224 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



that had escaped, mortally wounded, to die and later wash ashore. Thus Weeden ' notes 

 that "drift whales appear in the Boston newspapers, a finback at Nantasket in 1719 [Boston 

 Gazette, Feb. 28th] and again in 1720 [Boston News Letter, Feb. 15th]; at Marblehead in 

 1723 [Boston News Letter, Aug. 22d]; and a flotsam 'between the Capes' with a harpoon 'in 

 her' in 1725 [Boston News Letter, July 15th]. Always in the feminine, these valuable strays 

 are brought into the Admiralty Court with every formality of advertisement to secure justice 

 to possible claimants." 



Since the days of Captain John Smith, 1614, no systematic attempt to capture Fin Whales 

 on the coast of New England appears to have been made until about 1810, when according to 

 R. E. Earll, 2 a shore-fishery was begun and successfully prosecuted for a number of years, 

 from Prospect Harbor, in Frenchman's Bay, Maine. This industry was undertaken by Stephen 

 Clark and L. Hiller, of Rochester, Mass., who "came to the region, and built try-works on 

 the shore, having their lookout station on the top of an adjoining hill. The whales usually 

 followed the menhaden to the shore, arriving about the 1st of June, and remaining till Septem- 

 ber .... Ten years later they began using small vessels in the fishery, and by this means were 

 enabled to go farther from land. The fishery was at its height between 1835 and 1840 when 

 an average of six or seven whales were taken yearly .... The business was discontinued about 

 1860, since which date but one or two whales have been taken." It is probable that Hump- 

 back Whales constituted the chief part of the catch, if indeed any others were taken at all. 

 Clark 3 further informs us that "shore-whaling in the vicinity of Tremont, [Maine] began about 

 1840. Mr. Benjamin Beaver and a small crew of men caught three or more whales annually 

 for about twenty years, but gave up the business in 1860. No more whales were taken from 

 this time till the spring of 1880, when one was taken and brought into Bass Harbor, and yielded 

 1,200 gallons of oil but no bone of value. 



"Capt. J. Bickford, a native of Winter Harbor, is reported by Mr. C. P. Guptil to have 

 cruised off the coast in 1845 in schooner Huzza, and to have captured eight whales, one of 

 which was a finback, the rest humpback whales. This schooner made only one season's work, 

 but in 1870 Captain Bickford again tried his luck in a vessel from Prospect Harbor and cap- 

 tured one finback whale." Of the method of whaling as employed by these men, we have no 

 record, but doubtless they attacked the whales from their whaleboats, and after making fast 

 with the harpoon endeavored at once to reach a vital spot with the lance. If this were not 

 accomplished the whale stood a good chance of escape. Such an adventure is illustrated by 

 an anecdote reported in the Nantucket Inquirer for December 14, 1846 (vol. 26, no. 142). "On 



1 Weeden, W. B. Economic and Social History of New England, 1890, vol. 1, p. 439. 



2 Earll, R. E. The Coast of Maine and its Fisheries. In Goode's Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the U. S., 1887, 

 sect. 2, p. 30. 



3 Clark, A. Howard. The Whale Fishery. In Goode's Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the U. S., 1887, sect. 5, 

 vol. 2, p. 40. 



