THE PASSING OF THE STURGEON 363 



by representatives of a Boston firm, their object being to put up the roe 

 for caviar and manufacture oil from the bodies. No difficulty was 

 experienced in securing a supply of fish, 160 tons being caught the 

 first season. The oil obtained was of excellent quality, but the experi- 

 ment with the roe, one of the earliest in the country, was a failure, and 

 after two seasons this venture went the way of its predecessors. 



The Delaware Eiver industry, evidently as a result of its proximity 

 to New York and Philadelphia, where more convenient markets could 

 be found among the foreign population and poorer classes, appears to 

 have struggled along with a more or less precarious existence until 

 about 1860. A few years prior to that date, the smoking of sturgeon 

 flesh had been begun on a small scale in New York, and was followed 

 by a similar custom in Philadelphia. Smoked sturgeon made a fairly 

 good substitute for smoked halibut, and in this way a more or less 

 regular demand for the flesh was for the first time created in the cities, 

 being supplemented by the growing " wagon trade " carried on by 

 peddlers who carted fish through the country districts. 8 The prepara- 

 tion of sturgeon roe for caviar had also been done successfully on a com- 

 mercial scale and was perhaps even a more important factor in promo- 

 ting the growth of the fishery. But as an important industry, the 

 sturgeon fishery of Delaware Eiver and Bay can not be said to have 

 originated much before 1860 to 1870, at which time, so far as the 

 records show, the Hudson Eiver was the only other place where it 

 gave promise of attaining extensive proportions. Maine was once more 

 the scene of a sturgeon fishery in 1872, when local fishermen engaged 

 in it, giving place two years later to a regular crew, headed by New 

 York fishermen, catching and buying for the New York smoking and 

 caviar establishments. 9 Important fisheries in the Hudson Eiver 

 existed prior to 1880, supplying local demands or the markets in 

 Albany and New York. The former city is said to have taken such 

 quantities of the flesh that it came to be known locally as " Albany 

 beef," like the sobriquet " Charles city bacon " applied to sturgeon 

 meat on the James Eiver, in Virginia. 10 The Maine fishery, however, 

 ceased to be important after five or six years, and never was revived, 

 and the Hudson industry had declined greatly before 1880, because of 

 the scarcity of fish. During this same period, Delaware Eiver fisher- 

 men had developed a regular fishery for sturgeon about the mouths of 

 the larger rivers along the South Atlantic coast, the most important 

 localities being Albemarle Sound, Savannah Eiver and Winyah Bay. 11 

 But regular fishing was also prosecuted near the mouths of the Alta- 

 maha, Satillas, Ogeechee, Edisto, Santee and the various streams entor- 



8 U. S. Fish Commission Report, 1899, p. 370. 



•Goode, Vol. V., Sec. 1, p. 699. 



10 Goode, Vol. V, Sec. 1, p. 659. 



n U. S. Fish Commission Bulletin, 1891, p. 355. 



