150 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



a few vessels employed in the codfishery; and a profitable 

 business was carried on in shipbuilding. Yarmouth had 

 only ten boats in the fisheries, but Chatham did a con- 

 siderable business in cod fishing with twenty-five schooners. 

 Whale fishing was carried on from Truro and New Bed- 

 ford. 



The cod and mackerel fisheries were carried on in Rhode 

 Island and Connecticut to a small extent only. Their com- 

 bined tonnage in the year of greatest prosperity, 1807, 

 was 6,000 tons, which was about 10 per cent of the tonnage 

 of the other New England states for that year. Outside 

 of New England these fisheries were carried on to an ex- 

 tent hardly worth notice. New York led the list, but the 

 tonnage from that state during this period, 1784 to 1818, 

 never reached nine hundred tons. The deep-sea fisheries 

 of the country during the period were practically limited 

 to New England, and of these states Massachusetts usually 

 possessed more than ninety-five per cent of the total ton- 

 nage. 



The conditions surrounding the life of the fisherman at 

 the opening of the last century were far better and more 

 attractive than at any previous period of the country's 

 history. The disastrous results of the Revolution had 

 been either overcome or outgrown. Seventeen years of 

 peace following the Revolution were not without beneficial 

 results upon all industries, most of all upon the deep- 

 sea fisheries. The liberality of the General Government 

 in granting bounties and allowances was encouraging and 

 stimulating to this industry. The migration of hundreds 

 of New Englanders into the new fields of central New 

 York, Ohio, and Kentucky had no attraction for the fish- 

 erman. Never were his prospects brighter for success in 

 his own calling than in the half-dozen years at the open- 

 ing of the new century. His business increased in volume ; 

 his vessels grew in size as additions were made to the 



