Sharon Middle School- March 6th

42° 06' 24" N
71° 09' 58" W
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The EarthView team is happy to be back in Sharon for another exciting visit! While in town for last week's visit, Dr. Hayes-Bohanan  pointed out to us that there was once a whaling museum in Sharon; a strange place for a whaling museum considering it is a landlocked community and about 30 miles from the coast of Massachusetts.

 After a bit of research, we discovered that Sharon was once site to the Kendall Whaling Museum that was established in 1956.

Kendall Whaling Museum: 27 Everett Street, Sharon, Ma

Henry Plimpton Kendall a local celebrity of sorts was the one who founded the museum. 

http://www.nct-archive.org/henry-p-kendall

While Kendall grew up in Walpole, Ma, he lived in Sharon on Moose Hill Farm for much of his adult life. Kendall was able to grow the failing Lewis Batting Company of Walpole, Ma into the large textile company named The Kendall Company that expanded throughout the United States before merging with the Colgate Palmolive Company in 1972. Not only was Henry Kendall a business owner, he was also an avid collector of historical artifacts from the whaling industry. He arranged his collection and established the Kendall Whaling Museum. Unfortunately the small museum closed in 2001 but the collection remains intact at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

                           

If you are a teacher and would like to include more about whaling into your Geography lessons, please go visit the Geography Lesson Plans page to learn about the book, "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" by Nathaniel Philbrick.