Historic Nantucket, April 1982, Vol. 29 No. 4

Lahaina - The Whaling Capital Of The Pacific

by Captain J. E. Lacouture IN THE YEAR 1791 the first American whalers rounded Cape Horn into the Pacific, and found good whaling grounds off the coast of Chile. Several years later the "off-shore" grounds, 1700 miles west of Peru, were discovered. As the whales in these grounds soon thinned out, whaleships ventured further afield.

In the fall of 1819, the first whaling ships reached the Hawaiian Islands. These were the Equator, of Nantucket, under Captain Elisha Folger, and the Balaena, of New Bedford, under Captain Edmund Gardner. Soon after arriving, a boat from the Balaena killed a whale off Kealakekua Bay, which provided her with 110 barrels of whale oil.

Within a year of the arrival of the first whalers three other important events occurred which would profoundly affect the history of the Hawaiian Islands. In the spring of 1819 their great king, Kamehameha I, who had united all the islands under one leadership for the first time, had died. Follow­ ing his death the "kapu" religious restrictions, which governed all phases of Hawaiian life, were abolished. About the time of Kamehameha's death, Cap­ tain Jonathan Winship, master of a ship in the candlewood trade with China, returning from Japan reported great schools of sperm whales in Japanese waters. Finally in March of 1820, the first shipload of New England Christian Missionaries, under the leadership of Hiram Bingham, arrived in the Hawaiian Islands on the American brig Thaddeus.

Acting on Captain Winship's report of large schools of whales in Japanese waters, Captain Joseph Allen, "the Nantucket wonder," ventured far into the northwestern Pacific on his ship Maro. His was the first American whaler to cross the middle of the Pacific. In the Sea of Japan he came across the greatest concentration of sperm whales that had ever been seen. In no time every last barrel on the Maro was filled with whale oil and Captain Allen started triumphantly for home, stopping in Honolulu in 1820 for rest and recreation for his crew and reprovisioning for his ship. While there he confid­ ed his find to fellow New Englander, Hiram Bingham, head of the mis­ sionaries, who had just arrived. Captain Allen listened to Bingham's plans to Christianize the Hawaiians and provided Bingham generous financial sup­ port.

With the discovery of these new whaling areas off Japan, and with Japanese ports closed to foreign vessels, the Hawaiian Islands were the nearest ports to this new whaling domain. Soon also additional rich whaling areas were discovered off the northwestern coast of North America, in the Okhotsk, Asadir and Bering Seas and in the waters north of the Bering Straits.