The pursuit of whales and their lucrative by-products was the primary business of Nantucket from the 1690s until the 1850s, and in the mid-1700s, Nantucket was the whaling capital of the world. This topic explores the wide and varied subject of Nantucket whaling.
- William Owen: Holokahiki
A holokahiki is a Hawaiian mariner who has journeyed to distant lands. William Owen was one of many Native Hawaiians...More Read more from William Owen: Holokahiki - Notes about Cape Verdeans on Nantucket
Whaling Between the 1790s and the 1850s, outward-bound Nantucket whaleships stopped at the Cape Verde Islands to provision and recruit...More Read more from Notes about Cape Verdeans on Nantucket - When Did Nantucketers Begin Whaling?
The English settlement of Nantucket began in 1659, and for its first decades the community comprised small farmers, fishermen, and...More Read more from When Did Nantucketers Begin Whaling? - Helen Marshall
Young Helen Marshall (1851–1939) joined her family aboard the 1856–61 voyage of the whaling bark Aurora. Helen’s father, Joseph Marshall...More Read more from Helen Marshall - Azubah Cash Aboard the Ship Columbia
Azubah Bearse (Handy) Cash (1820–1894), the wife of whaling master William Cash (1816–1882), accompanied her husband on the 1850–54 voyage...More Read more from Azubah Cash Aboard the Ship Columbia - The Nantucket Girl’s Song
I have made up my mind now to be a Sailor’s wife, To have a purse full of money and...More Read more from The Nantucket Girl’s Song - On-Shore Industries During the Whaling Period
Looking at Nantucket’s picturesque harbor, it is hard to imagine what Nantucket looked like during the heyday of whaling. The...More Read more from On-Shore Industries During the Whaling Period - The Rotch Family and Nantucket Whaling: Selected Stories
Introduction Members of the Rotch family dominated Nantucket business and politics across three generations. The rise of this family was...More Read more from The Rotch Family and Nantucket Whaling: Selected Stories - What were the camels?
The camels were a sort of floating dry dock devised to lift heavily laden whaleships up and over the sandbar...More Read more from What were the camels? - The Canacka Boarding House
The Canacka Boarding House served transient seamen from the Pacific Islands while they were on Nantucket. It was located somewhere...More Read more from The Canacka Boarding House - Whale Oil Gus
Augustus Eliot Folger was born to whaling captain Henry B. Folger and Sarah (Swain) Folger on February 10, 1852, in...More Read more from Whale Oil Gus - Why did Nantucketers stop whaling?
Many factors combined to end island whaling. Nantucket was the nation’s leading whaling port until the mid-1830s, when New Bedford...More Read more from Why did Nantucketers stop whaling? - Identifying the ship Eliza of Nantucket
Many Nantucket vessels made sealing voyages to the southeastern and southwestern coasts of South America between 1793 and 1821, with...More Read more from Identifying the ship Eliza of Nantucket - “My Yale College and My Harvard”: The Writing of Herman Melville’s Sea Works
A WHALE-SHIP WAS MY YALE COLLEGE and my Harvard,” Herman Melville writes in Moby-Dick (ch. 24). Of course, it wasn’t...More Read more from “My Yale College and My Harvard”: The Writing of Herman Melville’s Sea Works - A Most Accomplished Captain
Benjamin Worth (1767–1848) worked at sea from 1783 to 1824—sailing nearly 880,000 miles on at least 21 voyages across 41...More Read more from A Most Accomplished Captain - A Sounding Lead on a Distant Reef, Captain Pollard’s Lessons Learned
One of the more ironic and emotionally charged artifacts to be discovered at a shipwreck site is a sounding lead,...More Read more from A Sounding Lead on a Distant Reef, Captain Pollard’s Lessons Learned - At What Cost? Mariners Lost at Sea
Only Ishmael survived the voyage of the Pequod, his shipmates perishing from Ahab’s maniacal pursuit of the white whale. To...More Read more from At What Cost? Mariners Lost at Sea - Besides going whaling, what else did Nantucketers do?
