An english boater, having just served on George Weymouth ‘s exploratory voyage to the territory that would become Maine, publishes an report of a native american giant hunt .
Fastening harpoon points, Courtesy : library of Congress1620
The Pilgrims, arriving in Plymouth Harbor, come across mighty whales “ playing hard ” off the bow of the Mayflower .
1640
Shore whale is taken up at Southampton, Long Island. The fledgling industry is manned by native Americans, who are paid a percentage based on the measure of anoint returned — a precursor to the “ lie ” system of wages used in late whaling voyages.
early function of Nantucket, Courtesy : Nantucket Historical Association
1659
Nantucket is sold to and settled by nine original purchasers : Tristram Coffin, Thomas Macy, Christopher Hussey, Richard Swayne, Thomas Barnard, Peter Coffin, John Swayne, and William Pike. The sale is made for 30 pounds of sterling and two beaver hats .
Siasconset, MA, 1797, Courtesy : Nantucket Historical Association
1676
Whaling on Nantucket takes etymon as settlers construct modest fish hamlets at Quidnet and Siasconset .
1690
Ichabod Paddock, a long Islander, is recruited by Nantucketers to help increase the efficiency of their land whaling operations .
Flensing Ashore, Courtesy : New Bedford Whaling Museum
1700
approximately 60 english settlers and 160 native american Wampanoags are engaged in prop up whale on Nantucket .
1702
John Richardson, a Quaker, visits Nantucket and proselytizes Mary Coffin Starbuck ; as a big civic figure, Starbuck ‘s conversion is crucial to Quaker dominance there .
Whaling off the seashore of Nantucket, Courtesy : Nantucket Historical Association
1712
Nantucketer Christopher Hussey kills the island ‘s first sperm whale, and deep-ocean whale commences. For the adjacent century and a half, Nantucketers will specialize in hunting sperm whales .
1750s
Tryworks — brick oven furnaces used to render petroleum from whale blubber — are inaugural installed on ships, increasing profitableness and extending length of whaling voyages .
1767
Prominent Nantucket whaling merchant Joseph Rotch resettles to New Bedford, anticipating the city ‘s future importance to the whale industry .
A class on a roofwalk overlooking Nantucket Sound, Courtesy : Nantucket Historical Association
1775-1783
During the Revolutionary War, whaleships are targeted by the british Navy with about fateful consequences to the diligence. Nantucket ‘s fleet is reduced from 150 vessels to fewer than 30, and ports elsewhere in Massachusetts and on Long Island are similarly impacted. many Nantucket merchants, who, prior to the war had strong commercial links to Britain, relocate their whale operations abroad — to London, Canada, and France .
1783
Several whaling businesses, shaken by the destruction of the war, relocate their operations from Newport, Providence, and Nantucket to Hudson, NY, which is more than 100 miles from the clear ocean .
1785
Great Britain, anxious to subsidize its own whale diligence ( and possibly to rebuke its disaffected former subjects ), imposes a duty on imports of whale anoint. U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain John Adams excellently argues to Prime Minister William Pitt that the duty “ sacrifices the general interest of the nation [ Great Britain ] to the private interests of a few individuals. ” Adams ‘ argument is rejected, and the duty continue .
1789
A british whale vessel, the Amelia, becomes the inaugural to sail around Cape Horn in pursuit of whales .
1790-1820
With the discovery of the whale-rich “ onshore grounds ” off the coast of South America, the Pacific Ocean is an increasingly popular finish for american whale vessels .
1807
Nantucket ‘s flit has recovered from the losses of the Revolutionary War, and at 116 vessels it is the largest in the young American republic .
1812-1815
War of 1812 : As during the Revolution, American whale vessels are preyed upon by the british Navy ; several twelve are either seized or destroyed, and among american whale ports merely Nantucket continues to send out voyages .
Spring 1818
Just when the onshore grounds have become depleted of whales, the thickly-populated “ offshore grounds ” are found by the Nantucket whaleship Globe more than 1,000 miles from the confederacy american coast .
October 1818
A court case in New York, Maurice v. Judd, is tried over whether the oil from whales qualifies as “ fish petroleum ” ( which is taxed ). At topic are evolving comprehensions of natural skill and taxonomy .
A whale hunt, Courtesy : Nantucket Historical Association
1818
After the War of 1812, the whale industry enters its “ gold Age. ” Among the investors attracted to the diligence is novelist James Fenimore Cooper, who, while visiting a relative in Sag Harbor, Long Island, invests in a whale firm. ( The investing ultimately returns a loss. )
1820
The Nantucket whaleship Essex is stove by a sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific. Fearing cannibals in the nearby Marquesas Islands, the majority of the crew members crowd into three little whaling boats and oral sex east on a 3,000 mile journey towards the seashore of Peru. When two of the boats are recovered closely three months later ( the one-third boat is lost ), the surviving crew members admit to sustaining themselves with the bodies of their shipmates .
