Mary Helen
Mary Helen (fl. 1850s)
In the News~
March 6, 1851 [DAC]: “Memoranda. Per Honolulu— Saw the brig Mary Helen off Catalina, 19th Feb.”
August 30, 1852 [DAC]: “Arrived. Brig Mary Helen, [Captain] Scammon, from a whaling cruise, 350 bbls elephant oil; To Master.”
1852: “A fat bull, taken at Santa Barbara Island by the Mary Helen in 1852 was eighteen feet long and yielded two hundred and ten gallons of oil... The oil is superior to whale oil for lubricant purposes and, when used in the lamp, gives a clear, odourless [sic] and smokeless flame...Owing to the continual pursuit of these animals, they have become nearly if not quite extinct on the California coast, or the few remaining have fled to some unknown point for security.” [Scammon, Charles M. Marine Mammals of the Northwest Coast of North America (1874)]
