Samantha Hallowell & Annie Wilson
Men carrying a whale fin, Ragged Island, 1927
Item Contributed by
Maine Historical Society/MaineToday Media
Whaling was not a big industry in Hallowell, or in Maine for that matter. Although whaling ships were built here and used in Massachusetts, only four or five of them ever left a Maine port to go on a whaling voyage. In William A. Bakers book, “A Maritime History of Bath, Maine, and the Kennebec River Region” he writes that in 1851, Captain Job Pierce, who was an experienced whale hunter built a clipper-built, schooner-rigged whaler. The name of this ship was the Lively, which weighed 102-tons. “Those that stayed with the schooner until 10 October 1852 went to their deaths”, says Bakers, "On that day the bark Anna of Bremen sent a boat to investigate a capsized schooner off Bermuda in a region swept by heavy gales two days earlier. The wreck was that of the Chelsea-built whaler.” The ships managing owner was Job Pierce, and the captain was John Johnson. The register length of the Lively was 68’4”, the breadth was 22’4 1/2”, and the depth of hold was 7’11”. The Lively never returned from its first voyage.
Eben Pierce, from Hallowell, was the creator of the “bomb lance” harpoon, which is a whaling tool that has been used since 1865. It is the deadliest whaling weapon that had ever been used. These are methods and tools used to whale. The first European whalers were the Basques, from the Bay of Biscay. The first known method for whaling is driving the whales into the shallow water by frightening them with loud noises. Once the whales were within reach, the whalers killed them. The species that the whalers did this with were small, such as the Pilot Whale, Beluga, Porpoise and Narwhal. The next method that was used was using a tool called a drogue, which is a wooden drum or inflated sealskin, that they tied to an arrow or harpoon so the whale would be tired enough so the could kill it. This method was used as early as 6000 B.C. in South Korea. Whaling with drogues was especially practiced by the Ainu, Inuit, Native Americans and people of the Bay of Biscay. Rock carvings have shown several whales being surrounded by boats as if they were being whaled.
During the 11th century, the Basques realized that the whales could be used for their blubber and their meat. The blubber was used for lighting fuel and the meat was eaten. Whaling became a highly organized business by the 12th century. The Basques built stone watchtowers and once a whale was spotted, an alarm was sounded and twenty or so villagers would head out to get the whale. They would share the rewards, except for the tongue, which was given to the church as a favored delicacy. Soon after, the British and the Dutch began whaling. For years they used Basques as expert whalers on their ships.
Whale oil is rarely used today, so modern whaling is mainly hunting the whales for food, as well as scientific research purposes. The main species of whales that are hunted are the Common Minke Whale and the Antarctic Minke Whale. Many began joining in against whaling, with many species of whales being in danger of extinction. This caused the beginning of the global anti-whaling movement in the 1970’s. The United Nations Conference of the Human Environment at Stockholm adopted a ten year moratorium on commercial whaling to allow the whale stocks to recover.
