16
HISTORIC NANTUCKET
be "Uncle Dunham," who brought news that the whale had come to the sur face, had drifted in two miles, and was aground just inside Smith's Point rip. The whaleboat had hooked onto him in a rising tide and brought him to the Tuckernuck side of "the opening." The Vesta's important cargo was carefully brought ashore. The try-pot was towed in after being made fast to the stern of a dory, hollow-side up, and riding the seas ashore like a duck. That next morning, the task of cutting-in began, and the work went on all that day, with the try-pot, over its fire, being the center of attention. The stripping of the blubber accomplished, the men turned their attention to cutting the baleen or whalebone from the top of his great head, in the roof of the mouth. The result of this arduous task was thirty-five barrels of whale oil and two hundred pounds of bone, which brought in some fifteen hundred dollars. Cap tain Clisby was satisfied, but could only think of the big whale they had first attacked — but who got away. As Captain Everett Coffin remarked, during his description of the event, "I doubt if there will ever be another adventure as this one — the last whale taken off Nantucket." Captain Timothy Clisby returned to the schooner Era with mate George Coffin, and sailed from New London again in 1892, and this time went into Cumberland Bay, opposite Greenland, in the Arctic. When Mate Coffin returned home, Captain Clisby remained as an Agent for both American and British whalers. He was killed in Cumberland Bay, as a result of an accident in a whaleboat in the year 1895. Upon his retirement from whaling George Cof fin lived on Tuckernuck the remainder of his life.
INFORMATION WANTED SOME OF THE questions asked by visitors to the exhibits of the Nantucket Historical Association are well worth preserving, but most of them cannot be printed for fear of hurting some one's feelings. Just one sample of many is given here. One lady, who evinced much in terest in whaling and the exhibits at our Whaling Museum, asked many ques tions. Among others was: "Tell me, are whales born or hatched?" (With apologies to The Nantucket Scrap Basket)
