Bristol County, Massachusetts - Chapter 9, 1883

Chapter 9

The First New England Whaling - Cape Cod - Nantucket - New Bedford iu 1740 - Early Settlers - The "Teu-Acre Purchase" - Bedford Village - Growth Checked by War of Revolution - Privateers - Close of the War - Returning Prosperity - Edmund Gardner - The Ship " Rebecca" - Early Voyages - The Development of the Business - Success- Highest Point reached in 1857 - Destruction of Whalers by Confederate Cruisers - List of Vessels Destroyed - The Disaster of 1871 - The Whaling Interest in 1883.

"Whaling. - The history of the New England whale fishery is so interwoven with the history of New Bedford during the last century that they cannot be separated, and no record of the growth and business of our town and city can be complete without it. Our wealth, our population, and our progress have been the fruits of this industry, and our position and fame among the cities of the world is due to its successful prosecution.

The first whaling by New England men was doubtless done by the inhabitants of Cape Cod. In the records of Nantucket, in 1690, it is written, " One Ichabod Paddock came from Cape Cod to instruct the people in the art of killing whales." In Edward Randolph's narrative, written for the Lords of Trade in October, 1676, in describing the resources of the colony of New Plymouth, he says, " And here is made a good quantity of whale oil, which fish they take upon the coasts." The business was then carried on in boats from the shore. As early as 1715 we find the people of Nantucket pursuing the whales upon the ocean in small sloops and schooners, making voyages of a few weeks' duration, and bringing the blubber home and trying out the oil on shore.

In 1751 there were two or three vessels from Apponagansett River engaged in this fishery. These vessels were owned by John Wady and Daniel Wood. There were at this date one or two vessels in this business from the Acushnet River, owned by Joseph and Caleb Russell. Up to this time whales were principally taken between George's Bank and the Capes of Virginia, and the voyages continued from four to six weeks. Soon after the whalemen extended their cruising-grounds to the eastward of the Newfoundland coast, and the voyages were lengthened to three months.

At first more vessels were fitted from Apponagansett River than from the Acushnet, but soon the superior advantages of our harbor became apparent, and the Apponagansett vessels were fitted here.

Consider for a moment the aspect of our town when these two or three little sloops were fitting for their whaling voyages. The present site of the city

1 The following chapter was contributed by Hon. William W. Crapo, being a portion of an address delivered by him at New Bedford July 4, 1876, and is an invaluable contribution to the historic literature of the State.

was a forest. There was a " try-house" near the shore (at the foot of Centre Street), and a rough cartway led through the woods to the few farm-houses on the County road.

The Rev. Paul Coffin, who ten years later (July 21, 1761) visited the place, thus describes it in his journal: "This day rode to Dartmouth, a spacious town. Twenty miles will carry you through it. Rocks and oaks are over the whole town. Whortle bushes and rocks in this and the two former towns are the sad comfort of the weary traveler. At sunset arrived at Rev. West's."

In 17G0 there commenced an immigration to this locality which indicated that its future was to be commercial rather than agricultural. In this year Joseph Russell sold an acre of land, the first sale made from his " 800-acre" homestead estate, to John Loudon. The spot selected was a few rods south of Union Street, on South Water Street, and on it a house was erected. Mr. Loudon came from Pembroke. He was a calker by trade, and his purpose in coming here was to engage in ship-building. He was followed by Benjamin Taber, who purchased a lot of land on the north of the present Union Street, and built a shop for the purpose of carrying on boat-building and block-making, which trades he had learned at Nantucket. The same year John Allen, who was a housecarpenter, bought a lot on the east side of South Water Street, extending to the river. Upon this he built a house, which was afterwards sold to Barzillai Myrick, a ship-carpenter.

