THE BLACKFISH AND PORPOISE FISHERIES. 301 



hundred and fifty porpoises and over one thousand blackfisn, yielding them about 1,500 barrels 

 of oil, for the most of which they found immediate sale. " This unexpected success so late in the 

 year put new life into some who had spent all the former season of the year in toil and labor to 



little or no purpose."* 



1744. 



In 1744, it is narrated by the Boston News Letter, a Nantucket Indian struck a blackfish, was 

 caught by a foul line, carried down, and drowned. This and the preceding are the first instances 

 of the use of the name which I have met with. 



1753. 



In 175:3 is was voted, " for the time to come, if any person shall take a boy under ten years 

 old to drive blackfish or porpoises, lie or they shall have nothing allowed for the boy; and that 

 \\lieii any blackfish or porpoise shall be driven ashore and killed by any number of boats of the 

 inhabitants of this town, if one man or more shall insist on having the fish divided to each boat, 

 it shall be done." 



1770. 



In 1770, it is said by Pratt in his History of Wellfleet, all the oysters in Wellfleet Bay died. 

 " What caused this destruction is not certainly known, but it is supposed that, as, at this time, a 

 large number of blackfish died and came on shore, where their carcasses remained, producing a 

 very filthy condition of the water, it caused this mortality." 



Another historian of Wellfleet, in the last century, remarks: "It would be curious indeed to 

 a countryman, who lives at a distance from the sea, to be acquainted with the method of killing 

 blackfish. Their size is from 4 to 5 tons weight, when full grown. When they come within our 

 harbors boats surround them. They are as easily driven to the shore as cattle or sheep are driven 

 on the land. The tide leaves them and they are easily killed. They are a fish of the whale kind, 

 and will average a barrel of oil each. I have seen nearly four hundred at one time lying dead on 

 the shore. It is not, however, very often of late that these fish come into our harbor." t 



1828. 



The Barnstable Journal of November 7, 1828, records that " Last week a shoal consisting of 

 fifteen of these fish were surrounded by boats and driven on shore at Truro. The day following 

 seventeen more were taken in like manner at the same place. A number have been take at Or- 

 leans." 



"A quantity of oil from the grampus lately caught at Harpswell, Me., has been sold at Bath, 

 at $18 per barrel." f 



1834. 



" The blackfish driven ashore at Sandy Neck, Barustable, by several fish boats were stripped 

 of their blubber, which was taken on board of the vessels to which the boats belonged on Friday 

 last and carried to Provincetown for the purpose of trying it out. We learn from one of the men 

 engaged in the business that there were about one hundred and forty driven on shore, of which one 

 hundred and eight only were saved, the undertow of the next tide taking the others off again unex- 

 pectedly. It was thought that the blubber saved was sufficient to make 150 barrels, which is worth 

 from $10 to $15 per barrel." 



' Starbuck, Hist. American Whale Fishing, p. 33. t Gloucester Telegraph, November' 8, 1826. 



t LEVI WHITMAN in Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1794, iii, Barastable Patriot, August 26, 1834. 

 first ser., pp. 119-121. 



