlantic.

The chief products of the whale fishery are, as is well
known, sperm and whale oil and whalebone, with the
occasional product ambergris. Up to about 1860 sperm
oil was the most valuable and most important of the
whale products. It comes solely from the sperm whale,
a large whale yielding as much as too barrels of oil,
about one third of the total coming from the head.
Much of the annual importation of sperm oil was formerly
consumed in the manufacture of sperm candles. At
present its chief use is in making refined oils for lubricat-
ing. Whale oil includes the oil from all other varieties
of whales, as well as oil from the blackfish, the porpoise
and even the walrus. It was formerly much used as an
illuminant in the old-fashioned vile-smelling, “whale oil”
lamp, but it is now chiefly used in the tanning of leather,
in the preparation of coarse woolen cloths, in the manu-
factures of soft soaps, and of coarse paints and varnishes
where it gives a strength of “body” more resistent to
weather than do vegetable oils; with tar it is used in ship
work, making cordage and other industrial processes ; but
perhaps its most important use is in making heavy lubri-
cating oils. It is worth about two-thirds as much as
sperm oil. Since the opening of the Arctic fishery a large
part of the whale oil has come from the right whale—
some of which yield as much as 230 barrels of oil.*° The
refuse of whales has also at times been used in making
glue and in fertilizers under the name of guano.

*Fish. Comm. Rep., 1891, p. clxxiii. ‘‘Whalemen’s Shipping List,”’
Annual Reviews, 1880-1906.

® Macy, p. 221.

Macy ,,,'D..223.

—

Apparatus and Methods of Capture. 95

In the early days of whaling, in fact for many years
after deep-sea whaling was begun, both the trying out of
oil from the blubber and the refining was done on shore.
Later trying out was done on board the vessels and the
oil was brought back ready for the refineries. In the
refining processes the oil is first heated to makc the
pieces of blubber and foreign matter settle. The clear
oil is then subjected to a freezing process which partly
granulates it. The freezing is followed by straining
through cloths and subjection to pressure to separate the
solid matter or ‘‘foots’’—spermaceti from sperm oil and
whale’s foot from whale oil. The various grades of oil
are then obtained by heating, pressing and the addition
of chemicals to clarify and bleach them. Oils for deli-
cate mechanisms, as for watches and clocks, are com-
monly made from porpoise jaw and blackfish head oils,
the process of refining these oils requiring about two
years."

The spermaceti representing the “‘foot”’ of sperm oil is
carefully separated and subjected to processes of refin-
ing by itself. In its final form it appears as a white,
translucent crystalline mass**—which in the manufacture
of sperm candles was usually mixed with beeswax to
prevent granulation.

Whalebone is now the most important product of the
whale fishery. It comes from the baleen or right whale,
or from the rorqual, more commonly known as the “sul-
phur bottom.’’ The bone occurs as a series of plates or
blades, several hundred in number, and varying up to
fifteen feet in length, which are suspended from the sides
of the crown bone and hang down on each side of the
tongue. The value of the bone lies in the fact that when
softened with hot water, or by heating before a fire, it has
the property of retaining any given shape, provided it is

5! Ellis, p. 470.

*? Simmonds, p. 389-390.

96 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

secured in the required form until cold. The prepara-
tion of the bone consists of boiling it in hot water for
several hours, which makes it soft when hot and harder
when cold. The surface is then cleaned and polished,
while the jet black color, usually seen, is the result of a
dyeing process.*

Though now so precious, it was only a century ago that
the bone was often dumped over the ship’s side as so
much waste or was saved by the sailors only for making
curious knick-knacks during their leisure hours. As
late: as 1830 bone had only just reached a price of over
twenty cents per pound, but as its value was recognized
and the demand increased the price rose steadily and
has continued to do so up to the present time.

Whalebone appears to have found its first use in
women’s stays, and later in parasols and umbrellas, in all
of which uses it was subsequently largely replaced by
steel. At various times it has been used by milliners, in
upholstery, as the framework for trunks and traveling
bags, in fishing rods, driving whips, shafts, springs and
wheels of carriages, etc., while the coarse hair on the
bone has often been used as a substitute for curled hair in
upholstering furniture. Various substitutes, either nat-
ural or artificial, have largely supplanted the other
whale products, and in some degree bone has been re-
placed by steel, celluloid, rattan, etc., but no material has
been found which will answer all its purposes. It is for-
tunate that this is so, for without the demand for whale-
bone the whale fishery would almost certainly disappear.
The consumption of whalebone at present, both in this
country and in Europe, is confined largely to the original
use—in corsets and in stays for dresses.

Ambergris, the only other product of the whale fishery,

i

§3 Scoresby, p. 435.
54 Simmonds, p. 389.
55 Pease, p. 32.

56 Scoresby, p. 436.

ee

Apparatus and Methods of Capture. 97

is a secretion from the intestines of the sperm whale, and
is generally regarded as the result of disease. It is
occasionally found floating at sea or is picked up along
the shore, but more often it is extracted from the whale
itself. Ambergris is comparatively rare, being worth
more than its weight in gold. Its chief use is in the
preparation of fine perfumeries, because of its property
of thoroughly and aha au: the different
ingredients.

From the very nature of its occurrence there is no Tegu-
lar supply of ambergris and the quantity imported is
usually very limited. In this connection, however, it
is interesting to note an item by Simmonds” who says
“Strangely enough this substance is brought to Mogador
(in northern Morocco) in considerable quantities by the
Timbuctoo caravans from the interior of Africa, it prob-
ably finding its way there from the west coast. At
Mogador it sells for about £20 per pound. Most of the
well-to-do Moors have ambergris in their houses and they
use it in green tea as a flavoring, one of the greatest
compliments to a guest is to present him with a cup of
this strange mixture.”’ It would be interesting to know
the source of this supply of the precious ambergris, but
neither Simmonds nor any other writers make any
further mention of it.

7 Simmonds, p. 390.
8 Written in 1877.

CHAPTER VIII.
WHALE PRODUCTS IN COMMERCE.

It is much more difficult to trace the development of
trade in whale products than it is to trace any other
phase in the history of whaling activities. The chief
source of difficulty lies in the absence of early records of
trade movements, both domestic and foreign. It seems
undoubted that whale products became important articles
of commerce almost as soon as whaling began. The
amounts of oil taken by the Nantucket, the Long Island
and the Cape Cod fishermen must very soon have been
much larger than necessary to supply all local demands.
At least as early as the introduction of boat whaling there
must have been permanent markets important enough
to make whaling profitable when pursued as a regular
business. And as early as 1668 a company was formed
at Easthampton for the purpose of carrying on whaling
from boats.?

It seems quite reasonable to suppose that the trade in
whale oils was, almost from the start, carried on with both
domestic and foreign markets; not that the export trade
grew out of a greater supply than could be disposed of in
the colonies. Export trade to British ports was favored
by various conditions. The New England colonists were
familiar with the English demand for whale oils, through
the attempts at establishing the Spitzbergen fishery.
The colonists were in constant need of British commodi-
ties and the exchange for colonial products directly was a
natural outcome of this demand. Great Britain exerted
every influence, at times little less than actual compulsion,

? Starbuck, p. 12.

Whale Products in Commerce. 99

in the encouragement of trade between the American
colonies and the mother country. And the colonies
themselves in many instances placed obstacles in the way
of inter-colonial trade, while trade with England was
directly favored.

When the trade first began, what were the markets and
how important were the movements of whale products
is impossible to say. Starbuck says? that the oil from
Long Island was sent to Boston and to Connecticut
ports at an early date, and that this trade was for many
years an almost constant source of trouble between the
settlers at the eastern end of Long Island and the colonial
authorities of New York. Among the first of the many
arbitrary laws passed by the New York governors and
councils was an act requiring all oil for export to be
cleared from the port of New York. And an act dated
1684 imposed a duty of ten per cent on all whale products
exported from New York ports to any outside ports,
except directly to England or to the West Indies.* It is
obvious enough that this act was directed against the
trade with Boston and Connecticut ports, but history
says that it was not successful in accomplishing the
desired end. It is valuable, however, as indicating that
by 1680 at least, both home and foreign trade in whale
products had become important enough to be regarded as
an element of commerce and worthy of legislative control.

Little has been preserved in the records to reveal the
conditions of the trade during the latter part of the
seventeenth century and the opening decades of the
eighteenth century. But from the meager references
available it appears to have undergone hardly any
changes, except that of increasing importance and value.
Whale oil was the chief product of the fishery in these
early days. Sperm whaling was not begun until about

? Starbuck, p. r4.
* Starbuek, p. 15.

‘

100 = A - History of the ciLigia iis cough
Rue eGR i eRe eR Rael. e RL
1712,4and whalebone was not then Teeauale as of re
value. Long Island, Nantucket and Cape Cod were the
main whaling localities, and it seems probable that Boston
remained the chief port for many years, with the exports
going to British ports in Great Britain and in the West
Indies.

In 1678 a Boston merchant had sought permission to
clear with a cargo of oil he had purchased at South-
ampton, directly from that port to London, in order to
avoid the risk of extra leakage during the voyage to New
York.’ But it seems probable that this practice was
not continued, for during the early years of the eighteenth
century there was the same old trouble because of the
trade going to colonial ports outside of New York rather
than to that port. In 1720 the Nantucket whalers made
a small shipment of oil to London, but whether this was
their first venture in direct export trade is as uncertain as
is our knowledge concerning the success of the enter-
prise. At all events it was not until many years later
that the practice was resumed.

The trade in whale products, especially the export
trade, apparently grew rapidly after the development of
deep sea whaling, for of the industry in 1730 Holmes
says,* the “whale fishery of the North American coasts
must at this time have been very considerable, for there
arrived in England . . . about the month of July,
154 tons of train and whale oil and 9,200 of whale-
bone.”’ These quantities must either include the pro-
duct imported into England from the British fishery in
Davis Strait, which had begun some years before, or else
the ‘‘9,200 of bone’”’ means pounds and not tons. For it
is incredible that the limited colonial industry should
export an amount of bone equal to the annual ex-
ports during the years when whaling was in the full tide

“Macy, p. 42.
* Starbuck, p. 14.
* Holmes: American Annals, I, 126

Whale Products in Commerce. IOI

of its success and bone was an increasingly valuable
product.

As the whaling industry, grew the increased quantities
of oil and bone far exceeded the limited colonial demand.
Boston had for many years served as the chief colonial
market, especially for the important Nantucket interests.
The whalers sold their oil there and secured their supplies
from that port. But the markets were occasionally
glutted as the business was overdone and the prices were
too low to make the fishery profitable.? Export trade
in whale products as in other commodities was practically
limited to British and British West Indian ports.