The next year (1762) Gideon Mosher,2 a mechanic, bought a lot on the north side of Union and east side of North Water, and erected a house thereon. The same year Elnathan Sampson, of Wareham, a blacksmith, purchased the lot next north of Loudon's. His lot was bounded on the " north and east on land left for ways or streets." These are now known as Union and Water Streets. His north line was eight rods in length, and his east line four rods, and the purchase money was £6 13s. id. The early settlement was at the Four Corners, as it was known and called for a hundred years. This was the centre of the young town.

I have been somewhat minute in this description of the infant settlement, in order that the industrial character of the pioneers might be noticed. The men who came here in 1760 to build up a town were mechanics. Taber, Allen, Myrick, Mosher, and Sampson were industrious and enterprising mechanics, and their descendants, inheriting their industry and enterprise, have been and are among our worthiest citizens. We may well believe that the earnestness of purpose and the devotion to their trades with which these young mechanics of one hundred years ago sought to improve their condition affected in no small degree the character of our local institutions. And we look back with satisfaction to the intelligent and industrious character of the skilled and honest artisans under whose wise influence the early settlement of our town was made.

But there was one thing wanting to promote the business of the village. Capital was needed. Joseph Russell had means, which he used in whaling and freighting, and which furnished moderate employment to the villagers. But his wealth was not large, and his operations were necessarily very limited.

The required capital, so necessary for the activity and growth of the village, came in 1765, when Joseph Rotch, an enterprising merchant of great experience and knowledge in mercantile affairs, selected our harbor as one eligible and advantageous for the prosecution of the whale fishery. This event was of the utmost importance, and this acquisition of capital, accompanied with the ripe experience, clear-headed sagacity, and skilled methods of this accomplished merchant, gave an impetus to our infant industry which insured its permanence and success.

Mr. Rotch purchased from Joseph Russell, in 1765, ten acres of land in one tract, besides a number of smaller lots in different parts of the town. The "tenacre purchase" was from the north side of the Russell farm, and next to the estate of Manasseh Kempton. It commenced on the shore where is now Hazzard's wharf, and its north line, between William Street and Elm Street, extended nearly to Pleasant Street and Cheapside. Its south line was bounded by the present estate of Willard Sears. Its river-front extended from Central wharf to the north line of Hazzard's wharf.

Up to this time the village had no distinctive name ;l it was simply a part of Dartmouth. But now its increasing importance rendered necessary a name by which the locality should be known. At the suggestion of Mr. Rotch, and as a compliment to Mr. Russell, although somewhat indirect, the village was called "Bedford." About this time there were other accessions to our business population. John Howland had moved into the village from Apponagansett, and Isaac Howland (the senior of that name) had come from Newport, bringing with him considerable capital and business enterprise. The latter gentleman resided in the most elegant and expensive house

1 That part of Dartmouth which became New Bedford was known as the Acushena country. The village which was afterwards known as Cushnet (the name is spelled in half a dozen different ways in the old records! formed one of the three territorial divisons of Dartmouth, and was thus recognized for all the purposes of municipal arrangements and taxation. The other two were Ponagansett (Dartmouth) and Coaksett (Westport).

"Cushenag" was taxed "for the publicke charges of the countrey, as they were ordered by the Court for this yeare, respecting the officers' wages and charge of the magistrate's table, £1 10 0U." This was the territory in the neighborhood of the Acushnet River. "The farmes against Road Hand" were also taxed. These " farmes" were upon that part of the territory afterwards called Dartmouth which bordered upon the province of Rhode Island. - Old Colony Records, 1661.

in the town. It was built of brick, the first of that material erected here. It was situated on Union Street, and was torn down when Cheapside was opened.

