Identifier: marinemammalsofn00scam (find matches)
Title: The marine mammals of the north-western coast of North America, described and illustrated; together with an account of the American whale-fishery
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Scammon, Charles Melville, 1825-1911
Subjects: Marine mammals Cetacea Sealing Whaling Whales Dolphins
Publisher: San Francisco, J.H. Carmany New York, Putnam
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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with a harpoon having a log of wood attached attached the harpoon, by which they could draw to it by a line, even as late as the commence- themselves to the harpooned whale whenever ment of the Sperm Whale fishery. It is quoted they wished to destroy it with the lance. We that the Hon. Paul Dudley stated: Our peo- are of the opinion, however, that the colonial pie formerly used to kill the whale near the whalers did not follow the Indian mode of shore, but now they go off to sea in sloops and whale - fishing; for it is well known that the whale-boats. Sometimes the whale is killed by British whalers, as early as 1G70, used the line a single stroke, and yet at other times she will attached to the boat, and, so far as the drags hold the whalemen in play near half a day to- or droges are concerned, they are used at gether, with their lances; and sometimes they the present day in cases of emergency,will get away after they have been lanced and % Hunts Merchants Magazine, vol. iii, p. 356.
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THE AMERICAN WHALE-FISHERY. 205 the reeking fat from the vessel to the try-houses. This was the custom withall the whalers of those times.* About 1770, other vessels of larger tonnage were added to the whaling squad-ron,! which extended their voyages, like the Nantucket-men, across the Atlantic.Among them were the New Bedford brigs Patience and Aro Duty on Tea. In September,1791, the ship Rebecca, owned by those veteran merchants, Joseph Russell & Sons andCornelius Howland, was among the first, if not the first, of American whalers whichdoubled Cape Horn and obtained a full cargo in the Pacific. The chronicler states:Although the Rebecca was only one hundred and seventy-five tons, she was consid-ered a very large vessel, and was visited as an object of wonder. Thus began thecommercial enterprise at New Bedford — or, as the town was first named, Bedford —which has since become, and still is, the whaling metropolis of the world. Betweenthe years 1771 and 1775, Massachusetts alon

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