June, 1997 issue

Earlier, the two men passed an opportunity to acquire a large farm on the lower east side of New York City: approximately the area now enclosed within Market, Division, Grand and Corlears Streets, and the East River. The site met their requirements; but the owner wanted $200 more than the Jenkins brothers were willing to pay. At today's real estate prices, that bit of "shrewd" bargaining by the brothers cost their descendants at least $100 million.

Ultimately, their search ended 110 miles up the Hudson River at a place known as Claverack Landing. Here there was a remarkable double harbor where the water was deep, swarming with fish. Land was cheap and fertile. The Dutch farmers were hospitable, happy to sell supplies - and the view of the river and the Catskill Mountains to the west was breathtaking. The sale was quickly closed!

Here, on a bend in the Hudson, where the air was redolent with fragrance of fresh-cut hay, there was soon to come a new pungent odor - oil mixed with the salty tang of the sea. And, with it: a whiff of prosperity. While a whaling center so far from the ocean might seem unusual, there were sound economic reasons for its seemingly remote location - attested to by the solid prosperity of Hudson in the earliest years of its existence.

Prior to the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), the New England fishing industry established the first deep ocean whaling center on the tiny Island of Nantucket, well offshore from the northeastern coast of Massachusetts. During the eighteenth century, Nantucket became a maritime "phenom," with a fleet of 150 vessels totaling more than 15,000 tons. Sadly, the war wreaked havoc on the Nantucket whalers. When the war ended, the whaling fleet was down to just 16 vessels totaling less than 2,000 tons. Political problems also nagged the whalers. During the war they had not taken up arms for either side because of their Quaker beliefs. As a result, they were harassed by the victorious colonists, while the British imposed stiff tariffs. The whaling industry came to a virtual standstill.

All these factors staggered the Nantucket community. Cut off from domestic and international trade, onerously taxed, many residents were forced to leave their island. Some went back to Europe, others stayed closer to home.

In the spring of 1784, the great emigration from Nantucket up the Hudson was underway. Led by Tom Jenkins, a parade of sturdy Nantucket whaling ships moved up to Claverack Landing, carrying settlers - and their prefabricated homes.

Officially named Hudson in 1785, the new town boomed: there were rope walks, sail makers, iron ship fitters, and, at one time, five ship building yards crouched on the river bank. In 1789, the 420-ton whaler American Hero returned to Hudson from the South Pacific, with more than 2,000 barrels of sperm oil, the largest such cargo at that time ever to reach American shores.

In 1830, the Hudson Whaling Company was formed "for the purpose of engaging whale fisheries in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and elsewhere and the manufacture of oil and spermaceti candles." Industry and prosperity had arrived in the Hudson Valley.

From 1831 to 1845, the whaling fever swept the Hudson River Valley. In 1831 the Poughkeepsie Whaling Company was launched, followed in 1832 by the Newburgh Whaling Company. Ultimately, the combined Hudson River whaling fleets numbered some thirty vessels. Then the euphoria faded.

When, in the middle of the mid-19th century coal oil (kerosene) began to replace whale oil as an illuminating fuel, the handwriting was on the wall: an era was ending. The window of economic opportunity closed on the Hudson River whalers. The Newburgh Company sank in 1837; Poughkeepsie shut down in 1843, and first to come, last to go, the Hudson Company closed in 1845.

Today the only remnants of the Hudson River whalers who wrote this unique chapter in America's maritime history, are the tall Nantucket-type homes along the streets of Hudson - reminders of the halcyon days when Hudson, New York was the principal whaling port along the Hudson River.