NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 165 



to those freeholders that have no share in the first Company and if any refuse, the Rest may go 

 on themselves, and the Town do also Ingage that no other Company shal be allowed hereafter, 

 Also whosoever Kil any whale of the Company or Companys aforesaid they ar to pay to the 

 Town for every such Whale five Shillings — and for the Incorragement of the said James Lopar 

 the Town doth grant him Ten Acres of Land in som convenant place, that he may Chuse in, 

 (Wood Land exceped) and also Liberty for the Commonge. of thre Cows and twenty Sheep and 

 one horse with necessary Wood and water for his use on Conditions that he follow the Trade 

 of WTialeing on the Island two years in all the season thereof, beginning the first of March 

 next insuing. Also is to build upon his land, and when he leaves Inhabiting upon the Island 

 then he is first to ofer his Land to the Town at a Valluable price, and if the Town do not 

 I )uy it — then he may Sel it to whome he please — the commonage is granted only for the 

 time he stays here." This James Lopar is thought by Starbuck (1878, p. 16) to be with little 

 doubt the same person that he mentions as engaged in whaling on the Long Island shores at 

 this time. There is no evidence to show that Lopar did actually avail himself of the proposi- 

 tion thus made to him, although a cooper named John Savidge, who was offered a similar 

 concession, apparently did come to "follow his trade of cooper upon the island as the town or 

 whale Company have need to employ him." It was nearly twenty years later, in 1690, that the 

 people of Nantucket employed Ichabod Paddock to come from Yarmouth, and instruct them 

 in killing whales and trying out the oil. It was in this same year, according to a cherished 

 local tradition, that one of a company of persons who were watching the whales from the top 

 of the present Folly House Hill, pointed to the sea and observed with prophetic vision, "There 

 is a green pasture where our children's grandchildren will go for bread." 



It appears that at first the whaling operations were, as elsewhere, carried on in boats from 

 the shore, and that occasionally, in pleasant weather during the winter season, the whalers 

 ventured off nearly out of sight of land. A description of this is given by J. Hector St. John 

 Crevecoeur who, in 1782, published at London some "Letters from an American Farmer." 

 He tells us that after the beginning of the shore fishery at Nantucket, "the south sides of the 

 island from east to west, were divided into four equal parts, and each part was assigned to a 

 company of six, which though thus separated, still carried on their business in common. In 

 the middle of this distance, they erected a mast, provided with a sufficient number of rounds, 

 and near it they built a temporary hut, where five of the associates lived, whilst the sixth from 

 his high station carefully looked toward the sea, in order to observe the spouting of the whales. 

 As soon as any were discovered, the sentinel descended, the whale-boat was launched, and the 

 company went forth in quest of their game." ^ The same writer further says that the Right 

 Whale was common and was known to the Nantucketers as the 'seven-foot-bone' from the 

 length of its longest plates of baleen. Its numbers, however, must have speedily declined, 



' St. John Crevecoeur, J. Hector. Letters from an American Farmer. London, 1782; reprint, 1904, see p. 1.59. 



