A large part of the romance of whaling centres around the island of
Nantucket and its hardy seamen. It was from here that the Red Men first
sallied out in canoes to chase the whale; from here the small sloops
first set out laden with cobblestones, as the story goes, to throw at
the whales to see if they were near enough to risk a harpoon. These
daring Nantucketers were, in 1791, the first to sail to the Pacific,
and later on in 1820 to the coast of Japan, and finally they made their
ships known in every harbour of the world. Thirty islands and reefs in
the Pacific are named after Nantucket captains and merchants.
There is an amusing legend concerning the origin of the island. A
giant was said to be in the habit of sleeping on Cape Cod, because
its peculiar shape fitted him when he curled himself up. One night he
became very restless and thrashed his feet around so much that he got
his moccasins filled with sand. In the morning he took off first one
moccasin and then the other, flinging their contents across the sea,
thus forming the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
From the time of the settlement of the island, the entire population,
from the oldest inhabitant down to the youngest child, realized that
on the whaling industry depended their livelihood. A story is told
of a Nantucket youngster who tied his mother’s darning cotton to a
fork, and, hurling it at the cat as she tried to escape, yelled “Pay
out, mother! Pay out! There she ‘sounds’ through the window!” The
inhabitants always alluded to a train as “tying up,” a wagon was called
a “side-wheeler,” every one you met was addressed as “captain,” and a
horse was always “tackled” instead of harnessed. The refrain of an old
Nantucket song runs as follows:—
“So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail,
While the bold harpooner is striking the whale!”
A young man who had not doubled the cape or harpooned a whale had no
chance of winning a Nantucket, New Bedford, or New London belle, and
it is stated as a fact that the girls of Nantucket at one time formed
a secret society, and one of their pledges was never to marry a man
until he had “struck his whale.” The well-known Nantucket novel “Miriam
Coffin” tells of a girl who made to her two lovers a condition of
marriage that they must first of all undertake a whaling voyage, and
that she would wed the more successful of the two. It happened that
one was a Minister, and the other was no better adapted to the whale
fishery; nevertheless, both set out to sea. The former was killed by a
whale, and the latter returned after an absence of several years, but
instead of claiming his bride, he tells her that before going he had
already made up his mind that a girl who made such foolish propositions
was no girl for him; and so the story ends.
[Illustration: A whaler circling Cape Horn.]
Many a Nantucket bride stepped from her home to her husband’s whaleship
for a three-year voyage round Cape Horn, which probably suggested these
verses:—
“I asked a maiden by my side,
Who sighed and looked at me forlorn,
‘Where is your heart?’ She quick replied,
‘Round Cape Horn.’
* * * * *
“I said, ‘I’ll let your fathers know,’
To boys in mischief on the lawn;
They all replied, ‘Then you must go
Round Cape Horn.’
* * * * *
“In fact, I asked a little boy
If he could tell where he was born;
He answered, with a mark of joy,
‘Round Cape Horn.’”
Any one who did not live in Nantucket was called a foreigner. To show
their attitude a schoolboy was asked to write a thesis on Napoleon, and
he began by stating that “Napoleon was a great man and a great soldier,
but he was an off-islander.” In fact, it was an act of condescension
for a Nantucketer even to shake hands with a “Mainlander,” and there
are many of the older islanders to-day who have never set foot on any
other soil.
Most of the inhabitants were Quakers, and there was a saying that a
Nantucketer was half Quaker and half sailor. Though their cemetery
contains about ten thousand graves, there are only half a dozen
tombstones in one corner of the field. There are no “Friends” in
Nantucket to-day. The following incident shows the Quaker thrift, to
which was due in a great measure their success in whaling. When the
first chaise was purchased, the owner was about to take a drive in it,
but, after a few minutes’ deliberation, decided it was too progressive,
and would subject him to criticism, so he loaned it only to invalids
and funeral parties.
Billy Clark was town crier, and for forty years, up to the time of
his death in 1909, he voluntarily announced with a bell and horn the
arrival of all whalers and steamers. Once as he went along ringing,
a girl asked him rudely where he got his bell, and his reply was,
“I got my bell where you got your manners,—at the ‘brass foundry.’”
Nantucketers declare that his death was due to the fact that he
actually “blew his lungs away.”
