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hello everyone my name is katie mini i'm the curator of education here at the north carolina maritime museum at southport it is another month and it is third tuesday so that means we are having our lecture just in a virtual format still so similarly to the last few months you get to listen to a presentation by one of our wonderful speakers just through a screen instead of in person that is to help the the slowing of covet 19 and to make sure that all parties are protected from this illness and from our current climate so similarly to last month our july speaker was unable to move his presentation to a virtual format so we have substituted an equally wonderful talk so i'm going to introduce our speaker and then he's going to take it over our speaker this month is benjamin wonderly he is currently the museum curator and the education department at the north carolina maritime museum at beaufort prior to that he was the natural sciences curator at the north carolina aquarium at pineal shores and served in various capacities in the north carolina state park system he went to virginia tech and has a bachelor's in science and natural resources he also went to coastal carolina community college to pursue his basic law enforcement training he holds an advanced open water scuba certification and as a certified environmental educator through the state of north carolina so please welcome benjamin wonderly thank you to him for quickly adapting to our ever-changing system and presenting this talk on the whaling industry in north carolina enjoy and we will see you later hello and welcome to another installment of the july third tuesday speaker series with the north carolina maritime museum in southport my name is benjamin wunderli and i am an associate curator at the north carolina maritime museum in beaufort i will be the guest speaker for today's lecture and i will be covering the topic of whaling in north carolina from the colonial period to the early 20th century i will be giving a general overview of the history of harvesting whales along the north carolina coast and i will cover the techniques and implements used in the process i'll also give some background information on the actual act of whaling and information on the epicenter of shore based whaling in north carolina let's get started some of our earliest records indicate that there may have been an active whale fishery occurring in our region as early as 1666 the assistant governor of albemarle peter carterette granted a commercial whaling license to three men from new england now we don't have any records to indicate whether or not they were successful but we do know that they were allowed to harvest whales between the stretch of coastline that existed near kurotuk inlet and roanoke inlet now these inlets are historic and do not exist today the albemarle region was one of the first areas of the carolina coast to be settled these are several reports of whale products that either originated in the colony from whales harvested off the coast or were at least moving through so maybe these products were derived from whales that were caught offshore so we're not 100 sure some people believe that the whales were harvested out at sea and then brought to the nearby coast to be processed and then recorded as they were shipped out of ports along our coastline by 1681 the lord's proprietors realized that they're actually deterring people from inhabiting the colony by not allowing them to make a profit on whaling so they change their minds about claiming all all rights to whales and whale products harvested and stated that whatever whales that anyone can catch and convert them to their own use for the encouragement of of carolina was welcome to take place so an early explorer john lawson noted in his writings of new voyage to carolina that whales were very numerous on the coast although none being struck or killed with a harpoon as they are to the northward so with this comment uh we can take a guess that he is referring to whales that are harvested in the new in new england area and how they were killed with harpoons up there but his observations in in the carolina area may not have been entirely accurate considering the amount of coastline where shore whaling could have taken place if he didn't cover the whole coastline then how does he how did he know for certain that none were being struck or killed with a harpoon by 1710 the whale fishery was still open to people of the region there were new instructions though that required that one-tenth of the product was to be given to governor eden this is a copy of a license to whale that was issued to samuel chadwick around the year 1725 and we have listed at the bottom of this slide a few reports from whaling crews that were active along north carolina's coast so these may have been whales that were harvested along the shore or they might have been harvested offshore by larger ships we're not a hundred percent sure by 1715 the act of hunting whales from shore was on decline in the new england region it seemed to still take place in north carolina and we're not exactly sure why it is possible that it seemed to shore whalers of new england that the supply of whales that existed off of their coast was being exhausted but maybe not the case in north carolina we do know that whale ships pelagic whale ships that pursue whales offshore were venturing into waters farther and farther away from their new england home now if that's related to decrease in whale populations we don't know or it could be the fact that there were more and more ships involved in the fishery in 1719 it was reported that four new england whaling vessels had brought over 500 barrels of oil from north carolina to boston now again we can't get confused here because these whales may have been harvested offshore and the ships for some reason or another just happened to be passing through north carolina port where it was recorded whatever cargo or commerce they had on board in this map we can see the areas that new england whalers refer to in their notes and records so to them the southern ground was more to the north