The first whaling station, for shore whaling, was established in the area by John Raine in 1828. Local Aboriginal people were employed in the whaling industry. In 1834 the Imlay brothers, Alexander, George and Peter, set up a whaling station at Snug Cove. Nearby they built a small slab and bark hut, the first-known building erected at Eden. Sketches of the hut were made by Sir Oswald Brierly in 1842 and by Captain Owen Stanley from HMS "Rattlesnake" in 1843. In around 1860 Davidson commenced a partnership with the Solomon family of Eden-Monaro. Initially the prevalent orcas were seen by the partnership as a nuisance. But the boat crews employed, Yuin aboriginals, refused to kill orcas, and a new policy encouraged collaboration between whalers and the killer whales; the killer whales would trap humpback whales that entered Twofold Bay, the whales would then be harpooned, and the orcas rewarded with prize pieces of the humpback carcasses.