Early Days on Nantucket 43 



accordingly invented and caused to be wrought 

 for them a harpoon with which they attacked 

 and killed the whale." 



But if the settlers of Nantucket were not whale- 

 men, nor even sailors, they had a love for the sea 

 which was manifested in their custom of going 

 to the hilltops to look over the waters surrounding 

 their home. Indeed, they built platforms on top 

 of their houses that they might have lookout 

 perches more convenient than the hills. And 

 according to a tradition of the island the habit of 

 going to the hilltops to look at the sea eventually 

 turned the thoughts of the people toward the whale 

 fishery. As a number of the people were on Folly 

 House Hill one day, so the story runs, one man 

 pointed to a school of whales seen offshore and 

 exclaimed : 



"There is a pasture where our children's grand- 

 children will go for bread." 



Of course it was an idle remark, worded in a 

 manner peculiar to the day, but it was remembered 

 for the reason that within the year when the re- 

 mark was made (1690, according to Starbuck), 

 the people of the island began to go regularly to 

 that offshore "pasture" for "bread." 



