The sea coast echo., 1907-08-24

/ spewing up water in the air like the
smoke Of chimney. of such In
/ credible bigness that I will never
wonder that the body of Jonah could
t be in the belly Of whale" Already
! others had noted the presence of the
/ creatures that so impressed Mather,
! for among the earliest settlers were
men who, If they were not whalers,
/ knew of whaling and it's rich rewards.
| of Pennsylvania in a monograph on
| the history Of American whale fishing,
| published by the university, gives it
| as his opinion that the pursuit OF the
whale began almost with the settle
ment of the New England colonies. AS
/ early as 1862 the town of Eastman
! voted that a part of every whale cast
| ashore should be devoted to the sup
| port of the minister. In 1858 Secre-
/ tary Randolph wrote to England that
New Plimouth Colony have great
| profit by whale killing" and in the
| same year it was ordained that each
| company's lances and harpOons should
| be marked with public mark. In
| 1647 the general court at Hartford
| granted monopoly of whaling in Con-
necticut to one Whiting, whose ven-
! ture apparently amounted to little. Mr..
| Tower believes that the first organized
! prosecution of the industry by Ameri-
/ cans was by the settlers on the east
ern end of Long Island. He says:
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
1914, the town was divided into four
wards of II persons each, whose duty
it was to attend to all drift whales
cast ashore in their ward. Whenever
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 double
| portion for their labor. This cooper
atiVe industry may be regarded as the
! direct ancestor of the famous system
of lay or share of the catch in
vogue over century later
Soon the settlers began to pursue
whales in boats, the records showing
that this form of fishing was prac-
| tised as early as 1850. So important
did the industry become that every
man in Southampton was obliged to
| take turn at watching for whales
| from a high lookout. The whalers
made New England towns their trad
ing points, to the detriment of New
York, with the result that in 1854 an
act was passed laying a duty on oil
and bone exported to any outside ports
except in England or the West Indies.
This act produced no appreciable ef-
| feet.
The Long Islanders had the start
of all other organized whalers except
those of Nantucket, but they did not
maintain their prestige. The other
coast dwellers were apparently con-
| tent with the whales that came ashore
except in Nantucket, where, as Mr..
Tower says:
'"The conditions were quite differ
ent. To quote from Macy, the histor-
ian of the island, the first whaling ex-
pedition 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 ac-
cordingly 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 per-
manent business, whales being at that
time numerous in the vicinity of the
Shores
According to the same authority in
1890 prophetic Nantucket man, stand
ing with several others on hill over
looking the sea, declared as he point
ed to the waters: There is a green
pasture where our children's grandchil-
dren will go for bread" In the same
year Ichabod Paddock of Cape Cod
was employed to instruct Nantucket
in the arts of killing and trying out
In the early part of the 18th century
Nantucket took the lead in whaling
enterprise, pre-eminence the island
maintained until outstripped by New
Bedford in the second decade of the
18th century. The barrenness of the
| island, the abundance of whales and
the instincts of the people combined
to make them whalers:
''The year 1712 was epoch making in
the history Of whaling. In that year
a Nantucket whaleman, named Chris
,topher Hussey, while cruising along
the coast, was blown out to sea by a
strong northerly wind. In the course
Of his involuntary voyage he came
across a number of sperm whales, and
killing one, brought 1t home with him,
| the first sperm whale known to have
been taken by American whalers."
The Nantucket fishers began at once
| to put out vessels for the sperm
whale fisheries. Sperm oil had been
introduced by Hussey, and the whal-
ers extended their voyages gradually
until they penetrated every sea of the