1822
A Nantucket schooner, Industry, departs for the Pacific with an all-black crew .
Filling sperm oil casks, Courtesy : New Bedford Whaling Museum
1823
For the first fourth dimension, New Bedford ‘s whaling fleet exceeds that of Nantucket.
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1840
A 21-year-old Herman Melville signs aboard the whaler Acushnet out of Fairhaven. He will remain at ocean for more than three years .
1841
During a “ gam ” with the whaling vessel Lima in the South Pacific, Melville meets William Henry Chase, son of Owen Chase, who presents him with a imitate of his founder ‘s narrative .
Life in Marquesas Islands, Courtesy : Corbis
1842
In July, Melville deserts the Acushnet and spends several weeks ashore in the Marquesas Islands .
1846
Already disadvantaged by a sandbar at the mouth of its harbor ( which was prohibitive to the larger whale vessels typical of the industry ‘s Golden Age ), Nantucket is ravaged by The Great Fire. The whaling industry there will never recover .
1848
The toggle harpoon — a weapon well more effective than its flute predecessor — is invented by Lewis Temple, an african-american blacksmith .
July 1848
Sag Harbor whaling captain Thomas Welcome Roys opens the north-polar to american whalers via the Bering Straight. Arctic whale will gain increasing importance after mid-century, as the industry shifts its focus from vegetable oil to baleen .
December 1848
New Bedford artists Caleb Purrington and Benjamin Russell debut their 1,295-foot moving panorama of “ A Whaling Voyage Around the World, ” merely as popular pastime in the industry is peaking. Among the events depicted in the panorama is the force of the Essex and the mutiny aboard the whaleship Sharon of Fairhaven .
January 1849
The Nantucket whaleship Aurora sets sail for San Francisco. By December it will be abandoned in the harbor when the crew heads inland looking for gold .
October 15, 1850
An open letter submitted to the Honolulu Friend by a “ polar Whale ” laments the “ murder in cold blood ” of that whale ‘s peers, and asks, “ Must our race become extinct ? ”
1850
Because of profits from giant petroleum and whalebone, New Bedford is the wealthiest city per caput in the country .
A whale destroys a gravy boat, Courtesy : Mariner ‘s museum
August 1851
The giant embark Ann Alexander, cruising in the Pacific under Captain Deblois, becomes the moment such vessel to be stove by a whale, 30 years after the Essex .
November 1851
Moby Dick is published in the United States and Britain. It is panned by literary critics .
Melville ‘s notes about Captain Pollard, Courtesy : Houghton Library, Harvard
1853
The “ golden Age ” of american whale reaches a soaring flower. In the diligence ‘s most profitable year, sales of whale products total $ 11 million .
1858
It is reported in the Honolulu Friend that at least 42 wives have accompanied their husband-captains on whaling voyages to the Pacific. Since 1850, this exercise has been becoming more common, with many wives establishing seasonal households on Hawaii — by then an important stopping-over port for american whale vessels between cruises in the Arctic .
petroleum on a farm, Courtesy : New York Public Library
1859
After more than a class of bore, Edwin Drake ultimately discovers petroleum in Titusville, PA. Petroleum — cheaper, more abundant, and more easily obtained than giant petroleum — will soon displace whale oil in the illuminant market .
1861
The Stone Fleet, assembled of 24 New Bedford whale vessels purchased by the Union Navy, sails for Charleston, South Carolina, where it is slump en masse to blockade the harbor from runners supporting Confederate interests .
1864-1865
The confederate plunderer CSS Shenandoah terrorizes New Bedford whale vessels in the Pacific .
1871
An early winter traps 32 whale vessels — a substantial proportion of the American fleet — in the arctic ice. The crews, half of whom are native Hawaiians, are rescued, but all of the vessels are lost .
1876
Another Arctic calamity claims a further 12 whale vessels .
1879
The Mary and Helen is launched as the beginning steam-powered whaling vessel in the United States .
1886
As railroads increase the efficiency of coast-to-coast department of transportation, San Francisco passes New Bedford as the nation ‘s foremost whale port .
1891
Herman Melville dies .
Men holding whalebone bundles, Courtesy : Nantucket Historical Association
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1907
Paul Poiret, a parisian interior designer, introduces a “ slender, up-and-down ” argumentation of women ‘s clothe, undercut demand for corsets, and thereby whalebone .
1924
The New Bedford whaling vessel Wanderer is blown aground by a hurricane at Cuttyhunk in Buzzard ‘s Bay, bringing the american whale diligence to a symbolic end. The Wanderer had been embarking on the death whale voyage aboard a sail-powered vessel .
1986
The International Whaling Commission bans commercial whale after a ball-shaped anti-whaling movement in the 1970s. The ban, however, permits whaling for scientific research. This provision has allowed countries such as Japan to whale under scientific inquiry permits .