for us but to them it was the southern ground there was a charleston ground off our southeast coast and then western ground and western really is referring to the fact it was in the western atlantic obviously that is to the east of our seaboard they were referring to the body of water and there was a small area that they even referred to as the hatteras ground where they pursued whales off of the outer banks of north carolina as those whale ships from up north ventured into fishing grounds off of north carolina some disputes came about between local shore based whalers and the invaders from new england so most of these complaints were related to counterfeit or forged clearance documents for for whale products and the fact that uh some some of the whalers did not have the proper license to be hunting and harvesting whales in north carolina's waters in 1715 proprietor john carterette wrote to governor eden instructing him to encourage new england men and others to catch whale of which the cost of permission would be two dear skins per year to the lord's proprietor so in addition to one tenth of the product now they're asking for a couple of deerskins earlier we showed a slide that had a picture of a whaling license that was issued to samuel chadwick in this image here i circled where samuel chadwick from cape cod massachusetts moved to the carteret precinct in carolina so he was permitted to harvest whales along the coast and now he is has moved to the carteret precinct so he's more than likely actively engaged in hunting whales at least in this part of the colony so whalers operating in north carolina waters whether they were shore based whaling operations hunting whales from shore or pelagic hunting whales by ship they may have obtained nearly 4 200 barrels of whale oil over the period of 1715-1730 now it can be estimated that an average of six to nine whales were taken per year uh in these waters over that time period and the records are scarce and they're not noted if the whalers were residents of the colony or if they were from up north you can see on this 1733 map that there were little depictions of whales along the carolina coast you can see the point of cape lookout um protruding into the to the ocean and then to the northeast of it there's a drawing of a small whale boat and a harpooner on the bow and a whale up in front spouting and then another whale off to the southwest so this was actually done as a way to entice people to come to the region they figure if they drew a map of the area and had pictures of whales all along the coast people might see that and get excited and want to invest in the colony so by the 1750s new england whale ships had been venturing farther and farther south and they also began installing tri-works on board their ship now tri-works was the way that they could process the oil out of the whale blubber basically it was a large black pot or kettle where they could render down the whale blubber and boil the the oil out of out of it so these were now being installed on the whaling ship so they no longer had to harvest a whale and bring it to because in order to process it they could actually do this all at while at sea most of the ships were heading past north carolina but there were some uh that did note that a particular species of whale was plentiful along the virginia and carolina coast and they referred to this whale in their notes and records the sperm whale this drawing is an example of a late 19th century whaling vessel so obviously a little bit later than the current time period that we're talking about right now but it shows you how a pelagic whale ship may have been set up and we see the whale boats that would have been launched to row out after a whale that they spotted where would be harpooned and brought back to the ship and then processed right alongside the vessel the tripods or the trying out pots were fixed up on deck so they actually had to have a fire going under these tripods in order to melt the blubber melt the oil out of the blubber and then underneath in the hall of the ship you can see where barrels of the whale oil product could be stored until they got back to their home port so what's interesting to note during this time period there are very little to no records about shore based whaling taking place anywhere south of basically uh the onslow uh precinct carter and anzo precinct there is one however though that came out of the um lockwoods folly area where there was a short-lived shore based whaling operation and these were actual this was actually a crew from up north from new england that had ventured around cape fear and ended up setting up an operation there near lockwood's folly they recorded not a single catch though so it seems that the most active stretches of coastline would have been from that carteret uh upwards to cape hatteras so kate keep look out to cape hatteras was was more than likely the best spot for shore based whaling in north carolina in 1757 there were two tracks of land that were sold from john shackleford to a joseph morse and edward fuller the land was on the beach between what was then topsail inlet now we know today is beaufort inlet so it got renamed it's between topsail inlet and cape lookout this would actually be what we know today as shackle for banks now i bring this up because both of these men joseph morrison edward fuller were noted for being involved in whale fishing so prior to the revolution the north carolina whale fishery remained active governor arthur dobbs reported that the harbor at cape lookout was being used by whale fishers during the winter and noted that the whale fishers from the northward have a considerable fishery there so we don't know who exactly he's referring to are these local citizens of the area that may have gone out and used the harbor near cape lookout to set up their operations or were these new england whalers that were coming down to the south and setting up their near cape lookout so we don't know for sure but we do know that somebody was around there and they were actively involved in harvesting whales so we do know that the revolution did put a damper on whaling activities along