Nantucket shipbuilding
Open-knowledge reference entry
Nantucket shipbuilding began in the late 1700s and culminated in the construction of notable whaling ships during the early 19th century. Shipbuilding was predominantly sited at Brant Point. Whaling ship construction concluded in 1838.
Shipbuilding at Brant Point
Nantucket lies 30 miles off the southern coastline of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. 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. Any timbers needed for architectural and shipbuilding use were imported from the mainland, with the result that most Nantucket whaling, fishing, and maritime trade was carried on in vessels purchased from shipbuilders elsewhere in New England.
Brant Point on the north side of Nantucket harbor still has the sandy beach that was a good site for building large wooden ships and it is the location of Brant Point Light.
The first ship built on Nantucket after the town moved to Great Harbor was the brig Dolphin, a West Indies trader launched in 1770.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nantucket shipbuilding” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.