History of the American Whale Oil Industry

Humans have been hunting whales for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence from Ulsan in South Korea suggests that drogues, harpoons and lines attached to boats and flotsam, were being used to kill small whales as early as 6000BC. Petroglyphs and carved rocks unearthed by researchers at the Museum of Kyungpook National University show Sperm Whales, Humpback Whales and North Pacific Right Whales surrounded by small boats filled with courageous people. Similarly-aged cetacean bones were also found in the area, reflecting the importance of whale meat in the diet of their coastal peoples.

 
Also called train oil, the words ‘whale oil’ have come to mean any oil derived from any species of whale, including sperm oil from sperm whales, train oil from baleen whales, and melon oil from small toothed whales. The Americans have hunted whales for over three hundred years – some of today’s largest and most successful energy firms trafficked in whale oil in the late 1800’s. Research Paragon Oil.

 
The towns of Long Island are believed to have been the first to establish a whale fishery along the shores of New England sometime around 1650. Nantucket joined the trade in 1690 when they welcomed Ichabod Padduck from England to instruct colonists in the methods of whaling. The south side of the island had wooden towers erected from which men could stand and survey the ocean – they would use lenses to look for the spouts of right whales. When they spotted such spouts they would sound a signal and small wooden boats filled with eager sailors would row against the surf toward powerful prey. If the whale was successfully harpooned and lanced to death, it was towed ashore, flensed (the blubber is removed), and the oily flesh boiled in cauldrons known as "trypots." Even when Nantucket sent out vessels to fish for whales offshore, they would still come to the shore to boil the blubber – American whalers did this well into the 18th century.

 
In 1715, Nantucket had six sloops engaged in the whale fishery, and by 1730 it had twenty-five vessels of 38 to 50 tons employed in the trade. Each vessel employed twelve to thirteen men, half of them being Native Americans. At times the whole crew, with the exception of the captain, could be natives. Most Captains operated two whaleboats, one often held in reserve should the other be damaged by an angry whale.

 
The Revolutionary War brought the Yankee whale oil industry to a complete standstill in 1778, and it wasn’t until after the War of 1812 that the industry regained its former importance and New England registers listed more than two hundred vessels.

In 1820, the American whaler Maro, with Captain Joseph Allen in command fished off of the coast of Japan and enjoyed much success. The previous year the first Yankee whale ships had visited the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, and subsequently these island's ports were used as places to obtained fresh fruits, vegetables, and men. Dry docks built here were used to repair damages sustained to whaling ships and the success of Hawaii today was founded in the whale oil industry yesterday.

There are records from Sydney Australia harbor master that give the size and description of various whaling ships from 1834. That was the year that the indigenous people of New Zealand raided the 'Whaling Stations' build on a nearby islands. Here in Sydney is an American vessel from New Bedford named the Juno and her 'hold full to capacity with nearly 1000 barrels of oil procured from her whale hunt along the New Zealand coast'.

In 1846, the total American whale oil industry numbered seven hundred and thirty five ships and 70,000 people. By the 1840's, the whale oil refining or flensing was done right inside the ships, which became more industrialized. Bright honey yellow to brown oil was rendered from the mammals’ fatty tissue on the upper-most deck of the boat and barreled below. This precious commodity would be stored in wooden casks until the cargo hold was full, at which point the whaler would turn around and head for home. Some voyages lasted over three years.

 
From 1820 to 1855 this combustible animal oil product was bottled and sold at a good profit in Boston and New York markets; demand increased as the world’s whale population was steadily reduced. Thomas Welcome Roys, in the Sag Harbor bark Superior, sailed through the Bering Strait in late July 1848 and discovered an abundance of "new fangled monsters," which were later to be known as bowheads. Bowheads are large, blue-black whales.  They form white blotches on the lower jaw as they get older.  Males can measure up to 20 m in length and weigh up to 70 tonnes. Their name comes from their upper jaw, which is curved upward like a bow. Whalers called bowheads “right” whales because they were slow and they floated when killed, making them the “right” whales to hunt. 

 

Bowhead whales were prized catches because they yielded a large amount of blubber, sometimes more than 35 tonnes, and large baleen plates, which could measure up to 4m.  In the 19th century, baleen was much sought after because it had many of the same uses that plastic does today. In 1849, the following season, fifty whalers (forty-six Yankee, two German, and two French vessels) sailed to the Bering Strait region on the word of Thomas Roy and the obvious success of his single ship.

The peak period, in terms of number of vessels and whales killed, was reached in 1852, when 220 ships killed 2,682 bowheads. Catches declined, and the fleet shifted to the Sea of

Okhotsk for the 1855-57 seasons, and once that area began to decline, they returned to the Bering Strait region.

During the winter, some of these same vessels would make their way to the lagoons of Baja California. The peak began in 1855, commencing the period of lagoon whaling known as the "bonanza period," when whaleboats were crisscrossing through the lagoons, being pulled by engaged whales, passing by calves that had lost their mothers and other ship's crews hunting whales. Less than twenty years later, in 1874, the lagoon fishery was abandoned entirely, due to several years of poor catches.

Several American ships were lost during the 1860s and 1870s. During the Civil War (1861-1865) Confederate raiders such as the Shenandoah, Alabama, and Florida captured or burned forty-six ships, while the United States purchased forty of the fleet's oldest hulls. known as the Stone Fleet, to sink in Charleston and Savannah harbors in a failed attempt to blockade those ports. In 1871, thirty-two of the forty whalers comprising the Arctic fleet were lost near Point Belcher and Wainwright Inlet, while another twelve ships were damaged.

Stop commercial whaling because Fuel Ghoul loves whales.

If you love whales and want to stop commercial whaling, visit the Care2 site and sign this petition.

 

Comments

[Ben]

Excellent article Mr Ghoul! Are we going to get a part two that details the end of commercial whaling in the US? There are loads of whale links floating about (boom boom) at the minute. Did you see the Greenpeace name-a-whale campaign?

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/whaling/great-whale-trail/gwt-vote

[Steve]

One of the reasons I enjoy just spending time reading other blogs is I learn something new , thanks for helping me gain a better understanding

steve

[Jrayrice]

Excellent article!

Thanks!

[TE]

Wow. One day of "learning" on wikipedia, huh? You practically copied much of the Wikipedia page on the history of whaling word for word. Very original.

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