the coast there were trade embargoes seizures blockades and destruction of ships that occurred up and down the eastern seaboard but this table is an example of some products that were still moving through north carolina ports so we have on the left column the date that it was recorded the port of departure where the product came through the middle column shows what the actual product was or the cargo on board these vessels now this isn't to say that the product was derived along north carolina shores again so this could have been whale product processed at sea and then coming through a north carolina port or it could have been those shore based whaling activities that produce the cargo on these vessels and then we have the vessel name for some of them not all of them and the destination for these ships so it's an interesting look at uh wailing during that time period at least the commerce involved now if you notice that under port of departure brunswick actually does refer to brunswick town in the cape fear region and then we have roanoke and kuratuk now these are probably referring to those two historic inlets that we went over earlier in the presentation so they they may have existed as a port of departure at the time along the northeast part of the carolina region so harvesting whales from shore along north carolina did continue in the decades following the revolution and as well through the war of 1812 in addition a more organized dolphin fishery emerged in 1793 john grey blunt and john wallace are noted as operating their lighter vessel in the porpoise industry now the lighter vessel is basically a more shallow draft vessel that was used to take goods off of a larger ship and into the inlets and internal waters of north carolina's coast and we say porpoise industry but we really mean bottlenose dolphin porpoise are not historically documented along north carolina's coast if there were was probably very few but bottlenose dolphin could be found in all coastal waters of north carolina so john blohn and john wallace are noted as operating uh their lighter vessel in the bottlenose dolphin industry which by 1802 was supplying oil to the lighthouse at shell castle island you can see a drawing of that lighthouse in this slide picture here but you also see a chart of ocracoke inlet now my image of the lighthouse has covered up most of the inlet but you can see on the bottom left picture of the map the village of portsmouth and then on the upper right corner you can see part of the land that would be ocracoke island and then in the top left you see a small drawing and it's labeled as shell castle rock so that was actually where the lighthouse was situated i know it's farther back in the inlet and it seems kind of weird that it would be there but the way that it worked was ships out at sea outside of the inlet would line up so that they could see that particular lighthouse or the light and follow it follow the main channel in that direction so it was more used as a range marker than it was a warning of a point of land or or a dangerous coastline now other locations where the bottlenose dolphin fishery occurred was shackleford banks bug banks which are both in carteret county and even on bear island now the dolphin oil was dolphins were prized for a high quality oil that came out of their jaw and was actually used as a lubricant in watches and clocks and other instruments now the blubber from the dolphin was a lesser grade or lesser quality oil and it would have been used as a lamp fuel the hides of the animals were also sold as well so we can actually venture to say that the dolphin fishery in north carolina was more active than the whale fish would be we mentioned earlier that maybe half a dozen whales a year were being harvested along north carolina's coast now just because of the sheer number of dolphins it would allow for the opportunity to take more dolphins than whales from 1810 to 1860 the do phin fishery near beaufort though out there along shackleford and vogue banks was being conducted every year for that time period and an average season's catch was 400 or so dolphin it would take five or six to produce one barrel of the low-grade oil from their from their body the blubber in their body they were taking a lot of dolphin compared to the number of whales that shore-based whalers were harvesting this is an image from a book that was written in 1916 so this is from a later time period but it shows a dolphin fishery in operation and they were actually using sane nets to circle around a school of dolphin and hauled the saint up onto the beach to bring the dolphin out of the water where they would then proceed to kill the dolphin and get what products uh they wanted from their catch so as i mentioned there there was also a bottomless dolphin fishery taking place on bear island and these guys actually were also hunting whales as well from shore now this image is a much later uh time period we know that there was a captain daniel hedy that was leading crews in a whale and dolphin fishery in the early 1800s this picture is much later and it's of a fishing crew we don't know if they were actually taking dolphins by this photo it's sometime in the 20th century and what's interesting to note is that when you look at some of the other parts of the north carolina coast you had crews that focused just in taking whales and then you had separate crews which focused in just in harvesting dolphins but the crew that crew led by daniel heady on bear island in the 1800s the early 1800s actually did both so that was kind of interesting to compare uh the operations at different locations along our coastline so this is a painting that was done of one of those new england whale ships one of those pelagic whaling vessels and it was done in the 1840s it was titled cutting in a whale the painting was of a particular ship the samuel and thomas of provincetown massachusetts and it shows a whale brought up to the side of the vessel they're slicing off the blubber you can see there's a lot of uh blood from the animal ending up in the water and attracting all kinds of fish and sharks so with the whaling fleets from new england and new