The Island That Lit the World
For more than a century, between 1750 and 1850, a thirty-mile island off the coast of Massachusetts was the headquarters of the global oil business. Before petroleum, before kerosene, the world ran on whale oil — and Nantucket controlled the supply.
Our families ran it. The Coffins owned ships. The Folgerscaptained them. The Macys provisioned them. The Starbucks crewed them. The Gardners and Husseys competed with them. These weren’t just neighbors — they were an interlocking network of family-run enterprises that dominated an industry for two hundred years.
By 1790, Nantucket Quakers reported to Yearly Meeting that “there were no poor people on the island.” The wealth was real, and it was shared more broadly than in most colonial communities — a consequence of the lay system, the Quaker ethic, and an economy where nearly everyone was connected to the fleet.
When the industry shifted to the mainland, it moved to New Bedford — where our Winter family lived. By 1850, New Bedford was the wealthiest city per capita in America, built entirely on whale oil. Richmond C. Winter was born eleven miles away in Fall River in 1839, at the peak of the whale oil economy.
The Voyages
Two centuries of expansion — from shore whaling to a global industry that circled the planet.
Island settled by Tristram Coffin and the nine original purchasers. Shore whaling with Wampanoag.
Shore whaling begins in earnest at Quidnet and Siasconset.
Ichabod Paddock recruited from Long Island to improve whaling operations.
Christopher Hussey kills the first sperm whale. Deep-ocean whaling begins.
Coffin family owns three whaling ships and a trade vessel.
Local waters overfished. Ships go further. Voyages extend to 2–4 years.
Tryworks (brick oven furnaces) installed on ships. Can render oil at sea. Voyages become longer and more profitable.
Six Coffin men simultaneously captaining ships to South America and Greenland.
Captain Hezekiah Coffin’s ship Beaver carries whale oil to England, returns with tea — one of the THREE ships at the Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773).
Nantucket Quakers report to Yearly Meeting that “there were no poor people on the island.”
Pacific Ocean becomes primary hunting ground. Ships round Cape Horn.
Nantucket fleet at 116 vessels — largest in America.
“Offshore grounds” discovered 1,000+ miles off South America by the Nantucket ship Globe.
Whaleship Essex sunk by a sperm whale in the Pacific. Owen Coffin (age 17) drawn by lot, killed and eaten by crewmates. Inspired Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.
Coffin captains discover the Bonin Islands and islands in the Phoenix Group.
New Bedford surpasses Nantucket as whaling capital.
James G. Coffin keeps illustrated logbooks on whaling voyages, now preserved by the NHA.
Great Fire destroys Nantucket. Industry collapses on island.
Whaleship Aurora abandoned in San Francisco when crew heads inland for gold.
New Bedford is the wealthiest city per capita in America.
Augustus “Whale Oil Gus” Folger born to whaling captain Henry B. Folger. Leaves the Coffin School at 15 to go whaling under Captain Edward B. Coffin.
Whaling as Venture Capital
The lay systemwas equity before equity existed. Ship owners — Coffin, Folger, Macy — funded voyages the way limited partners fund startups. They put up the capital, took the risk, and waited two to four years for a return.
Captains earned large shares — a 1/8th or 1/16th lay— like general partners who were also investors. They had skin in the game: navigate well, find whales, manage the crew, and the payout was transformative. Green hands got 1/50th to 1/700th of the take. A single successful voyage could return life-changing wealth. A failed voyage meant years at sea for nothing — or death.
The whaling grounds were deal flow: when one was depleted, scouts found the next. From Nantucket Sound to the Azores, from the Brazil Banks to the Pacific, from the Japan grounds to the Arctic — each new discovery extended the industry’s runway.
This is not metaphor. The Nantucket Historical Association has published research directly comparing whaling voyages to venture capital. In “Short Lays on Greasy Voyages,” Jonas Peter Akins and Professor Tom Nicholas of Harvard Business School analyzed whaling voyage returns and found structural parallels to modern VC: high variance, power-law distributions, portfolio construction, and the critical importance of the operating partner (the captain).