“Tt was found,’’ says Macy,® “that Nantucket had in
many places become famed for whaling, and particularly
so in England, where partial supplies of the oil had been
received through the medium of the Boston trade. The
people finding that merchants in Boston were making a
good profit by purchasing oil in Nantucket . . or-
dering it to Boston and thence shipping it to London,
determined to secure the advantage of the trade to
themselves, by exporting their oil in their own vessels.
. . . They, therefore, loaded and sent out one vessel
about 1745. The result of this small beginning proved
profitable and encouraged them to increase their ship-
ment by sending out other vessels. They found, in addi-
tion to the profits on the sales, that the articles in return
were such as their business required, viz., iron, hardware,
hemp, sailcloth and many other goods, and at a much
cheaper rate than they had hitherto been subjected to.”
Nantucket was at that time the chief center of the
whale fishery and this new phase of trade activity gave
new life to the business and promoted new ventures.
At all times, in fact, the market conditions have been of
vital importance to the success and prosperity of whal-
ing enterprises.

Starbuck, p. 23.

“Macy, p.. 5r-

102 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

The people soon learned from experience how to take
advantage of the different markets for oil. The sperm
oil was sent mainly to England in the crude state, that is
the “head matter’? and the body oil were generally
mixed, for at that time there was not enough difference
in price to pay for separating the two grades. The
whale oil, coming chiefly from right whales, was shipped
to Boston, or elsewhere in the colonies, and from these
central markets it was distributed throughout the colonies
or sent to the West Indies in the trade for molasses.°

In 1761 the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Straits of
Belle Isle fisheries were opened to the colonial whalemen,”
and there were immediate prospects of increased profits.
But the colonists were destined to be disappointed. In
1755 England placed restrictive measures on American
whaling operations in the form of an embargo, pending
the expedition against the French in Arcadia. And the
same year that the new fisheries were opened still more
repressive measures were passed. Apparently as a part
of the plan to encourage and develop the British whale
fishery, still struggling inrivalry against the Dutch,
Parliament laid a duty on all whale products exported to
England from the colonies. The residents of Great
Britain on the other hand were granted a bounty in which
the colonists could not share. These conditions in
themselves were not so hard, but by another act of the
same year the colonists were not allowed to send their
exports to any other markets. Hence in order to secure
any export trade at all, the colonists were literally forced
into paying the English duties. The New England
merchants, as well as the London merchants, engaged in
colonial trade protested against these injustices, sending
petitions to Parliament asking for the removal of the
duty. But it was not until about 1767 that the condi-
tions were very much improved.

® Starbuck, p. 52-53.
© Starbuck, p. 39.

Whale Products m Conumerce. 103

During the years immediately preceding the Revolution
the whale fishery was prosperous and profitable in every
phase of its activity. The annual production from
1771-1775 was probably not less than 45,000 barrels of
sperm oil, 8,500 barrels of whale oil and 75,000 pounds of
bone. The average price in the market during this
time was about £40 sterling per ton for sperm oil and
450 per ton for head matter. Whale oil brought about
$70 per ton and bone, exported chiefly to Great Britain,
sold for about fifty cents per pound.” Much of the
exports went to England to find their way into British
and other European markets where the increasing con-
sumption of oil in lamps as well as in different manufac-
tures created a large demand for whale products.*
The English demand especially was larger than the supply
of the home fishery, and the English government was
paying heavy bounties to build up the business.“

The outbreak of hostilities in 1775, however, put a stop
to whaling operations and consequently trade in oil and
bone practically ceased, except with the West Indies.
West Indian products of all kinds commanded excessively
high prices. The whaling vessels of that time, schooners
and small square rigged vessels, were well suited for the
trade, and in addition, many of the owners had stocks of
oil and candles which were in demand in the islands.
The business, however, was dangerous, and to divide the
risk it was usually carried on jointly by several persons.
But later in the war the presence of British cruisers and
privateers along the coast greatly restricted even this
small remnant of the former prosperous trade.

After the war was over the fishery was greatly stimu-
lated in its revival by the excessive prices commanded

1 Starbuck, p. 57.

2 Macy, p. 81.

18 Hutchison, III, p. 400.
14 Scoresby, p. 75.

% Macy, p. or.

104 <A History of the American Whale Fishery.

by oil and bone. But these prices soon fell.° England
tried to take over the whale fishery, paying heavy boun-

ties to build up an industry which could supply the de- .

mands of the markets. At the same time the American
trade was practically excluded by an alien duty of £18
per ton. This duty had a far-reaching effect on the
American industry. Oil which was worth £30 per ton
before the war now brought only £17, while £25 per ton
was the lowest price which would leave the merchants
any margin of profit. The English demand had been
practically the only important foreign market, and with
the loss of it, the situation was becoming desperate. The
rise and fall of prices may be seen from the accompanying
table 3”

Sperm Oil Sperm Oi
Year. per ton. Year. per ton.
TVIAZION! a nae atria shar ots ey) | EON. a\feor-s cpanel abisia ve £40
TITAS! consicte ste stsigvatotys £14 L(G tae Fy fA eT £45
TO OM chateie ie le «ifaiiey eters £18 OS sch ale ereie tee ete £40
TG Ol ae SNe cone lee te,» £18 LOAN sve kia keL hens £24

In 1785 Massachusetts provided for a bounty on whale
products to help along the industry, but its finals effects
were not wholly good The fishery was unnaturally
stimulated and the imports of oil and bone soon exceeded
the demand. The long suspension in the use of oil during
the years of the war had resulted in a more general return
to the use of tallow candles. Over production, there-
fore, prevented the hoped for increase in prices and
profits. It was at this time that the Nantucket whalers
carried on negotiations with England and with France in
regard to a transference of their interests to those coun-
tries where more favorable conditions were presented."
A commercial treaty with France in 1789, however,
gave promise of more prosperous conditions, by opening

16 Starbuck, p. 78.
1” Macy, pp. 226-227.

18 Macy, pp. 134-135.
® Starbuck, p. go.

a ee

Whale Products nm Commerce. 105

the French markets to American whale products, while
at the same time European whale products were ex-
cluded. The first few shipments to France met with a
profitable sale and the prospects seemed good. But
the troubles between France and England, and the out-
break of the French Revolution, soon annulled all the
expected advantages of the agreement of 1789.

From that time until the close of the war of 1812 every
phase of the whale fishery was marked by ups and downs,
such as are found at no other time. In 1798 the pros-
pects of hostilities between the United States and France
were reflected in the preying of French privateers on
American commerce. Whaling interests suffered with
the rest. The price of provisions was high; rates of
insurance increased; at one time rates as high as twenty
per cent were charged for marine insurance when the
underwriters would assume risks at all;?? and there were
many times when the ship owners must have lost money,
under the current prices, even if their ships had brought
in full cargoes.7 During the early years of the new
century there was added both the trouble with the
Spanish in South America, just when the newly opened
Pacific fishery was becoming important, and the difficul-
ties with Breat Britain in harassing our commerce. The
embargo of 1807 kept down the prices of oil and candles
by stopping their exportation. And finally the outbreak
of actual hostilities in 1812, with the accompanying re-
strictions on trade in general, once more put an effective
end to any extensive trade movements in whale products.

Yet during these same years there were other influences
which were tending steadily to build up trade in whale
oils and bone. The years of depression led many owners
to sell their vessels or to transfer them to other branches
of business. The quantities of oil imported were thereby
reduced even below the market demand and the prices

® Macy, p. 163.
71 Macy, p. 150.

106 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

again rose to the point of returning reasonable profits.
With renewed prosperity in the country the home con-
sumption of oil and sperm candles was increasing. During
the Revolution necessity had prompted a return to tallow
candles, but experience had shown clearly enough that
the whale and sperm oil were preferable as illuminants,—
giving both a cheaper and a better light. Light-houses
were also increasing in number, creating a greater de-
mand for oil and tending to raise its price. Whale oil
was being secured in greater quantities and the fact that
it commanded only about one-half the price of sperm oil,
favored its more general use. Whale oil, it is true, did
not give sucha brilliant light as sperm oil, but since it
was cheaper and would last about twice as long, it had
an increasing demand for common lights. Both sperm
candles and whale oil found growing markets in most of
the important seaports on the coast, and from them it
was shipped to various parts of the world, the West In-
dian trade being especially important.”

While the war lasted (1812-1815) the imports of oil
and bone fell to the merest fraction of what they had
been during the years just previous to the outbreak of
hostilities. The decreased supply was far below the de-
mand of the home markets, and this fact, coupled with
the prohibitive embargoes, resulted in the complete sus-
pension of the export trade. In the years 1813 to 1815
inclusive there were no shipments of sperm oil or bone to
foreign markets, while of whale oil the exports were
practically nil in 1814 and none at all in 1815. During
the fifteen years since the opening of the century the an-
nual exports had gone as high as 136,000 gallons of sperm
oil, 932,000 gallons of whale oil, and 134,000 pounds of
bone. The current prices were ranging near one dollar
a gallon for sperm and fifty cents per gallon for whale
oil, while bone was not worth over ten cents per pound.
But at a time when the total export trade of the United

2 Macy, p. 139.

Whale Products in Commerce. 107

tates was relatively small, the trade in whale products
was proportionately more important than during the
later days of greater whaling prosperity.

Whaling was resumed after the war with marked
activity especially at Nantucket. After the Revolution
oil and bone had commanded excessive prices for a brief
time, and now the belief that the first cargoes would
bring similarly high prices acted as a great stimulus to
renew the fishery. But the prices fell as low or even
lower than for several years previous and many of the
owners found themselves in financial difficulties as a
result of doing business on credit and meeting with
unsuccessful voyages. For two or three years the depres-
sion in whaling interests was a rather serious question to
those whose capital was invested. The unsettled period
lasted until about 1818 or 1820 when the fishery was once
more on a profitable basis as the result of successful voy-
ages. The steadily increasing quantities of imports from
1818 onward are the best indications of this growing
prosperity. At the same time the export trade to dif-
ferent parts of the world began to assume its former pro-
portions.

The exports of whale oil had surpassed any former
record by the end of the year 1820, over one and a
quarter million gallons being shipped that year. The
sperm oil shipments were fluctuating up to about 1825,
but after that year annual exports began to attain
greater prominence. The foreign trade in whalebone
was also relatively small during the years just after the
close of the war but this fact is partially explained by
the small total imports during that time.

From 1825 until the decline of whaling interests began,
about 1860, the trade in whale products grew with the
growing industry. But the increase in the importance
of the export trade was not keeping pace with the growth
of the industry as a whole. In other words the fishery
was finding the basis for its greater prosperity not so much

108 <A History of the American Whale Fishery.

in a rapidly-growing foreign market as in the increased
consumption at home. In a way this circumstance was
a direct reversal of the conditions at the close of the
Revolution. At that time loss of the foreign, especially
the important British, markets was the prime cause of
the fluctuations in whaling prosperity. The home
demands at that time were not great enough to support a
flourishing industry and the merchants had been com-
pelled to look to foreign markets for a good share of their
profits. But after 1820 by far the larger part of the whale
oils went into the markets of this country. Whalebone,
on the contrary, has almost always seemed to find its
greatest demands in European markets.

The growth of imports from year to year may be seen
from a study of Table III in Appendix I. From 1825 to
1835 the imports of sperm oil had risen from about
2,000,000 gallons to over 5,000,000 gallons. The quantity
of whale oil had increased, by 1837, from a little over
1,600,000 to over 6,300,000 gallons in a single year.
And the yield of whalebone had risen from less than
200,000 pounds, previous to 1829, to over 2,000,000
pounds by 1840.

