I.-HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY FROM ITS 

 EARLIEST INCEPTION TO THE YEAR 1876.* 



By Ai-exander Stakbuck. 



A.— INTRODUCTION. 



Few interests have exerted a more marked influence upon the history 

 of the United States than that of the fisheries. Aside from the value 

 they have had in a commercial point of view, they have always been 

 found to be the nurseries of a hardy, daring, and indefatigable race of sea- 

 men, such as scarcely any other pursuit could have trained. The pio- 

 neers of the sea, whalemen were the advance guard, the forlorn hope of 

 civilization. Exploring expc'/litions followed after to glean where they 

 had reaped. In the frozen seas of the north and the south, their keels 

 plowed to the extreme limit of navigation, and between the tropics 



*More than fifty years ago (ia ISvJo) Samuel H. Jenks, esq., then editor of the Nan- 

 tucket Inquirer, announced his intention to write the history of whaling, and adver- 

 tited for material for that purpose, but so little encouragement did he meet, so little 

 material came to hand, that he finally abandoned the design in despair of ever being 

 able to satisfactorily complete it. 



In the preface to his admirable Report on the Fisheries, published in 1852, Hon. Lo- 

 cnzo Sabine says: " More than twenty years have elapsed since I formed the design 

 of writing a work on the American fisheries, and commenced collecting materials for 

 the purpose. My intention embraced the whale-fishery of our flag in distant seas. 

 But increasing cares prevented the consummation of his plans. 



The difficulties in the way of collection of historical notes increase greatly with the 

 lapse of years. Newspapers, which must always be considered, where they exist, inval- 

 uable aids in the prosecution of such matters, pass from the possession of the very few 

 who, when living, treasured them, and fall into the hands of those who only value 

 them at so many cents per pound. Those who were the actors in the scenes which it 

 ia desired to describe die, and with them perishes the source of the information, which 

 ultimately, in the form of tradition, becomes too distorted to be available. In the matter 

 of the whale-fishery still another formidable difficulty is met with, in the absence or 

 destruction of customs-records. During the Eevolutiou many ports were under En- 

 glish control, and very of ten with the departure of the British also departed the custom- 

 house papers. In other ports, notably New Bedford and Nantucket, these records have 

 been destroyed by fire. Still again in yet other ports, notably Sag Harbor, mildew and 

 decay have obliterated the writing. 



About eighteen mouths ago Prof. Spencer F. Baird, United States Commissioner of 

 Fish and Fisheries, requested the writer to prepare a historical sketch of this indua- 

 1 



