76 THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 



The Records of the town of East Hampton, Long Island, published in 1887 

 (4 vols.) contain many references to whales and all in winter. 



Notices of the shore whale fishing on the coast of New Jersey and in Delaware 

 Bay are contained in the published archives of the State of New Jersey, in the 

 collections of the New Jersey Historical Society, in Hazard's Annals of Pennsyl- 

 vania, in Acrelius's History of New Sweden, and other works, but such of them 

 as I have examined contain no information regarding the whales or the seasons at 

 which they frequented these waters. 1 



The accounts of the establishment of a whale fishery in Delaware Bay given 

 by De Vries and Van der Donck have been already quoted in the previous chapter 



(P- 24). 



Watson's Annals of Philadelphia contains a number of items relative to whales 

 and whaling in Delaware Bay and River and along the coast of New Jersey, dating 

 from 1683 to 1834, but they are hardly definite enough to be of much value. The 

 work was originally published in 1830, but the following quotations, which include 

 all the items of any importance, are from the revised edition of 1898. 3 



"In 1730, a cow whale, of 50 feet length is advertised as going ashore to the 

 northward of Cape May, dead. The harpooners are requested to go and claim it." 



" In 1733, month of April, 2 whales, supposed to be cow and calf, appeared in 

 the [Delaware] river before the city." 



"In 1736, February, 'two whales are killed at Cape May, equal to forty 

 barrels of oil, and several more are expected to be killed by the whalemen on the 

 coast.' ' 



"About the year 1809 ... a whale of pretty large dimensions was 

 caught near Chester." 



"Two dead whales were driven on shore at Assateague beach, near Snowhill, 

 Maryland, in December, 1833; one a hundred and seventeen feet in length, and 

 the other eighty-seven feet in length." 



" It is a fact but little known, that, even now [1823 ?], there is a family on Long 

 beach, New Jersey, who are every winter seeking for, and sometimes capturing 

 whales. In this business they have been engaged, the father and two sons, ever 

 since the time of the Revolution." 



"In May, 1834, a young whale, of sixty feet, went into New Haven [N. J. ?] 

 harbour was chased, grounded, and used up." 



The American whale fishery was the topic of an elaborate article published 

 by James H. Lanman in 1840. 3 



1 See HAZARD, S., Annals of Pennsylvania, 1609-1682, 1850, pp. 31-32. 



Instructions to John Printz, Governor of New Sweden, August 15, 1642. In Acrelius's His- 

 tory of New Sweden, Mem. Penn. Hist. Soc., n, 1874, p. 38. 



THOMAS, GABRIEL, Historical Description of the Province and Country of West-New-Jersey, 

 1698, p. 33. 



WHITEHEAD, W. A., East Jersey under the Proprietary Governments, Coll. IV. J. Hist. Soc., 

 i, p. 174. 



Scot's Model of the Government of the Province of East-New-Jersey, 1685, op. at., p. 282. 



Documents relating to the Revolutionary History of New Jersey, i, 1901, p. 437. 



* WATSON, JOHN F., Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, enlarged by Willis P. Hazard, 

 3 vols., 1898. Vol. 2, pp. 428-429; 547. ' Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, 3, 1840, pp. 361-394. 