The Chase family has always occupied a most prominent position in the
history of the island. One of the family was Reuben Chase, who served
under John Paul Jones on the “Ranger,” and on his death the following
epitaph was placed on his tombstone:—
“Free from the storms and gusts of human life,
Free from its error and its strife,
Here lies Reuben Chase anchored; who stood
The sea of ebbing life and flowing misery.
He was not dandy rigged, his prudent eye
Fore-saw and took a reef at fortune’s quickest flow.
He luffed and bore away to please mankind;
Yet duty urged him still to head the wind,
Rumatic gusts at length his masts destroyed,
Yet jury health awhile he yet enjoyed,
Worn out with age and shattered head,
At foot he struck and grounded on his bed.
There careening thus he lay,
His final bilge expecting every day,
Heaven took his ballast from his dreary hold,
And left his body destitute of soul.”
Every islander knows the story of the Nantucket skipper who claimed
that he could always tell where his ship was by the color and taste of
the lead after sounding. Marden, his mate, on one trip determined to
fool him, and for this purpose brought some dirt from a neighbor’s
garden in Nantucket. He woke up the skipper one morning off Cape
Horn, and showed him the lead, which had been smeared with this dirt,
whereupon, to quote the words of James Thomas Fields,—
“The skipper stormed and tore his hair,
Hauled on his boots and roared to Marden:
‘Nantucket’s sunk, and here we are
Right over old Marm Hackett’s garden!’”
Another Nantucket captain always took to sea medicine bottles, each
numbered and indexed to suit different complaints. Once his mate was
ill, and, looking up the bottle to administer in his case, found
that No. 13 contained the cure for his patient. Unfortunately, this
bottle had all been used, so, after careful deliberation, he mixed the
contents of bottles 6 and 7, which he gave the mate, who promptly died.
Early history tells us that Thomas Macy purchased the island for thirty
pounds and two beaver hats, “One for myself and one for my wife,” and
to him therefore belongs the honor of the settlement of Nantucket; he
had been driven away from Massachusetts for sheltering Quakers, which
was at that time against the law, and with his friend Edward Starbuck
fled to the island and established a colony composed of such well-known
families as the Coffins, Husseys, Swaynes, Gardners, Chases, Folgers,
and Starbucks. These men were not whalers, but they watched the Indians
and learned much from them, and later on employed Ichabod Paddock to
come over from Cape Cod and instruct them further.
The character of the island and its situation far out in the ocean,
its poor soil, and the number of whales along its shores, all proved
an inducement to the Nantucketers to follow the sea as a calling. At
first, there were so many whales that they did not find it necessary
to go beyond the coast; so, under the guidance of Paddock, lookouts
were erected along the South shore, and each man patrolled a certain
amount of territory. Each one took his share of whales killed, and
business flourished. This method of whaling continued until 1712,
when Christopher Hussey, while cruising along the coast, was blown
out to sea. He ran across a sperm whale, which he finally killed and
brought home. This year was epoch making, as this was the first sperm
whale known to have been taken by Americans. The oil from this species
of whale being superior to that of all others, the Nantucketers now
(1715) decided to change their methods and to whale in the “deep.”
As the vessels steadily increased in size with greater and greater
cargo-carrying capacity, voyages necessarily became longer, extending
even to periods of four or five years. In fact, a voyage lasting but
two years was considered unusually short. The point of view of most
whalers regarding a two-year voyage is shown by the captain who, when
boarding his ship, was reminded by a friend that he had not said
“Good-by” to his wife,—
“Why should I?” said he; “I am only to be gone two years.”
[Illustration: The famous Roach (Rotch) fleet, “Enterprise,” “Wm.
Roach,” “Pocahontas,” and “Houqua,” among a “school” of sperm whales
off the coast of Hawaii. Ships often cruised together and divided the
catch. Honolulu owes its rapid rise partially to the frequent visits of
the whalers. The first vessel fitted out from the Sandwich Islands was
in 1837 and was owned by Henry A. Pierce of New Bedford.]
About 1730 “try-works” were built on the vessels instead of on the
shore, and the oil was boiled and stowed away at sea, thus allowing
the ships to make much longer voyages. At this time Nantucket owned as
many whaleships as all the other ports of America combined. Whaling
continued to increase, and the sterile island was turned into a
prosperous community, when the Revolution came on, and for the time
being practically put an end to the industry. Nantucket was the only
port that carried on whaling during the war: the island simply had to
whale or starve, as the inhabitants knew no other occupation. Most
of their vessels were eventually captured or lost by shipwreck, and
over twelve hundred of their men were either killed or made prisoners.
