An advertisement in the March 30, 1748, edition of the Boston News-Letter extolled: “Sperma-Ceti Candles … exceeding all others for Beauty, Sweetness of Scent when extinguished; Duration, being more than double Tallow candles … Dimensions of Flame, nearly four Times more, emitting a soft easy expanding Light.”
Spermaceti candles were a luxury product that cost more than a shilling per pound, and could only be afforded by affluent and discriminating customers in the colonies and Europe.
In November 1751, Benjamin Franklin wrote a friend that he was impressed by this “new kind” of candles “to read by … [that] afford a clear white Light; may be held in the Hand, even in hot Weather, without softining; that their Drops do not make Grease Spots like those from common Candles; that they last much longer, and need little or no Snuffing.” (“Snuffing” probably involved dowsing the candle in order to trim the wick.)
I don’t know if Ben’s note was ever used, but it was the kind of testimonial that merchants yearn for, even today.
George Washington estimated that burning a spermaceti candle every night for a year would amount to a cost of some eight pounds, far beyond the reach of most Americans.
Most of this information comes from Eric Jay Dolin’s fascinating book “Leviathan, The History of Whaling in America.” Dolin, who lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts, studied environmental policy and biology at Brown, Yale and MIT, and has written several books on wildlife and the environment. He has worked as a program manager at the U.S. Environmental Agency. In 2007, he was named the J. Byrne Award Winner by the New Bedford Whaling Museum for outstanding contributions to research and teaching.
Obadiah Brown, a Quaker merchant and scion of the family that later would later found Brown University, established the first colonial candleworks in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1753. Spermaceti is a pearly white, waxy, translucent solid that is obtained from the head of the sperm whale. It comes from the round organ in the head that acts as a sort of sonar device, focusing acoustic signals. It also aids in controlling buoyancy.
Once the crew stripped a whale carcass of blubber, the head was separated from the body, and its valuable head matter was bucketed out. A sperm whale might contain 1,900 liters of the waxy liquid.
Making fine spermaceti candles was a profitable but laborious process. In the fall, spermaceti and oil, referred to as the head matter of the whale, was loaded into large copper kettles and heated, liquefying the spermaceti. The hot, thick liquid then was drained into casks and stored in warehouses during the New England winter, and the cold transformed it into a semi-solid mass.
The next step was to load the mass into woolen sacks that were squeezed by large, wooden screw-presses capable of exerting tons of pressure. The oil that drained out was sold as the most valuable, winter-strained sperm oil.
When warm weather returned, the mass again went through the press. The candlemaker boiled the wax remaining in the sacks and added an alkali, such as potash, which stripped away unwanted color. The now pure white wax was molded into beautiful spermaceti candles.
In most colonial homes, where families might burn 300 to 400 candles every year, ordinary citizens had to be content with much cheaper whale oil lamps or tallow candles made from deer suet, moose fat, bear grease and whatever could be gleaned from kitchen byproducts. The cheaper candles burned too fast, and gave off more smoke and less light.
Competition in the spermaceti candle business became fierce, and by 1760, manufacturers realized they had a problem. Demand for the luxury candles was so strong that it outstripped the supply of head matter. Candlemakers saw that if they got into a bidding war for this essential raw material, they would need to raise their candle prices, and if prices went too high, the market would suffer.
So, in 1761, the eighth-largest candle manufacturers in the colonies banded together to form “The United Company of Spermaceti Chandlers,” which became known as the Spermaceti Trust. They established a maximum price that they would pay per ton for head matter, and set allotments of head matter for each member.
The members decided to meet twice annually “at the best tavern in Taunton” Massachusetts, to measure their success. One historian called it the world’s first energy cartel.
But it was plagued with problems from the start. It endured for a dozen years, but there was no trust among the members, and efforts to stifle new candlemakers were ineffectual. By 1774, there were 24 manufacturers, and all had joined the Trust.
Joseph Rotch was the patriarch of America’s most famous whaling family. When he entered the candlemaking business, and built a large candleworks in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1775, the trust felt threatened. In self-defense, the members invited him into their ranks.
But it was his son, William, who turned out to be a bigger threat. William learned all about the whaling business, especially the most valuable skill of grading oil. He demanded that the trust allot him more head matter, saying he was allotted less than his own whaling ships were bringing home.
A crucial meeting to settle the controversy was set for April 26, but it did not take place. A week earlier, the first shots of the American Revolution were fired in Lexington, and commerce in the colonies ground to a halt.
The Trust dwindled away after the war, but the spermaceti candle industry came back strong and prospered until the spread of electricity in the 1890s.
Sag Harbor enjoyed great prosperity at the height of the whaling industry, from 1820 to 1850, and it supported other businesses: a brass foundry, hat factories, pottery, watch making, and, of course, candle making.
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