96 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



conclusively proves, that, with a little more money and per- 

 severance, this first attempt would have been successful, and 

 Cape Ann would have had the honor to head the list of dis- 

 tinguished men who have been governors of Massachusetts 

 with the name of Roger Conant, one whom some historians 

 believe to be entitled to that place. 



The pioneer ship of the Dorchester Company was also the 

 pioneer in a foreign trade from Essex County, she having 

 sailed from Cape Ann with a full cargo for Spain in 1623, — 

 the first foreign shipment from an Essex-county port, which 

 grew afterwards to a large and profitable trade. Fifty-one 

 thousand three hundred quintals of fish, almost wholly the 

 products of Marblehead and Cape-Ann fisheries, were shipped 

 from this county to Bilboa alone during the year 1767, bring- 

 ing back valuable cargoes in return ; which foreign trade in 

 fish direct from our ports, or vid the fishing-grounds to that 

 and other Mediterranean ports, continued into the present 

 century.* Boston has now taken the foreign trade from 

 Salem and other ports in our county, and Gloucester has 

 absorbed the fisheries from Marblehead and other ports, 

 Marblehead having had two hundred and fiftj^-one fishing 

 vessels in 1775, against seventy-five at Cape Ann ; while in 

 1879, Marblehead (customs district) had only a hundred and 

 twenty-three, of over five tons' burden, against four hun- 

 dred and fifty-nine at Gloucester. 



The Plymouth Colony, which had given no particular at- 

 tention to the fisheries previously, "sent a ship in 1624, 

 called the ' Charity,' " from that colony to erect salt-works 

 and a fishing-stage at Cape Ann. Before the arrival of their 

 ship, the following year, another, sent by merchants and ad- 

 venturers from England, hostile to the Pilgrims, had entered 

 the harbor, and seized the stage and other provision made by 

 the " Charity's " colony the year previous ; and the " Stage 

 Head" (afterwards fortified in the Revolutionary war and 

 wars of 1812 and 1861) was barricaded with hogsheads, and 

 the rightful owners, under Capt. Miles Standish, were kept 



• 



* One hundred and fifty-three thousand five hundred quintals of fish, worth 

 $537,250, were shipped to European ports, and 118,000 quintals of fish, worth 

 $300,800, were shipped to West Indies annually. Just before the Revolutionary 

 war, from Essex County, a total of 273,500 quintals, $844,050 in value, were ex- 

 ported; ]\Iarblehead shipping 120,000 quintals, and Gloucester 77,500 quintals. — 

 Pitkin's Commerce of the United States, 1816. 