The end of the war found the island’s business hopelessly wrecked;
but, with their usual pluck and determination, the Nantucketers once
more built up a profitable fleet. So impoverished were they that the
government for one year levied no taxes.
At the close of the war a Quaker, called William Rotch, was Nantucket’s
greatest whaler, and even he became so discouraged with the prospects
at home that in 1785 he left the island in his ship, the “Maria,”
for London. He endeavored to make some arrangement with the English
government to import some whaling families from Nantucket, but,
failing to do so, repaired to France, where he succeeded in making an
agreement with Louis XVI. A great many families moved to France, and
carried on the pursuit from Dunkirk in Normandy. Rotch soon returned to
Nantucket, and later moved to New Bedford, where he died. The old Rotch
counting-house was later used as a club-room for Nantucket whaling
captains, and is even now being used as such. In the old prosperous
days this was jocosely called the House of Commons, while another club,
which was used by the ship owners, was named the House of Lords.
Immediately after the war, the ship “Bedford,” one of the Rotch
vessels, was loaded with oil, and sent to England under command of
Captain Mooers. This was the first vessel to display the American flag
in a British port. It is related that one of the crew of the ship was
hunchbacked, and when on shore one day a British sailor clapped his
hand on his shoulder, and said, “Hello, Jack, what have you got here?”
“Bunker Hill, and be d—d to you,” replied the Yankee.
The redoubtable Nantucketers resumed their whaling at the close of the
Revolution, and their energy and skill were again yielding rich profits
when the War of 1812 almost annihilated the island’s fleet. But as it
was another case of whale or starve, Nantucket continued to send out a
few whalers, and was the only American port during the war that dared
to brave the risks of British capture.
[Illustration: A “camel” floating a whaler to sea over the Nantucket
bar. The “camel” was used from 1842 to 1849, enabling the Nantucketers
for a time to keep pace with the New Bedfordites.]
About this time, in one of the Pacific ports, an incident occurred
which showed in an amusing light the ready wit and intrepid courage of
an American whaleman. He had in some way displeased an English naval
officer, who, feeling himself highly insulted, promptly challenged the
Yankee, who accepted and, being the challenged party, had the choice
of weapons. He selected, of course, the weapon with which he was most
skilful and took his stand with a poised harpoon. It had altogether too
dangerous an appearance for the irate Englishman, particularly as the
whaleman was evidently an expert in the manual of thrust and parry, and
so with as good grace as he could command, the Englishman withdrew from
the fight.
At a very early day in the fishery, whaling vessels, which were at
first long rowboats and later small sloops, began to increase in size,
and about 1820 ships of three hundred tons were found profitable.
The increase in profit producing capacity, strange as it may appear,
actually sounded the death-knell of the Nantucket whaling, for
across the mouth of the harbour ran a bar, over which it soon became
impossible for whaling vessels of large size to pass. The difficulty
was for a time overcome by the true Yankee ingenuity of some inventive
Nantucketer, who devised the “camel,” a veritable dry-dock barge in
which the larger whaleships, lightened often of oil and bone, were
floated over the bar into the forest of masts which in those days
characterized a harbour now frequented only by a few schooners and
sloops, the small pleasure crafts of the summer residents, and an
occasional steamer.
As whaleships still continued to increase in size, the “camel”
expedient was only a temporary success; for the time came when vessels
were of too great tonnage to be thus floated over the bar, and the
daring and skilful Nantucketer, who had taught the civilized world
not only how, but where, to whale, had to admit defeat and gradually
give up the industry to more fortunately situated ports. At this time,
about 1830, Nantucket was commercially the third largest city in
Massachusetts, Boston being first and Salem second.
In 1843 Nantucket owned its record number of ships, eighty-eight. In
1846, which is referred to as the “boom” year in American whaling,
sixteen vessels cleared from Nantucket and sixty-nine from her near-by
rival—New Bedford. In 1869 Nantucket sent her last ship and disappeared
from the list of whaling ports. The great fire of 1846 also contributed
to the downfall of the industry.
A new era in whaling was to be born, with New Bedford as the centre,
and Nantucket was to become only a health resort and mecca for
sight-seers, more than ten thousand persons visiting the island in 1914.