york we're still taking whales off the carolina coast at this time but a lot of them were venturing even farther out of the atlantic ocean into the pacific and the indian in the western arctic oceans this was considered the golden age of american whaling the vessels were were bigger now upwards of 100 to 200 tons and those that were still coming and operating off of north carolina because they seem to mostly come out of provincetown massachusetts that's one of the reasons i put this painting up here that i found a picture of just because those those were the captains that seemed to take a liking to operating off on north carolina's coast so by the time of the civil war the golden age had passed the discovery of petroleum the cost of outfitting ships lengthy voyages to remote seas and depletion of whales all played a part in the decline of whaling confederate warships were also taking a toll on yankee whalers this is a image drawing of the css shenandoah they even hounded whaling fleets as far away as the western arctic ocean and in this picture you can see there's little icebergs floating around the ship that's making its way through the water there so i'm going to focus now on the shore based whaling epicenter of north carolina now during a period following the civil war whaling activity along a stretch known as shackle for banks was well documented this may have seemed like a very active time but it could also just be that somebody actually finally came around and started writing about the whaling that was taking place along the north carolina coast it could also be that the activities of whaling ramped back up after the war a lot of uh supplies and materials at a time were going into the war effort and maybe afterwards now things could be focused back on on general commerce what's interesting to note is that a lot of the fishermen in the communities that existed along the outer banks and along shackleford banks during the time of the war they really were not too interested in participating um they were more focused on what they could do uh with fishing and harvesting whales and there were some cases where men had been you know called into service from shackleford banks and they were often found um shirking their responsibilities so they could get back home and go out and hunt for whales there was a naturalist and and dr elliot cruz that was stationed at fort macon following following the war this was 1869-70 and he recorded that there was dolphin scening and whales being harvested in the region he estimated that about two to three whales were being taken each season and he said that the locals referred to the whales as right whale scrag and humpback now right whale was probably the most common taken scrag may refer to gray whale or a thin skinned right whale but there were no records of of humpbacks landed though at least from eliot coos now uh state geologist wc carr noted in the 1870s and 80s that sperm whales were even even killed along north carolina's coasts totals average five to six whales a season but there's no evidence or record local record that indicates that sperm whales were taken if you know about the biology of the sperm whale they typically don't come close to shore now one could wash up and be found dead from natural causes and maybe some products would be derived from that specimen but for the most part shore based whaling activities did not entail going miles out to sea tens 20 30 40 50 miles out to sea this hap all happened close to shore now a zoologist a h clark with the national museum of natural history stated that right whales were the predominant catch finn and humpback and scrag whales were seen but seldom taken so let's talk about this image that's up here on this slide this was a drawing that was done by connie mason and it's of shackleford banks and you can also see cape lookout point on the bottom right corner of the map buffer in the top left there but i put this up here to show you some place names that existed along shackleford banks in the 19th century and a lot of these lend their origin to the whale fishery because we have whale creek we have whale hill and we also have lookout dune so whale hill and lookout dune may have been places where a fisherman sat and watched and waited for a whale to swim by so he could yell out to his fellow whalers that they needed to get in the boat and get out in the water whale creek may have been an area where the oil rendered out of the blubber was taken across the island and then shipped maybe to beaufort or morehead city so we're going to talk more now about whaling activities along shackleford banks so what was late 19th century whaling off of shackleford banks bike well the season typically uh was from mid to late december to early may although february through may was usually the best time with many whales being recorded to have been taken in april there was about two to three camps of 18 men each each camp may have had three boat crews of about a half a dozen men uh for each boat you might have four men on the oars one steering at the stern and one harpooner uh who was at the bow and he usually also had a ore as well to help out with the with the with the vessel the amount of oil procured would depend on the size of the whale and the species so the average catch a long check for banks per year was only four whales but anywhere from 1500 to 4500 gallons of oil could be procured from each whale and maybe 500 some pounds of bone or really baleen the baleen were the flexible keratin-based plates that lined the the mouth of the whale and you were used to sift out its food small krill and shrimp and other fish okay so this is an image of the species of whale that was predominantly target the right whale how did it get its name it was the right whale to hunt it swam slowly and its carcass floated and it made it an easier specimen to kill and bring ashore they also yielded the most whale oil and baleen out of the species that could be found in the western atlantic right whales could be spotted from lookout points atop a sand dune as they migrated north to their feeding grounds so this species as it's actually spending the winter months