The little village of Bedford prospered. Its industries were successful, its population rapidly increased, and its merchants added largely to their wealth. The whaling voyages had been extended and new grounds had been discovered. During the ten years from 1765 to 1775 the whaling fleet had increased from two or three vessels to fifty, which were much larger and of more value. The vessels sent out to the Falkland Islands in 1774 were fitted and owned here. It was this example of New England daring and enterprise which inspired Burke in the House of Commons to utter that eloquent tribute to our victorious industry which so often has touched the pride and awakened the enthusiasm of the sons of New Bedford and Nantucket. " No ocean," says Burke, " but what is vexed with their fisheries, no climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise ever carried this perilous mode of hardy enterprise to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people, - a people who are still, as it were, in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood."

The war of the Revolution not only checked this growth, but destroyed almost entirely our business. It was useless to send vessels to sea with the danger of almost certain capture ; and if capture were avoided and a cargo obtained, with no market, since the consumers in Europe could not be reached. No town suffered more from the common hazards of the war, nor by direct depreciations of the enemy. Joseph Rotch returned to Nantucket and remained there until the war closed. Joseph Russell lost most of his property, except his real estate, and the same was true of the other merchants. The great majority of the business men of the village were Quakers, and could not conscientiously engage in the privateering adventures which otherwise, as a seafaring community, they would naturally have undertaken. But the advantages of our harbor were recognized during the war, and it was found to be a convenient port from which to fit out privateers and a safe refuge for their prizes. There were many, too, of our sailors and citizens who were quite willing to engage in this hazardous business, prompted both by its rewards and a desire to cripple the commerce of the enemy which had destroyed their peaceful employments. Before the open declaration of hostilities between the two countries, as early as May, 1774, exasperated by the capture in Buzzard's Bay of three vessels belonging to Sandwich by the British cruiser " Falcon," a schooner had been fitted out of this harbor, which recaptured two of the vessels and took as prisoners fifteen British officers and marines.

It was to punish the people of the town for their offenses in fitting out and harboring privateers, and to destroy the shipping and valuable stores which were collected here, that Maj.-Gen. Grey, under orders from Sir Henry Clinton, made the raid of Sept. 5 and 6, 1778, which destroyed a large portion of the property of the village and inflicted a blow which crippled it for years. This event, which is the most prominent one in our local Revolutionary history, is faithfully portrayed in Chapter VIII. in this work.

But at last the war was ended. When the news came to this little village that the ship "Bedford," Capt. William Mooers master, had arrived in the Downs on the 23d day of February, 1783, the very day of the signing of the preliminary treaty of peace, and had straightway proceeded to London with her cargo of five hundred and eighty-seven barrels of oil, displaying there for the first time the United States flag, with its Stars and Stripes, then the people of the village believed that peace with its blessings had come, and they were ready to begin again the work of rebuilding the town. This ship " Bedford" was built by Ichabod Thomas on North River, Pembroke, and delivered to Joseph Rotch, at Bedford, Jan. 13, 1772, as appears by the receipt, which is still extant. She was named by the owner for his adopted town, and sailed from this harbor before the war.

It was a remarkable coincidence that the war, which had been precipitated in the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor, thrown overboard from the "Dartmouth," a ship owned by Francis Rotch, of this same village, and built in 1767 at the foot of Middle Street, should have associated with its close the advent in English waters of the ship " Bedford" as the first vessel floating the American flag in any British port. The names of the mother-town and of the village are thus made memorable in our Revolutionary history.

Our municipal existence as a separate town occurred in 1787, when both New Bedford and Westport were by acts of incoporation severed from the old township of Dartmouth.

To show how carefully our fathers protected, even in their legislation, the feelings of the minority in matters of domicil and local government, let us quote a sentence from the act : " Provided, nevertheless, that any of the inhabitants now dwelling on the above-described lands, who are or may be still desirous of belonging to the town of Dartmouth, shall at any time within two years from the passing of this act, by returning their names into the secretary's office and signifying their desire of belonging to said Dartmouth, have that privilege, and shall, with their polls and estates, belong to and be a part of the said town of Dartmouth."

unpaid beef tax, so called, together with its proportion of all other debts. It was provided that the town's stock of powder and other town's property should be estimated and divided, and that New Bedford should pay to Dartmouth for the workhouse standing within the line of New Bedford.

