1908.] Mien., The North Atlantic Right Whale. 319 



men of Nantucket and New Bedford wen 1 upon tin* coast, and for several 

 vears did not reach beyond the capes of Virginia and Cape Hatteras. The 

 'Right Wliale,' balwua mysticetus, was the only species kno\vn to the first 

 adventurers." 



Says Pitkin: 1 "The whale fishery first attracted the attention of the 

 Americans in 1690, and originated in boats from the shore. In 1715, six 

 sloops, of thirty-eight tons burden eaeh, were, employed in this fishery, from 

 that [Nantucket] island. For many years their adventures were confined 

 to the American coast, but as whales grew scarce here, they were extended 

 to the Western Islands, and to the Brazils, and at length to the North and 

 South Seas 2 . . . .In 1731, the Americans had about thirteen hundred tons of 

 shipping employed in this fishery along their coast. About the year 1750, 

 the whale left the American coast." 



Crapo, in his 'Historical Address,' delivered on the occasion of the 'Cen- 

 tennial in New Bedford/ July 4, 1876, has given (pp. 64, 65) extracts from 

 the records of the town of New Bedford, 3 under dates November 11, 1652, 

 April 13, 1653, April 15, 1690, February 19, 1692, and "1792-3," which 

 show that whales at that time were occasionally stranded or captured along 

 the shores of Martha's Vineyard. Under the last-mentioned date three 

 whales killed in February 1793, are referred to as "great whales, betwixt 

 six and seven and eight foot bone." 



An extract from the 'Nantucket Inquirer' (newspaper) states: "In the 

 year 1680 [1690?] a Mr. Paddock from Cape Cod came to Nantucket to 

 instruct the English how to whale in boats from the shore, which business 

 continued good till 1760, when it became poor by the scarcity of whales. In 

 the spring of 1726, there were eighty-six whales caught here. One Mr. 

 Loper previous to this was engaged in the business, but not to any amount 

 worthy of record." (Crapo, /. c., p. 67.) 



These extracts could be greatly extended, but those already given are 

 sufficient to show how important a r61e this species of whale played in the 

 early maritime history of the New England and Middle States; also its 

 former abundance, and how a century of pursuit for its commercial products 

 reduced it to commercial extinction. 4 



1 Statis. View Comm. United States, etc., 1816, pp. 42, 43. 



2 "See Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society," [Vol. not stated]. 



3 Accredited to Richard A. Pease's valuable 'Historical Sketches of Martha's Vineyard' 

 (probably in the 'Vineyard Gazette,' which I have been unable to see). 



4 Since the above extracts were compiled (in 1881) from the original sources, some of them 

 have appeared in later works on the American Whale-fishery, where many more of similar import 

 may be found. See especially, Alexander Starbuck's 'History of the American Whale Fishery 

 from its earliest Inception to the year 1876 ' (Report of the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries 

 for 1875-1876, Part IV, 1878, pp. 1-763); A. Howard Clark's 'History and present conditions 

 of the [Whale] Fishery (Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States, Sect. V, Vol. II, 

 1887, pp. 1-218); J/B. Holder's 'The Atlantic Right Whale' (Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., I. 

 1883, pp. 99-137); Frederick W. True's 'The Whalebone Whales of the North Atlantic' (Smiths, 

 Contr. to Knowl., Vol. XXXIII, 1904). 



