The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-11-07
The Old Whaling Days
Read by Rev Serene Bishop
Missions, November 1eo7)

For nearly fifty years of the mis-
sionary history in Hawaii, the visits
of great numbers of the Pacific whal-
ing fleet formed conspicuous element
both in their social and their economic
influence. These visits were chiefly
periodical, during the Spring and Au-
tumn months They came between
seasons as termed by the whalers
themselves. who in the summers were
cruising after whales in the north Pa
cific, and in the opposite season, were
working south of the equator. Be-
| tween seasons, they called at various
ports for refreshments and supplies.
But their chiefest place Of resort was
at these Hawaiian Islands.
1t seems difficult to find any definite
record of the number of whaleships
visiting our ports. In 1920 to 1880.
there seems to have been an average
Of about sixty to eighty ships annual
ly. During the thirties, the average
seems to have exceeded one hundred.
In the next decade, it must have risen
to two hundred, and during the fifties.
probably to three hundred, or perhaps
four hundred annually. At least three
fourths of these whalers were Amer
lean ships. and most of the remainder
British. Perhaps one-half of the ships
visiting here in the Fall, called again
in the Spring. The rest, If not bound
home, visited South Sea and New zea-
land ports, before proceeding north
ward for the Summer. Many cruised
westward along the Line.
Until the later forties, the chief
quarry of the hunters were the sperm
whales, then Astounding throughout
the Pacific, whose oil was far more
valuable than any other. About that
the Okhotsk, Boring, and Anadyr |
seas in the far north, abounded the |
right whales, of great size, and es-
pecially valuable for their yield of |
whalebone. This discovery stimulated /
the business, and led to a rapid in
crease in the number of whale ships |
in the Pacific, and of those visiting |
Hawaii. As the new hunting grounds
in their turn were thinned out, it was |
that great number of the
had retired through Boring
Strait into the Arctic Ocean, and our
tireless hunters pursued them boldly
amid the Arctic foes, often to the ex-
of great disasters, as well as
OF large captures of oil and bone.
ships remaining in the pursuit of
in the Pacific, The business
has become improbable chiefly
through the discovery of cheaper and
better ilIuminants than whale oil in
the refined products of petroleum. The
few sperm whales that have survived
the rernorseless hunting of the last
century, are still pursued by a few
ships. And the Increasing value of
whalebone still tempts a few hardy
whalemen into the Arctic. But whal-
ing has ceased to be a prominent ele-
nent in the marine commerce of this
ocean. But during the height of it's
activity in the middle of the last CEN
fury. it was the main commercial de-
oendence of these islands.
In the second and third decades of
lhat century. SdHudl"oou WAS lISI
great object of traders, and our
mountains and uplands were rapidly
of the fragrant wood, for ex-
port 10 China. remember seeing in
1887 at Eva, perhaps the last pile OF
small fragments gathered on Oahu.
That trade was extremely lucrative to
the merchants while it lasted. The
high chiefs were paid for 1t in con-
siderable quantities of goods, includ-
ing vessels But no valuable addition
was made thereby to the resources of
the kingdom, while there was an enor-
nous waste of human life, owing 10