NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 163 



The second case is this last winter, 1691. William Edds and company, in one of our boates, 

 struck a whale, which came ashore dead, and by ye evidence of the people of Cape Cod was 

 the very whale they killed. The whale was taken away by Thomas Smith of Eastham, and 

 unjustly detained." Thus it seems that the people of Cape Cod rather resented this intru- 

 sion of outsiders into their home waters. In 1700, John Higginson again writes: "We have 

 a considerable quantitie of whale oil and bone for exportation." 1 



Again, under date of December 10, 1706, the same John Higginson of Salem, writes to 

 Symond Epes of Ipswich: "I hear a rumor of several whales, that are gotten. I desire you to 

 send me word how much we are concerned in them, and what prospect of a voyage. When 

 they have done, I desire you would take care to secure the boats and utensils belonging to 

 them." Apparently the reference is to Right Whales killed from boats off the coast of Ip- 

 swich, and since the whaling season is then just beginning, Mr. Higginson, who appears to be 

 bucking the undertaking, is anxious that a vessel should be fitted out for a cruise in the nearer 

 waters. Hence the necessity for securing what "boats and utensils" there may be available. 

 In the following year, September 22, 1707, Mr. Higginson again writes about whale-boats 

 and crews at Ipswich, and remarks, "We should be in readiness for the noble sport." 2 As the 

 whaling season was then less than two months off, Mr. Higginson's foresight is well 

 exemplified. 



Probably "Whale Cove" at Rockport owes its name to some incident connected with the 

 capture of the Right Whale there in the early days. 



Whales occasionally came even into Boston Harbor in Colonial times, and Starbuck makes 

 mention of certain whaling gear that apparently was kept in readiness against the appearance 

 of these animals. In October, 1668, Jonathan Webb, was drowned while capturing a whale 

 "below the Castle" [i. e. Castle Id.], 3 in Boston Bay, and the Boston newspapers of Decem- 

 ber 12, 1707, describe the pursuit and capture of a whale forty feet long in the harbor, near 

 the back of Noddle's Island. 4 



Whaling at Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. At the time of the settlement of Nan- 

 tucket and for many years thereafter Right Whales seem to have been common during their 

 northward and southward passages in the neighboring seas. At first no attempt seems to 

 have been made to capture them, but those that drifted ashore were eagerly seized and utilized. 

 In the middle of the 17th century the Cape Cod colonists had actively undertaken their pur- 

 suit, so that it is not unlikely that the number of 'drift whales' that fell to the share of the 

 Nantucketers at this time, was partly an indirect result of their neighbors' efforts. For many 

 were probably whales that had been struck and lost. The inevitable quarrels over the owner- 



1 Felt, J. B. History of Salem, 1845, vol. 2, pp. 224, 225. 



1 Felt, J. B. History of Ipswich, Essex and Hamilton, 1834, p. 109. 



3 New England Hist, and Geneal. Register, 1855, vol. 9, p. 44. 



4 Starbuck, 1878, p. 34. 