During the same years the exports of sperm oil had not
risen above 300,000 gallons and except in two years they
had not exceeded 100,000 gallons annually. Of the
whale oil and whale bone, however, between a third and
a half of the total imports were finding their way into the
foreign trade of the country. In another connection
attention has been called to the fluctuations from year
to year characteristic of the whale fishery. The same
feature is found in a study of the annual exports. A
comparison of the number of vessels and tonnage of
the fleet with the amount of annual imports shows no
definite inter-relationship. Nor is there any apparent
connection between the quantities of oil and bone im-
ported and the amounts sent to foreign markets.
For example to look at the years when imports and

Whale Products in Conunerce. 109

exports have reached their maximum amounts brings
out this point:

Maximum ANNUAL ImporTS AND Exports OF WHALE PRODUCTS.

Imports. Exports.
Sperm oil...... 1837, 5,329,138 gals. 1860-61, 1,518,457 gals.
Wihalevoilliigis « 1851, 10,182,000 gals. 1837-38, 4,824,376 gals.
J 5: |p ANN 1853, 5,652,300 lbs. 1852-53, 2,852,069 lbs.

In short the foreign demand for American whale products
seems to have been influenced more by the failure of the
European fisheries than by the success of the American
industry.

During the days of whaling prosperity both oil and
bone were important articles of foreign trade. Whale
oil was shipped abroad in somewhat larger quantities
than was sperm oil but the usual higher prices of the latter
made it of equal or even greater value. When the decline
of whaling interests began about 1860, the commercial
importance of whale products also began to fall, for it
was almost entirely a lessened demand and decreasing
consumption which induced the decline. Whale oil was
the first product to be seriously affected because its uses
as a cheap illuminant were most largely supplanted by
the new petroleum products.

Since 1864 the exports of whale oil have steadily
declined, in only five years exceeding 10,000 barrels.
And since 1899 the total exports have been only goo
barrels—soo barrels in 1900 and 400 barrels in 1902. At
the same time the imports have declined steadily from
76,000 barrels in 1865 to 1,755 barrels in 1905. Thus
both the home and the foreign markets have practically
ceased to be important. With sperm oil the condition is
slightly different. Its use in fine lubricants has pre-
served a part of the former demand, along with the
minor consumption in certain industrial arts. But the
consumption is largely in the American markets. Since
1865 the imports of sperm oil have declined on the whole,

110 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

though with many fluctuations, from about 65,000
barrels to 12,985 barrels in 1905. The exports which in
1865 amounted to 20,000 barrels, have not exceeded
2,000 barrels in any year since 1892, and since 1900 only
one year, 1902 with 470 barrels, has been marked by any
foreign shipment of sperm oil. Whale oil therefore has
largely lost both home and foreign markets, while sperm
oil has ceased to rank as an article of export. The small
annual yield of the latter is almost entirely consumed in
the United States.

Whalebone presents a marked contrast to the declin-
ing trade in oils. True it is that the annual yield of
bone at present is far below the figures for the years
during the middle of the last century. But with the
failing of the whale fishery, bone has become the chief
product. Year by year its price has risen as the supply
has fallen off, and the demand has continued. The
foreign market still continues to be the most important,
rather more than half the bone being sent to European
ports, chiefly France, Germany and Great Britain.
Whalebone alone remains as an important article of
commerce—on the demand for bone depends almost
entirely the future of trade in whale products. A recent
report from the London ‘‘Times” (Nov. 1, 1906) states
that the price of whalebone in the London market has
gone up to seven dollars per pound as the result of the
failure of the British fishery. The Dundee whalers could
not reach the whaling grounds, in the Davis Strait and
Greenland regions, because of the presence of pack ice.
This high price will undoubtedly stimulate the foreign
shipments of bone from this country.

Whaling was beneficial in its prosperity not alone to the
people who invested directly in the fishing enterprises.
The refining and manufacturing of oils offered profitable
employment for capital and gave work to many hundreds
of workmen during the days of its greatest development.

The manufacture of sperm candles was one of the

Whale Products in Commerce. III

most important industries growing out of the whale
fishery. And as early as 1760 there were eight factories
in New England and one in Philadelphia.** Other
allied industries were greatly promoted, as cooperage,
machine-shop products, cordage, and more especially
boat and ship building. Thus in 1851 the New Bedford
fleet alone added forty-eight ships, and in 1852 six new
ships were being built in the New Bedford yards.*
The development of such interests gave rise to new trade
relations and movements. The growth of these allied
industries reflected the growing importance of trade in
whale products, and their success depended on the
commercial prosperity of the fishery. The changing
economic conditions, by which this commerce was largely
destroyed, might have effected these industries adversely
in the important whaling centers, and have brought a
general economic crisis in such a place as New Bedford,—
but the change was gradual; the markets declined slowly;
and most of the industries were able to transfer their
interests to other growing lines of activity. Ship and
boat building alone suffered heavily but perhaps not so
much from the failure of whaling commerce as from the
general decline of the American merchant marine and
American supremacy in ship building.

3 Weeden, I, 655.
4 Ellis, p. 419.

CHAPTER IX.
PRESENT STATUS AND FuTURE PROSPECTS.

On January 1, 1906, the whaling fleet of the United
States numbered forty-two vessels, with an aggregate
tonnage of 9,878 tons. By way of comparison, the
Nantucket fleet from 1771-1775 numbered 150 vessels,
having a tonnage of 15,075 tons. The number of vessels
at the beginning of the year was the same for the two
years previous, but the tonnage figures represent the
highest mark reached since January 1, 1900, when the
figures for the fleet were forty-eight vessels, and aggregate
tonnage 10,478. The increase in tonnage from 1905 to
1906 was owing to the addition of new vessels, a 294-
ton bark from Norwich, a 390-ton brig from New Bedford
and a 180-ton schooner from San Francisco. While the
three vessels lost or withdrawn aggregated only 270 tons.

The most notable feature of the year was the reappear-
ance of Norwich, Conn., as a whaling port after a lapse
of seventy years. Since Boston dropped from the list
in 1903 vessels had been registered only from the three
ports, New Bedford, San Francisco and Provincetown.
During the last thirty-five years the only other instances
of a new port being added to the list were Stonington,
-Conn., which sent one or two vessels yearly from 1878
to 1893, and Hartford, Conn., which sent one vessel in
1887. The Stonington case represented a lapse of
seventeen years, while Hartford had never before been
a whaling port. The Norwich instance is, therefore,
noteworthy, but it means practically nothing as to the
status of the whole industry.

The main fleet, as in previous years, was divided among
New Bedford with twenty-four vessels; San Francisco,

Present Status and Future Prospects. Fis

fourteen vessels, and Provincetown, three vessels. Of
the whole fleet, there were twenty-five steamers and
barks, three brigs and fourteen schooners. With the
exception of five schooners hailing from San Francisco,
practically all the brigs and schooners, that is the smaller
vessels, are employed in the sperm whale fisheryof the
Atlantic Ocean. The steamers and barks, on the other
hand, are engaged chiefly in the North Pacific and the
Arctic fishery.

The imports of whale products in 1905 show a falling off
from previous years. The imports of sperm oil, 12,985
barrels, reached the lowest figure since 1899; whale oil,
1,755 barrels, touched the lowest figure since 1815, with
the single exception of 1903, and whalebone, 79,900
pounds, again excepting 1903, went lower than in any
other year since 1827. In other words, the vessel and
tonnage figures would suggest a slight revival of whaling
during the last few years, the figures of imports last year
indicate about the lowest condition of the fishery for
nearly a century.

The prices on whale products also fell, six cents per
gallon on sperm oil, five cents on whale oil, and ninety
cents a pound on whalebone. Hence the smaller imports
had a still smaller relative value as compared with the
two or three years immediately previous. It seems,
therefore, that in spite of a slight increase in the fleet
tonnage, the whaling industry has not yet reached its
lowest ebb, at least as far as oils are concerned. The
merchants, however, apparently have faith in an advance
of price, for many of them are holding much of their
stocks rather than sell at the prevailing low prices.

The imports of oil and bone are made chiefly at New
Bedford and at San Francisco. The Atlantic fleet of
sperm whalers makes New Bedford its port, though small
amounts of both sperm and whale oil are occasionally
entered at New York and Boston. The San Francisco
imports are chiefly of whalebone from the right whale

114. A History of the American Whale Fishery.

fishery of the North Pacific and Arctic fleets. Some bone
is also usually entered at Seattle, whence it is shipped
east by rail. There were no exports of either sperm oil
or whale oil in r905—-making the third year of no foreign
movement of these products. It seems safe to conclude
that the formerly important European market no longer
exists, and the consumption of whale oils is by home
demands—their uses being mainly as lubricating oils.
Whalebone, on the contrary, still continues to have a
good foreign demand as in previous years, the exports in
1905 exceeding 80,000 pounds.

Such, in brief, was the condition of the whale fishery at
the end of the year 1905. During the past summer
(1906) no less than eight whaling vessels, schooners and
brigs, were in the harbor at New Bedford at one time.
Such a thing had not happened before for years—the
daily papers noted it at length and people began to talk
about a “revival of whaling.’’ But a careful analysis of
present conditions shows no ground for such a belief.

What the future of whaling is to be, is, of course, much
in the nature of mere prophecy—yet the signs seem easy
to interpret. It appears reasonable enough to say that
the fishery for right whales will be carried on in the
northern seas as long as the demand for whalebone con-
tinues and as long as the price remains at its present
high figure. That is, the most important phase of the
industry will be carried on from the Pacific coast, and San
Francisco will doubtless continue to be the headquarters
of the fleet.

The prospect for the Atlantic sperm whale fishery is not
so promising. The low price of oil is rather discouraging
to the merchants, and only the good luck of the vessels in
securing large catches in a short time has made it possible
to continue the business with any profit. The modest
manner in which this fishery is carried on by the New
Bedford and Provincetown merchants, with small vessels
making relatively short voyages, will probably enable

Present Status and Future Prospects. 115

them to continue the business to a limited extent as long
as the fondness for sperm lubricating oils continues to be a
Yankee trait.

Beyond these possibilities the future seems to hold
nothing. Whaling no longer ranks as an important
commercial interest even in the localities from which it is
carried on. The most optimistic view of the future
reveals no prospect of any chance for permanent growth
or development. The economic conditions under which
whaling prospered have ceased to exist, never to be
revived. The chief influences which induced the decline
of whaling have not been abated in the slightest degree.
The death knell of whaling was sounded fifty years ago.
It may almost be said that whaling is already dead.

APPENDIX I.

STATISTICS OF WHALING.

Table I, compiled from Goode’s work and from the
‘‘Whalemen’s Shipping List,”’ shows the tonnage of vessels
employed in the whale fishery from 1794 to 1842, and
both the number of the vessels and their tonnage from
1843 to date. These figures are interesting in a number
of ways. First of all they show the limited extent and
unsettled conditions of the fishery until after the close
of the war of 1812. Second, they give a good idea of the
rapid growth up to 1847, and finally they serve well to
illustrate the less rapid, yet steady, decline from about
1850 onward.

