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A Whaling We Go!

When spring arrived at Cape Cod in the years that saw Cape Cod and Nantucket sailing vessels everywhere on the seas, the whalers belonging to the Cape were to venture forth on new voyages for whales.

Thus we find noted in the news of 1853, in the month of March, that the whaling schooners E. Nickerson, Captain Soper, set sail for North Atlantic whaling grounds on the 8th; the Harriet Neal, Captain Cook, set sail for the same grounds on the 9th, and the Antarctic, Captain Snow, likewise, on the 19th. The discrepancy in dates may well be accounted for by the necessary work involved in filling the schooners with new and old fishing equipment, stores of food and water, and getting crews signed up, as well as completing general overhauling, and painting, and attending to sails and rigging. These ships might be gone for years.

At East Dennis in the same month, a clipper ship was sent into the water from the ways, for western waters. And at Provincetown the first of a number of fishermen set sail for the fishing banks. Thus springtime was a busy time for Cape Cod’s men of the sea.

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