Setting The Record Straight About Cape Cod And Whaling

by Debra Lawless

            It's funny sometimes how life works.

            Back in 2000, Duncan Oliver was unloading a moving truck in front of the Yarmouth house which he and his wife Carol had purchased when they retired. A stranger who would set the course of the next eight or more years of his life suddenly crossed the street and said to Oliver, "Here's an application to join the historical society," Oliver recalls. A few days later, when Oliver attended his first meeting of the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth, he met local historian John Braginton-Smith — the man who would become his great friend and co-author.

            Oliver had recently retired from a 20-year career as a high school principal in Easton. As well as an interest in history, "I had all kinds of time," he recalls.

            Braginton-Smith and Oliver are the co-authors of "Cape Cod Shore Whaling: America's First Whalemen" (History Press, 2008). In 2004, the historical society published an earlier version of the book with the same title. The men's first collaborative effort for the society was "Port on the Bay: Yarmouth's Maritime History on the North Sea 1638 to the Present."

            Last summer, two major books on whaling were published — "Leviathan" by Eric Jay Dolin and "The Lost Fleet" by Marc Songini. Together the books weigh in at over 900 pages — so what could be left to say? Lots, as it turns out.

            "We wanted to publish every single document that existed on Cape Cod shore whaling, which we did," Oliver says. For the new edition, Oliver has written more text which connects and explains the documents, most of which have never before been published. About shore whaling, Oliver says, "nothing had been written — it had been ignored by major writers — they couldn't get information." "Shore Whaling" has 97 pages of text with 12 pages of notes and 10 pages of bibliography.

            Braginton-Smith died in 2004 at the age of 80, eight months after the first book was published. The owner of Jack's Outback, a popular breakfast and lunch spot in Yarmouth, Braginton-Smith also "owned the largest collection of Cape Cod source documents," Oliver says, that represented more than 30 years of diligent collecting. "Cape Cod Shore Whaling" is illustrated with many facsimiles of documents from Braginton-Smith's archives as well as historical photos and sketches.

            The book is meant to correct myths which Oliver says have grown up around whaling. From 1620 to 1750, shore whaling was the major industry for men on Cape Cod during the winter months.

             "Shore whaling didn't start in New Bedford or Provincetown or Nantucket," Oliver says. "It started right here in Yarmouth in 1640. It was the economic engine that drove the town's economy. The only reason these [other] towns came into play was because whales became so scarce on shore. These towns had deep harbors." Whaling began when whales washed up on shore and local residents cut them up. As whales near the shore became scarce, men took to traveling the globe in search of the giant sea mammals.

            Men from almost every town on the Bay side of the Cape indulged in shore whaling, with Chatham men traveling to Billingsgate. Ichabod Paddock of Yarmouth is credited with teaching Nantucket men their whaling skills in the 1690s, Oliver says.

            To illustrate how crucial shore whaling was to the Cape' economy, Oliver writes this about Chatham: In 1727, "Chatham considered building a new meetinghouse. Many in the town asked for a delay because both crops and fishing (whaling) had failed. The following year the meetinghouse in Chatham was pulled down and a new one was erected. 'It was observed that the success of our Fishing the last year is wonderful.' This action demonstrated just how important the sea was in the economy of a Cape town."

            Interestingly, when Oliver began the project he knew little about whaling beyond his reading of "Moby Dick." Then he learned that Herman Melville got it wrong about shore whaling. " Melville...stated that Nantucket was the place where the first dead American whale was stranded," he writes. "That was his total acknowledgement of shore whaling."

            Yet Oliver says when Cape Cod town records begin, in 1650, whaling was already "firmly entrenched," and he dates the first shore whaling venture to 1640. John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, wrote in his journal in 1635, "Some of our people went to Cape Cod, and made some oil of a whale, which was cast on shore."

            When Braginton-Smith died, his extensive collection of Cape Cod documents was auctioned through Klinger & Co. Auctioneers in Harwich. Some of the documents went to the Yarmouth historical society; copies of the whaling documents ended up in the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Other documents were dispersed.

            Oliver will sign copies of "Cape Cod Shore Whaling" at Where the Sidewalk Ends Books on Saturday, April 26 at 2 p.m. He will also sign books at Yellow Umbrella Bookstore on Sunday, May 25 from 1 to 3 p.m. along with J. North Conway, author of "The Cape Cod Canal" (History Press, 2008).