710 HISTORY AND METHODS OP THE FISHERIES. 



In the village stores salmon, shad, and alewives were bought and sold, and the merchants' 

 books give us some information about prices. * The storekeeper paid for fresh salmon 2d. per 

 pound, for salt salmon 2d. and sold salt salmon at all seasons of the year for id. per pound. 

 A half barrel of salmon is charged at 1 is. Shad were bought in May and June at from 1J to 

 3d. each, and sold in March at Gd. each. The selling price of a barrel of shad was from 30s. 

 to 36s. Alewives are bought in May at 3s. per barrel, and retailed in December and February 

 at 1 4s. The same merchant was retailing dry codfish at id. to Gd. per pound; salt pork at 

 10(7. ; salt beef at id. ; flour at 6d. ; corn at 8s. per bushel ; sugar at Is. per pound : sheeting at 2s. 

 Gd. per yard. Thus the fisherman bartering his salmon for store goods would give 2 or 3 pounds 

 of salmon for a pound of codfish ; 5 pounds of salmon for a pound of pork ; 2 pounds of salmon for 

 a pound of beef; 3 pounds of salmon for a pound of flour ; 48 pounds of salmon for a bushel of corn ; 

 6 pounds of salmon for a pound of tea, and 15 pounds of salmon for a yard of sheeting. A com- 

 parison with the modern prices for these articles shows us that wben salmon are sold by the 

 fisherman at 12 cents per pound (and the price rarely goes lower) their purchasing power Las 

 increased, in exchange for codfish about 6 times ; for pork, 5 times ; for beef, 2 times ; for ffour, 10 

 times; for corn, 8 times; for sugar, 6 times; for sheeticg, 22 times. 



Shortly after the year 1800 weirs with three pounds, substantially of the modern form, were 

 introduced. They were constructed wholly of stakes and brush, or in some cases partly of woven 

 cedar mats. They had no floor but the bottom of the river, and were not extended beyond low- 

 water mark because the fisherman must take his catch out with a dip net. Such a weir in latter 

 days would be a total failure, but in those times took a great abund-uice of fish. Their introduc- 

 tion is attributed by several authorities to one Hawley (or "Hollis") Emerson, of L'hippsbnrg, in 



v 



isll or 1815. The latter year he appears to have built such a weir at Treat's Point, on the west 

 side of Marsh Bay, and it inclosed at one time such a mass of fish that its sides burst open and let 

 them out. This form of weir came into immediate use, and in the river from Castine and Sears- 

 port to Orrington supplanted set-nets generally, though these have never passed wholly out of 

 use. About the same time, or a few years later, floors were made for the fish-pounds, and one 

 Halliday, said to be a Scotchman, and to have come from New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, intro- 

 duced the use of netting for the walls of the fish-pound. To him is also by some attributed the 

 introduction of floors. He built a weir on the west side of Orphan's Island (now Verona), and that 

 was the first weir with " marliii" (netting), or with a floor, that was built in that neighborhood 

 The use of netting was, however, only gradually adopted, and we know that as late as 1829 some 

 productive weirs were built at Bucksport without it. In Penobscot Bay, below Castine and 

 Searsport, weirs were never adopted, but set-nets continued in use until comparatively recent times, 

 when they were gradually transformed into the " traps " or pound-nets of the present day. 



About the date of the introduction of three-pound weirs there sprung up a better demand for 

 shad, which now became the leading fish for sale. Small vessels from Southern New England, 

 some also from Portland, came and passed the fishing season in the Penobscot, buying salmon and 

 shad to smoke and salt, and also buying the cured fish, not only of these species, but of alewives, 

 salted or smoked. A considerable part of the catch found its way to market through their 

 hands. 



Fish were not continuously plenty ; 1820 was a year of great scarcity, which continued several 

 years after that date. In 1822 fish were scarce in Marsh Bay, but about the 1st of July, there 

 was an extraordinary run of salmon which gave good fishing in Penobscot Bay, and as far up the 



* Data from the books of Mr. Robert Treat, who ktpt a store in Banger from 178U to 1790. 