The population of New Bedford, according to the next census taken in 1790, was three thousand three hundred and thirteen ; Dartmouth had two thousand four hundred and ninety-nine ; and Westport, two thousand four hundred and sixty-six.

The leading business men of this period were William Rotch, Sr., the wealthiest man of the town, estimated to be worth over one hundred thousand dollars, his son William Rotch, Jr., and his son-in-law, Samuel Rodman. Then followed the various members of the Russell and Howland families, Thomas Hazzard, Jr., and the Hathaways, who were all " well to do." There were others without the prestige of wealth, but yet of great influence in the town, such as Caleb Congdon and Abraham Smith, and not to be omitted, the Davis family, famous for its Quaker preachers. The wealthy people were models of industry and economy ; actuated by a sense of duty, they thought it necessary to show an example of prudence, diligence, and unostentation to others, and their influence in this regard was of the greatest benefit to the community. Their style of living was plain and rational.

In 1795 there was a Congregational meeting-house at the Head of the River and another in the Bedford village. Dr. West officiated at each on alternate Sundays.

At this time there was one doctor, Ebenezer Perry, the son of a physician, and called a "safe doctor," who charged sixpence a visit. There was only one lawyer in the village, Thomas Hammond, rarely found in his office, and concerning whom tradition says that shooting and fishing were his favorite pursuits. There was one schoolmaster, Cornelius Wing, and one schoolmistress, Temperance Jennings. Mr. Wing was preceded by William Sawyer Wall, of English birth, a person much beloved, and who exerted a great influence in the community. He was first and foremost in the educational and scientific efforts of that day, and his name appears as the first president of the Dialectic Society, the earliest literary association of the town, and which did much for its culture, refinement, and scholarship.

At the close of the war of the Revolution our people sought to regain their prosperity and commercial importance. Although crippled in resources they were not disheartened, but sought with their old vigor to re-establish their fortunes by their former pursuits upon the seas. They looked to the broad oceans, common and free to all men as the air itself, to yield them rich harvests as they had in the past.

New Bedford

British or had rotted in disuse. The British government, as if to distress us even after peace, imposed a heavy alien duty upon oil, which rendered it impossible to realize a profit from the prosecution of the business. Her policy was to force this industry to her own harbors. For a time it seemed successful, and many Nantucket and New Bedford whalemen made their voyages from English and French ports. But the persuasiveness and address of William Rotch, Sr., secured to us, first from France and then from Great Britain, the privilege of sending our oil to those countries free of duty, thereby enabling him - as one of his biographers has said - to carry on the business with the highest profit and to benefit his neighbors.

The success which attended the efforts of our citizens may be judged by the statement of vessel tonnage owned and sailing from this harbor in January, 1804. The total number of registered vessels was fifty-nine, amounting to thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty-one tons ; and of enrolled vessels there were five thousand five hundred and twenty-five tons ; making an aggregate of nineteen thousand one hundred and forty-six tons. The freighting business was quite important at that time. There were thirty ships and brigs, averaging two hundred tons burden, owned and fitted here, employed in general freighting, making their voyages to Europe, South America, and the West Indies.

But the work of developing this industry of the whale fishery during the early years of the nineteenth century was slow and difficult. The embargo came and ruined many of our merchants ; and prior to that, in 1807, in consequence of the Berlin and Milan Decrees and the Orders in Council, there were thirty ships laid up in New Bedford on account of the hazards attending them at sea.

There was no marked improvement in this business until after the close of the war of 1812. The politics of the inhabitants of New Bedford from the close of the Revolution to the war of 1812 was Federalist, and they had given bitter, decided, and partisan expression to their opinions in opposition to this latter war. This may perhaps have been influenced by the severe reverses experienced in business. Many of our ships in the Pacific were captured ; and while a few were recaptured by Porter and Downes, most of them were destroyed or used as transports by the British.

