The Rise of American Whaling
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…
From: 1620 C.E. To: 1700 C.E.
Location: New England
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From A History of the American Whale Fishery by Walter S. Tower, 1908.
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 in fishing, preferred it to the Greenland whale fishery, and asserted that were they provided with the proper implements £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 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 abundant 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 probable, 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 ownership 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 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 Massachusetts 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 essentially 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 monopoly of whaling in Connecticut to one Whiting. This is the first record of whaling in that colony, and the 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. Accordingly, 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 inhabitant 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 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 operations 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 10 per cent on all oil and bone exported from New York ports to any outside ports except directly to England 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 up to 1700 was Nantucket, or Sherburne as it was called, 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 disposal of whales appear occasionally from that time on, but there does not seem to have been any regular business 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 proposal 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 proposal while the former did not, hence the benefit to the whale fishery was not marked.
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 Massachusetts 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 ashore, and later developing into a regular practice ol 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.
Tower, Walter S. A History of the American Whale Fishery. John C. Winston Co., 1907.
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