74 The Story of the New England Whalers 



a regular business while yet the Nantucket people 

 were content merely to save those that floated 

 ashore. There were many whalers elsewhere. 

 Salem was a whaling port of some importance 

 as early as 1700. The records of Martha's Vine- 

 yard show that whales were killed alongshore in 

 1702. The Rhode Island sailors went in pursuit 

 of whales at an early date, and in 1731 the colony's 

 assembly offered a bounty of five shillings for every 

 barrel of whale oil and a penny a pound for bone 

 taken by Rhode Island vessels and carried into 

 the colony. The sloop Pelican, Captain Benjamin 

 Thurston, was the first vessel to receive the bounty 

 thus offered. She brought 114 barrels of oil and 

 200 pounds of bone to Newport in 1733. 



In 1738 Captain Benjamin Chase, a successful 

 Nantucket whaler, moved to Martha's Vineyard, 

 intending to build up the whaling business on that 

 island. He bought twenty acres of land on Edgar- 

 town harbor, built a wharf, and erected try-works. 

 In the meantime he sent his sloop, called the 

 Diamond, to deep water after whales. But a 

 change of residence brought a change of luck; he 

 failed. Between 1738 and 1744 three other capi- 