After the termination of this war. the whale fishery, especially as prosecuted at New Bedford, advanced with great rapidity and wonderful success.

But before proceeding to the local development of this industry, I desire to sketch briefly, in chronological order, the seas and oceans which had been opened in the pursuit of whales. As early as 1770, Nantucket had sought the " right" whale off Disco, in Greenland, going as high as 81° north latitude. In 1774, New Bedford had sent vessels to the Falkland Islands. In 1784 we find our New England whalemen taking seals and whales around Patagonia and in the Southern

Ocean. In 1789 they are about Madagascar and the Cape of Good Hope. In 1791 the whaleships entered the Pacific Ocean. We are told that the vessels were small, poorly fitted, and insufficiently prepared for the long and often boisterous passages around Cape Horn. But in one thing they excelled, - in the character of the men who engaged in these perilous voyages. History cannot point to an enterprise prosecuted with more vigor and courage, with more hardihood and intelligence, than that displayed by the pioneers in the Pacific whale fishery. I cannot forbear mentioning the name of one whom you all remember; for his genial, courteous manners, his kind and obliging heart, his clear comprehension and prompt decision endeared him to us who knew him in his old age, and assured us that the commendation bestowed upon him seventy years ago for " his prudence, courage, and fortitude" were richly deserved. The whale fishery has produced many noble men, but none more praiseworthy than that hero and veteran of the sea, Edmund Gardner.

It is asserted that the ship " Rebecca," of New Bedford, owned by Joseph Russell & Sons and Cornelius Howland, named for Joseph Russell's oldest daughter, the grandmother of our esteemed fellow-citizen Daniel Ricketson, was the first American whaleship that doubled Cape Horn. She sailed from this port Sept. 28, 1791, under command of Joseph Kersey, and returned with a full cargo of sperm oil, obtained on the coast of Chili, on the 23d February, 1793.

In 1800 our whalers were cruising on the coast of Peru and around the Gallapagos Islands. In 1818 they were on the " Off-shore ground." In 1820 they had captured whales on the coast of Japan. In 1836 our vessels were taking oil on Kodiak, the northwest coast of America; and in 1848 the bark "Superior," of Sag Harbor, Capt. Roys, passed through Behring Strait and opened up to us the vast wealth of the Arctic' grounds.

There are many incidents connected with the earlier voyages which deserve a permanent record, and the narrative would prove an entertaining one. I will recall one or two of the " good voyages," as they were called, of forty years ago. In October, 1838, the ship "William Hamilton," of New Bedford, owned by I. Howland, Jr., & Co., commanded by William Swain, brought home a cargo of four thousand and sixty barrels of sperm oil ; her entire catch during the voyage, including the shipment from the Western Islands on her passage out, being four thousand one hundred and eighty-one barrels of sperm oil.

Capt. Daniel Wood, remembered by many in this audience, a fine specimen of our whaling-masters, whose clear judgment and impartial decisions fitted him, after active service upon the ocean, to act as port warden in settlements between owners and underwriters, brought to New Bedford in the year 1833, in the old ship " Braganza," nearly four thousand barrels of sperm oil ; and George B. Worth, another of those generous, large-hearted old sailors, brought in the " Magnolia" to her owners three thousand four hundred and fifty-one barrels. But in those days of large " catch" there were low prices.

In the prosecution of the whale fishery New Bedford has surpassed all other places that have engaged in the business, and her increase in wealth from this cause was rapid and large. From the year 1820 until the year 1857 her prosperity and her accumulation of wealth were continuous almost without exception.

Space will not permit the detail of figures showing this wonderful increase of material prosperity. A few must serve to illustrate our progress, -

At this last-named date New Bedford was the fourth tonnage district in the United States, - New York, Boston, and New Orleans alone exceeding it. There was more than double the amount of registered tonnage owned in New Bedford that there was in Philadelphia.

