merchants’ and mechanics’ bank.
A few words as to the history of whaling in America. Capt. John Smith makes mention of catching a few whales on some of his voyages, and it is known that the Indians had quite a passion for hunting the whale, or powdawe as they called it. The Montauk Indians regarded the fin or tail of a whale as a rare sacrifice to their deity. As the early settlers began to spread throughout New England, it became quite an industry along the sea-shore to hunt stranded whales for their oil and blubber. This naturally led to hunting them in their native element, and the industry extended along Cape Cod and Long Island, and, about 1672, was introduced on the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. About fifty years later the brave Nantucket seamen began whaling in large boats, and within the following twenty-five years Nantucket had direct communication with England in her ships. These brave early mariners were the first who understood and made use of the Gulf Stream, and by them it was explained to the English admiralty. At the opening of the Revolution there were one hundred and fifty vessels that sailed from Nantucket; but at the close of the war one hundred and thirty-four of these had been captured and fifteen more wrecked. The war also cost this island twelve hundred sailors, and was the making of two hundred and two widows and three hundred and forty-two orphans.
residence of joseph grinnell.
friends meeting-house.
In the year 1815 there sailed from Nantucket fifty whalers, while only ten sailed from New Bedford. But the New Bedford fleet increased rapidly year by year, reaching the climax in 1852, when two hundred and seventy-eight sailed. From that date there has been an almost uninterrupted decline in the whaling industry. Nantucket’s decline began many years earlier. In 1860 she had only very few vessels left, and in 1872 her last whaler, the bark “Oak,” was sold. In 1835 whaling was at its height, the whole fleet of the United States consisting of six hundred and seventy-eight ships and barks, thirty-five brigs, and twenty-two schooners, valued at twenty-one millions of dollars; while the foreign fleet consisted of only two hundred and thirty vessels of various kinds. From the off-shore fishing as practised in the early days of the industry, voyages had extended to all parts of the Atlantic, and before the opening of the nineteenth century a considerable fleet was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. By 1820 these voyages had extended to Japan, and in 1836 they reached what is known as the Kodiak Grounds. In 1848 the wonderful field in the Arctic, by way of Behring’s Strait, was discovered by bark “Superior.” Three years later two hundred and fifty vessels took advantage of the “Superior’s” discovery and entered the same grounds. The largest catch in these grounds was in 1852, when two hundred and seventy-eight vessels got three hundred and seventy-three thousand, four hundred and fifty barrels of oil. Since then there has been a very great decline; the Arctic fleet of 1876 consisting of only twenty vessels, which caught five thousand, two hundred and fifty barrels of oil. The fleet of 1885 consisted of forty-one vessels, more than half hailing from New Bedford; but four of the fleet were lost.