or early winter months off of the southeastern coast would head back in the spring late winter and spring up to the north so they would be moving right along the coastline make them vulnerable to being spotted by these whale crews along our coast so this is a an engraving from 1894 and it depicts a fish camp but the thing is these guys could just have easily been a whalers crew or camp the gentlemen that were taking place in fishing activities along shackleford banks were also more than likely involved in pursuing whales from the shore as well um there were certain times a year where whaling was better and there were certain times of year where harvesting fish was more lucrative okay so this is an image of a boat builder mr devine guthrie and he was actually born and raised on shackleford banks and here he is with a picture of of a double-ended um pilot boat or a whale boat or surf boat whatever you want to call it that he built out there on the island this form of this small vessel dates to probably the mid 1300s and was such similar to something that was used by the shore whalers of basque it might have been 20 to 25 feet long double-ended a high-pointed bow and stern he would have been using maybe three-quarter inch juniper which is was really maybe atlantic white cedar he might have been using red cedar could have been using cypress and the ribs of the the vessel may have been also been uh stripped cedar roots but he would have been one of the gentlemen that was supplying the boats needed to launch from the beach and chase down a whale so if you were to go whaling at that time this is a checklist of what you would need these are certain tools and provisions harpoons came in single or double fluted fixed blade sphere and then also a more advanced toggle iron something that when it went into the whale could not be could go in easily but with a toggle on on it would be almost impossible to pull back out it had wanted to bring at least a coil of line about 40 fathoms that would be up 250 feet and it would have been tied to the harpoon on the other end would have been a drag the drag or drogue impeded uh the whale's ability to swim because they had a harpoon with a line and a big block of wood that they had a toe around behind them it also acted as a signal buoy for the whalers so they could harpoon the whale it would twim off and they would see the block of wood floating around and they could just follow that until the whale tired out then they could get close to the whale and finish it off with maybe one of the lances there was some reports that these whalers in the in the um small boats would would tie that line to the boat and have the whale pull the boat around but that was actually really really dangerous and most of the crews didn't did not do that or did not want to do that because it would risk capsizing their vessel and the near shore waters along our coast in this region of lookout and up to cape hatteras in february and march are too cold to be swimming in so they did not want to flip their boat another implement used in the process of catching a whale was the exploding lance gun or whale gun this was reportedly introduced to north carolina after the civil war but other reports state that they were seldom used in north carolina and not introduced until the early 20th century there are two guns documented from shackleford banks and they were single barrel muzzle loaded weapons they fired an explosive bomb lance that were about one inch in diameter and 16 to 18 inches long so this is an actual picture of one of those guns that came from shackle for banks and some of the bomb lances each gun weighed about 16 pounds and was about 38 inches in length a line was tied to the stock of the gun and in case of recoil it would send the gunner overboard but with the line tied to the to the small boat it would save the gun from ending up at the bottom of the sea now the idea was that these guns were used instead of the harpoon so basically they would row up to the whale and shoot it with one of these and the amount of damage that was done to the to the animal uh was enough for it to succumb immediately and they wouldn't have to bother chasing it around with just a harpoon and a drag attached to the harpoon okay so how were the whales hunted from shore so we mentioned that someone would be sitting on top of a dune and they would be waiting waiting and then spot a whale and they might yell out to everybody whale sighted call hands make ready and then boats would be launched from the beach and the chase was on so once they got close enough to the whale the harpooner would be at the bow this was often the captain but of the crew but it could sometimes be the mate um not and they would have to uh try to get the harpoon into the whale as deep as they could they would not come back out after the whale tired they would follow up to it the whale would be at the surface trying to breathe and be completely exhausted and worn out and that's when they would finish it off uh with the lance and then secure line to the tail tow it back to the beach and try to get it up as high on the beach as they could here in this image that was engraving from 1894 they showed how they actually tied an anchor to the left front flipper of this whale in order for it to not wash away again at the high tide so this is where they started the process of cutting in the whale this was removal of the blubber in large squares they may have have to be carried down the beach to the tri-works unless a temporary tri-works was set up right beside the beat whale so you can see that the on this image two men carrying a large chunk of blubber off to the tri the large pieces were cut into smaller ones then placed in large pots to render down the fat into oil which would be skinned in the barrels and rolled down the beach to be shipped to beaufort or morehead city where it was sold to the highest bidder it may have also been kept on the island and you for use by the community so there was a unique tradition that occurred only on shackleford banks and this may have been because the fact that there weren't that many whales taken so it was a special occasion and what