Grand Banks Fishing Schooner Converted to Whaler. The picture was taken at New Bedford, Massa- 

 chusetts, in 1899. The vessel was built in Essex, Massachusetts, in the i88o's. {Smithsonian photo ^yj^^-c.) 



had a short and rather full entrance but a very 

 long run, a rising floor, and an easy bilge. When 

 the clipper model became popular the entrance 

 became sharp and the vessels somewhat deeper than 

 previously. The Civil ^Var alrnost destroyed the 

 American whale fisheries. The Confederate com- 

 merce destroyers Shenandoah and Alabama took a 

 very heavy toll, and schooners and small w-haling 

 brigs operating in the South Atlantic suffered as much 

 as the ships and barks fishing in the Pacific and in 

 Bering Sea. Recovery was very slow, for relatively 

 few new whaling vessels were built; in 1865 the ship 

 Pioneer, a government transport, was converted to a 

 steain-auxiliary whaling bark; between 1869 and 1892 

 a few steam-auxiliary barks were built, but the 

 fishery was a dying one. The last w-haler to be built, 

 in 1910, was the brigantine Viola, at Essex, Massa- 

 chusetts, by John James & Son. The center of 

 whaling ship construction had been in the vicinity of 



New Bedford, but the small whalers, schooners, and 

 brigs were liuilt elsewhere. Many fishing schooners 

 and salt bankers were converted to whalers after 1890 

 and some 3-masted fishing schooners ended their days 

 whaling off the coast of Brazil. 



Sealing was first undertaken by Americans ofT the 

 Labrador coasts in small schooners and sloops. Un- 

 important in colonial times, it did not become very 

 profitable to Americans until about 1798, when the 

 opening of trade with China and the Far East brought 

 about its rapid growth. In the 19th century the 

 fishery centered around New London, Connecticut; 

 later it was centered on the Pacific Northwest coast. 

 In the years immediately after the War of 1812 the 

 fa\-orite sealing vessel was a topsail schooner of the 

 pilot-boat model but with great beam, moderate 

 depth and draft, and with a somewhat rising floor, a 

 hard bilge, and tumble-home in the topside. These 

 schooners were largely employed ofT Cape Horn in 



175 



