54 A History of the American Whale Fishery. 
greatest size in 1845 to 1848 and the industry was finally 
abandoned in the next ten or fifteen years. Fall River, 
Lynn, Holmes Hole; Mystic and Stonington, Conn., and 
Greenport, New York, all furnish typical examples of the 
stimulation of whaling enterprises from 1835 onward. At 
several of these places the whole history of whaling opera- 
tions falls within the limits of the Golden Age. They 
were enterprises which came into existence on the full 
tide of prosperity reflected from other ports. They. 
disappeared as quickly as they came when that pros- 
perity began to totter. 
The whaling industry from practically all of the smaller 
ports began to fall off after 1847 or 1848, while in a few 
places there had been a decline for some years previous. 
But not so with New Bedford. As far back as 1820 
the New Bedford interests had become a close rival 
of Nantucket; by 1830 New Bedford was supreme in 
_importance in the whale fishery, and by- 1840 the New 
Bedford fleet was more than twice as large as the Nan- 
tucket fleet, its nearest rival. When the business began 
to fall off at other places, it kept on increasing in the New 
Bedford district. After 1847 Nantucket, New London, 
and Sag Harbor, following the great majority, were yearly 
decreasing their whaling fleets. But the highest point of 
whaling prosperity, in the size of the fleet, amount of 
capital invested, and value of imports, was not reached 
at New Bedford until 1857. In that year the fleet 
numbered 329 sail, valued at over $12,000,000, and 
employing some 10,000 seamen alone.* Whaling with its 
associated industries was the main commercial and indus- 
trial interest of the city, and thousands of busy workers 
had been employed during the preceding century in ~ 
trades and professions closely related to the whaling 
industry. 
During the Golden Age the New Bedford district was 
the center of the greatest whaling operations ever carried 
18 Pease, p. 30. 
