New Bedford - Massachusetts - History

A fishing community at this site was established in 1760. By 1765 it had developed into a small whaling port and shipbuilding centre. The Dartmouth, which in 1767 was the first ship launched there, was one of the "tea-ships" involved in the Boston Tea Party , 1773. Because the town's deepwater harbour was used by American privateers during the American Revolution, it was attacked, Sept. 5, 1778, and burned by British forces. Following a rapid recovery, it was separately incorporated, 1787, as the town of New Bedford.

By 1820 New Bedford was one of the world's leading whaling ports. In the mid-19th century three-fifths of the U.S. whaling fleet, which totalled more than 700 vessels, was registered there. The site was immortalized by Herman Melville in Moby Dick. Following the decline in whaling, New Bedford turned to the manufacture of cotton fabrics but was adversely affected by the movement of the textile industry to the American Southeast during the 1920s.

The New Bedford Whaling Museum, the 19th-century fishing schooner Ernestina, and the Seamen's Bethel, Whaleman's Chapel, reflect the city's historic and seafaring past. A 13-block section of the city was designated as New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park in 1996.