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Read Ebook: Whale Fishery of New England by State Street Trust Company Boston Mass Editor
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Ebook has 163 lines and 19451 words, and 4 pages
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THE WHALE 7
ANCIENT HISTORY OF WHALING 8
EARLY NEW ENGLAND WHALING 13
NANTUCKET 16
NEW BEDFORD 23
OTHER NEW ENGLAND WHALING PORTS 33
ABOARD A "BLUBBER HUNTER" 35
WHALING IMPLEMENTS AND WHALEBOATS 37
DIFFERENT SPECIES OF WHALES AND THEIR PRODUCTS 41
METHODS OF CAPTURE AND "TRYING OUT" 45
THE PERILS OF WHALING 51
THE "CATALPA" EXPEDITION 58
DECLINE OF WHALING AND THE CAUSES 60
WHALING OF TO-DAY 62
THE WHALE
"Oh, the rare old Whale, 'mid storm and gale, In his ocean home will be A giant in might where might is right, And King of the boundless sea."
No animal in prehistoric or historic times has ever exceeded the whale, in either size or strength, which explains perhaps its survival from ancient times. Few people have any idea of the relative size of the whale compared with other animals. A large specimen weighs about ninety tons, or thirty times as much as an elephant, which beside a whale appears about as large as a dog compared to an elephant. It is equivalent in bulk to one hundred oxen, and outweighs a village of one thousand people. If cut into steaks and eaten, as in Japan, it would supply a meal to an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men.
Whales have often exceeded one hundred feet in length, and George Brown Goode, in his report on the United States Fisheries, mentions a finback having been killed that was one hundred and twenty feet long. A whale's head is sometimes thirty-five feet in circumference, weighs thirty tons, and has jaws twenty feet long, which open thirty feet wide to a mouth that is as large as a room twenty feet long, fifteen feet high, nine feet wide at the bottom, and two feet wide at the top. A score of Jonahs standing upright would not have been unduly crowded in such a chamber.
The heart of a whale is the size of a hogshead. The main blood artery is a foot in diameter, and ten to fifteen gallons of blood pour out at every pulsation. The tongue of a right whale is equal in weight to ten oxen, while the eye of all whales is hardly as large as a cow's, and is placed so far back that it has in direction but a limited range of vision. The ear is so small that it is difficult to insert a knitting needle, and the brain is only about ten inches square. The head, or "case," contains about five hundred barrels, of ten gallons each, of the richest kind of oil, called spermaceti.
One of these giants, when first struck by a harpoon, can go as fast as a steam yacht, twenty or twenty-five miles an hour, but it soon slows down to its usual speed of about twelve miles, developing about one hundred and forty-five horse-power.
Mr. Roy C. Andrews, of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, was on a whaler ninety feet long, which struck a finback whale, and he says that for seven hours the whale towed the vessel, with engines going at full speed astern, almost as though it had been a rowboat.
The whale's young are about twelve feet long at birth, and can swim as soon as they are born. So faithfully does the cow whale watch over her offspring when they are together that she will rarely move when attacked for fear of leaving the young whale unprotected, or of hurting it if she thrashes round to escape capture. It is believed that whales sometimes live to attain the age of eight hundred years. They sleep at the bottom of the ocean, which fact shows that they do not inhale air when asleep, like the warm-blooded animals, and to help them in breathing below the surface they have a large reservoir of blood to assist circulation. This spot is known to whalemen as the "life" of the whale. When "sounding" to a great depth it is estimated that the whale bears on its back the weight of twenty battleships. The strength and power of a whale are described as almost unbelievable.
ANCIENT HISTORY OF WHALING
Every one knows the story of Jonah; how he was thrown overboard to appease the gods, and how a "big fish" swallowed him and carried him ashore. It will always be a mooted question whether or not the big fish was a whale. If it were a whale, it is doubtful whether Jonah got any further than its mouth, on account of the smallness of a whale's throat. It may be well to explain that a whale does not belong to the fish family, but is a mammal, and therefore, perhaps, this great fish mentioned wasn't a whale.
This "fishing on a gigantic scale," as it has been often termed, is of very ancient origin and dates back to 890 A.D., when a Norwegian, called Octhere, skirted the coast of Norway for whales.
The Biscayans, who in the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries became famous on account of their whale fishery, were the first people to prosecute this industry as a regular commercial pursuit. In this connection the French are also mentioned about 1261, using the whale for food. Also the Icelanders are believed to have whaled some time during the twelfth century. The first reference to English whaling appears during the fourteenth century, and by statutory law the whale was declared "a royal fish." Another curious law was that the King, as Honorary Harpooner, received the head, and the Queen the tail of all whales captured along the English coast, which is very much like halving an apple, there is so little left.
