The New Bedford Whaling Fleet: 1790-1906

Extract

The best piece of manuscript material the Society has ever received on the whaling industry surely deserves mention here. The book was presented to the Society about a year ago by one of its members. It is a descriptive catalog of New Bedford whaling ships for the years 1790-1906, prepared by Joseph Dias of New Bedford between 1880 and 1906. He has listed some 650 ships, giving a brief history of each, including dates of various voyages, waters explored, quantities of sperm oil, whale oil and whalebone brought back, as well as the names of the captains and agents for each voyage. One of the most valuable things about this book is that it adds information to every other piece of material that we have on New Bedford whaling.