HistoryPoints News

Jan 13, 2023

Whale-bone cutting in Pembs


The diary of Abiel Folger, one of the American settlers who developed Milford Haven, records that her husband Timothy cut whale bone in his last years. A relative of Benjamin Franklin, he was a whaling-ship captain but was ostracised in Nantucket for ...

his pacifism. Cutting whale bone was a lucrative aspect of the whaling trade, because no other material at the time could match the flexibility and strength of bones from baleen plates for objects like umbrellas and corsets. On one day in 1810, however, Abiel wrote that she wished someone else could cut the bone, as her husband "maks a poor ham". For more about the Folgers and the American community, use your smartphone to scan the HistoryPoints QR codes in the front window of the Folgers' former home in Hamilton Terrace. Or click here