312 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



islanders become by reason of the war, that few were able to make much avail of the privilege. 

 After the Revolution and until the War of 1812, the New England whalers continued to take 

 Humpbacks on the shoals to the eastward of Nantucket, where, according to Macy, 1 these as 

 well as codfish, "were plenty, which gave encouragement to many, who would otherwise have 

 been idle, to engage in the pursuit of them. But unfortunately a privateer came among the 

 fleet, and took several vessels, one of which belonged to Nantucket." This seems to have again 

 placed a temporary check upon whaling in home waters. 



Although the Revolution and the War of 1812 nearly destroyed the American whaling 

 industry, it soon regained its place and in the decade following 1835 was at the height of its 

 importance. But it was now concerned chiefly with long voyages to distant seas or often around 

 the globe, so that we have little record of what few whales were taken on our coast. No doubt, 

 however, an occasional Humpback was killed by fishermen in boats from the shore or more 

 often from their fishing vessels on the Shoals. 



In his article on the fisheries of Massachusetts, Clark 2 writes that "Mr. Elisha Atwood .... 

 informed me that seventy-five or eighty years ago [i. e., 1805-1810], there were four captains, 

 each, with his vessel, employing fourteen hands, hailing from Wellfleet. They went to Labrador 

 for right-whale, Mount Desert and vicinity for humpback-whale, and the West Indies for 

 sperm-whale. There were watchers on the shore who signalled to the whalemen the appearance 

 of a whale in the bay [Provincetown Bay]. These men would then go out after it and tow it 

 inshore to the islands, where the oil was tried out. There is no whaling from Wellfleet now. 

 Fifty-five years ago [i. e., about 1830] the whale-oil trying on Griffin's Island and Bound Brook 

 Island [Truro, Mass.] came to an end. Just prior to this sixteen persons were employed. Ten 

 or twelve years ago [1877 or 1875] the last vessel was fitted out for the West Indies, but proved 

 a failure." Captain N. E. Atwood of Provincetown is authority for the statement that "a 

 great many [Humpbacks] have been killed near Provincetown within his recollection: that is 

 to say, or since 1817. One harpooned in the harbor in 1840 yielded fifty-four barrels of oil. 

 Two were killed in the spring of 1879, with bomb-lances." 



The Nantucket Inquirer of August 11, 1827, notes the arrival at that port of the sloop 

 Rapid, Captain Myrick, from a whaling excursion of ten days "over the shoals." Two Hump- 

 backs constituted the catch. These had been taken "about 20 miles eastward of this island, 

 in 18 fathoms of water. The blubber. . . .was peeled off immediately in large 'blanket pieces,' 

 or flakes, about 10 feet in length, two or three feet wide, and from 4 to 10 inches in thickness. 

 The mass thus stripped from the carcasses, nearly filled the vessel's hold; and will probably 

 produce 50 barrels of oil worth 38 to 40 cents per gallon." The practice of stripping the blubber 



1 Macy, Obed. History of Nantucket, 1835, p. 174. 



1 Clark, A. Howard, in G. B. Goode's Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1887, sect. 2, p. 235. 



3 Goode, G. B. Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1884, sect. 1, p. 27. 