they did was whenever they caught a whale they gave it a name there was a lot invested here a lot of the community would come out and help with the processing of the whale shipping the products over to the nearby towns and so every time a whale was harvested it ended up with a unique name so here we see a list of of some of these names that came from wales caught off a shackle for banks the little children whale supposedly this was a whale that was caught by the younger boys of the fish crews all the men were occupied with something at the time so the young boys decided they would go out and harvest the whale that they spotted and they did some of these whales are just named for people that were maybe involved in the um in the pursuit of the whale or killed the whale some of them may have been named for famous people like the george washington whale the cold sunday whale was probably a whale that was just caught on a very cold sunday so some of them did they were not very uh creative in their names so there was the extremely fat whale for example that must have been a big whale that was harvested now you'll you'll note that a couple of these animals there how i listed um somewhere that the that they ended up so now the oil from the blubber and the baleen was sold but the skeletons of these whales the mayflower whale of may 4th 1874 and the mullet pond whale of february 14 1898 their skeletons actually ended up going on display at two different locations one at the north carolina museum and natural sciences in raleigh and the other one at the museum of natural history at the university of iowa so i thought that was unique that even though they were harvested before the turn of the century you can still go see their skeletons on display at these locations okay so who were the people that caught whales i have a couple images here of some of the uh whalers involved in this activity on the left is tyree moore and he was born on shackleford banks in 1829 uh his father samuel was also a whaler so the boat crews were usually related in some way father and son crews and the traditions of pursuing a whale was actually passed on from generation to generation tyree was reported as purchasing the first whale guns to be used in north carolina on a trip to baltimore so we we don't know if that's really true or not but that's one of the uh stories that we've heard this is an image of josephus willis another shackleford banks resident he was born in 1828 and he reported that he helped kill 52 whales over his lifetime so he that probably meant that he would have gone out for quite a few years and been involved in almost every whale harvested along shackleford banks in the late 1800s so we we don't know how how true that is or not but he had a crew of his five sons that worked with him in this fishery so this is a slide image that i put together that shows the locations where whale fishing or processing had taken place um shore-based whaling was recorded to have occurred from cape hatteras to all the way to little river um with shackleford banks more than likely the epicenter so you can see i have four-based whaling uh represented where the new england whale ships would have been offshore um whale processing locations with the green dots there and then red dots for dolphin or porpoise fishing and then blue dots for where the dolphin were processed so what happened to whaling along north carolina's coast and shackle for banks in particular well a we do know that a series of hurricanes and tropical storms in the late 1890s may have destroyed many of the communities along the coast and many of the fish camps or whale camps as well it's also possible that natural resources on some of these islands was depleted to the point where inhabitants searched out other areas to live but these two reasons do not mean that people stopped whaling because the crews still could have assembled on the island every season to continue the fishery just because they moved you know five or so miles away or onto the mainland doesn't mean that they couldn't come back every year to go hunt whales so one reason may have been that there was a change in demand for particular products so for women's fashions for example we know that the whale bone the baleen was used in hoop skirts and the women's corsets but over time the the styles changed and those products weren't needed so that by the 1920s and 30s there wasn't a necessity for whale bone so to be used in the fashion of the time so the decline of the whale population due to over hunting may have played a major factor as well they were just simply less and less whales spotted from the shore the breeding whales the adult breeding whales could only produce but so many offspring not nearly enough to keep up with demand for the number of whales that would be take were being taken not necessarily off of north carolina's coast but by those new england whale ships and the vast uh number of ships that made up uh those fleets so not only was the the whale fishery slowly dwindling away eventually the violinist dolphin fishery did the same thing we know that it was extremely active on hatteras island in the late 1800s some reports indicate that it took place as early as the 1700s but all these operations ceased by 1929 and it very well could have been um the fact that they were just less dolphin around when you took 400 to 500 a dolphin a year for a certain number of years that's going to put a pretty big dent so by 1916 we reportedly have the last whale that is pursued and killed from the north carolina shore and this was done by two different crews one led by captain charlie rose and the other by captain john rose and it occurred in shallow waters near cape lookout point it's noted that one of the last whale crews to exist was disbanded in 1917 when a fire destroyed most of their gear at their camp and that was out uh towards cape lookout as well so we have you know change in demand for the product women's fashion you know petroleum uh used for oil instead of the need for whale oil new products that have come about and the fact that there's just less whales to harvest all leading to the decline in the fishery you