About this time our people thought that the population, business, and commercial importance of the town entitled it to receive the municipal organization of a city, and New Bedford received its city charter in 1847. The town government had existed sixty years. The population had increased from three thousand to fifteen thousand. Fairhaven, which had been organized as a separate town in 1812 from the territory of New Bedford, had at this date a population exceeding four thousand, which swelled the aggregate of population residing upon the original territorial limits to over nineteen thousand.

The whaling industry of New Bedford reached its highest point, in capital, in vessels, and tonnage, in 1857. Its fleet of three hundred and twenty-nine ships and whaling outfits was worth more than twelve million of dollars and required ten thousand seamen.

The largest importations of oil and bone were in 1851 and 1853. The quantities of each, with the prices realized from their sale, were as follows :

I have mentioned the prominent merchants who were identified with the prosecution of the whale fishery in its earlier years. There are other names which should not be omitted, since the men who took the places of the pioneers achieved much of the success. John Avery Parker, George Howland, Isaac Howland, Jr., Humphrey Hathaway, John and James Howland, and William C. Nye were men of great business sagacity, financial skill, painstaking industry, and unquestioned integrity. The large fortunes left behind by many of them show how fully these qualities had been exercised and how abundantly rewarded. From 1824 to 1830 there were new counting-rooms opened, representing what was then called the "middling interest," and, occupied by Abraham Barker, David R. Greene, Joseph Bourne, Alfred Gibbs, and others. These men boldly claimed a share of the whaling business, and aided materially in making its progress continuous and rapid. We have also active whaling merchants of the present day, [><>s-essing the venturesome business enterprise of their predecessors.

Two events, although comparatively recent, must be mentioned in order to render complete the history of our fishery, - the depredations by the rebel cruisers during the war of the Rebellion and the loss of our Arctic fleet in 1871.

Early in our civil war the torch of the rebel cruisers carried dismay in our whaling fleets. In the summer of 1862 the Confederate steamer " Alabama," under command of Admiral Semmes, in the vicinity of the Azores, burned many of our vessels, and during the war the " Florida" and " Sumter" added to the destruction. But the great loss occurred in June, 1865, when the "Shenandoah," having recruited at Melbourne for an Arctic cruise, entered into Behring Strait. Here the unsuspecting whalemen, pursuing their vocation amid the ice and fogs of that frozen region, were suddenly met by a danger which they could neither resist nor avoid. This armed steamer, the "Shenandoah," Capt. Waddell, was in their midst, and the work of destruction was rapid and thorough. Twenty-five ships, most of them of large size, were captured and burned, besides four others captured but bonded by the privateer for the purpose of furnishing transportation to some friendly port for the eight hundred sailor prisoners, who with sad hearts, fifteen thousand miles from home, had seen their burning ships, with the products of their toil and danger and their prospective hopes of success, sinking beneath the waves.

Among the incidents of this rebel raid should be mentioned the praiseworthy action of Capt. Ebenezer Nye, of the " Abigail," after the loss of his ship, in saving, as far as possible, the fleet from destruction. The "Milo" had been captured and bonded, and had received on board a large number of prisoners. During the following night Capt. Nye organized an expedition of two boats, and at early dawn left the

" Milo." While the " Shenandoah" was pursuing her piratical work, these brave men, following along the fields of ice, pulled north in their open boats one hundred and eighty miles, and there found a number of defenseless whalers, giving them the information which saved them from capture. It was a gallant act, prompted by the humanity and executed with the cool determination of the hardy sailors.

Fifty whaling vessels were captured by the rebel cruisers, of which forty-six, with outfits and cargoes, were burned. Of this number twenty-eight sailed from and were owned in New Bedford. The loss of ships and outfits belonging here exceeded one milUon of dollars, and of oil and bone on board four hundred thousand dollars.