And the women ran the businesses on shore. When a captain shipped out for three years, his wife managed the family’s finances, investments, and trade. Anna Folger — Lucretia Mott’s mother — ran the family mercantile business trading oils and candles while the men were at sea. Nantucket produced one of the most economically independent communities of women in pre-industrial America — not from ideology, but from necessity.
Neutrality and Survival
During the Revolution, Nantucket stayed quasi-independent, selling whale oil to both sides. The island’s Quaker pacifism and economic dependence on trade made choosing sides dangerous. It grew almost no food and had no timber. Picking a side meant starvation. The British knew it and largely left Nantucket alone. The Americans knew it and resented it.
During the War of 1812, Nantucket again sought neutrality. While the British Navy seized whaling ships from every other port, only Nantucket continued sending ships — negotiating a separate arrangement that kept the fleet intact. Between wars, the fleet always recovered. By 1807, Nantucket had 116 vessels, the largest whaling fleet in America. The island’s survival instinct was stronger than its patriotism — a pragmatism born from being thirty miles offshore with no natural resources except the ocean itself.
Where They Went
Nantucket whalers circled the globe. A single voyage might cover 30,000 miles over two to four years. Captains sometimes didn’t decide whether to go around Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope until they reached the Azores — reading the winds, the intelligence from other ships, and the market conditions before committing to a route.
The Whaling Routes
Atlantic Circuit— Nantucket → Azores → Cape Verde Islands (provisioning and crew recruitment) → Brazil Banks → home. The earliest deep-ocean route, established after Hussey’s 1712 kill.
Pacific via Cape Horn— Nantucket → Cape Horn → Chile → Peru → Galápagos → Hawaii → Japan Grounds → Arctic. The route that made fortunes.
Indian Ocean Circuit— Nantucket → Cape of Good Hope → Indian Ocean → South Pacific. Less common but used when Atlantic and Pacific grounds were crowded.
Post Office Bay, Galápagos — Crews left mail in a cask tied to a tree on Floreana Island. If a ship headed home met one headed out, they’d exchange letters. Homebound ships checked the cask and carried letters back to New England. The world’s loneliest post office, still in use today.
Our Families in the Fleet
The whaling industry wasn’t abstract to our families. They were in the ships, in the counting houses, and in the history books.
Captain Hezekiah Coffin
Commanded the Beaver, which carried whale oil to England and returned with tea. The Beaver was one of the three ships at the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. Hezekiah was a Coffin of Nantucket — the same family that founded the island in 1659.
Owen Coffin
Seventeen-year-old crewman on the Essex, sunk by a sperm whale on November 20, 1820, two thousand miles west of South America. After months adrift, the surviving crew drew lots. Owen drew the short straw. He was killed and eaten by his crewmates, including his cousin Captain George Pollard Jr. Owen’s story became one of the sources for Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.
James G. Coffin
Kept illustrated logbooks on whaling voyages between 1842 and 1844, now preserved by the Nantucket Historical Association. These logbooks document daily life aboard a whaling vessel — kills, weather, crew dynamics, and drawings of the whales themselves.
Captain Henry B. Folger
Whaling captain and father of Whale Oil Gus. Part of the Folger family that descends from Peter Folger (1617–1690), the grandfather of Benjamin Franklin.
Augustus “Whale Oil Gus” Folger
Born 1852 to whaling captain Henry B. Folger. Left the Coffin School at age fifteen. His first voyage was on a bark commanded by Captain Edward B. Coffin — a Coffin captaining a Folger on a Nantucket whaler, the families intertwined as always. The last of the old Nantucket whalers, Gus performed whale oil songs until the age of 87.
Captain Edward B. Coffin
Commanded the bark Mount Wollaston. Took the young Augustus Folger on his first whaling voyage — continuing the Coffin tradition of mentoring the next generation of Nantucket mariners.
Lucretia Coffin Mott
Born on Nantucket in 1793. Father Thomas Coffin, mother Anna Folger — both from whaling families, both our families. Became America’s greatest nineteenth-century reformer: leading abolitionist, co-organizer of the Seneca Falls Convention (1848), and a driving force behind the women’s rights movement. Going on the new $10 bill. Her Quaker convictions grew directly from the Nantucket tradition that Mary Coffin Starbuck brought to the island. See the Coffin page for the full lineage.