20 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



There are other references to this matter. John Josselyn, Gent., in his Account of Two Voyages to New England, 

 printed in 1G38, describes Boston and it.s environs. Charles river is portrayed with uiimiteness, and the expansion 

 above the "Narrows", now known as the Back bay, is indicated. "Toward the sonthwest," he writes, "in the 

 ini(klle of the bay, is a great oyster-bank, toward the northwest is a creek; upon the shore is situated the village of 

 Medford ; it is a mile and a half from Charlestown." 



This is mixed, and throws small light upon the precise position of either of these banks, which must have been 

 of considerable importance to Bostonians at that time, and particularly to the poor. This appears from the 

 foregoing, and from a paragraph in a very interesting tract preserved in the Geneva library, written by an 

 unknown French refugee who visited Massachusetts in 1GS7; describing the prosperity of Boston, the author says: 

 "This town carries on a great trade with the islands of A.merica and with Spain. They carry to the islands flour, 

 salt-beef, salt-pork, cod, staves, salt-salmon, salt-mackerel, onions, and oysters salted in barrels, great quantities of 

 which are taken here." 



Location op the Ohables river beds. — It is a less easy task than it would at first appear to determine 

 the location of these ancient beds of oysters. For that in the Mystic river I have no data sufficient to guide me 

 with any exactness ; any one may guess within a mile of it. There is better iiiformation in regard to the Charles 

 river beds. 



The "lewd persons" who lost their careless lives were returning from the windmill. This, it is known, stood 

 upon one of the hills in the common— possibly that which now upholds the soldiers' monument. The tides at that 

 time washed the shore of the higher parts of the common, along where Charles street now jiasses, and boats could 

 doubtless come almost up to the foot of the mill with their loads of grist. Eeturning out through the bay, they 

 would pass close by any oyster-banks that lay off Cambridge port. 



Through the discussion of a paper which I had the honor to read before the Boston Society of Natural 

 History, in September, 1879, upon Massachusetts oysters, some new facts of interest were brought to light bearing 

 upon the point now under consideration. Prof. F. W. Putnam remarked that when, twenty years ago, the ground 

 was being broken at the corner of Berkeley and Boylston streets, for the foundations of the building devoted to 

 this very society, in which we were then sitting, many immense oyster-shells in good condition were struck at a 

 depth of several feet. This part of Boston is all " made ground ", extending over former tide-flats in the " Back 

 bay " of Charles river. It is possible that these aged buried oysters grew on the anciently noted bed, the site of 

 which therefore is now appropriately indicated by the Natural History Booms and the noble Institute of 

 Technology. 



Plymouth and NE^VBURY, lGGO-1700.— Meanwhile Plymouth had pulled her people out of where they had 

 " stncke fast in y« mudd", and discovered that her mollusk-flsheries were valuable, as the following quotation from 

 the records evince : 



"Att the generall court hold att Plymouth the fourth of June, 1601— 



It is enacted by the Court that five shillings shalbee payed to the Countrey vpon every baiTcU of Oysters that is earryed out of 

 the Gouv'ment, and that the Countrey bee not defrauded, hee shall enter them with theTowne Clarke before hee carry them away, or else 

 to forfeit twenty shillings •^ barrell on any carrycd away not entered." ' 



" Att the 2cond Sessiou of the Generall Court held att Plymouth, for the jurisdiction of New Plymouth, the seaventh of July, 1C80— 



This Court doth order that all such as are uot of our coUonie be heerby prohibited of fetching oysters from Taunton River with 

 boates or any other vessells; and incase any such shall ^sist on in soe doeiug after warning given to the contrary, this Court doth order 

 John Hathway, of Taunton, and doe heerby impower him to make seizure of such boates and vessells for the collonie's vse."t 



Moving a little farther eastward, I find that the oysters in Parker and Eowley rivers were valuable tcr the 

 settlers in that region. In his History of Newbury, Mr. Joshua Coflin remarks: 



Certain it is that vast quantities of lime of the best quality were annually made in Newbury for nearly a century, for export as well 

 as for homo use. Prior to this time limo was manufactured from oyster- and clam-shells. Lewis, in his Minute and Accurate History of 

 Lyimc, informs us, under the year Uii)G, that immense numbers of great clams were thrown upon the beaches by storms. The people were 

 permitted by a vote of the town to dig and gather as many as they wished for their own use, but no more, and no person was allowed to 

 carry any out of town, on a peualty of twenty shillings. The shells were gathered in cart-loads ou the beach and manufactured into 

 lime. 



New Hajipshire and Maine.— Still farther on, Durham river, Brainford county, New Hampshire, was known, 

 as early as 1G97, as "Oyster river", just as its neighbor was called "Lamprey river", because of the mollusks in the 

 one and the "eals" in the other. The " Great Bay" into which the Durham river flowed was full of oysters, and 

 tradition has it that no more than a century ago vessels used to come there and be loaded with these oysters, while 

 previously the neighborhood had always been able to obtain all they wished with little trouble. 



In Scarboiough and Casco bays, and along Mount Desert, I am inclined to believe that oysters were extinct 

 before the occupation of that region by white men. But I think, that if it is true that George river is the stream 

 ascended by Weymouth during the first decade of the seventeenth century, he undoubtedly subsisted his crew, 

 while there, upon the oysters, though he does no more than mention "nuiscles", without distinction of kind. 



This George river is the most eastern point at which I have been able to di.scover any trace of oysters in the 



"Plymouth Colony Records, vol. xi, 1623-1682, Laws, p. 132. ilbid., vol. vi, 1678-1691, p. 44, 