Studied in connection with Table I, Table II gives a
still more detailed conception of the various phases of
the history of whaling. Table II gives the records of
clearance of whaling vessels from the different ports from
1784 to 1840, compiled from Starbuck’s tables; and the
vessels owned at the different ports from 1840 to 1905,
compiled from the ‘‘Shipping List.” The different points
worthy of attention are (1) The relatively large number
of ports from which whaling vessels were sent immedi-
ately after the Revolution, but from most of which
whaling was carried on only intermittently or was sus-
pended entirely until after the War of 1812. (2) The
uninterrupted prosecution of the fishery year after year
from New Bedford and Nantucket, except during the
second war with England, and (3) The increasing rivalry
for supremacy between these two ports, soon decided in
favor of New Bedford. (4) The reawakening of the busi-
ness at many ports from 1818 to 1820 and the years
following. (5) The increasing size of the individual fleets

118 <A History of the American Whale Fishery.

and the regularity with which the business was carried
on from a large number of ports during the later years of
the Golden Era. (6) The abandonment of the fishery at
port after port in the period from 1857 to 1870. (7) And
finally the gradually increasing size of the San Francisco
fleet while all the other fleets were still declining, until
only the three ports, New Bedford, San Francisco and
Provincetown remain.

The table of imports, Table III, is chiefly valuable as
indicative of the commercial importance of the fishery.
In a way, also, the increasing quantities brought in from
year to year are illustrative of the growth of the fishery
up to about 1850 to 1860, when the decline began, After
that date the decreasing imports speak eloquently of the
lessened consumption and demand, and the forces work-
ing against whaling prosperity. A comparison of imports
and the size of the fleet, as given in Table I, in a number
of different years, will bring out vividly the uncertainty
that always attended whaling operations. In a year
when the fleet was large the imports might be small,
while perhaps the very next year a distinctly smaller
fleet would bring in cargoes making up a far greater total
for the year.

A comparison of the figures for one or two instances
will illustrate the point:

S1zE OF WHALING FLEET AND QUANTITIES OF IMPORTS.

Number of Gallons of Gallons of Pounds of
Year. Vessels. Sperm Oil. Whale Oil. Bone.
MOG Dh. eh 53 99,591 328,483 3,906,500
TE52) 41-1020 78,872 84,211 1,259,900
FS 3) (OOK 103,077 260,114 5,652,300
1854 ....668 76,696 319,837 3,445,200

The contrast between 1851 and 1854 is most marked.
In the three years the number of vessels increased by
115—principally from New Bedford—but in the latter
year the imports were distinctly smaller. One hundred

Appendix. IIQ

of the 115 vessels added were ships and brigs, representing
an increase of at least $2,000,000 in the invested capital.
The lapse of four years precludes the argument that the
new vessels had not had time to secure a cargo and
return home—a point that becomes still more manifest
if the imports for 1855 and 1856 are considered.

The table of imports and the table of exports—Table
IV—are properly studied together, since from the two
can be had the best idea of the commercial importance
of whale products. The table of exports also shows the
close dependence of foreign trade on general economic
conditions—nowhere more marked than in the falling off
in the foreign trade as soon as the decline of whaling
began. The decline of the export trade, especially in
whale oil, seems to have been more rapid than the decline
of the general industry. This table, taken with the
table of prices, Table V, shows a remarkable example
of increasing commercial importance of a single commod-
ity with an almost steadily rising price. Whalebone is
the product referred to—having continued its upward
tendency in spite of all the adverse conditions so disastrous
to the other products of the fishery.

The annual prices again serve as good illustrations of
the fluctuations in the whaling business—ups and downs
being the rule, and stable conditions for more than a year
or two being the exception.

Tables VI and VII, figures of the North Pacific and
San Francisco fleets, and the comparative imports at
New Bedford and San Francisco are illustrative of the rise
of the Pacific industry with the transference of a large
part of the whaling interests to the port of San Francisco.
This point is perhaps brought out best by the figures of
the annual imports, at the two places. Two facts are
noticeable: (1) The sperm oil is imported largely
through New Bedford—being the product of the Atlantic
fishery schooners from Provincetown and New Bedford
and (2) the bone, at present the really valuable product

120 A History of the American Whale Fishery.

of the fishery, is almost wholly imported through San
Francisco, being the product of the Arctic fishery. In
other words it is plain from this comparative study that
San Francisco now has the most valuable interests, while
New Bedford retains but an unimportant remnant of her
once greatest industry.

Appendix. 121

TABLE I.

NUMBER AND TONNAGE OF VESSELS IN WHALING
FLEET, 1794-1906.*

Number of Vessels. Number of Vessels.
sell ra o, v :
u oS rd ¢ b Oe v =
aie i ie Be ON Gee ne
Kal 7p) ee) a o Pp 7) joa) 9) &
1851 502 24 27 171,971
1852 558 27 35 193,190
1853 599 30 32 206, 286
1854 602 28 38 208 , 399
1855 584 20 34 199, 842
1856 585 21 29 199,141
1857 593 22 40 204, 209
1858 587 18 49 203, 148
1859 561 19 45 195,115
1860 508 19 42 176,848
1861 459 14 41 158,745
1862 372 10 41 125, 462
1863 301 10 42 103, 146
1864 258 5 41 785 |
1865 226 7 43 79,696
1866 199 8 56 68
1867 222 10 80 75,340
1868 223 17 89 74,596
1869 223 25 88 74,512
1870 218 22 81 73,137
1871 216 18 54 69,372
1872 172 12 34 52,701
1873 153 12 38 47,996
1874 130 7 34 41,191
1875 119 8 36 37,733
1876 123 7 39 38, 883
1877 121 8 43 37,828
1878 129 11 47 41,197
1879 124 12 50 ,602
1880 119 ll 48 39, 433
1881 116 11 50 39, 426
1882 105 10 46 35, 892
1883 101 8 38 34,137
1884 98 7 39 33,119
1885 93 6 34 31,207
1886 87 5 32 29,118
1887 84 6 31 28,291
1888 83 6 27 27,851
1889 74 6 26 25,488
1890 65 6 26 22.718
1891 64 Ul 26 22,464
1892 59 7 26 20,845
1893 59 7 29 21,165
1894 56 7 27 20,107
1895 51 7 27 18,152
1896 47 5 25 16,358
1897 42 3 22 14, 684
1898 38 3 22 13,373
1899 34 3 19 11,486
1900 30 2 16 10,478
1901 Da Wide gate 13 8,746
1902 24 1 14 8,366
1903 24 1 14 8,470
1904 26 1 15 9,561
1905 25 1 16 9,378
1906 25 3 14 9,878

*Compiled from the following sources: 1794-1843. Goode: Fisheries and Fishin
Industries of the United States, Sec. 5, Vol. 2. p, 173. 1843-1906, ‘‘Whalemen’s
Shipping List.

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126 ~=6A History of the American Whale Fishery.

TABLE III.
IMPORTS OF WHALE PRODUCTS, 1805-1905.
Pounds ; : Pounds
Gallons Gallons Gallons Gallons

Yeer-| soem Oi) Whale Oil.|\ Beale Year| sperm Oil.| Whale Oil.| Whale
1805 412,492 612,895 13,131 1856 80,941 197,890 2,592,700
1806 378,788 741,951 86,544 1857 78,440 230,941 2,058,900
1807 356, 548 934,259 72,784 1858 81,941 182,223 1,540,600
1808 362,471 567,095 49,970 1859 91,408 | 190,411 1,923,850
1809 443,709 587,664 17,092 1860 73,708 140,005 1,337,650
1810 572,271 585,869 41,437 |; 1861 68,932 133,717 1,038,450
1811 844,200 304,825 43,200 (|| 1862 55,641 100, 487 763,500
1812 429 , 692 191,079 6,266 | 1863 65,055 62,974 488,750
1813 111,289 80,860 9,901 1864 64,372 71,863 760,450
1814 108, 486 PRY GB NE Ss ASE 1865 32,242 76,238 619,350
1815 48,510 MOAT Agee ee a 1866 36,663 | 74,302 920,375
1816 237,479 294,525 796 1867 43,433 — 89,289 1,001,397
1817 1,028,475 581,836 19,440 1868 47,174 | 65,575 900,850
1818 586, 688 608,031 65,446 1869 47,936 | 85,011 603, 606
1819 671,674 1, 204, 308 83,843 1870 | 55, 183 72,691 708,365
1820 1,093,302 1,409,846 78,879 1871 | 41,534 | 75,152 600,655
1821 1,357,618 1,213,506 62,893 1872 45,201 31,075 | 193,793
1822 1,351,350 1,619,951 50,799 1873 42,053 | 40,014 206,396
1823 2,938,351 1,697,440 103, 404 1874 32,203 | 37,782 345,560
1824 3,091,064 | 1,833,237 | 133,427 1875 42,617 34,594 372,303
1825 1,924, 303 1,666,413 152,534 1876 39,811 | 33,010 150, 628
1826 919,800 1,108, 233 79,368 1877 41,119 27,191 160,220
1827 2,958,480 | 1,119,037 | 106, 225 1878 43,508 33,778 207 , 259
1828 2,475,176 1,591,790 137 , 323 1879 41,308 23,334 286,280
1829 2,350, 152 2,256,502 563,654 1880 37,614 34,776 464,028
1830 3,482,042 2,831,315 514,991 1881 30,598 31,677 368 , 322
1831 3,636,738 3,609,774 279,279 1882 29,884 23,371 271,999
1832 2,299,563 | 5,703,894 442 881 1883 24,595 24,170 254,037
1833 3,289,765 5,153,148 266, 432 1884 22,099 24,670 426,968
1834 3,891,573 4,144,833 343,324 1885 24,203 41,586 463,990
1835 5,181,529 | 3,950,289 965,192 || 1886 23,312 27,249 352,490
1836 4,200,021 | 4,301,892 1,028,773 1887 18,873 34,171 585,011
1837 5,329,138 6,389,995 | 1,753,104 || 1888 16,265 17,185 334,572
1838! 132, 356 226,552 | 2,200,000 1889 18,727 14,247 253,113
1839 142,336 229,783 | 2,000,000 1890 14,480 17,565 309 , 700
1840 157,791 207 ,908 2,000,000 1891 13,015 14,837 297 , 768
1841 159,304 | 207 , 348 2,000,000 1892 12,944 13,382 369, 885
1842 165,637 | 161,041 1,600, 000 1893 15,253 8,110 411,315
1843 166,985 | 206,727 2,000,000 1894 16,333 8,720 278,800
1844 139,594 262,047 2,532,445 1895 16,585 4,009 114,960
1845 157,917 272,730 3,167,142 1896 15,124 4,800 207,850
1846 95,217 207,493 2,276,939 1897 10,050 3,600 178,010
1847 120,753 313,150 3,341, 680 1898 12,520 5,295 246,120
1848 107,976 | 280,656 2,003, 000 1899 11,903 3,827 320, 100
1849 100,944 248 , 492 2,281,100 1900 18,525 5,510 207 , 650
1850 92,892 200, 608 2,869,200 1901 14,910 2,930 99,050
1851 99,591 328, 483 3,906,500 1902 21,970 4,725 109,980
1852 78,872 84,211 1,259,900 1803 18,109 1,260 74,850
1853 103,077 260,114 5,652,300 1904 17,050 3,750 123,300
1854 76,696 319,837 3,445,200 1905 12,985 1,735 79,900
1855 72,649 184,015 2,707,500 |

IBarrels, 1838—1905.
1805-1837, Starbuck, p. 660; amounts of oil given in gallons. 1838-1905, ‘‘Whale-
men's Shipping List;’ amounts of oil given in barrels of 314 gallons each.

