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.
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.
In 1846, seven hundred and thirty five ships and 70,000 people served the American whale oil industry.
By now 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 the word of Thomas Roy and the obvious success of his single ship.
