Nantucket shipbuilding

Nantucket Forests with tall trees had disappeared from the island millennia before colonial settlement. There were no large trees on Nantucket to provide long dimension timbers for ship building or building construction and importing Live oak from southern states was essential. However, in spite of little financial incentive, seven 'large' ships were built and launched from Brant Point. Two Clipper ships were built for the Old China Trade and five whaling ships were built on Nantucket Island and they add a further chapter to the history of New England Shipbuilding and the History of whaling.

Nantucket Shipbuilding – China Trade / Whaling

Nantucket, Massachusetts island lies 30 miles off the southern coastline of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In 1775, Nantucket was the largest whaling Port in the world, and the third largest port in Massachusetts. However, dominance in this most adventurous, dangerous and potentially lucrative of all maritime trades was not supported by an extensive, local, ship building industry. Early Nantucket Forests were unusual and determined the scope of indigenous and colonial wooden ship building on Nantucket Island. Nantucket island has not been home to forests of tall trees for at least 4,000 years. Continual salt spray and the absence of a rich loam soil forced an unusual dwarf morphology on trees such as oak, beech, cedar and pine. Architectural and ship building timbers of large size were not available to the early European and American colonists of Nantucket island nor to the indigenous Wampanoag who made canoes and used offshore waters, rivers and streams to hunt and fish throughout the year.

By the late 17th century, the few groves of forest trees on Nantucket were gone except for small numbers of isolated oak and beech trees. These relatively few Nantucket forest trees were cut for firewood, fence posts, and short boards for diverse construction projects. Land was taken for agriculture and stock raising. Reforestation and 'tree farming' would have to wait for the 20th century. Within this historical context, it is surprising that any large ships were built on Nantucket because wood of the required dimensions would have to be imported. There was a thriving ship building industry in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a town whose prominence in whaling and maritime commerce equaled that of Nantucket. Nonetheless, two 'small' clipper ships and several whalers were built on Nantucket Island. Their circumstances provide an interesting footnote to the history of wooden ship building in New England, and the whaling trade in particular.

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