Appendix. 127

TABLE IV.
EXPORTS OF WHALE PRODUCTS, 1795—1905.!

Pounds Pounds
Gallons Gallons? | Gallons Gallons
Year.| sperm Oil.| Whale Oil, Whale || Year.) .alons. | ygailons. wee

1795 810,524 64,335 410,664 1851 905,778 | 2,004,886 | 2,281,931
1796 | 1,176,650 59,797 308 , 314 1852 644,765 892,309 | 1,184,156
1797 582,425 38,221 452,127 1853 | 1,131,098 321,989 | 2,825,069
1798 128,758 700,040 62,805 1854 874,535 718,842 | 2,156,864
1799 114, 264 420,949 89,552 1855 958,744 705,492 | 1,944,809
1800 221,762 204, 468 32,636 1856 540,784 646,694 | 1,982,
1801 91,684 215,522 23,106 1857 819,081 414,466 | 2,042,390
1802 28,470 379,976 80,334 1858 896,923 840,127 | 1,103,301
1803 46,984 550, 535 96, 802 1859 | 1,341,025 996,341 1,380, 465
1804 5,550 646,505 134,006 1860 | 1,335,736 939,872 | 1,068,895
1805 72,624 626,089 21,335 1861 | 1,518,457 | 1,009,468 979,231
1806 42,785 826, 233 50,544 1862 739,477 | 2,599,316 796,384
1807 44,339 932,797 104,635 || 1863 | 1,034,794 | 2,055,511 603, 186
1808 612 198,019 8,660 1864 45,000 12,000 530,000
1809 51,071 421,282 8,825 1865 20,158 1,660 202, 100
1810 63,910 544,734 42,843 1866 10,630 618 521,400
1811 136, 249 186,661 30,346 1867 25,147 18,253 717,796
1812 63,216 106, 369 8,128 1868 18,619 i 707 ,882
LSB ee eee BOT Moke ae cs 1869 18,645 3,842 311,605
1 is a 7 Ae le Acree 1870 22,773 9,872 347,918
BEER Be ertets sory |p aiak ads Mer | aes tc Be 1871 22,156 18,141 387,199
18163 2,756 L(t) CON aE eae 1872 24,344 1,528 177,932
1817 11,300 460,888 3,668 1873 16,238 2,153 120,545
1818 208, 467 986, 252 9,300 1874 18,675 3,300 164,553
1819 75,360 860,112 8,038 1875 22,802 5,424 205, 436
1820 9,307 | 1,262,094 25,202 1876 23,600 10,300 133,400
1821 7,250 | 1,068,025 16,349 1877 18,047 6,390 70,850
1822 7,610 9905825 | hens. ik 1878 32,769 14,371 86,787
182 18,333 1,453, 126 86,474 1879 11,843 7,374 75,715
1824 23,578 | 1,251,836 60, 693 1880 12,283 4,395 171,258
1825 30,548 | 1,072,615 212,062 1881 15,585 6,457 106,047
1826 A) 652,401 188,709 1882 13,006 4,421 175,470
1827 78,661 481,180 241,085 1883 13,996 4,543 175,614
1828 297,276 488 , 468 120, 128 1884 5,143 2,343 113,024
1829 140,241 | 1,237,962 464,225 1885 7,554 5,384 152,748
1830 58,814 | 1,833,196 404,919 1886 3,118 18, 253 184,511
1831 78,159 | 1,637,534 565,926 1887 4,955 8,2 154,781
1832 48,212 | 3,605,913 1,044,227 1888 1,345 8,578 230, 150
1833 50,392 | 3,298,872 | 1,203,176 1889 5,823 440 201,323
1834 60,935 | 2,614,814 873,983 1890 ,000 4,366 129,933
1835 63,827 | 2,217,321 270,977 1891 3,218 608 127,920
1836 115,142 | 2,362,325 731,500 1892 1,787 291 83, 869
1837 177,004 | 3,624,001 1,129,509 1893 | 1,165 1,064 216,335
1838 166,805 | 4,824,376 | 1,634,570 1894 | 1,720 276 147,667
1839 86,047 | 1,482,908 | 1,445,098 1895 1,225 825 228,629
1840 434,608 | 4,520,878 1,892,259 1896 215 500 230, 627
1841 349,393 | 4,094,924 1,271,363 1897 280 422 159,722
1842 287,761 | 3,909,728 918, 280 1898 1,952 675 90,541
1843 476,688 | 2,479,916 898,773 1899 DUE ROPE ene 163, 447
1844 451,317 | 4,104,504 | 1,149,607 1900 1,100 500 204, 652
1845 | 1,054,301 | 4,505,662 | 2,084,019 MOOD) Hab 5), ssta5 o Si0)| 0) aerate ae 208,195
1846 777,019 | 2,652,874 | 1,697,892 1902 470 400 130,959
1847 795,792 | 3,189,562 | 2,031,137 CDR At Bes epee Leos Fle 64,706
1848 206, 431 1,607,038 1,054,379 thE eae ae ya | Mee Bay 49,130
1849 526,817 | 2,783,480 | 1,198,250 BOUDRY Gracy etsy gh ite to wi aes 83,613
1850 730,743 | 1,470,197 | 1,981,231

Nortre.—In some years it will be observed that the exports exceed the total imports
for that year. This apparent discrepancy in figures is accounted for by the fact that
the exports of many years are made up largely from the accummulated stocks on hand
from previous years.

11795-1862, Starbuck, p. 7oo-7or. 1862-1905, ““Whalemen’s Shipping List.”

? Includes other fish oils up to 1862.

31816-1842, Sept. 30, to Oct. r. 1842-1862, July to July. 1862-date, January to
January.

128 =6A History of the American Whale Fishery.

TABLE V.

AVERAGE ANNUAL PRICES OF OIL (PER GALLON) AND
BONE (PER POUND), 1804-1905.!

Veen ee eee | Bane Wear. | OPS | WEE aes
1804...... $1.40 $0.50 $0.08 RROD ac see $1. 773 $0. 71,35 $0. 454
1805...... .96 .50 .10 1] MSG): 625 1. 62 . 794 58
H8062522%% 80 50 it Vay Sedo aiastes 1.284 73+ 967 ¢
te 1.00 50 . 07 PSSe cea e ree 54 92}
1808...... 80 44 07 Mage os 6 1.363 88
1809...... 60 44 .08 ibe (t, | eee 1.414 494 804
ASIO? 2k 75 40 08 | 1 CT Deer 1.314 443 66
102) by BS ae 1225 40 09 1862.2... 1.424 594 82
5 I PA 1.00 50 .10 NRG es 1.61 95+ p13;
je Te ae 25 50 .10 S64 icc 1.78 1.28 1.80
14.) | Pea 125 NYE OD Rea ea SGD cis ass 2.25 1.45 1.71
i been 1.00 Pai ae ee eee 1866... 25% 2°50 ALP AT 1.37
ISIGs 3/5: 1.124 65 a2 TeGiicnh aoe 2.234 734 1.174
1b ck ls Eee 7. 60 12 18685 scus0 1.92 82 1.023
1818...... 90 50 10 ARGS diss 1.78 1.013 1.24
LL De 83 35 .10 ISTO oe 1.354 673 .85
RY. VPage 934 35 .10 TST oes 1.35 60 .70 2
104 Pe 674 33 212 W872..55%5 1.45} 654 1.283
17 65 32 .12 TOTS see 1 62 1.08
15 ae 43 32 .13 | (cy ee 1.59 1.10
i br. Fee 454 30 mb} 1875; ....: 1.604 654 1.1232
TED he ke 04 32 15 48763/).2.2 1.403 61 2.14 3
ROG E wieh es 75 30 .16 ART bos cats 1.13 52 2.50 3
C37 Rae 723 30 18 ABTS os cree 914 44 2.46 2
ABQR Ks acts 624 26 225 ASO Leckie 844 39 2.34
WS29- 2 es 614 26 Ws 1880...... 99 51 2.00
125: UE 654 39 .20 feo Ee 88 48 1.63
MBSL eed si0'3 71 30 au ir NBS2s aes 1.06 534 brad
1123 yee 85 234 A i] 1883...... 97 54 2.87
Baan’ cat 85 26 |) vals 1884)... 85 56 Bioo
it 3" eee 724k 274 EAL NSSDs cee 82 45 2.68
TROD ate wate 84 39 21 1886...... 743 33 2.73
1836.23... 89 44 25 ity 66 son So be
NAT cis islals 824 35 .20 NSES. 0 aida 62 35 2.78
SBS), 2 sai. 86 32 .20 1889...... 65% 38 3.50
18305600 1.05 36 .18 ABOON ae 65 42 4.22
1840...... 1.00 30 .19 82) eee 69 47 5.38
$8402 94 32 .20 1892...... 674 424 Deo
LL 73 34 .23 af eee 734 . 424 3.08
fe Cee 63 34 36 18005 bs 56 eis 324 2.95
1844) ccs 902 36,5 40 ASOD: cate 48 28 2.83
1845. 5.3.2 88 33 34 1896s); .5 22 40 35 3.95
W886... 87z 332 . 34 1890755204 46 37 3.50
Gai eos srs 1.002 36 Sei! ARORA ce 53 34 3.10
1848 3)05.5.... 1.00 33 aD 1899...... 49 35 2.70
1849...... 1.082 3975 .212 NOOD. s saccis 524 37 2.50
1850....... 1 ty - 4975 . 322 A901. Saad 56 38 2.65

ses 1.274 4535 343 19023 5 66 37 4.20
1 Cae 1. 232 . 683 502 1903... 22% 56 38 5.25
1 to Re 1.243 .584 343 q908 22 ta5 52 36 ‘5.80
itt See 1.482 . 592 392 ASOD). ee 46 31 4.90

1 804-1843, Starbuck; p. 660. 1843-10905, ‘‘Whalemen's Shipping List.”
2 Gold.
3 Currency.

