177 



spawn during the appropriate season ; giving the reasons 



therefor, and urging the great value of the fisheries to our 

 people. It seems that at this early period in our history 

 there were persons cognizant of the importance of those 



measures which are now receiving due attention from the 

 national and several of our State governments, commis- 

 sions having been appointed to take this subject into con- 

 sideration and to devise means to restock our rivers and 

 streams with food fishes, which in the early settlement fur- 

 nished an abundant supply. The preservation of fish re- 

 ceived the earliest attention of the colonists, as they were 

 one of the great "staples" of Massachusetts, being not 

 only a source of supply for their own wants, but of great 

 profit in their foreign trade ; a cargo of tish often procured 

 for them a return cargo of wines, spiecs, and other lux- 

 uries. In the construction of the first mills reservations 

 were made in the grants, "not to stop or hinder the ale- 

 wives from going up to the great pond." Many of our 

 older citizens may well remember the attention that was 

 given to the removal of all obstructions that would prevent 

 the free passage of the alewives and other fishes to and 

 from the spawning places, by our town authorities, in the 

 appointment of fish committees, whose duties were not 

 only to remove these obstructions, but prevent the taking 

 offish only on certain days in each week, and also to pre- 

 scribe I he manner that a due proportion may be preserved. 



Previous to 1760 but few changes had been effected, 

 and it was not until the beginning of the present cen- 

 tury fhat the old landmarks, once prominent in our local 

 descriptions, began to disappear, and such has been the 

 rapid march of progress, that during the last three-quar- 

 ters of a century all of them are obliterated. 



Improvements required by the progressive tendencies 

 of the age, have contributed in effacing places once 



