Whaling as a Business Enterprise 323 



sporadic ventures elsewhere and succeeded were 

 often glad to sell out and retire; those who 

 failed retired perforce, and in each case New 

 Bedford was ready with the cash to buy the ships. 



The fishery reached high water in Buzzard's 

 Bay in 1857, when New Bedford owned 329 

 whale ships, and those owned at the other ports of 

 the bay, including Fairhaven, Dartmouth, West- 

 port, Mattapoisett, and Sippican, brought the Bay 

 fleet up to 426 vessels. New London, Connecti- 

 cut, and Sag Harbor, Long Island, were consid- 

 erable ports. They sent seventeen and thirteen 

 vessels to sea in the "boom" year of 1846. 



In 1835 the value of the product of the whalers 

 exceeded for the first time $6,000,000. In 1845 

 the sperm-whale fishery reached its highest point 

 in amount of product, the total import being 

 4,967,550 gallons. The price was then 88 cents 

 a gallon. In 1855 the price was $1.772 per gallon, 

 but the amount saved was only 2,288,443 gallons. 

 Whale oil reached record figures in 1840, when 

 the take was 11,593,483 gallons. The price, 

 then 33 cents, rose above 73 in 1855; but the 

 amount then saved was only 5,796,472 gallons. 



