Whaling

This colorful period in Sag Harbor's history began early in the 17th century. Whale fishing, just off the Long Island coast, was actually begun by the Indians, who in frail canoes chased the Leviathan of the deep and killed him with primitive spears and harpoons. Knowing the tides and currents, the Indians soon had the dead whale on the beach.

Unfortunately, the white man took a rather dim view of the whale carcasses in various stages of decomposition littering the beaches, and in 1648 regulations were made and enforced with regard to the disposition of whales "cast up on the beach". Soon thereafter, the early settlers formed whaling companies and proceeded farther out to sea. No longer were drift whales plentiful. In 1667 we have the first recorded date of an actual whaling ship setting out, "for the term of six months certain and eight months uncertain".

In the early 1800's Sag Harbor became the prime port (with New Bedford, Connecticut and Salem, Massachusetts) for the whaling industry. The whaling industry progressed at a rapid rate to its peak in 1847. During the ten year period 1837-1847 over six million dollars worth of cargo was brought into the ports of Sag Harbor and Green port. Fifty ships called Sag Harbor their home port while Greenport, our North Fork neighbor, had a fleet of eleven.

Many mementos of the era survive in Sag Harbor - many are in the Whaling Museum, the Custom House, and in private homes. A tribute to those men "who searched out and killed the Leviathan of the deep" in the form of the 'Broken Mast' monument in Oakland Cemetery is well worth seeing. The last home with a "Widow's Walk" exists atop the former Napier house on Main St.. When a vessel was due in port, the Captain's wife would pace this area waiting for the cry "Flag on the mill - ship in the bay!" When an entering ship was sighted, a flag was flown atop the Beebe mill on Suffolk St., this being the signal that another whale ship had returned home. The overjoyed villagers would rush down to the Long Wharf to greet their relatives and friends.

In 1849 most of the Sag Harbor fleet of 63 whaling vessels rounded Cape Horn, bound for San Francisco. Most of them never came back.

• 1775 - Sag Harbor's pioneering whaling ship, the brig Lucy, embarks during the winter, returning the following spring with 300 barrels of whale oil.  The same year, the first well-equipped whale boat, The Hope, owned by the Gardiner family, departs the Harbor.  The trip was a financial failure.
• 1817 - The Argonaut becomes the first of Sag Harbor's sailing fleet to round Cape Horn, South America.
• 1844 - Harbor ship The Manhattan, under the leadership of Southampton Captain Mercator Cooper, becomes the first American vessel to anchor in a Japanese port.
• 1845 - The Harbor's whaling industry reaches its peak, with 63 vessels in its fleet and 12 large shipping firms in business.
• 1848 - The first ship to go through the arctic's Bering Strait is Sag Harbor's bark, The Superior.
• 1851 - Harbor Captain George S. Tooker, in the bark Martha II, carries the first American Counsulate to Japan.  Departing July 19, 1851, the ship returns to port February 18, 1854.
• July 7, 1871 - The last of Sag Harbor's whaling vessels, the bark Myra, leaves port, never to return.