SAILOR FISHERMEN OF NEW ENGLAND. 55 



mercantile business. In Provincetown, for instance, all the principal shops are located upon the 

 wharves, and are carried on by the fishery capitalists. The banks and insurance companies in the 

 fishing ports usually have many retired fishermen upon the board of directors and other officers. 

 Thousands of men from different parts of the coast have abandoned the fishing interest entirely, 

 and have been successful in farming, in business, and in many other branches of industry. It has 

 already been mentioned that a very large number of merchant vessels are officered by fishermen. 

 Many fishermen have entered the Christian ministry and have been successful. Mr. John J. Wat- 

 son, a well-known musician of New York City, who has met with considerable success upon the 

 concert stage, began his career as a fisherman on a Gloucester schooner at the age of eight years, 

 and continued fishing until after he had reached manhood.* 



Patriotism.— During the late war several companies of infantry were organized at Gloucester, 

 composed largely of fishermen, and their record was excellent. Instances of this sort might be 

 given by the page. 



Peculiarities. — The fisherman rarely acquires any peculiarities of carriage or address by 

 which he can be distinguished from his neighbors on shore. When he has left his vessel and 

 assumed his "shore togs" no one would suspect him of being a sea-fariug man. We speak here 

 of the better men, whom we choose to regard as representatives of the class. Of course there are 

 among fishermen many men who have the manners and appearance of common laborers, and who 

 never change their costume or mingle with men engaged in other pursuits. These are commonly 

 men of foreign birth, whose peculiarities are those of their native countiy rather than those apper- 

 taining to their profession. 



A certain class of fishermen, however, must be excepted from these remarks. We refer to 

 those men who are engaged in the shore fishery from little boats, and who spend their lives in soli- 

 tude, fishing among the ledges near their homes. These men are seldom brought into contact with 

 the world, and acquire peculiar mental traits, and in the course of dozens of years of solitude 

 develop a bearing and physiognomy which mark them uumistakably as men of a peculiar class. 

 These men are usually to be found upon isolated parts of the coast, such as the Isles of Shoals, 

 Block Island, No Man's Land, and isolated islands on the coast of Maine. 



Celia Thaxter, in her charming bttle monograph of the Isles of Shoals, thus speaks of the car- 

 riage of the fishermen: "Most of the men are more or less round-shouldered, and seldom upright 

 with head erect and shoulders thrown back. They stoop so much over the fish-tables — cleaning, 

 splitting, salting, packing — that they acquire a permanent habit of stooping." 



These same peculiarities of bearing were also noticeable among the Bank cod fishermen of the 

 olden time, who were accustomed to fish over the rail of the vessel, and were consequently, for a 

 large part of the time, in a stooping position. The introduction of trawling has had the opposite 

 tendency. The hauling of the trawls and the constant exercise in rowing the boats to and from 

 the vessel has a tendency to expand the chest and throw the shoulders back, so that the fishermen 

 are now upright, broad-chested looking men. The crews of the whaling vessels are also marked 

 examples of a fine physique and good muscular development. 



The following paragraph from the book just quoted from describes very picturesquely the 

 conditions and circumstances of the life of a boat fisherman of the olden time : 



" Till Bennaye grew very feeble, every summer night he paddled abroad in his dory to fish 

 for hake, and lonely he looked, tossing among the waves, when our boat bore down and passed him 

 with a hail which he faintly returned as we plunged lightly through the track of the moonlight, 

 young and happy, rejoicing in the beauty of the night, while poor Bennaye only counted his gains 



'Fisherman's Memorial and Record Book, pp. 149-153. 



