THE WHALE FISHERY. 33 



" It is probably safe to assert that the first organized prosecution of the American whale-fishery 

 was made along the shores of Long Island. The town of Southampton, which was settled in 1640 

 by an offshoot from the Massachusetts Colony at Lynn, was quick to appreciate the value of this 

 source of revenue. In March, 1644, the town ordered the town divided into four wards of eleven 

 persons to each ward, to attend to the drift-whales cast ashore. When such an event took place 

 two persons from each ward (selected by lot) were to be employed to cut it up. 'And every 

 Inhabitant with his child or servant that is above sixteen years of age shall have in the Division of 

 the other part,' (i. e. what remained after the cutters deducted the double share they were, ex-officio, 

 entitled to) 'an equall proportion provided that such person when yt falls into his ward a suffi- 

 cient man to be imployed about yt.'* Among the names of those delegated to each ward are 

 many whose descendants became prominent in the business as masters or owners of vessels the 

 Coopers, the Sayres, Mulfords, Peirsons, Hedges, Howells, Posts, and others. A few years later 

 the number of 'squadrons' was increased to six. 



" In February, 1645, the town ordered that if any whale was cast ashore within the limits of 

 the town no man should take or carry away any part thereof without order from a magistrate, 

 under penalty of twenty shillings. Whoever should find any whale or part of a whale, upon giv- 

 ing notice to a magistrate, should have allowed him five shillings, or if the portion found should 

 not be worth five shillings the finder should have the whole. ' And yt is further ordered that yf 

 any shall finde a whale or any peece thereof upon the Lord's day then the aforesaid shillings shall 

 not be due or payable.' t ' This last clause,' says Ho well, ' appears to be a very shrewd thrust at 

 "mooning" on the beach on Sundays.' 



"It was customary a few years later to fit out expeditious of several boats each for whaling 

 along the coast, the parties engaged camping' out on shore during the night. These expeditions 

 were usually gone about one or two weeks. f Indians were usually employed by the English, the 

 whites furnishing all the necessary implements, and the Indians receiving a stipulated proportion 

 of oil in payment. 



"At Easthampton on the 6th of November, 1651, ' It was Ordered that Rodman Mulford shall 

 call out ye Town by succession to loke out for whale.' Easthampton, however, like every other 

 town where whales were obtainable, seems to have had its little unpleasantnesses on the subject, 

 for in 1653 the town ' Ordered that the share of whale now in controversie between the Widow 

 Talmage and Thomas Talmage ' (alas for the old-time Chesterfieldian gallantry) ' shall be divided 

 among them as the lot is.'|| In the early deeds of the town the Indian grantors were to be allowed 

 the fins and tails of all drift-whales; and in the deed of Montauk Island and Point, the Indians 

 and whites were to be equal sharers in these prizes, fl In 1672 the towns of Easthampton, South- 

 ampton, and South wold presented a 'memorial to the court at Whitehall ' setting forth that they 

 have spent much time and paines, and the greatest part of their estates, in settling the trade of 

 whale-fishing in the adjacent seas, having endeavoured it above these twenty yeares, but could not 

 bring it to any perfection till within these 2 or 3 yeares last past. And it now being a hopefull 

 trade at New Yorke. in America, the Governor and the Dutch there do require ye Petitioners to 

 come under their patent, and lay very heavy taxes upon them beyond any of his Ma tieB subjects in 

 New England, and will not permit the petitioners to have any deputys in Court,** but being chiefs, 

 do impose what Laws they please upon them, and insulting very much over the Petitioners 



* HOWELL : Hist, of Southampton, p. 179. t Ibid., p. 184. t Ibid., p. 183. 



Bicentennial Address at Easthamptoti, 1850, by Henry P. Hedges, p. 8. || Ibid., p. 8. 11 Ibid. 



**Iu this petition is an early assertion oi' the twiuship of taxation and representation, for which Massachusetts 

 aud her ofl'shoots WPI-H pver strenuous. 



SEC. T, VOL. II 3 



