In the old days, before petroleum or kerosene had been found in this country, people had many ways of lighting their houses.  A cheap light was made by putting a little grease or oil in a saucer in which was a little wick or rag lying over the edge of the saucer or drawn up through a cork that floated on the grease.  When this wick was burning, it gave hardly as much light as a candle.  This is one of the oldest ways of making light.  It was used thousands of years ago.  Many people now living remember little lamps made in this way.

Poor people often made light by burning pine knots, or bits of pitch pine chopped out of old stumps.  These gave a bright light for a time.  Pitch pine in New England was called candle wood; in the South it was called light wood.

The commonest light in old times was the tallow candle.  This was sometimes made by dipping a candle wick into melted tallow.  Then, when the tallow had cooled, the candle was dipped again and again.  A little tallow remained on it each time, and at last it was thick enough to burn.  Candles made in this way were called “dips.”  Better candles were made by running melted tallow into molds.

Before the Revolution a favorite candle for burning at fine houses was made of the wax-myrtle berry.  This berry is full of a kind of green wax which came out when it was boiled.  When this wax rose to the top of the pot, it was skimmed off and used for making wax candles.  These candles had a pretty green color, and gave out a delicate perfume when they were burning.  More expensive candles were made of beeswax.

For hundreds of years whale oil was burned in large lamps, and thousands of whales were killed in order to get the oil.  Candles were also made from spermaceti, which is a substance taken from the head of the sperm whale.

When the people first settled on Long Island, there were a great many whales in the sea.  Sometimes these whales would run into bays and other shallow places.  When the tide went out, the whale would be left without water enough to swim in.  Sometimes he found himself lying on the dry ground.  Before the white people came, the Long Island Indians used to kill whales stranded in this way, with spears.  The Indians used the fat of the whale for food.  The white people killed them, and got the oil out of the fat by boiling.  This oil they sold for lamp oil.

Finding that much money could be made by selling whale oil, the people on Long Island fitted up boats, which they kept always ready along the seashore.  Whenever anybody saw a whale, the boatmen ran to their boats, and rowed out to kill it.  They did not yet know how to go out to sea in whaling ships as some people in Europe did.  After a while the Long Island people learned to take their small boats out to sea for miles to look for whales.  This way of killing the whales spread from Long Island to Connecticut, and from there to Cape Cod.

The people on the island of Nantucket had also learned to kill the whales that came into shallow water.  They got a man to come out from Cape Cod to show them how to go out in boats and kill whales along the coast.  After a while they built small ships in which they went to sea to seek for whales, but they brought the fat on shore in order to get the oil out of it.