Back on the island, the economy was centered on the whale fishery, with ropewalks, cooperages, blacksmith and boatbuilding shops, ship...More Read more from Besides going whaling, what else did Nantucketers do? - Biographical Sketch of Joseph W. Plasket
Joseph William Plasket (June 2, 1775–April 19, 1827) was a master mariner who resided for most of his life in...More Read more from Biographical Sketch of Joseph W. Plasket - Lost and Found in Papahanaumokuakea Marine Nantucket Monument: The Possible Wreck Site of the Nantucket Whaleship Two Brothers
Many are familiar with the fate of the Nantucket whaleship Essex, stove by a whale in the Pacific Ocean and...More Read more from Lost and Found in Papahanaumokuakea Marine Nantucket Monument: The Possible Wreck Site of the Nantucket Whaleship Two Brothers - Cannibalism and “Custom of the Sea”
Life at sea occasionally ended in tragedy. When vessels foundered in the age of sail, and crews found themselves in...More Read more from Cannibalism and “Custom of the Sea” - Nantucket’s Long Island Connection
What did James Loper and Ichabod Paddock contribute to the development of the Nantucket whaling industry? Very little! In the...More Read more from Nantucket’s Long Island Connection - Native Hawaiian Whalers in Nantucket, 1820-60
The manuscript collections in the Nantucket Historical Association Research Library contain a rich history of the more than three hundred...More Read more from Native Hawaiian Whalers in Nantucket, 1820-60 - Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and the NHA’s Whaling Logs: Some Comparisons
In 1998, the NHA initiated a project to index the Nantucket whaling logs held in its archives and to make...More Read more from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and the NHA’s Whaling Logs: Some Comparisons - Whalemen Ashore
Just as Melville in Moby-Dick describes boarding houses for seamen ashore, Nantucket provided short-term lodgings. Having left the sea, Captain...More Read more from Whalemen Ashore - The Pequod’s, and Nantucket’s, Multiethnic Whalers
Just as aboard the fictional Pequod, the crews of Nantucket whaleships were multiethnic. On the outside wall of the Nantucket...More Read more from The Pequod’s, and Nantucket’s, Multiethnic Whalers - Of Melville, Tortoises, and the Galapagos
The Galápagos Islands were a world ravaged by whalemen. One such whaleman was Herman Melville, who wrote of the islands...More Read more from Of Melville, Tortoises, and the Galapagos - Pie Crimpers
Pie crimpers are devices for adding a decorative edge to a pie crust. They are sometimes called jagging wheels, after...More Read more from Pie Crimpers - Right Whales and Nantucket
At the end of fall, and with the winter months approaching, some Nantucketers plan their migration to warmer weather for...More Read more from Right Whales and Nantucket - Rotch Counting House and Pacific Club
Dear Libby, I am researching Massachusetts courthouses. Do your records show who built the 1772 Nantucket Courthouse at Water Street...More Read more from Rotch Counting House and Pacific Club - Ships of the Boston Tea Party: Eleanor, Beaver, and Dartmouth
The Boston Tea Party was the culmination of a series of events that steadily aroused the ire of colonists who...More Read more from Ships of the Boston Tea Party: Eleanor, Beaver, and Dartmouth - Shipwrecks
Shipwrecks sometimes ruined whaling careers. For George Pollard, Nantucket whaler and captain of the Essex, the proverbial lightning struck twice....More Read more from Shipwrecks - Short Lays on Greasy Voyages: Whaling and Venture Capital
Jonas Peter Akins teaches at Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut and, with Professor Tom Nicholas, is the author of the...More Read more from Short Lays on Greasy Voyages: Whaling and Venture Capital - The Earliest Picture of the Essex Disaster
The gruesome fate of the Nantucket whaleship Essex forms the core of the most dramatic episode in American whaling....More Read more from The Earliest Picture of the Essex Disaster - The Second Voyage of Charles Ramsdell
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2021 issue of Historic Nantucket. Charles Ramsdell is remembered in Nantucket history as...More Read more from The Second Voyage of Charles Ramsdell - The Spermaceti Candle Factory Industry in American Economic History
Recording of the The Spermaceti Candle Factory Industry in American Economic History lecuture given at the Oil, Business & Blubber...More Read more from The Spermaceti Candle Factory Industry in American Economic History - The Unemployable Herman Melville
After all this time, we are still learning a little more about Herman Melville’s decision to sign on a whaleship...More Read more from The Unemployable Herman Melville - Thomas Nickerson’s Account of the Wreck of the Two Brothers
After surviving the harrowing ordeal of the whaleship Essex, Captain George Pollard Jr. returned to Nantucket aboard the whaleship Two...More Read more from Thomas Nickerson’s Account of the Wreck of the Two Brothers - Threats to North Atlantic Right Whales
Recording of the North Atlantic Right Whales: On the Path to Extinction lecture held at the Whaling Museum on Thursday, August 30,...More Read more from Threats to North Atlantic Right Whales - Were there Pacific Islanders on Nantucket?
Herman Melville writes of Pacific Islanders like Queequeg on the streets of New Bedford during the whaling era. Were there...More Read more from Were there Pacific Islanders on Nantucket? - Whaling Crew Diversity
Melville gave his Pequod a diverse crew, mentioning 44 men from the U.S., northern and southern Europe, South America, Iceland,...More Read more from Whaling Crew Diversity - What did James Loper and Ichabod Paddock contribute to the development of the Nantucket whaling industry?
Very little. In the summer of 1672 the town offered two grants to off-islanders to contribute their special skills to...More Read more from What did James Loper and Ichabod Paddock contribute to the development of the Nantucket whaling industry?