In 1843 Nantucket owned its record number of ships, eighty-eight. In 1846, which is referred to as the “boom” year in American whaling, sixteen vessels cleared from Nantucket and sixty-nine from her near-by rival—New Bedford. In 1869 Nantucket sent her last ship and disappeared from the list of whaling ports. The great fire of 1846 also contributed to the downfall of the industry. A new era in whaling was to be born, with New Bedford as the centre, and Nantucket was to become only a health resort and mecca for sight-seers, more than ten thousand persons visiting the island in 1914. NEW BEDFORD New Bedford undoubtedly owed its whaling success to its proximity to Nantucket, to its wonderful harbour, and to the honesty, thrift, and good business ability of its citizens, most of whom were Quakers. [Illustration: A whaler leaving New Bedford Harbour.] As in Nantucket, the whole city lived to go whaling, and as each inhabitant made more money, he moved his residence higher up on the Hill. It is said that there was an inn called the “Crossed Harpoons,” and another called “Spouter Inn,” and there is a Whaleman’s Chapel on Johnny Cake Hill where regular Sunday services were held, at which the following hymn was always sung by the congregation:— “The ribs and terrors of the whale Arched over me in dismal gloom, While all God’s sun-lit waves rolled by And left me deepening down to doom. “I saw the opening maw of hell, With endless pains and sorrows there; Which none but they that feel can tell— Oh, I was plunging to despair— “In black distress I called to God, When I could scarce believe him mine, He bowed his ear to my complaints— No more the whale did me confine.” The pulpit of this chapel was made to represent the prow of a whaleship, and was ascended by means of a rope ladder, which the minister, who had been a harpooner in his youth, hauled up after him. Around the walls of this little church can still be seen tablets erected in memory of many whalemen who lost their lives at sea. There also was a daily paper called _The Whaleman_, which gave the reports of the whaleships and the whaling news. It has been said that New Bedford fathers gave whales for dowers to their daughters, and that they had reservoirs of oil in their attics to burn on gala occasions. It is a curious fact that three Morgans not long ago married three Rotchs, three Rotchs married three Rodmans, and three Rodmans married three Motleys. Among other well-known New Bedford whaling families are the Hathaways, Swifts, Howlands, Morgans, Stones, Delanos, Rodmans, Seaburys, Giffords, Tabers, Grinnells, and Wings.