The Golden Era of Whaling. 53 
vice or acting as tenders to the whaling fleet. Practically 
all of the remaining 600 vessels were cruising on the dif- 
ferent grounds in the North and South Pacific. About 
a fifth of these were sperm whaling only, and the rest 
were fitted for both sperm and right whaling. The first 
whaling vessels had entered the Pacific in 1791 and now, 
a little over half a century later, more than six-sevenths 
of the fleet were frequenting those grounds. 
The Golden Age of whaling was marked by numerous 
small experiments in the fishery from a large number of 
ports. Maine, a great fishing state in other branches of 
the fisheries, was never prominent in whaling. Accord- 
ing to some accounts whaling was carried on for many 
years after 1810 from Prospect Harbor, while shore whal- 
ing in the vicinity of Tremont was begun about 1840 and 
continued for nearly twenty years. Between 1835 and 
1845 Bath, Bucksport, Portland and Wiscasset had 
vessels engaged in whaling, but none of them had more 
than a single vessel in any one year. Whaling was soon 
abandoned from all Maine ports. 
The only other whaling port north of the Massachusetts 
coast was Portsmouth, N. H. The fishery from there 
was begun in 1832, and, with the exception of one year, 
one or two vessels were fitted for whaling annually until 
1848. 
Newark, N. J., and Wilmington, Del., were also added 
to the list during this time, Wilmington having five 
vessels in its fleet from 1840 to 1842. But for the most 
part the minor ports were in Southern New England and 
New York where the influence of the greater successes 
was more strongly felt. 
A glance at the figures showing the fleet for each year 
at the different whaling ports (Table II in Appendix I) 
shows a number of cases where whaling became a regular 
industry between 1830 and 1840; the fleet reached its 
™ Goode, pp. 40-41. 
