A correspondent counts boats and oil at Kāpiti and Mana
An 1844 letter supplied a table of shore-whaling parties. For Kāpiti it listed Gillet with seven boats, 140 tuns of oil and six tons of baleen; for Mana it listed Fraser with two boats and 14 tuns of oil. These are figures submitted by a correspondent, not independently audited totals. They should be compared with earlier station lists, accounting books and archaeological site identifications.
Production statistics need their original dates
Newspaper production returns can record boats, crews, oil and whalebone, but a figure has meaning only when its year and geographic scope are retained. Prickett's synthesis cites Dieffenbach for the 1839 Kāpiti–Mana total of six stations, 23 boats and 466 tuns of black oil excluding tonguers' oil.
The industry contracted sharply: later published figures give two stations with seven boats in 1844, then two stations with three boats producing 29 tuns in 1847. These are not three estimates for the same season. They are successive snapshots of an industry affected by changing whale availability and station operations.
Paremata illustrates the value of station-specific returns. Prickett records two boats, fifteen men and 24 tuns of oil for 1844, and eighteen men with 18 tuns for 1845. The owner appears as 'Thoms' in one return and 'Bolton' in the next; the spelling and attribution must not be normalised into a single unquestioned identity.
Sources: Nigel Prickett, The Archaeology of New Zealand Shore Whaling (2002), Kāpiti chapter, pp. 83–97 (especially Paremata, Tahoramaurea and Te Kahuoterangi); where specified, Whale Song, Kāpiti – Blood, Oil and Bone (2025). Interpretations and source limitations are distinguished in the text.
Boats and oil at Kāpiti and Mana
Contemporary accounts measured the industry through active boats and oil output. The frequently cited 1839 return gives six establishments, 23 boats and 466 tuns of black oil, excluding tonguers.
A rapid contraction
Later published snapshots give seven boats in 1844 and three in 1847. These changes are historically important, but the returns differ in date and scope and should not be combined into one undated count.
Reading a correspondent’s numbers
A newspaper account can preserve valuable contemporary evidence, but its geographic coverage and reporting date need to be retained when comparing it with the six-station 1839 return or later official returns.
Source: Nigel Prickett, “The Archaeology of New Zealand Shore Whaling” (2002), pp. 83–97.
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