THE DEPRESSION IN trade 

 and the almost com- 

 plete cessation of emigra- 

 tion to the American col- 

 onies that followed the 

 Civil War in England, dur- 

 ing the 1640's, led to the 

 rapid growth of the New 

 England fisheries and co- 

 lonial maritime trade. To 



support themselves in this period, the colonials began 

 trading in the West Indies, and as fish was an article- 

 in-trade much in demand there and as the New 

 England colonies could produce the article, the fish- 

 eries soon assumed great importance. As a result, the 

 New England fishing fleet began to invade Nova 

 Scotian waters; in 1670 there were 30 New England 

 shallops reported on the Nova Scotian coast, by 1708 

 the number reported was 300. 



Colonial Craft 



Very little is known about colonial fishing craft of 

 the 17th and early 18th centuries. Customhouse 

 records and colonial reports show that the fishing 

 fleet was largely made up of brigantines and ships 

 ("gallies"), sloops, shallops, and "catches." The 

 "gallies" were fast-sailing ships and brigantines 

 designed to permit rowing and these, from about 

 1695 to 1720, were employed by merchants, first to 

 catch fish on the Banks and secondly, to carry the 

 catch to a foreign market, often one of the Mediter- 

 ranean coimtries. The sloops were single-masted 

 vessels, perhaps having a gaff- or sprit-mainsail and 

 one or two headsails according to size. They made up 

 the bulk of the colonial whaling fleet until after 

 the Revolution. The shallops were a 2-masted decked 

 boat of some sort, perhaps sprit- or gaff-rigged, without 

 a headsail. They were 30 to 40 tons burden at the 

 end of the 17th century; later, about the middle of 

 the 18th century, the name shallop was sometimes 

 applied to small schooner-rigged craft as well as to 

 2-masted decked boats having no headsail. The 

 "catches" were apparently 2-masted boats and many 

 writers have assumed these were the same as the later 

 ketches of the 18th century. However, there is some 

 reason to doubt that the fishing catches and the 18th 

 century bomb and merchant ketches were alike; 

 the fishing catch was commonly a small vessel below 

 30 tons register and thus too small to be rigged bomb- 

 ketch fashion. 



The records also show that the fishing catches often 

 carried small crews (four men in one case) when 

 making relatively long voyages. The catch must 

 have been more burdensome than the shallop, as a 

 rule, for catches are reported to have often carried 

 fish to the West Indies. The possible rig of the fish- 

 ing catch is suggested by the colonial lists of ships, on 

 which it appears that a large number of catches 

 were carried until about 1710-20 when, suddenly 

 they are replaced by "scooners." Hence it may be 

 that the fishing catch was a fore-and-aft rigged vessel 

 which aljout 1715 became known as the "scooner," 

 or schooner, as has been mentioned earlier (p. 14). 



Early in the 18th century the New England and 

 Canadian inshore fisheries were being carried on by 

 small sloops and shallops, the offshore fisheries by 

 schooners and a few large sloops. The schooners 

 soon became vessels of some size and by 1770 the 

 New England fishing schooner was often 60 feet in 

 length. As far as can be discovered, the shallop or 

 "two mast boat," was something like the Chebacco 

 boat and dogbody, to be referred to later (p. 164). 

 It is apparent, from contemporary accounts, that 

 there were a number of shallops and small schooners 

 with the pink stern, a sharp stern with overhanging 

 bulwarks aft that later marked the New England 

 pinky schooner. The large fishing schooners appear 

 to have all been square-sterned. 



As early as 1721 Marblehead, Massachusetts, had 

 120 schooners in the fisheries averaging 50 tons 

 register and by 1741 Marblehead had 160. In the 

 colony of Massachusetts, in 1741, 400 schooners were 

 owned, besides about an equal number of decked 

 and undecked small craft all employed in the fisheries. 

 Sometime before 1760 the large fishing schooner had 

 developed marked characteristics and had become 

 known as the "Marble Head scooner." 



The history of the development of the early fishing 

 schooners has been clouded by tradition. The 

 alleged "invention" of the schooner at Gloucester, 

 Massachusetts, in 1715 was accepted as an historical 

 fact for many years, vmtil it was finally challenged 

 by the production of old paintings and drawings 

 showing that the schooner-rig had existed long before 

 1 71 5. It has been traditional that the fishing schooner 

 improved in size, speed, and all good qualities as 

 time passed and knowledge increased, whereas the 

 facts were that the schooner developed or receded 

 in size, speed, and good qualities, as the economics 

 of the fisheries required, or as international conditions 

 made necessary 



162 



