72 WHALING 



midway in the 17th Century the white settlers on Cape Cod 

 were whahng from the shore as an estabhshed industry. And 

 from old-time Nantucket — which for a while pulled second to 

 the Cape as a whaling community, then forged into the lead 

 and later lost it to the New Bedford fleets — come more de- 

 tailed accounts of how such whaling was carried on. Nantucket 

 is blessed with better-known historians than the Cape. 



First they put out in boats after such whales as they saw 

 from shore. Then they erected as lookouts tall poles with 

 cleats by which the islanders could climb up to watch for whales 

 far at sea. Thus in calm weather they would go in their open 

 boats nearly out of sight of land; and by the end of the first 

 quarter of the 18th Century, in slightly larger vessels, they had 

 worked their way up to Cape Ann and on as far as the coast 

 of Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



Of their boats, Paul Dudley of Boston wrote in 1725:^ 



" I would take notice of the Boats oure Whalemen use in going 

 from the Shoar after the Whale. They are made of Cedar Clap- 

 boards, and so very light, that two Men can conveniently carry 

 them, and yet they are twenty Feet long, and carry six Men, 

 viz. the Harponeer in the Fore-part of the Boat, four Oar-men, 

 and the Steersman. These Boats run very swift, and by reason 

 of their lightness can be brought on and off, and so kept out of 

 Danger. The Whale is sometimes killed with a single Stroke, 

 and yet at other Times she will hold the Whale-men in Play, 

 near half a Day together, with their Lances, and sometimes will 

 get away after they have been lanced and spouted Blood, with 

 Irons in them, and Drugs fastened to them, which are thick 

 Boards about fourteen Inches square. Our People formerly 

 used to kill the Whale near the Shore; but now they go off to sea 

 in Sloops and Whale boats.'' 



Having taken a whale in the earliest days of colonial whaling, 

 they would tow the beast to shore and with a crab, a contrivance 

 that resembled a capstan, they would haul the blubber off as it 

 was cut, and boil it close to the beach or load it into carts, and 



iGlover M. Allen. The Whalebone Whales of New England, p. 161. 



