The Second Era of Hudson Whaling: 1829-1841, Part One
After the European wars and American embargo initiated Hudson’s economic decline, the city’s businesses diversified away from maritime activities to manufacturing. Shipbuilders and warehouse owners turned to utilizing the nearby creeks for water power and built textile mills. Robert Jenkins and other wealthy merchants organized the Columbia Manufacturing Society in 1809 and operated a cotton mill in Stockport Creek. The largest woolen mill in the state was owned and operated by Seth Macy on Claverack Creek, and it spurred new sheep-raising businesses near Hudson, on what is today Mount Merino
Advertisement in Northern Whig, September 4, 1821
Even with this diversification of business, by the 1820s, Hudson was a city struggling to survive. Between 1815 and 1830, only five reported whaling voyages left from Hudson. Many of the Proprietor whalers, such as Captains Paddock and Folger, retired from overseas voyages and used their sloops for river trade and ferrying passengers up and down the Hudson River.
Another financial blow to Hudson was the failure of the Bank of Columbia in 1829. Chartered in 1792 and originally founded by Thomas and Seth Jenkins, it was the first bank in Hudson and the third in New York State.
In Nantucket and New Bedford whaling had continued to be successful. The merchants and whalers of Hudson saw that whaling was still a profitable enterprise in these ports. With new innovations and advances in lighting, the demand for the clean burning sperm oil was on the rise and uses for whalebone were numerous. Once again, Hudson merchants were drawn to the romance and economic lure of whaling. In 1829 Seth Macy, Robert Barnard and Oliver Wiswall formed an association, the Hudson Whaling Company, to revive the city’s whaling industry and drew up Articles of Agreement stating:
We the subscribers, impressed with the importance of encouraging a Branch of
Foreign Commerce best calculated to promote, the prosperity of this city of Hudson…as well as to augment the wealth of those who may contribute a portion of their capital toward the introduction and establishment of this whale fishery do associate ourselves together for that purpose under the name of the Hudson Whale Fishery Co…...