Appendix. 129

‘TABLE VL

NUMBER OF VESSELS IN THE NORTH PACIFIC, AND
SAN FRANCISCO FLEETS, 1835-1905.!

ws eH
. a 0 . o 9
He ie pee fans os bess
2) 3 a3 Q a 8a
Year. te dg Ed a2 Year. es Be ad 5
ss 3 _ (eo)
Aad te a, Ad & | om
LCE RAR BBE ae UP yeni Whar atacs USF Uy ase 35 8 2,015
PBAGH No. ct) tenes WN Sosa | anc 1 CYP cee ocean 27 4 617
ES firsigals stot e:< PTA RON sietben rectly IRS ident ace 30 1 245
11-8) eee Tee teae Wine sacle TS TAS see's - 23 1 245
TSBORS ste costa oe PASS | Saas cae A Naar Relens ERD ses iaicts (ais 16 1 245
TRADE cacsate a6 SOV rcee tt ed Foomatic 18762213 te eos 18 1 245
RSS a saneisie a4 PA Soll ME eg al ne tie LCS arena: 19 2 505
13): DEE Bice fel PA Leute da ORT ae ae ICR seas 17 2 505
1 BE eee tae DOS PR aes il oe. Sc iy AS eepentee 21 1 260
NRE rs Sie «5 7A OR a see ISSO oe van ante 19 3 630
NE Ao is c's: 71S GN a a aN ae IBSH cites sats 23 5 1,129
Pavitt crates ODP Rae Wis atts s LEP ea pee 32 6 1,490
eT RVC A HEHE UTICA ere tian ieee eae ISSR ee Lees 38 9 2,845
iC) OES See DDE Re aay acne anets TSB ose ets 39 19 6,103
a LTTE petidaercay | Ua bAgeney: TSSDs sete 44 19 5,965
LOO H es rots 1 | Bet is WAN ee TSRE) era's «=i 38 21 6,415
1 heme gee USE a | tot aren ore CEE ie areal 38 19 5,872
Bete Ae vines: DTD Me reene iit she eats CE ae 41 21 6,480
LCE Aree Dee Pee Ne 2 he aie TSB rPsins seis 48 23 6,989
AA rats PEPIN | ie Reread ke Grea URE Uae eee 49 26 7,375
DBA E asig <Po'kb,s VANE BN AY a ee Pane TSO ere se lnnicls 46 30 8,005
THON AAR AGIA | oclisitene Sea ke aa TROD Taxi. Ssh 48 30 8,024
ESV fiar oietecias tals re Te) | Spa tan nos ee LS BACHE 46 33 8,502
BSBB SM, ole ors UST)! Mee ola ie kone te i Co) a capes 35 32 8,901
PGND tees a cjeise TG tives 1,6 P teats ars 1 oO ee creer 31 30 8,008
TOG ee aetiee TVA | Brea ibe ee IB OGi fatalsjorsre.cts 29 23 6,673
tLe eee CCM PEGS PRAM "(eae iS fe A ete 27 22 6,498
DRG ee ace SPA et), ADE RS Cte Es Be TBD Bes chasarote 23 21 6,151
DSGat ees secs AU saan Gh ict DBO t natctass steve 21 17 4,795
MS aeiaslGare. ee GOP Ry et cau oe LOO eee ovalehors 17 15 4,608
PSBT NN Bere Seles OVI abahed jam ted are dle ABODE erates 18 13 3,673
PSO eee iniths cls DOR Aa AS hi ers ota 19027 eect 17 10 2,778
AGO cc tthe: SOF etok a leben sy ae 1D08 secs ucla: 20 1 3,128
TSGRe eres: (<5 I] na A eo 1Q04 2 oes 21 14 3,593
1b Ae pe PSHE 43 6 1,414 NRO atari ress 20 14 3,626
17 (Ee AB ae 46 5 1,254

Compiled from ‘‘Whalemen’s Shipping List,’’ 1843-1906.

130 =) A History of the American Whale Fishery.

TABLE VII.
IMPORTATIONS OF OIL AND BONE AT NEW BEDFORD

New BeEpForD. San FRANCISCO.
|
Year. Barrels Barrels | Pounds Barrels Barrels Pounds

Sperm Oil.! Whale Oil.|! Bone. Sperm Oil.| Whale Oil.| Bone.
BGO ky ese 32,673 54,566 471,495 45 1,657 21,336
DSTO oiet oes eine 42,886 49,563 DOOPSOLI Gh. calne:. 4,013 66,000
1 id ane Rae ae 30, 654 55,710 OOTP) Uileisartasan GLU lias btec aren heat oe ene
DARD tae erases 33,021 15,573 177,868 B20 Sih yi en ee
RSLs Aa wih ates 30,229 25,757 ADU SOS e cteisisteay | (hing bon ence ni ee aes
ARYA cists eivisjeles le 25,480 26,340 OGTR Bay ris kt! ih) ache aT ee ee
RTP ie a c'atejaveiaes 34,430 25,067 359 ,973 315 1,200 10,045
TR yen on aoe 30,234 20,535 ORs Se ae 675 10,400
DS Mieaieic’a | Ansa 27,916 11,636 130,585 1,301 4,520 14, 462
DSBS x siias sts « 39,042 18,152 ECAR et SOs Neenah tc eben tie DN 2
RYO? oe er tt 34,890 18, 147 DELVES We emer PIL. ccocottics aint le ae
Pe ey adeyacnsis 30,169 21,017 ae Mb iP a hk COE ae | ner AT | anime ce’
ES Sa ie 27,021 23,954 ODA an ae ae amet ORCC eoE. BOM Ns cemtneg
WSR ors ia c ouctelelers 21,276 16,236 Lees ONO MA Mi latioteterce’ Pali i Ccocae ee ek Mee erate oe
OR lesa ccd skorotsts 17,403 12,272 MOP ZAK ole (inctreeey . tal) tek oe eh ae
MOORS Lr Mees sie 16,563 6,355 123,675 189 12,563 235,293
TSB. Ses 19,216 11,062 21,190 365 24,467 441,400
MOR Ge oes Sh dsiele ats 18,615 4,904 27,410 650 20,265 323,180
PORT rae iace sees 13,565 2,503 15,370 880 29,870 561,694
UC) BAA eae 10,234 921 8,812 964 15,720 320,132
SBD eos cvetcistelomte 12,382 1,416 23,893 610 11,735 225,050
Le Ai eisicfreiels 11,109 2,075 10,885 584 15,217 291,694
BOR cere Ne sxe 8,280 1,248 5,360 875 12,915 289, 850
ROE siesstait lateness 7,615 1,632 6,800 845 11,610 362,950
PRGA SE wreocincers 11,256 1,540 8,375 1,370 6,570 402,940
CE Ae Oe ae ees 12,878 1,545 12,100 1,025 7,175 266,700
MRO NA oe oe 9,577 OO rll os Ee eee 2,095 2,560 110,980
SOG os rakes 11,744 19,000 2,460 4,360 188, 850
NBO. ses esas aie 6,630 110 29,000 2,610 3,430 139,500
AORN cicraisss steers 6,745 2,140 3,620 4,290 2,975 224,800
Ae cei a's thtsce 6,123 a7Z | 19,500 2,780 3,455 291,400
MOUS ic Sic seen 11,205 2,725 11,650 4,090 2,735 195,500
PONE i Socc oaths cin 7,630 22,500 4,100 2,870 76,550
LL!) |? Eee a 15,035 3,150 17,980 5,995 1,575 92,000
U's ei ae 12,029 465 3,000 5,610 795 65,150
OBS on ea a 12, 280 210 5,300 4,540 2,470 102,000
ADDS. Stok. de sie 10,810 825 15,000 1,075 805 38, 200

1 From “‘Whalemen’s Shipping List.” Annual reviews of the Whale Fishery.

TABLE VIII:!

NUMBER OF VESSELS IN NANTUCKET FLEET AND
ANNUAL PRODUCT FROM 1762-1772.

Number of | Barrels of cE Number of | Barrels of

Year. Vessels. Oil. Year. Vessels. il.
MTOR ost eines cease 78 9,440 ATOR. sae ete 125 15,439
NIGS EA we ctorscereiacs 60 9,238 yo ae apie 119 19,140
L764 so oie ats! teiaie pak 72 11,983 WTO R Gy cak eek ee 125 14,331
WOO re ecules olaiar belch 101 11,512 DTT ons ciate aco eee 115 12,754
AUGBs iccleise eens. 118 11,969 ATT Oia cte sees 98 7,825
WEG svevotieionie chtotocst 108 16,561

1 Macy, p. 65.

Appendix. I3I

FUAB IA luke

AVERAGE NUMBER OF VESSELS AND ANNUAL IMPORTS
OF THE MASSACHUSETTS WHALING FLEETS, ATTIUTTS.

Vessels Fitted.

Barrels | Barrels

‘Northern Fishery. Southern ‘ich, Sperm Whale
Vessels.| Tons. Wessels] Tons. | se a

poe —— a - = = = = —— ae a | = povee ee *

WanstviGliete!s cicr. cae sien a's 65 4,875 85 | 10,200 26,000 4,000
ts sea ga PH oie reer 20 1,600 10 } 1,000 | 2,250 1,250
mes PoVetare anion 60 4,500 20 2,000 7,200 1,400
ee 1 75 1 120 | 200 100
Martha’ s Vineyard. . 12 720 ae 1g Sdtrenate } 900 300
Barnstable. . i Paws © 2 150 a le BAT LIN, ooh ee | AUP shal ote we
Boston. Reena AlaP ots.8 ae 15 1,300 5 700 | 1,800 600
Gree Cade seh cada. 4 300 Seamer tape eee sete: AOS | vhs
SINUAIZ Oi diniaress soos) 1s) “01 a0 = 4 300 at ecsoee SOD Ny aivieias

Itarbuck, p. 57.

Taste xt

AVERAGE NUMBER OF VESSELS AND ANNUAL IMPORTS
OF THE MASSACHUSETTS WHALING FLEETS, bc rediee,

Number of Vessels.

Barrels Barrels
Northern | Southern | Sperm Oil.| Whale Oil.
Fishery. Fishery.
Nantucket.. Dae ee 18 18 3,800 8,260
Wellfleet and Cape Cod . Bates | 12 Mg Wise ee Ree 1,920
Bpeegeth and New Bedford eee 45 5 2,700 1,750
Cape Ann an Dea ey, noite wt, aethe derske 2 lelestnpens hres 1,200
Plymouth. : oe 1 > llsitwerat ac arden LOO) |aeras tierce as
Martha’s Viney ard... a Ps 1 DeU aae cee oaickaiae
Boston.. a PY at cae ice pintce SOD be oacken a eas
Dorchester and Wareham. . d 7 1 SOOM Sete cere savas

1 Scammon, p. 200.

APPENDIX II.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

A. Standard References.

Browne, J. Ross.—Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, with Notes of a

Ba Sojourn on the Island of Zanzibar. 1846.

Brown, J. TEMPpLE.—The Whale Fishery and its Appliances. Bull.
U.S. Nat. Mus., No. 27. 1884.

Whalemen, Vessels, Apparatus and Methods of the Whale Fishery.
Sec. 5, Vol. 2, pp 218-293 in the Fisheries and Fishing Indus-

: tries of the United States. 1884.

CLarK, A. Howarv.—History and Present Condition of the Whale
Fishery. Sec. 5, Vol. 2, in the Fisheries and Fishing Indus-
tries of the United States. 1884.

Jerrerson, T.—Report on the Cod and Whale Fisheries. 1791.

v Printed in Misc. House Doc., 42d Cong., 2d session.

Macy, Osep.—History of Nantucket. 1836.

RicKetson, DanieL. History of New Bedford. 1850.

SABINE, LorRENzO. Report on the Principal Fisheries of the Amer-
ican Seas. 1870.

