16 WHALE FISHERY OF NEW ENGLAND 



his fortune turning out irons. This harpoon was arranged to sink 

 very easily into the blubber, but when pulled out the end turned at 

 right angles to the shank, thus preventing the harpoon from with- 

 drawing. 



Boston is mentioned only occasionally in connection with the Whale 

 Fishery. During 1707 the Boston papers state that a whale forty 

 feet long entered the harbour and was killed near Noddle's Island, 

 and another interesting record is in a letter written in 1724 by the Hon. 

 Paul Dudley, who mentions that he has just received a note from a 

 Mr. Atkins of Boston, who was one of the first to go fishing for sperm 

 whales. There were many whaleships recorded in the Boston records, 

 although fitting out and sailing from other neighboring ports. 



NANTUCKET 



A large part of the romance of whaling centres around the island 

 of Nantucket and its hardy seamen. It was from here that the Red 

 Men first sallied out in canoes to chase the whale; from here the small 

 sloops first set out laden with cobblestones, as the story goes, to throw 

 at the whales to see if they were near enough to risk a harpoon. These 

 daring Nantucketers were, in 1791, the first to sail to the Pacific, and 

 later on in 1820 to the coast of Japan, and finally they made their ships 

 known in every harbour of the world. Thirty islands and reefs in the 

 Pacific are named after Nantucket captains and merchants. 



There is an amusing legend concerning the origin of the island. 

 A giant was said to be in the habit of sleeping on Cape Cod, because its 

 peculiar shape fitted him when he curled himself up. One night he 

 became very restless and thrashed his feet around so much that he got 

 his moccasins filled with sand. In the morning he took off first one 

 moccasin and then the other, flinging their contents across the sea, 

 thus forming the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. 



From the time of the settlement of the island, the entire population, 

 from the oldest inhabitant down to the youngest child, realized that 

 on the whaling industry depended their livelihood. A story is told 

 of a Nantucket youngster who tied his mother's darning cotton to 

 a fork, and, hurling it at the cat as she tried to escape, yelled "Pay out, 

 mother! Pay out! There she 'sounds' through the window!" The 

 inhabitants always alluded to a train as "tying up," a wagon was 

 called a "side- wheeler," every one you met was addressed as "captain," 

 and a horse was always "tackled" instead of harnessed. The refrain 

 of an old Nantucket song runs as follows : 



"So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, 

 While the bold harpooner is striking the whale!" 



A young man who had not doubled the cape or harpooned a whale 

 had no chance of winning a Nantucket, New Bedford, or New London 

 belle, and it is stated as a fact that the girls of Nantucket at one time 

 formed a secret society, and one of their pledges was never to marry 



