36 KEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



the right shoulder-blade, with two lance holes in the same side, one in 

 the belly. These whales were all killed about the middle of February 

 last past ; all great whales, betwixt six and seven and eight foot bone, 

 which are all gone from us. A true account given by John Butler from 

 us, and recorded Per me, Thomas Trapp, Clerk."* 



It is quite probable that deep-sea whaling did not commence at the 

 Vineyard until about the year 1738. In that year Joseph Chase, of 

 Nantucket, removed there, taking with him his sloop, the Diamond, of 

 about 40 tons burden. He purchased a house and about 20 acres of 

 land on the shores of Edgartown Harbor, erected a wharf with a try- 

 house near, and commenced the fishery with his vessel. He followed 

 this pursuit two or three years, till finally his ill success caused him to 

 abandon it. 



The year succeeding Chase's immigration James Claghorn purchased 

 a small sloop of 40 tons, called the Leopard, and fitted her for the busi- 

 ness. Two or three years' experience served to give him a distaste for 

 it, aud he sold out and retired from the contest with a loss of about 

 $500, a large sum for those days. 



In 1742 John Harper, of Nantucket, removed to the Vineyard, car- 

 rying with him the sloop Humbird, of about 45 tons. For several years 

 he too followed whaling, in his sloop and iu other vessels ; but the same 

 ill success that attended Chase and Claghorn visited also the standard 

 of Harper, aud fiudiug himself running behind-hand- year after year, he 

 too sold out his shipping aud withdrew. 



Undeterred by the misfortunes of the others, John Newman, with 

 partners, in 1744 bought the sloop Susannah, of 55 tons, and they con- 

 tinued nearly one year. In the fall, the corn crop on the Vineyard 

 proving insufficient, Samuel Finley was sent in command of her to the 

 southward for a load of that grain, and on the return passage the vessel 

 was cast away on the Carolina coast, and with her cargo totally lost. 



D.— 1750 TO 1784. 



NANTUCKET; MARTHA'S VINEYARD; CAPE COD; BOSTON; LONG ISLAND; 

 RHODE ISLAND; NEW BEDFORD; WILLIAMSBTJRGH, &C. 



The period from 1750 to 1784 was the most eventful era to the whale- 

 fishery that it has ever passed through. For a large proportion of the 

 time the business was carried on under imminent risk of capture, first 

 by the Spanish and French aud after by the English. The colonial 

 Davis Strait fishery seems to have been quite abandoned, and the ves- 

 sels cruised mostly to the eastward of the Grand Banks, along the edge 

 of the Gulf Stream and iu the vicinity of the Bahamas. In 1748 the 

 English Parliament had passed a second act to encourage this fishery. 

 By it the premium on inspection of masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, 



* For .all the early information concerning Martha's Vineyard I am indebted to Rich- 

 ard L. Pease, esq., of Edgartown. 



