Old documents reveal business of whaling
Date August 18, 2005
Captain Ahab was obsessed with the pursuit of but one whale, Moby Dick. Michael Dyer, head librarian at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, is consumed with unlocking the business aspects of the entire 19th century whaling industry. And like Ahab, he got more than he bargained for.
"I've been studying whaling history for 12 years in two of the best collections in the world," Mr. Dyer said to a full crew at the June 16 Westport Historical Society meeting. "I thought I had a pretty good idea of what was going on in Yankee whaling. And I'm here to tell ya that I got it all wrong!" he said with a grin, adding that he was in good company.
"And not just me. Hohman got it wrong, too!"
Mr. Dyer was referring to Elmo Hohman, whose 1928 book "The American Whaleman" is considered the most authoritative source about American whaling.
Mr. Dyer launched into a wide-ranging one-hour discussion titled "An Introduction to the Business of Whaling, 1819-1870". He read excerpts from letters, journals, and log books of sea captains and businessmen, showed a handful of slides of old drawings and engravings that reveal details about activity at the whale docks, and displayed an implement he thinks was the most important tool in the whaling industry.
Comparing the whaling industry to an octopus, he said "It has tentacles that go all the way from Bremen, to Charleston to New Orleans to Albany to Boston to New York City to Philadelphia and Belfast and Rotterdam and Liverpool and London. And these are only the ones I found since last week."
Mr. Dyer said the whale business was one of the mainstays of the economy in the 19th century. There were hundreds of wholesale or retail whale oil merchants on the East Coast. In 1837 there were 17 candle houses in New Bedford alone.
"The network of firms and individuals is so complex it may never be completely understood," Mr.Dyer said.
Mr. Dyer said scholars would have to travel to ports where whale products were shipped along the East Coast and to Europe to find mercantile records that would show the extent to which the whale business impacted the global economy.
Until recently, Mr. Dyer agreed with historian Elmo Hohman's assertion that the cost of labor was one of the most important financial aspects of the whaling industry. However, he was surprised to find a fact to the contrary in a letter written by John Avery Parker, a prominent New Bedford businessman involved in mercantile whaling and ship building. Mr. Parker wrote that out of a voyage in which the value of the product was $20,000, the crew might be paid $6,000.
Mr. Parker, who was reputedly run out of Westport for financial problems, was obviously having no difficulty in New Bedford and seemed to be turning a tidy profit with his whale boats.
Mr. Parker, who was in business from 1803 until his death in 1853, left nothing to chance and wrote thick letters of instruction to his captains. He wrote to the master of the ship Alexander "Try not to go anywhere where the men are going to want to desert. Spend as much time cruising for sperm whales in the Atlantic as you can prudently and then have time to reach the Arctic Ocean in time for Right Whales."
"Now I'm going to shock you," Mr. Dyer said. "I believe this was the most important tool in the whaling industry." he said as he held aloft a long wooden rod. The gauging rod, as it was called, was inserted into the whale barrel to determine how many gallons of whale oil it contained and therefore how much money the owner would make from a voyage.
Mr. Dyer believes that the actual process of refining whale oil will never be known. "They were essentially trade secrets. That was how these men made their living and they weren't about to share the process. "Whale oil had scores of uses, including soap making to sewing machine oil to fuel to keep lighthouse beacons burning day and night.
The whaling business was hazardous and called for men who weren't averse to taking risks with their money. Shipwrecks and mutinies were not uncommon. To extend their control of the business, some of these men owned the insurance companies that insured the boats, the cordage companies that fitted them out, and the banks which helped finance them.
"The business end of the whaling industry is the Mt Everest of its era," Mr. Dyer said, and it will take him years to climb high enough to get a comprehensive view of it.
Kate Cory research
Part of Mr. Dyer's research uncovered details about the fate of the Kate Cory, a 132 ton whaling brig built in Westport in 1856. During the civil war, the master of a Confederate privateer named the CSS Alabama targeted Union whale ships because, Mr. Dyer said, "He knew it would put a major hurt on the economy of New England by targeting the whale oil industry."
In 1863, the Alabama found the Kate Cory off the coast of Brazil and sank her and her cargo.
The facts Mr. Dyer spouted could be a terrific basis for a math class. A whale ship like the Lorenzo could carry up to 2800 barrels of oil. The average harvest of a sperm whale was 40 barrels of oil. A full barrel contained 31.5 gallons. If half of the Lorenzo's cargo was sperm oil selling at 90 cents a gallon, it had a retail value of $39,690. A captain's share was often one barrel for every 16 barrels, while a lowly greenhand would earn one barrel for each 200 for a four year voyage.
BY PAUL TAMBURELLO
[email protected]
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