ScAMMON, C.M. Marine Mammals of the: Northwestern Coast of
North America, with an Account of the American Whale
Fishery. 1874.

nageieet Wm. An Account of the Arctic Regions. 1820.

TARBUCK, ALEX. History of the American Whale Fishery, from
its Earliest Inception to the year 1876. 1876.

WHALEMEN’S SHIPPING List AND MERCHANTS’ TRANSCRIPT. 1843

to date.

B. Minor References.

Aupricu, H.L. Arctic Alaska and Siberia, or Eight Months with
the Arctic Whalemen. 1880.

Bennett, F.D. Narrative of a Voyage Round the Globe. 2 Vols.
1833-36.

(132)

Appendix. 133

CuHEEVER, H.T. The Whale and his Captors; or the Whaleman’s
Adventures. 1886.

Crantz, Davip. History of Greenland. 1767.

Deano, R. Wanderings and Adventures; Being a Narrative of
Twelve Years’ Life in a Whaleship. 1846.

Exrus, L. B. History of New Bedford. 1892.

ENDERBY, CHARLES. A Proposal for Re-establishing the Southern
Whale Fishery. 1847.

FREEMAN, FREDERICK. Cape Cod and Annals of Barnstable County.
1858.

GoopeE, G. Brown. Whales and Porpoises. Sec. 1, in the Fisheries
and Fishing Industries of the United States. 1884,

Hurp, D.H. History of Bristol County. 1883.

LaInGc, JoHN. Account of a Voyage to Spitzbergen in 1815.

LeCompte, J. Pratique de la Péche de la Baleine dans les Mers
du Sud. 1833.

LEsLIE, Sir. JoHn. Narrative of Discovery and Adventure in the
Polar Seas and Regions. 1831.

Lyons, G. F., Capt. Private Journal. 1824.

McCuttocnu, J. R. Dictionary of Commerce. 1869.

Manuscript list of Nantucket Whalers. 1815.

Pease, Z.W. New Bedford; History, Industries, etc.

ScorEsBy, WM. Journal of Voyage to the Northern Whale Fishery.
1823.

Simmonps, P.L. Animal Products, their Preparation, Commercial
Uses and Value. 1877.

THACHER, JAMES. History of the Town of Plymouth. 1832.

WEEDEN, W.B. Economic and Social History of New England. 1899.

Whaling Directory of the United States in 1869.

C. Periodical References.

Whale Fishery.

American Whale Fishery. Monthly Review, Vol. 133, p. 347.
Science, Vol. 9, p. 321.

Basque Whale Fishery. Nature, Vol. 25, p. 365 and 505.
Living Age, Vol. 153, p. 52.

Chapter on Whaling. Outing, Vol. 15, p. 113.

Coast Whaling. Overland, Vol. 6, p. 548.

End of the British Whale Fishery. Spectator, Vol. 80, p. 81.

General Notes. Hunt, Vol. 3, p. 172 and p. 361. Dem. Rev.
Vol. 19, p. 453. Penny Mag., Vol. 2, p. 201.

Huntsmen of the Sea. Harper’s Mag., Vol. 49, p. 650.

134 <A History of the American Whale Fishery.

Marine Insurance in Case of a Whaling Voyage. Hunt, Vol. 8,
Pp. 169.

Narrative of Sufferings in Whaling. Monthly Rev., Vol. 146,
Pp. 69.

Northern Whale Fishery. Journal Stat. Soc., Vol. 17, p. 34.

Off Shore Whaling in the Bay of Monterey. Cosmopolitan,
Vol. 29, p. 631.

Perils of Whaling. Outing, Vol. 33, p. 353.

Perils and Romance of Whaling. Century, Vol. 18, p. 509.

Statistics of Whale Fishery. Hunt, Vol. 6, p. 187; Vol. 9, p. 380;
Vol. 10, p. 385; Vol. 14, p. 197 and 279; Vol. 16, p. 98 and 318.

Whale Catching at Point Barrow. Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. 38, p. 830.

Whale Fishery in the Arctic Seas. Cornhill, Vol. 15, p. 748.

Whale Fishery in the Arctic Ocean. McClure, Vol. 2, p. 391.

Whale Fishery and Shore Fisheries of New London. Hunt,
Wolvir6,p; 27.

Whaling Industry. Eng. Mag., Vol. 8, p. 234.

The Disaster of 1871. New Eng. Mag., n. s., Vol. 18, p. 490.

Whales and Whalers.

Commercial Products of the Whale. Chambers Jour., Vol.
61, p. 566.

The Right Whale of the North Atlantic. Science, Vol. 1, p. 598;
Vol. .2, ip... 266:

The Sperm Whale and its Food. Nature, Vol. 53, p. 223.

Whaler and Whaling. Sat. Rev., Vol. 80, p. 865.

Life on a Greenland Whaler. McClure’s, Vol. 8, p. 460.

Life on a South Sea Whaler. Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. 54, p. 818.

Whales and Whalemen. Chambers Jour., Vol. 33, p. 225.

Right and Sperm Whales. Am. Naturalist, Vol. 7, p. r.

Useful Products of Whales. Penny Mag., Vol. 9, p. 146 and 154.

Whaling Cruise. Living Age, Vol. 13, p. 172; Vol. 14, p. 395.

Natural History and Fishery of Whales. Quart., Vol. 63, p. 318.

Occastonal References.

Annual Reports and Bulletins of the United States Fish Com-
mission, 1880—date.

ARNOLD, S.G. History of Rhode Island and Providence Plan-
tation, | 0859. Vel. 14 pi rr;

Boston News Letter. 1737.

Burtiem, F. T. Collection of Voyages and Travel. 1745. Vol.
2, p. 231 and 903.

Appendix. 135

Davis, J.C. B. History of Hingham, Mass. Vol. af De 09,3:

Hakluyt’s Voyages, Vol. 1, p. 4.

Hurcuison, Tuomas. History of Massachusetts. DIOR. VOR, 3
Pp. 400.

Massachusetts Hist. Soc. Collections. First Series, Vol. si;
PP. 157, 161; Vol. 8, p. 202. Second Series, Vol. 3, pp. 18, 20%
Vol. 6, pp. 668, 673; Vol. 9, pp. 20, 36.

Nantucket Mirror, 1852.

New Bedford Mercury, 1845-1860.

Winsor, Justin. History of the Town of Duxbury. 1849.

INDEX.

A.

Allen, Robert, bomb lance invented by, 83

Ambergris, nature of, 97; value of, 97; in Morocco, 97

Arctic Ocean, bowhead whale in, 83; dangers and losses in, 65;
disaster of 1871 in the, 79; first whaler in, 60; principal
grounds now in, 64; season in, 64; whaling, begun in, 52;
wintering in, 62 r

Arctic regions, an account of, 1

Bahama Islands, whaling about, 27, 33

Baleen whale, 83

Barnstable, Mass., first whaling from, 30, 68

Bath, Me., 53

Belle Isle, Straits of, whaling ground in, opened, 34; restrictions
on whaling in, 35

Bering Straits, whaling ground, 59, 66; vessels captured in, 78

Bermuda, ambergris and whale oil at, 20

Bibliography, 132-134

Biscay, Bay of, whaling at, 8, 9, 11; longer voyages from, 11

Biscayan, and Icelanders unite, 12; fishery, importance of, 12; in
other fleets, 15; natives as whalemen, 11; rivals of English, 14;
vessels of, in St. George’s Bay, 13; whaling abandoned by, 12

Boat. See Whaleboat; Vessels

Boat Whaling, origin of, 22

Bomb lance, 83

Boston, Mass, 36, 40, 48; whaling fleet from, before 1775, 30

Boston News Letter, reference to, 28, 29, 31

Bounties, effect of, 42; Dutch, 18; English, 16; Massachusetts, 41;
Royal, to colonial fishery, 34; and trade, effect on, 104; to aid
Nantucket, 42

Bowhead Whale. See Baleen.

Braintree, Mass., 41

Brazil, coast of, whaling along, 28

Bristol, R. I., 41, 45, 50, 68

Bucksport, Me., 53

137)

138 Index.

Cc.

Cabot, Sebastian, voyages of, 11

California, whaling from San Francisco, q. v.; gold in, discovery of,
effect of, 74; whaling in, shore, 60, 61

Candles, sperm, manufacture of, 110; New England, 111; Philadel-
phia, 111

Cape Breton, whaling at, English, 12

Cape Cod, ports on, 30; whaling from, after 1800, 29

Cape Horn, first whaler rounding, 58; voyages round, length of, 60

Chili, coast of, whaling off, 58, 60

Civil War, effect of, on whaling, 77; southern privateers in, 78

Cogan, Cunningham and, gun, 83

Commerce, at Boston, 99; decline of, 110; decline, effect of, 111;
decline of whaling, effect of, on, 109; early, 99; England and
West Indies, with, 101; French, commercial treaty with, 104;
from Long Island, 99; golden era, during the, 107; imports and
exports, relation between, 108, 109; Nantucket, 101; Revolu-
tionary War, effect of, on, 103; War of 1812, effect of, on, 105;
whale products in, 98, 106

Connecticut, first whaling in, 21

Cotton mills, effect of, on whaling, 75

Crews, Americans in, 90; foreigners in, 90; Indians in, 89; size of,
89; wages of, 90

Crisis, financial, 1857, effect of, 67

Cunningham and Cogan, whaling gun, use of, in Arctic, 83

Darting Gun, description of, 84

Dartmouth, Mass., first whaling from, 32, 36, 38, 42

Dartmouth, N. S., founding of, 42

Davis Straits, 17, 28, 30, 33, 34, 36

Decline, of commerce, 110; of prices, 71; of whaling industry, 67-
70; causes of, 72-79

Delaware, whaling from, 53

Disaster of 1871, 79

Dutch, bounties by, 18; whaling by, 16, 17; decline of whaling, by,
18; at Spitzbergen, 14, 17; in Davis Straits, 17; in seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, 17

Duties, imports, English, exempt from, 15; on colonial, 15, 34; in
New York, 23

Index. 139

E:

East Haddam, Conn., 45

Eastham, Mass., drift whales at, 20

Easthampton, N. Y., 22, 29

Electricity, in whaling, 85

Embargo, of 1755, 34, 37; effect of, on trade, 102; of 1807, 44

English, Biscayans employed by, 15; duties, 15, 54; whaling, rev-
enue from, 11; tithes from, 11; from Hull, 13; to Spitzbergen,
13; failure of, effect of, on American industry, 48

Exports, annual amounts of, 127; trade, see Commerce

F.

Fairhaven, Mass., 48, 49, 51

Fall River, Mass., 50, 54

Falmouth, Mass., 30

Fisheries, of American seas, report on, 3; and fishing industries of
the United States, 6

Fleet, American, composition of, in 1906, 88, 112; composition of,
by years, 121; distribution of, 113; from different ports, by
years, 122-125; size of, by years, 121; stone fleet, vessels used
in, 78; tonnage of, by years, 121

Food, whales as, in France, 10; in Iceland, 10

France, whaling from, 10; history of whaling, in, 11, 12; revolution
in, effect of, 12; Spitzbergen fishery, from, 14; treaty, com-
mercial, with, 104; whales, as food in, 10

Freeman, Frederick, 20

French, market, 43; revolution, effect of, 43

Future, of whaling, 114

G.

