undamaged boats had to take in the crews of the two that were stove; loaded like that, there was nothing to do but let the whales go . A schooner bound to Provincetown picked up one. The other drifted to Patchogue and whoever found it there, claimed it. Our men spent what little they made on the small whale, going to law." Whales , as you know , yielded oil and bone and afforded not only the excitement and danger of biggame hunting, but a little extra income for the combined farmer-fisherman of that day . Our attitude toward whaling has changed , during the past century. But that sort of whaling , or the deepsea whaling of sailing-ship days , was on such a small scale that it would never have exterminated the species. It is the big whale-factory ships of Russia and Japan that seem likely to do that today. Every young man in our town in my grandfather's and father 's time knew how to maneuver a rowing boat through the surf- something which is not part of a Coast Guardman 's training today. I have heard how Grandfather once maneuvered a stranded vessel off the sandbar (which stretches the length of Long Island , on the south side, about a quarter-mile offshore.) And how my father, on one occasion , years later, was asked by the captain of the local Coast Guard station to head a lifeboat which the government had ordered to go off to a ship fast on the bar in a storm. The weather was so bad that he , a newcomer to our shore , dared not attempt it. Father agreed to go, but only if he could pick his own crew . He looked up and down the beach , knowing the surfmanship of each man. Just about the whole community had gathered there . One man , perfectly able and willing, had to " hide behind his wife's shirts ,'' Father said. She was there , and refused to let him go . But he assembled a crew , including the Coast Guard keeper. Not to embarrass him , Father gave his orders softly , so the government man could repeat them in a loud voice. I was away at that time, but they told me afterward that my maternal grandfather-a landsman- paced the beach with tears rolling down his cheeks. He said afterward " I never expected to see Ev again." Anthony Bedell, one of the men Father picked for that trip , told me years afterward: " Your father said 'Pull a little harder , Anthony! ' I said 'Captain, I'm pulling just as hard as I can now. ' He roared at me : 'Then pull a little harder than you can!" And I did. We made it. " They were able to get a line on the ship for the breeches-buoy , and hauled ashore an old man and woman , passengers. The crew stayed on and im a few days the vessel could be worked off the bar ¡; it did not go to pieces .
whale off the shore at Amagansett. Father helped kill fifteen right whales, the last one with his father, "Cap'n Josh,'' on Washington's birthday, 1907 . Grandfather was 78 at the time . The old family whaleboat and all the implements are now in the East Hampton Town Marine Museum on Bluff Road in Amagansett. Shore whaling , in 28-foot rowing boats, began off the Hamptons in the 1640's and ended with that 1907 whale, which was captured off East Hampton and brought ashore three miles to the eastward , at Amagansett. Father used to take me witt. him when he went to call on old fishermen, and Life Saving men who had been friends of Grandfather's. I would make myself as unobtrusive as possible, but listening hard while they "gammed." Father also took me to call on some of Southampton's whaling veterans , among them Edward Reeves, 95, the oldest whaleman then living . He and his brother Albert, who also had had deepsea experience, were glad to talk about old times. We sat on the sunny porch in rocking chairs. Edward Reeves said: "Southampton owned six whaleboats, within my memory. In those days they took turns every day to watch, just as our ancestors did in the 1640's. When a whale appeared , the watcher would weft with a coat on a pole. Tin horns were blown through the street. I remember five big whales on the beach at one time , when I was young. We had great stress to cut them up. " "The most excitement I ever saw here,' ' said another Southampton veteran "was one pleasant day in spring o' the year , when I was a boy. Father and I were plowing. Somebody swung a coat for a whale, and Father started. I saw one fellow on the farm next to ours jump on one of his team, harness swinging, gallop across lots not stopping for fences, toward the beach . He came to head o'the pond and dove right in . The horse went down, mired, but he didn't stop to see what happened to it. Somehow or other he got to the beach and onto his thwart in the whaleboat. Father walked round the pond , and was the last one in before they shoved off. "There were three whales ; a cow, bull , and calf. The big calf, two years old, came up inside the bar and they hooked onto him right away. Then Southampton's five other boats fastened to the two big ones. They were bad whales, and the whalemen were a little bit galleyed by the crowd on the beach. There's a good deal of show about this shore-whaling. Two boats were stove, and one man overboard, by the time they had the two whales spouting blood, and they worked offshore three or four miles. The man overboard hollered, 'Git me first, I'm bit!' " Well, of course he wasn 't ; right whales haven't any teeth; but he was hurt with something . The 30