110 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Geavesend. — On the western shore of Jamaica bay is a small interest centering at Gravesend, in procuring 

 an account of which I was greatly assisted by Mr. E. L. Van Kluk, postmaster of that village. 



There are no natural oyster-beds in this region, except that a few bushels are caught every fall in Garrettsou's 

 creek, between Gravesend and Flatlands. Between Gravesend on the west and the western shore of Jamaica 

 bay on the east, there are 22 or 23 planters, all of whom get their seed from Newark bay. This business and 

 clamming, together, support about 25 families. Last season the crop amounted to between 15,000 and 20,000 bushels, 

 sold in New York at an average price of $1 25. 



Statistical kecapitulation fok South Shoee of Long Island: 



Number of planters and shippers 800 



Extent of ground cultivated acres.. 2,000 



Value of shore-property, about ^25, 000 



Number of vessels 170 



Value of same $136,000 



Value of small craft (800 boats) $100, 000 



Number of men hired by planters or dealers 400 



Annual earnings of same $150,000 



Annual sales of — 



I. Native oysters bushels.. 400,000 



Value of same $400,000 



Total number of families supported 1,200 



J. NEW YORK BAY. (EXCLUDING THE CITY OF NEW YORK.) 



38. HISTORY OF OYSTER-INDUSTEIES OF NEW YORK BAY. 



Allusions to oysters in eaely Colonial liteeatuee. — Among the riches of a new country enumerated 

 to the Old World by discovei-ers, the products of the sea always have held a prominent place. They were not 

 forgotten in the case of the shores of the island of Manhattan, the splendid river to which Iludson left his name, 

 and the great bay where it finds entrance to the sea, and the bright exi)anse of which is the scene of the story of 

 the present chapter. 



The fishes of these waters attracted the attention of the earliest voyagers in a marked degree, and the moUusks — 

 a part of them in pojjular estimation — were not neglected. 



Whether the wealth of oysters would have been apprehended so speedily had it been necessary to "discover" 

 the beds, is doubtful, though the fact that they then grew abundantly all over the edges of New York bay, and the 

 entering streams — Shrewsbury, Earitan, Passaic, Hackensack, Hudson, and East rivers — must have been apparent 

 to the most careless observer; but the explorers and colonists were saved any trouble in the matter, for the Indiana 

 were in the habit of gathering clams and oysters at all practicable seasons, and depended upon them largely for 

 their food. In a poem by an early Dutch settler and poet, this very thing is celebrated, with seemingly strict 

 attention to truthful details : 



Crabs, lobsters, mussels, oysters, too, there be, 

 So large that one does overbalance three 

 Of those of Europe ; and in quantity, 

 No one can reckon. 



Then, as now, it appears that all the hard work of obtaining the delicacies fell upon the women. A quaint 

 old book, written by William Wood, and published in London in 1634, entitled Wevv Englands Frosjyects, etc.7 

 contains a poem upon the kinds of shellfish, in which the following elegant verse occurs : 



The luscious lobster, with the crab-fish raw, 



The brinish oyster, mussel, perriwigge, 

 And tortoise sought by the Indian Squaw, 



Which to the flatts dance many a winter's jigge, 

 To dive for cockles and to dig for clams. 

 Whereby her lazy husband's guts she cramms. 



How greatly this molluscan abundance was valued by the first colonists, is plainly shown by frequent allusions 

 in the early descriptions of the country. In 1C21 " very large oif ters" were too common at Nieuw Amsterdam to find 

 a market, everybody being able to supply themselves without charge. A few years later (1071) Arnoldus Montanus 

 speaks of "oysters, some a foot long, containing pearls, but few of a brown color", as one of the common 

 advantages of the young settlement. Sir George Carteret, as one of the inducements in advertising the region 

 about the mouth of the Earitan, where he wished to establish colonies, tells intending emigrants that "the bay [i. e., 

 of New York] and Hudson's river are pleutifidly stored with sturgeon, great bass, and other scale-fish, eels, and 

 shellfish, as oysters, etc., in great plenty, and easy to take". This was in 1081. Three or four years later letters 