Following is a list of whaling vessels destroyed by the " Alabama" and other rebel cruisers during the Rebellion, with the amount of oil on board. All except the first three named were captured by vessels fitted out from the British dominions.

But the most memorable of all the disasters which have attended this perilous business was that of September, 1871, when in a single day thirty-three ships were abandoned in the Arctic Ocean, hopelessly crushed or environed in the ice. This large fleet of the most costly ships in tlje service, caught between the jaws of the ice floes, drifted with the westerly gales until the immense fields of ice reached the shore, when they were crushed like egg-shells. It was a sad and terrible calamity, not merely in its loss of property, but more in the hardship and suffering of twelve hundred shipwrecked men. Hemmed in' by the ice which lines the shores of a barren country, where neither food nor fuel could be obtained, these men well knew that if driven upon the beach, ten or eleven dreary winter months must elapse before assistance could reach them, and that in the long interval death would come to most of them by starvation or cold. In their peril an expedition of three boats was fitted out under command of Capt. Frazier, of the " Florida," to go south over the ice, and if possible find vessels in the open sea. The written appeal for relief which these shipwrecked captains sent to whoever it might reach was full of touching, pathetic eloquence. It was the appeal of brave men in distress to brave men who could realize the fearful peril.

A toilsome and anxious journey of seventy miles between packs of ice brought the little expedition to the open sea south of Icy Cape, and there the sight of ships gladdened their hearts. It needed no appeal for succor, no promise of reward, for the warm hearts of brother-sailors were ready to save their comrades, although at the heavy loss of an abandonment of their own voyages and the earnings of a year. Capt. Frazier returned to the wrecks off Point Belcher with the joyous tidings of relief, and these twelve hundred men, taking with them in boats such provisions as they could carry, made their way over and through the ice fields to the rescuing vessels without the loss of one of their number.

Of the thirty-three vessels crushed or abandoned, twenty-two belonged in New Bedford, and were valued, with outfits, without the oil and bone on board, at one million and ninety thousand dollars.

Whaling reached its culminating point in 1856 or 1857. Since then it has declined, and now our fleet numbers only about one-third of the vessels it once did. There have been disasters in connection with this pursuit, The captures by the English in the war of 1812, the captures by rebel cruisers, and the loss of the Arctic fleet were heavy blows. Natural causes, which need not be mentioned, have led to its depression, almost to its downfall. But the historical fact which interests us is that New Bedford has been built up by the whale fishery. A large share of the wealth of to-day comes from this source. It has made our community what it is.

This large accumulation of wealth has been obtained by the well-directed enterprise and persevering industry of the people of New Bedford, and belongs to the people of New Bedford. The capital of non-residents has not aided us. It has been drawn from the broad fields of the ocean with much toil and manifold dangers, with perils from the ice and fogs and storms of frozen regions, and exposure and disease under the hot burning sun of the equator. It has been a creation of wealth by the skill of the merchant and the hardy daring of the sailor, and not a mere exchange of wealth. Without surveys of the seas and bays which it made its cruising-grounds, - for our brave seamen went in advance of exploration, - without bounties, without aid from government, but contributing largely to it in its consumption of dutiable articles, and overcoming European competition, the people of New Bedford obtained the control of the whale fishery, and made their city the great whale-oil market of the world. Few parallels can be found in this or any country of such successful enterprise.

There are now but about fifteen hundred barrels of crude Southern whale-oil in the country, the only holders being J. & W. R. Wing, I. H. Bartlett & Sons, and Taber, Gordon & Co., all of New Bedford, besides one small lot in Provincetown. This is used to a considerable extent for oiling stock in cordageworks. Northern whale-oil is almost as scarce, the holders being J. & W. R. Wing, Jonathan Bourne, aud Swift & Allen, of New Bedford, and Hernan Smith, of Boston, with a total of about two thousand eight hundred barrels. Mr. Smith's oil, some two hundred and fifty barrels, has been on hand about ten vears.