MASSACHUSETTS: BARNSTABLE DISTRICT. 249 



earn their living partially by fishing. They do not ship auy fish, but sell their catch in the village. 

 They o\vn two small blnefish gill-nets and a sweep-seine worth about $100, which is used in spring 

 for the capture of mackerel. In fall and spring these men catch a few cod and mackerel with hook 

 and line in the bay. 



The Sandwich alewife-river, which forms a part of Monument River, yields annually from 400 

 to 1,000 barrels of alewives. The river belongs to the town, and each citizen of Sandwich Town 

 ship is entitled to one barrel of alewives on payment of : the trifling sum of from 35 to 70 cents, 

 which serves as compensation for the men who catch the fish. The villages of West Sandwich and 

 North Sandwich are inland, and do not participate in the fisheries. In the course of its history 

 Sandwich has had three whaling vessels, the last of which was sold to Sag Harbor in 1864. 



Cohasset Narrows is situated in the town of Sandwich, and is at the extreme northern end of 

 Buzzard's Bay. The fishing at this end of the bay is followed only by sportsmen and by others 

 who thereby furnish fish for home consumption. The State law prohibits the setting of any weirs 

 or pounds from Bird Island light on the south to the extreme northern end of the bay. The Nar- 

 rows is now receiving special attention, it being at the southern end of the proposed canal soon 

 to be cut through from Cape Cod Bay on the north, the two bays being only G miles ppart. A few 

 years ago clams were plentiful at this point, but probably from having been overworked are now 

 nearly exhausted. The amount, taken from the flats of Buttermilk Bay during the season of 1879 

 was 800 bushels. During the next season 400 bushels were taken and were sold by peddlers to the 

 inhabitants of the neighboring towns. 



The villages of Pocasset, Monument, and Buzzard's Bay form a part of the town of Sandwich, 

 and are situated on the eastern shore of Buzzard's Bay, near its head. The oyster fishery is the 

 only fishery which engages the attention of the citizens to any considerable extent. 



THE OYSTER INDUSTRY OF SANDWICH. The following account of the oyster interests of 

 Sandwich is from the report by Mr. Ingersoll : 



"The Cohasset River divides the town of Warehim from the adjacent township of Sandwich, 

 its neighbor on the south and east. Flowing into Buzzard's Bay from this Sandwich side are 

 several rivers, and the shore is indented with numerous inlets and shallow ponds. Nearly all of 

 these inlets were found by the earliest colonists occupied by beds of natural oysters, and most of 

 these beds are still living and supplying seed for cultivation. That the. Indians used the oysters 

 extensively is shown, not only by tradition and analogy, but by abundant traces of former feasts 

 in the shape of shell-heaps. Some account of the oysters of this region more recently, is accessible 

 in a letter from Dr. J. B. Forsytb, written in 1840, to Dr. A. A. Gould, and printed in the first 

 edition of the lattcr's Invertebrates of Massachusetts. Dr. Forsytb. says that the aged men of the 

 vicinity assured him that oysters had never been brought there from abroad up to that time (1840) ; 

 that they grew so abundantly everywhere along the Sandwich shores 'that at low water you could 

 at almost any point procure a bucketfull of them from the rocks.' Dr. Forsyth also mentions 

 Wareham as an oyster locality. There was then a statute prohibiting a man from taking more 

 than two bushels at one time for his own use, and forbidding their being carried out of town. 

 ' The oysters,' says the writer, ' are generally collected by a few men, who bring them to the village 

 and dispose of them at 50 cents a bushel for their trouble; and by selling half a bushel or a bushel 

 to an individual the spirit of the statute is not violated. This may be repeated every day, until 

 the desired supply is laid in. When placed in the cellar and fed from time to time with a little 

 meal and water, they will sometimes keep good for months.' 



"Buzzard's Bay is the new name for the railway station on the Old Colony line, known to all 

 the people about there as Cohasset Narrows, because it is upon the narrowest part of the neck of 



