United States Merchant Marine Academy Kings Point - Midships Yearbook

“Indians of Northeastern America pursuing the Great Leviathan along the coast. Long Islanders preparing to strip the blubber from a whale on the beach. The whale was captured a short distance from the shore and hove on shore using winches. efore our forefathers came to tlie American continent, the epic in American history concerned with whaling had long since begun. Whaling was first taken up by the American Indian tribes of the Northeastern region of what was later to become the United States. At first these Indians were content with the bone and oil they could extract from the carcasses of dead whales that washed up on the shores bordering their tribal holdings along the Atlantic Ocean. Later, as the de- mands for these staples become greater, these same Indians began to venture out on the ocean, at first only a short distance from the head lands, in pursuit of the great leviathan. In the personal diary of Captain George Waymouth, an early English explorer, we find the first written record of the observing of such a hunt. He wiote that they went after the whale " with a multitude of tlieir boats; and strike him with a Bone made in fashion of a harping iron fastened to a rope; which they made great and strong of Barb of trees, which they veer out after him as he riseth above the Water; with their Arrows they shoot him to death; when they have killed him and dragged him to Shore, they call all their Chief Lords together and sing a Song of Joy ... " While frequent mention of whales appearing off our New England coast are to found in early Colonial publications, there are no records of attempts being made to capture, take or kill these whales until after the year 1672. The first recorded epic of whaling in the history of our country is found in Alexander Star- buck ' s History of Whaling. The history of the development of whaling as an early American industry is very vague and at best, often very sketchy. It seems that the first real interest ap- peared on the island of Nantucket about 1690. Obed Macy, in his History of Nantucket, writes " In the year 1690, some people were high on a hill . . . observing the whales spouting and sport- ing with each other, whom one observed there, pointing to the sea, ' is a green pasture where our children ' s grand children will go for bread ' . " However, they never waited for their owti children much less their children ' s grandchildren. New Eng- landers were busy at " offshore whaling " before the turn of the eighteenth century. Within a few short years, htudy seafaring men from the communities stretched along the north shore of Long Island were joined in the pursuit of this great titan over the oceans of the world. In exactly which one of the New England fishing towns whaling was first taken up is another point in this historical sketch which will have to remain at the best very sketchy. The development of whaling as an in- ”