That time a whale showed up in the harbor

A whale was spotted off Ocean City this year, but decades ago, one could be seen right in Baltimore’s harbor.

No one on board the tanker New Orleans in March of 1940 had realized the unwitting catch made by the ship off the coast of Cape Hatteras, although they had wondered what had caused the boat to suddenly slow its course up the Atlantic.

It wasn’t until the ship anchored at Pier 2 in Baltimore that they found the cause: a hulking gray whale, dead, and wedged along the ship’s bow below the waterline. It began to float away, and was soon seen bobbing along the pier, a pale blubbery mass.

Word of the catch traveled quickly, and soon thousands of people flocked to the Canton harbor to catch sight of the hulking carcass floating in the waters. Boys tossed rocks and bricks at it, and vendors began to hawk popcorn and toys, Robert K. Burgess recalled in The Baltimore Sun in 1956. The wind would occasionally blow the stench of whale flesh to shore.

After some deliberation by port officials about what to do, the unfortunate creature was towed to Locust Point, hoisted onto a train, and taken to Harford County, where it was turned to fertilizer.

In years since, other Baltimore-bound ships have dragged dead whales in their wake. In 1984, a 40-ton baleen whale arrived in the port of Dundalk, having caught on the bow of a cargo ship. It was burned in the city’s incinerator, becoming fuel for homes.

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