Whaling enters the story of Nantucket. This is a paraphrase of Philbrick’s “Away Off Shore” Chapter 7

Listen to the story of Ichabod Paddock. Remember the skills we learned when we were studying the Indian myths.

What facts does the story tell us?

What attitudes does the story reveal?

Read the following passage and answer the following questions.

Supposedly, the first whaleman on Nantucket was Ichabod Paddock. Ichabod arrived from Yarmouth in 1690 and brought with him that most “sanguinary activity” of whaling.

In 1660 or so, a gray whale swam into Nantucket Harbor and got lost. It swam up to Wauwinet and back, blowing spray and thrashing around. The settlers were a little puzzled. At that time, whales often washed up on the southwestern shores of the island. Drift whales, as these were called, were the property of the Indians to do with what they would. With this live whale, an industrious islander stood on Coatue and killed him with a harpoon.

This dead whale gave many of the town fathers some bright ideas. In 1640, they approached two men from Long Island and offered them land in order to set-up a whaling business on island. Long Island Indians were the finest whalemen of the time. However, they didn’t come out.

By 1690, Nantucketers needed something. With the population of whites and Indians increasing, the pressure grew heavy on the island’s limited natural resources. Farming was not a successful activity out here, nor was sheep herding. In this year, 28 year old Ichabod Paddock came out and started whaling.

The potential must have been enormous. He was an opportunity to make big money off of whale oil. Further, all of the island youth now had a place to work other than the fields and pasture lands. The myth goes that some Nantucketers were on a hill on the south side of the island (Ram Pasture?) and saw the whales off shore. One of them observed “There is the green pasture where our children’s grandchildren shall go for bread.”

By 1700, everyone who could, was out whaling. The island had fortuitously become a part of Massachusetts, where there was no tax on whale oil. Whaling went from November to April, which played nicely with the farming seasons. Indians, in particular, took to whaling. First, it gave them the opportunity to make four times what a white sailor might make in Boston. Second, if they were good at it, they could even head the boat. They could compete with the white settlers here. Naturally, as the number of natives shrank and the whales increased, the whaling masters went to the “debt-service” slavery that they had used so effectively.

Whaling was a crude affair back then. According to Crevecoeur, the south side of the island was divided into four equal parts. Each part had six men assigned to it. One man would be up on a mast, looking out for whales, while the other five sat in a hut. When a whale was spotted, the spotter came down from the mast and all six launched the whaleboat. Whaleboats in this time were about twenty feet long, open, and double ended.

They generally hunted the “Right Whale” so-named because it floated after it was killed. The crew would harpoon the whale, then drag it back to the beach. Once there, they would shave the fat off the whale, boil it and prepare it for market. This process could take a day or so and was ironically called “saving the whale.”

The crew was paid in a creative and rewarding system; the “lay system.” Beforehand, each member of the team would be allotted a share of the oil and bone taken from the whale. As a result, everyone had an incentive to take the heavy risks necessary for killing a whale. According to tradition, however, no Nantucket whaleman was ever lost in this form of whaling. (As to Indians, tradition doesn’t speak)

The biggest year these along-shore whalers had was 1726 when 86 whales were taken, with 11 taken on a single day. One whale would provide about half a year’s wages for an average landsman, so 1726 was a very good year indeed. However, you can’t land all these whales without demolishing the fishery. By 1760, the right whales disappeared from the waters of Nantucket.

In the early 1700’s, a sperm whale washed up at Cisco. Everyone got excited when the head was cut open and “sperm” was discovered. In 1712, a Nantucketer and his whaleboat crew got blown out to sea and into a pod of sperm whales. The man (a “Hussey”) harpooned one, brought it to shore and the fishery got a shot in the arm.

Sperm Whales swam further from shore, fought harder in the water, and tended to sink. Therefore, Nantucketers went after them in larger boats; 30 ton sloops. The ship owner now took half of the cut, and let the sailors split the rest of the “lays.” It was in the shipowners financial interest to do all the purifying of the whale oil. So, a whaler would sail from the harbor, nail a whale, pull the blubber off out in the middle of the Atlantic, then sail back to the harbor for the fat to be boiled down into oil. The owners made money two ways. First, they made money from owning the ship. Second, they made money from processing the oil itself. As a result, the sailors did not get rich, but the owners did.

The off shore business did a brisk business. In 1715, there were 6 sloops that brought in 600 barrels of oil. By 1730, 25 boats brought in 3700 barrels of oil. In 1748, 60 sloops brought in 11,250 barrels.

Whaling is notable not only for the money that the island made, but also for the teamwork between English and Indian. On a whaleboat, both were treated relatively equally. After Nantucket Indians faded out of whaling, their terms continued to be used. Even the image of the silent, taciturn Nantucket whaler probably owes a lot to the Native American element.

Answer the following questions fully.