Perth Amboy was the principal port and
shipbuilding center for East Jersey as Salem was for West Jersey.
But Burlington, Bordentown, Cape May, and Trenton, and
innumerable little villages up creeks and channels or mere
ditches could not be kept from the prevailing industry. They
built craft up to the limit of size that could be floated away in
the water before their very doors. Plentifully supplied with
excellent oak and pine and with the admirable white cedar of
their own forests, very skillful shipwrights grew up in every
little hamlet.
A large part of the capital used in Jersey shipbuilding is said
to have come from Philadelphia and New York. At first this
capital sought its profit in whaling along the coast and
afterwards in the trade with the West Indies, which for a time
absorbed so much of the shipping of all the colonies in America.
The inlets and beaches along the Jersey coast now given over to
summer resorts were first used for whaling camps or bases. Cape
May and Tuckerton were started and maintained by whaling; and as
late as 1830, it is said, there were still signs of the industry
on Long Beach.
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