This method of whaling is still followed at Amagansett and Southampton, on the shore of Long Island, though the growing scarcity of whales makes catches infrequent.

In the colonial days, however, it was a source of profit assiduously cultivated by coastwise communities, and both on Long Island and Cape Cod citizens were officially enjoined to watch for whales off shore.

Whales were then seen daily in New York harbor, and in 1669 one Samuel Maverick recorded in a letter that thirteen whales had been taken along the south shore during the winter, and twenty in the spring.
Little by little the boat voyages after the leviathans extended further into the sea as the industry grew and the game became scarce and shy.

The people of Cape Cod were the first to begin the fishery, and earliest perfected the art of "saving" the whale--that is, of securing all of value in the carcass.

But the people of the little island of Nantucket brought the industry to its highest development, and spread most widely the fame of the American whaleman.