In 1612 the Dutch became the leaders and were still very active about 1680, employing two hundred and sixty ships and fourteen thousand seamen, and during the last part of the seventeenth century they furnished nearly all Europe with oil. To them is attributed the improvements in the harpoon, the line, and the lance, and to their early prominence in the industry we owe the very name "whale," a derivation from the Dutch and German word "wallen," meaning to roll or wallow. They established a whaling settlement at Spitzbergen, only eleven degrees from the North Pole, where they boiled the oil; in fact, during the early days of whaling all nations "tried out" their oil on land. The Dutch continued to be the leaders until about 1770, when the English superseded them owing to the royal bounties.
EARLY NEW ENGLAND WHALING
The history of American whaling really begins with the settlement of the New England Colonies. When the "Mayflower" anchored inside of Cape Cod, the Pilgrims saw whales playing about the ship, and this was their chief reason for settling there. It afterwards proved that the products of the whale formed an important source of income to the settlers on Massachusetts Bay.
The subject of drift, or dead whales which were washed ashore, first attracted the colonists, and there are numerous references to them on record. It was the invariable rule for the government to get one-third, the town one-third, and the owner one-third, and in 1662 it was voted that a portion of every whale should be given to the church. The whale fishery increased steadily, so that in 1664 Secretary Randolph could truthfully write to England, "The new Plymouth colony made great profit by whale killing." The success of the settlers on Cape Cod and elsewhere encouraged Salem to consider ways and means of whaling; for as early as 1688 one James Loper, of Salem, petitioned the Colonial authorities for a patent for making oil, and four years later some Salem whalers complained that Easthamptonites had stolen whales that bore Salem harpoons. As early as 1647 whaling had become a recognized industry in Hartford, Conn., but for some reason did not prosper.
The first white people to explore our New England coasts discovered that the Indians were ahead of them in the pursuit of the whale. The Red Men in canoes attacked these beasts with stone-headed arrows and spears which were attached to short lines. Usually wooden floats were tied to the line, which impeded the progress of the animal, and by frequent thrusts these early hunters actually worried the life out of the whale.
Waymouth's Journal of his voyage to America in 1605 gives the first description of the Indian method of whaling in canoes on the New England coast from November to April, when spouters generally abounded there. "One especial thing is their manner of killing the whale" runs the quaint description "which they call a powdawe; and will describe his form; how he bloweth up the water; and that he is twelve fathoms long: that they go in company of their king with a multitude of their boats; and strike him with a bone made in fashion of a harping iron fastened to a rope, which they make great and strong of the bark of trees, which they veer out after him; then all their boats come about him as he riseth above water, with their arrows they shoot him to death; when they have killed him and dragged him to shore, they call all their chief lords together, and sing a song of joy; and those chief lords, whom they call sagamores, divide the spoil and give to every man a share, which pieces so distributed, they hang up about their houses for provisions; and when they boil them they blow off the fat and put to their pease, maize and other pulse which they eat."
The Esquimaux at this time were very much more advanced than the Indians, and showed their ingenuity by inventing the "toggle" harpoon, which is in use to this day, and which was improved upon in 1848 by a Negro in New Bedford called Lewis Temple, who made his fortune turning out irons. This harpoon was arranged to sink very easily into the blubber, but when pulled out the end turned at right angles to the shank, thus preventing the harpoon from withdrawing.
Boston is mentioned only occasionally in connection with the Whale Fishery. During 1707 the Boston papers state that a whale forty feet long entered the harbour and was killed near Noddle's Island, and another interesting record is in a letter written in 1724 by the Hon. Paul Dudley, who mentions that he has just received a note from a Mr. Atkins of Boston, who was one of the first to go fishing for sperm whales. There were many whaleships recorded in the Boston records, although fitting out and sailing from other neighboring ports.
NANTUCKET
A large part of the romance of whaling centres around the island of Nantucket and its hardy seamen. It was from here that the Red Men first sallied out in canoes to chase the whale; from here the small sloops first set out laden with cobblestones, as the story goes, to throw at the whales to see if they were near enough to risk a harpoon. These daring Nantucketers were, in 1791, the first to sail to the Pacific, and later on in 1820 to the coast of Japan, and finally they made their ships known in every harbour of the world. Thirty islands and reefs in the Pacific are named after Nantucket captains and merchants.
