184 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



a change, cod and mackerel fishing to decrease materially, 

 herring and menhaden fishing to disappear almost entirely. 

 The new industry, that of canning lobsters and other prod- 

 ucts of the sea, had already taken the initial step towards 

 developing in prominence and economic value. 



The fisheries of New Hampshire do not appear to have 

 risen to any place of prominence after the war of 1812. 

 In 1840, the quantity of fish caught, and smoked or dried 

 in the State was 28,257 quintals, and of pickled fish, 1,715 

 barrels. There were 399 men employed in the fisheries and 

 capital invested to the amount of $59,680.* The records 

 of the value of the fishery products of New Hampshire 

 in the Portsmouth custom house are wanting prior to 1867. 

 The custom returns for that year, which are the most ac- 

 cessible for the period, place the total value of all fish 

 products of New Hampshire for 1867 at $73,853. 2 



A review of the fisheries of Massachusetts towns shows 

 that, like the State of Maine, almost every place border- 

 ing on the water front of the state was actively engaged 

 in some branch of the industry during a part, if not all, 

 of the period from 1818 to 1866. Newburyport held a 

 prominent place in the cod and mackerel fisheries through- 

 out the period. Until 1820, it was second only to Boston 

 in the extent of the mackerel fishery, and for twenty years 

 after it occupied third place among Massachusetts fishing 

 towns. The number of barrels of mackerel packed in the 

 town in 1831 was 36,424. During the Civil War there were 

 7,500 barrels packed annually. In 1835, Newburyport had 

 41 vessels of about fifty tons each in the codfishery, and 

 125 vessels engaged in mackereling ; the latter number had 

 fallen off to ninety in 1851. There were between 40 and 

 50 vessels engaged in the Labrador fishery in 1850, and 

 60 vessels there in 1860. Fishermen from this town used 



1 Sabine, p. 175. 



2 Hunt, Vol. XII, p. 96. 