Gloucester, Mass., 45

Gold, discovery of, in California, effect of, 74

Golden Era, 47, 50; causes of, 56; at New Bedford, 57; trade dur
ing, 107

Goode, G. Browne, 6

Gosnold’s journal, 12

Greenland, company, the, whaling by, 16; whaling near, 19

Greenport, N. Y., 50, 54

Greenwich, R. I., 44

Grounds, whaling, frequented, 92; dates of, 93

Guinea, coast of, whaling along, 28

Gun, American whaling, 82; darting, 82; harpoon, invention of, 81,
shoulder, 82; swivel, 82

140 Index.

H.

Hakluyt’s voyages, reference to whaling in, 9

Hamburg, whaling from, 14, 15, 17 :

Harpoon, description of, in 1607, 81; electric, 85; gun, invention of,
81; in California coast whaling, 61; metal, 80; poisoned, 85;
wooden, 80

Harpoon gun. See Gun

Hingham, Mass., 40, 41

Holmes Hole, Mass., 40, 48, 54

Hudson, N. Y., 40, 45, 48, 50, 68

Hussey, Christopher, exploit of, 26

Hutchison, Thomas, 33

Iceland, Biscayans, union with, 12; coast of, English whaling on,
13; in sixteenth century, 11; whales as food in, 10; whal-
ing, 10

Imports, amounts of, annual, 126; at New Bedford, 130; at San
Francisco, 130; War of 1812, effect of, on, 47

Indians, employed in whaling, 22, 23, 26, 89

Indian Ocean, whaling in, 59

Japan, coast of, whaling on, 59

K.

Kamtchatka, whaling near, 59, 66
Kerosene, whale oil supplanted by, 77

Lance, bomb, 838; hand, 81

Launches, steam, in whaling, 86

Lay, system of wages, description of, 91; origin of, 22; in Cali-
fornia, 61

Long Island, N. Y., boat whaling from, 22; whaling from, at end
of seventeenth century, 23; first, 22; in eighteenth century, 29;
system followed, early, 22; trade from, 23

Lynn, Mass., 30, 50, 54

Index. I41

M.

Macy, Obed, 4, 24, 26, 27, 28, 36, 37, 43, 80, 101

Madagascar, whaling about, 59

Magdalena Bay, Cal., lagoon whaling at, 62

Maine, whaling from, 53

Martha’s Vineyard, 24, 31, 32, 38

Massachusetts, fishing colony in, 20; royal charter of, 20; whaling ;
in, early, 20; established, 21

Mather, Richard, statement of, 19

Monterey, Cal., shore whaling at, 60

Muscovy Company. See Russia Company

Mystic, Conn., 54

N.

Nantucket, Mass., condition of, during Revolution, 39; description
of, 26; history of, 2; Indians employed at, 26; whalemen, remove
to Nova Scotia, 42; at Dunkirk, France, 12, 42; War of 1812,
effect of, on, 45; whaling from, 2; after 1800, 25; beginning
of, at, 23; condition of, at, in 1775, 37; 1770-1775, 28; during
the Revolution, 38, 39; deep sea, 27; encouragement of, 24, 25;
fleet of, 32, 40; Long Island, outstripped by, 29; neutralization,
to aid, 41; system followed, in, 26

Nets, in whaling, 84

Newark, N. J., 53

New Bedford, Mass., 42, 44; history of, 3; imports, annual, at, 130;
public library of, 7; ““Whalemen’s Shipping List,’ 6; whaling
from 3; after 1812, 48; before Revolution, 32; first, 32; fleet,
value of, 54; in golden era, 54; success of, causes for, 56;
vicinity of, 55

Newburyport, Mass., 41

New Jersey, whaling from, 53

New London, Conn., 31, 40

Newport, R. I., 31, 36

New York, first whaling in, 21, 45. See Long Island

Norwegian, whaling, 9, 11

Norwich, Conn., 45

O.

Oil, petroleum, 77; whale and sperm, see Whale products
Okhotsk Sea, whaling in, 59, 66

142 Index.

P.

Pacific Ocean, whale, first right, in, 51; whalers, first in, 58; whal-
ing, begun in, 43; extension of, in, 49, 59; fleet in, 1820, 58;
from New England ports, in, 60; grounds in, 52; off shore,
48, 58; on shore, 58; in 1812, 44; Nantucket fleet in, 59; port,
first on, 60

Petroleum, discovery of, effect of, on whaling, 76

Plymouth colony, whaling from, 21

Plymouth, Mass., 41, 50

Portland, Me., 53

Ports, whaling fleets, belonging to, 122-125; in 1906, 112; list of,
122-125

Portsmouth, N. H., 50, 53

Portuguese, in crews, 90

Poughkeepsie, N. Y., 50 I

Prices, whale products, annual of, 128; declining of, 71; increas-
ing of, bone, 72; in 1792, 43; Revolution, effect of, on, 43

Privateers, effect of, on whaling, American, 39; English, 44; French,
33, 48; Southern, 78; Spanish, 33

Products, of whaling, 94; ambergris, 76; bone, 95; in commerc2,
98; oil, 94; refining of, 95; spermaceti, 95; uses of, q. v.

Prospect Harbor, Me., 53

Providence, R. I., 31, 36, 45

Provincetown, Mass., 30

Prussic acid, in whaling, use of, 85

R.

References, 132-134; criticism of, 1-7

Refining, 95; early, 27; at San Francisco, 63

Revolution, war of, effect of, on whaling, 38, 39, 40; Nantucket
during, 39

Rhode Island, whaling in, early, 31

Ricketson, Daniel, 3, 32

Right Whale, first, 51

Rocket, whaling, description of, 84

Russia Company, in Spitzbergen, whaling, 14; trade to White Sea,
138; whaling monopoly by, 9

S.

Sabine, Lorenzo, 3, 19
Sag Harbor, N. Y., 29, 40, 44, 48
Salem, Mass., 21, 30, 50

Index 143

San Francisco, Cal., whaling, from, 60, 61, 62, 64; fleet of, 129;
headquarters at, 62; rendezvous, 63; wintering at, 62

Scammon, C. M., 3, 42

Schooners, in whaling, 86

Scoresby, Wm., 1, 13, 81, 82

Sherburne. See Nantucket

“Shipping List, Whalemen’s,” 6

Ships, whaling, size of, 87

Shore Whaling, 20, 21, 22, 25, 27; on California coast, 60; system
used, 61; abandoned, 61

Sloops, in whaling, first use, 87

Smith, Captain John, record of whales, 19

Southampton, N. Y., 22, 23, 29

South Sea Company, whaling by, 15, 16

Southwold, N. Y., 22 °

Spanish, privateers, 33; whaling, at Spitzbergen, 14

Spermaceti, 95

Sperm candles, 110

Sperm oil, commerce in, 99, 109; exports of, 127; imports of, 126;
introduced, first, 27; nature of, 94; prices of, 128; uses of, 94

Sperm whale, first, 26. See Sperm oil

Spitzbergen, whaling at, division of, 14; English, 13; rivalry for,
13, 14

St. Lawrence, Gulf of, ground opened, 34; restrictions on, 35

Starbuck, Alexander, 3, 19, 22, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37; criticsm of, 4-6

Statistics, 117; discussion of, 117-120

Steam, vessels, used in whaling, by Americans, 87; by English, 86;
launches, 86

Stonington, Conn., 50, 54

Swansea, or Swanzey, Mass., 31

Fa

Thatcher, James, 19, 20

Tiverton, R. L., 31

Tonnage, vessel, of whaling fleet, by years, 121; San Francisco
fleet, 129

Tremont, Me., 53

V.

Vessels, barks, 87; brigs, 87; changes in, 86; crews of, 89; fate
of, old, 89; history of, 86; launches, steam, used, 86: schoon-
ers, 86; ships, 87; sloops, 86; steamers, introduced, 62; used,
87; used now, 88; whaleboats, description of, 86

144 Index.

Virginia, whaling from, 31
Voyages, cost of, 74; length of, 73

Ww.

Wages, of whalemen, 91

War, civil, effect of, on whaling, 77; of 1812, effect of, on whaling,
47; on trade, 105; of Revolution, effect of, on whaling, 38, 39, 40

Wareham, Mass., 45

Warren, R. I., 31, 36, 50

Wellfleet, Mass., 30, 40, 41, 42

Western Islands, whaling about, 28

West Indies, trade with, 101

Westport, Mass., 44, 48, 49

Whaleboats, description of, 86

Whalebone, commerce, in, 110; exports of, 127; imports of, 126;
first into England, 13; importance of, 72; occurrence of, 95;
preparation of, 96; prices of, 72, 128

Whale fishery, an account of, 3; colonial, 4; history of, 3; in the
Pacific, 3

“Whalemen’s Shipping List,’ 6

Whale oil, commerce, in, 99, 109; exports of, 127; imports of, 126;
nature of, 94; prices of, 128; uses of, 94

Whale products, colonial, exports of, 23; duties on, in New York,
23. See Whalebone; Whale oil; Sperm oil, etc.

Whales, abundance, at Nantucket, 26; New England coast, on, 19;
baleen or bowhead, 83; drift, in Long Island, 22; Massachu-
setts colonies, 20; food, as, in France, 9; in Iceland, 10; right,
first, 51; sperm, first, 26

Whaling, American, and European compared, 18; at end of seven-
teenth century, 25; condition of, in 1760-65, 35; Arctic, first in,
52, 60; Biscay, Bay of, from, 8, 9; boat, origin of, 22, 25;
boom, of 1846-47, 52; California, shore, 60, 61; climax of, 51;
colonial, Connecticut, 21; Long Island, 22; Massachusetts, 20,
21; state of, in 1774, 37; condition of, present, 112; crews, 89;
decline of, 54, 67, 70; deep sea, beginning of, 91; English, 1,
8, 10; European, 1, 11; fleet, in 1774, 37; in 1783, 40; 1787-1789,
42; 1835-1860, 51; present, 112; value of, in 1846, 51; French,
10; golden age of, 47, 50; growth of, rapid, 1820 to 1835,
49, 50; 1834-1840, 51; grounds, frequented, 28, 92, 93; gun, 82;
Indians, employed in, 22, 23, 89; industry, character of, 36;
lagoon, at Magdalena Bay, 62; losses in, 73; Nantucket, q. v.;
New Bedford, q. v.; Norwegian, 9; ports, 1785-1815, 40, 44, 45;
1815-1820, 47, 48; after 1830, 50; 1846-50, 67; profits in, 73;

Index. 145

products of, 51, 94; prospects, future, 114; Revolution, War of,
during, 38, 39; at end of, 40; renewal after, 40; rocket, 84;
shore, from, 25; California, 60, 61; Connecticut, 21; Long
Island, 22; Massachusetts, 20, 21; end of, 27; statistics of, 117;
War of 1812, previous to, 44; during, 45; revival after, 47;
vessels, q. v.; voyages, 28

Williamsburg, Va., whaling from, 31

Wilmington, Del., 53

Wiscasset, Me., 53

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