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New Bedford MA |
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Due south of Boston on Buzzards Bay is New Bedford, one of the region's best-known towns during the whaling era. The whaling museum and the ferry to Martha's Vineyard are the big attractions in New Bedford today. |
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New Bedford, like Fall River, owed part of its living to textiles, but its fame rests on its history as a whaling port. Herman Melville set his American classic, Moby Dick, in New Bedford as the logical spot to begin a whaling epic, and so it was. During the heyday of whale-oil lamps, New Bedford had about 400 ships out scouting the seas for the monster denizens. A ship might be at sea for several years, and when it returned to port it could have thousands of barrels of whale oil in its hold. The story of whaling—how the ships were staffed and equipped, how the search was carried out, how the men pursued and killed the whale, and then butchered and rendered it to get the oil—is all told in New Bedford's famous Whaling Museum on Johnny Cake Hill. New Bedford's historic waterfront downtown section has undergone extensive renovation and restoration. The centerpiece of the restoration is Melville Mall, a pedestrian shopping street complete with trees, benches, and music in the air. East of the mall, going down to the water's edge along cobbled streets, the Custom House and many merchants' buildings are being restored. The center of the city is taking on an appearance much like it had during its 19th-century heyday. |
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