184 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



Amerindian inhabitants as "Nanticut" — meaning the faraway land — 

 or Nantucket, because it was there that a chance incident occurred 

 which changed not only the whole history of whaling, but also the 

 entire history of the world, influencing almost everything that has 

 happened in the affairs of men up to the present day. 



When that story unfolds we will see the incredible results that 

 can stem from the action of a single man, but this must be reserved 

 for later. In the meantime, a description of what occurred on Nan- 

 tucket between 1660 and 17 12 will serve to explain what took 

 place all along the coast from the Bay of Fundy to Long Island 

 Sound and on the outer side of Long Island, for everywhere the steps 

 taken were similar. Only in point of time were there slight differ- 

 ences, so that we read of the first white settlers on Nantucket Island 

 sending for one Ichabod Paddock from Cape Cod to teach them how 

 to go whaling, which demonstrates that the business was organized 

 in the latter place earlier than in the former. 



The history of Nantucket, though almost too often told, is still 

 delightful and unique. It begins, for the white man, that is, in 1602 

 when the mariner Bartholomew Gosnold explored the isles south 

 of Cape Cod. Sometime thereafter the island was included in a char- 

 ter to the Earl of Stirling, whose American agent sold it in 1641 for 

 forty pounds to a Mr. Thomas Mayhew of Watertown, Massachu- 

 setts. It was inhabited by a subgroup of the Algonquins, who cus- 

 tomarily went a-whaling and who, to say the least, disapproved 

 strongly of all foreigners and of white men in particular. In this 

 they anticipated the attitude of the present-day white inhabitants, 

 who regard all persons other than the descendants of the first set- 

 tlers, and particularly summer tourists, as "off-islanders." Nobody 

 seems to have bothered to challenge the attitude of these Amer- 

 indians until 1658 when some refugees from Puritan religious intoler- 

 ance in Salisbury, Massachusetts, landed upon the island's shores. 

 There is a record that the Amerindians treated them with favor on 

 account of this persecution, and thus the colonization of the island 

 started in an atmosphere of internal tolerance combined with a 

 pronounced xenophobia. The first comers were Thomas Macy and 

 family and a friend named Edward Starbuck. One of the least re- 

 sults of this expedition is the famous Macy's department store in 

 New York today, originally founded on the island by one of Thomas 



