

COMMON FINHACK WHALE. 229 



and Josephine. They cruise off the Maine and Massachusetts shores as far south as Cape Cod. 

 A bomb-lance, fired from a gun held at the shoulder, is used for killing the whales. Up to date 

 about 40 whales have been captured. As the men become expert in the manner of capture, 

 the whales become shy and keep more in deep" water. After being killed they usually sink, 

 and it is doubtful if the business, as at present conducted, will last if the whales are driven off 

 from near shore, it being difficult to recover them in over 40 fathoms of water. The whales 

 raptured the past few weeks average 60 feet long and weigh about 25 tons each; they yield 

 about 20 barrels of oil, 2 barrels of meat, 5 tons of dry chum, and 2 tons of bone, about MOO 

 1 icing realized from each whale, on the average." l The steamer Fannie Sprague was a Booth 

 Bay vessel, but the home port of the three others is not given. 



Another report L states that five small steamers in all were engaged in the Finback shore 

 fishery in the Gulf of Maine during 1885. The fleet landed part of the whales at Province- 

 town, Massachusetts, and the remainder at the factories in Maine. Capt. Joshua Nickerson 

 of Provincetown was thus engaged at this time and on July 7th, as Mr. J. Henry Blake tells 

 me, shot a Finback in Massachusetts Bay making about the thirty-eighth he had caught. 

 A few days before, July 3d, a male Finback had drifted ashore at the Mt. Desert Light Station, 

 Maine, 2 that had probably been shot by one of these whaling steamers. Earll states 3 that 

 about seventy-five whales were captured by the combined efforts of these five steamers in 1885. 



In the following year these whales continued to be numerous offshore, and a report 4 under 

 date of June, 1886, states that "three steamers are engaged in taking them, being quite suc- 

 cessful, although many that are shot and sink in deep water are not recovered." One of these 

 three vessels was the A. B. Nickerson, commanded by Captain "Josh" Nickerson, of Province- 

 town, but the names of the two others though not given may be surmised as of those previously 

 engaged. In this same year, according to Jennings 5 an oil works was set up near Race Point 

 Light, Provincetown, and in 1887 a bone crusher was added for reducing the skeletons of the 

 whales to lime. Of the whaling in 1886, I have found no definite record, but it seems to have 

 been less productive than in 1885, and nothing further is heard of the Maine steamers. Cap- 

 tain Nickerson, however, continued to pursue whales in the home waters during the next ten 

 years with much success. 



The following brief review of Captain Nickerson's campaign is based mainly on notes 

 and clippings kindly furnished me by Mr. J. Henry Blake, as well as on reports in the Nantucket 

 Inquirer and Journal. From the last-named source 6 it appears that in early June, 1888, the 



1 Wilcox, W. A. Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 1885, vol. 5, p. 169. 

 iley, C. W. Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 1885, vol. 5, p. 337. 

 3 Earll, R. E. Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 1886, vol. 6, p. 312. 

 ' Wilcox, W. A. Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 1886, vol. 6, p. 201. 

 5 Jennings, H. A. I'rovinectown or, odds and ends from the tip end, 1890, p. 136. 

 Nantucket Journal, vol. 10, no. 36, June 7, 1888. 



