THE OYSTER-INDUSTRY. 19 



6. nrSTORY OF THE NATURAL OYSTER-BEDS IN THE GULF OF MAINE, SINCE THE SETTLEMENT 



OF THE COAST BY EUROPEANS. 



Testihiony of Champlain, Pottrincourt, and Winslow, 1G05-1020. — Beyond tlie most general allnsion, 

 the veiy earliest mention of oysters in these waters occurs in ^GOC. The second voyage of exploration along our 

 coast found an anchorage in Massachusetts bay. " There were many very good oysters here," he relates, " which 

 we had not seen before, and we named the place Port aus Huistres." Mr. Slafter, a commentator upon the history 

 of these voyages, says " it is plain that this port, which they named Oyster Harbor, was either that of Wellfleet or 

 Barnstable. The former, it will be remembered, Chamjilain, with De Monts, entered the preceding year, 160.3, and 

 luiinod it, or the river that flows into it, St. Suzanna du Cap Blauc. * * * It is obvious that Champlain could not 

 have entered this harbor the second time without recognizing it. « * * "We may conclude, therefore, that the 

 port in question was not Welltieet, but Barnstable. This conclusion is sustained by the conditions mentioned in 

 the text." 



In another edition of Champlain's map (1C32) the "Riviere anx Escailles" is drawn emptying into the same part 

 of the bay which Ogilby, in his map of this part of America, published in 1670, calls " Port aux Huistres". This name 

 survived, indeed, to a much later time. In Itees's Cyclopedia (1819), "Oyster bay" is given as "a harbour for small 

 vessels in the southwest limits of Barnstable, Massachusetts. It derives its name from its excellent oysters ". 



Champlain (second voyage, 1606,) also relates that he found oyster-beds in Chatham harbor, on the south side 

 of Cape Cod, and makes the following general statement: "All the harbors, bays, and coasts from Choiiacoet 

 [Portland, Maine] are filled with every variety of fish. # * * There are also many shellfish of various sort^-, 

 principally oysters." In this case, too, Rees preserves the recollection so long, that I wonder it has ever been lost, 

 for in his Cyclopaedia he mentions an " Oyster Island Harbour on the coast of Massachusetts, which, from its 

 latitude (lat. 41° 35', long. 70° 21'), must have been in the neighborhood of Chatham ". 



These records by Champlain and Poitriucourt embrace the earliest notice that I can find of oysters on the 

 northern coast, but careful searching through all the early narratives of exploration and settlement around 

 Massachusetts bay, produces much additional testimony. For instance, in 1621, in a letter from Plymouth, 

 preserved in 3Iovffs Relation, Edward Winslow writes to an English friend: "Oyfters we have none near, but we 

 can have them brought by the Indians when we will." This shows they were not far away. Two years later we 

 read the sad report that "one in geathering fhellflfh was fo weake as he fuicke faft in y« mudd, and was found 

 dead in j" place. At last moft of them [Wefton's people in Maffachufetts bay] left their dwellings & fcattered 

 up & downe in y" woods, & by y® water fide, wher they could find ground nuts & clames, hear 6 and ther ten ".* 



HiGGiNSON, Wood, and Josseltn, 1630-1638. — In 1630 Higginson, in his N'eic England's Plantation, gives 

 "muskles and oysters" as a part of the great wealth of the waters beside which the Pilgrims had placed their 

 colony; and seven years afterward Thomas Morton added his witness: "There are great store of Oysters in the 

 entrances of all Rivers ; they are not round as those of England, but excellent fat, and all good. I have scene an 

 Oyster bauke a mile at length."! 



In 1631 William Wood, in his New EnglancVs Prospect, speaks of "a great oyster bank" in Charles river, and 

 another in the "Misticke", each of which obstructed the navigation of its river. Ships of small burden, he says, 

 were able to go up as far as Watertown and Newton, "but the Oyster-bankes doe biure out the bigger Ships." In 

 reference to the Mystic, and the large amount of shipbuilding upon it. Wood says, "Ships without either Ballast 

 or loading, may floate downe this River; otherwise the Oyster-banke would hinder them which crosseth the 

 Channell." 



" The Oysters," adds Wood, "be great ones in form of a Shoehorne ; some be a foot long ; these breed on certain 

 banks that are bare every spring tide. This fish without shell is so big, that it must admit of a division before you 

 can well get it into your mouth." 



This bank appears to have been a very well-known and prominent feature in those days, though no popular 

 tradition of it remains. For example, Winthrop's History of ¥ew England, edited by the Rev. John Savage, p. 

 106, contains under date of August 6, 1633, the following statement: "Two men servants to one Moodye, of 

 Roxbury, returning in a boat from the windmill, struck upon the oyster-bank. They went out to gather oysters, 

 and, not making fast their boat, when the flood came, it floated away, and they were both drowned, although they 

 might have waded out on either side; but it was an evident judgment of God upon them, for they were wicked 

 persons." 



In Hubbard's General History of New England, written in 1633, is another account of the same incident, or 

 accident, as one of several instances where the visible wrath of Jehovah, apparently so manifest to the Puritan, 

 had instantly followed transgression. I quote the passage : 



The like judgment befell two lewd persons that lived in service with one of Roxlmry, who, rowing in a boat from the windmill hill 

 in Boston, struck upon an oyster-bank near the ihannel, and going out of their boat before they had fastened her, to get oysters, the tide 

 came in before they were aware, and iloated away the boat; and, they not being actiuainted with the channel, were both drowned on the 

 bank, though they might at first safely have waded through to the shore. 



* Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation, in Coll. Mass, Hist, Soc,, vol. iii, 4th sec, p. 130, tNew English Canaan, p. 90. 