There is an amusing legend concerning the origin of the island. A giant was said to be in the habit of sleeping on Cape Cod, because its peculiar shape fitted him when he curled himself up. One night he became very restless and thrashed his feet around so much that he got his moccasins filled with sand. In the morning he took off first one moccasin and then the other, flinging their contents across the sea, thus forming the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
From the time of the settlement of the island, the entire population, from the oldest inhabitant down to the youngest child, realized that on the whaling industry depended their livelihood. A story is told of a Nantucket youngster who tied his mother's darning cotton to a fork, and, hurling it at the cat as she tried to escape, yelled "Pay out, mother! Pay out! There she 'sounds' through the window!" The inhabitants always alluded to a train as "tying up," a wagon was called a "side-wheeler," every one you met was addressed as "captain," and a horse was always "tackled" instead of harnessed. The refrain of an old Nantucket song runs as follows:--
"So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, While the bold harpooner is striking the whale!"
A young man who had not doubled the cape or harpooned a whale had no chance of winning a Nantucket, New Bedford, or New London belle, and it is stated as a fact that the girls of Nantucket at one time formed a secret society, and one of their pledges was never to marry a man until he had "struck his whale." The well-known Nantucket novel "Miriam Coffin" tells of a girl who made to her two lovers a condition of marriage that they must first of all undertake a whaling voyage, and that she would wed the more successful of the two. It happened that one was a Minister, and the other was no better adapted to the whale fishery; nevertheless, both set out to sea. The former was killed by a whale, and the latter returned after an absence of several years, but instead of claiming his bride, he tells her that before going he had already made up his mind that a girl who made such foolish propositions was no girl for him; and so the story ends.
Many a Nantucket bride stepped from her home to her husband's whaleship for a three-year voyage round Cape Horn, which probably suggested these verses:--
"I asked a maiden by my side, Who sighed and looked at me forlorn, 'Where is your heart?' She quick replied, 'Round Cape Horn.'
"I said, 'I'll let your fathers know,' To boys in mischief on the lawn; They all replied, 'Then you must go Round Cape Horn.'
"In fact, I asked a little boy If he could tell where he was born; He answered, with a mark of joy, 'Round Cape Horn.'"
Any one who did not live in Nantucket was called a foreigner. To show their attitude a schoolboy was asked to write a thesis on Napoleon, and he began by stating that "Napoleon was a great man and a great soldier, but he was an off-islander." In fact, it was an act of condescension for a Nantucketer even to shake hands with a "Mainlander," and there are many of the older islanders to-day who have never set foot on any other soil.
Most of the inhabitants were Quakers, and there was a saying that a Nantucketer was half Quaker and half sailor. Though their cemetery contains about ten thousand graves, there are only half a dozen tombstones in one corner of the field. There are no "Friends" in Nantucket to-day. The following incident shows the Quaker thrift, to which was due in a great measure their success in whaling. When the first chaise was purchased, the owner was about to take a drive in it, but, after a few minutes' deliberation, decided it was too progressive, and would subject him to criticism, so he loaned it only to invalids and funeral parties.
Billy Clark was town crier, and for forty years, up to the time of his death in 1909, he voluntarily announced with a bell and horn the arrival of all whalers and steamers. Once as he went along ringing, a girl asked him rudely where he got his bell, and his reply was, "I got my bell where you got your manners,--at the 'brass foundry.'" Nantucketers declare that his death was due to the fact that he actually "blew his lungs away."
The Chase family has always occupied a most prominent position in the history of the island. One of the family was Reuben Chase, who served under John Paul Jones on the "Ranger," and on his death the following epitaph was placed on his tombstone:--
"Free from the storms and gusts of human life, Free from its error and its strife, Here lies Reuben Chase anchored; who stood The sea of ebbing life and flowing misery. He was not dandy rigged, his prudent eye Fore-saw and took a reef at fortune's quickest flow. He luffed and bore away to please mankind; Yet duty urged him still to head the wind, Rumatic gusts at length his masts destroyed, Yet jury health awhile he yet enjoyed, Worn out with age and shattered head, At foot he struck and grounded on his bed. There careening thus he lay, His final bilge expecting every day, Heaven took his ballast from his dreary hold, And left his body destitute of soul."
Every islander knows the story of the Nantucket skipper who claimed that he could always tell where his ship was by the color and taste of the lead after sounding. Marden, his mate, on one trip determined to fool him, and for this purpose brought some dirt from a neighbor's garden in Nantucket. He woke up the skipper one morning off Cape Horn, and showed him the lead, which had been smeared with this dirt, whereupon, to quote the words of James Thomas Fields,--
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