144 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



M. DELAWARE BAY. 



43. XEW JERSEY AND DELAWAEE SHOEES OF DELAWAEE BAY. 



I 



Eakly history. — The oysters of Delaware bay were prized by the earliest settlers, and there are frequent 

 allusions to this resource in the early narratives. Thomas Oampanius Holm, chaplain to Governor Printz, in 1642, 

 for instance, mentions " vario'us kinds of shellfish, as oysters, lobsters, sea and land turtles, cockles and muscles ". 

 Speaking of Delaware bay, more particularly, he says : 



There are oyster banks and an oyster strand all the way to Bomptie's Hook [now Bombay Hook] on both sides of the river; 

 these oysters are so very large that the meat alone is of the size of our oysters, shell and all. 



Maueice cove: Topography and characteristics. — The center of the present oyster industry in the 

 Delaware bay and river, on the New Jersey shore, is at Maurice cove, in Cumberland county, which is reached 

 by the Cumberland and Maurice river raih-oad from Bridgeton. This shore is bordered all the way by extensive 

 marshes, through which innumerable small creeks find their way from the interior, and which contain many open 

 places called "ponds". Throughout these creeks and ponds, in the tide-ways and along the edges of the sedge- 

 plats and islands, oysters have always grown in great profusion. In addition to this the bottom of the bay and of 

 the Delaware river, from Cape May beach clear up to and a little above Cohansey point, at the southern end of 

 Salem county, a distance of not less than 50 miles, is everywhere spotted with oyster-beds. The same is true of 

 the opposite (western) shore, which will be considered in another chapter. These oyster-beds are not confined to 

 the shallow waters near shore, or to the sedge-plats, but are apparently scattered over the whole bottom of the 

 bay. Even the ship-channel, 90 fathoms deep, contains them, as experimental dragging shows. How this might 

 have been a centiuy ago 1 Icnow not; but such is the present condition. In Watson^s Annah of Philadelphia, 1843, 

 I find some interesting facts stated in regard to this district. Mr. Watson says : 



Having been at some pains to learn something of the present and past state of our oyster-beds in the bay, I have arrived at sundry 

 conclusions, such as these: that our fields of oysters, notwithstanding their constant delivery, are actually on the increase, and have 

 been augmenting in extent and quality for the last thirty and forty years. Tills fact, strange to the mind of many, is said to be 

 imputable to the great use of the dredging-machines, which, by dragging over a greater surface, clears the beds of impediments, and trails 

 the oysters beyond their natural position, and thus increases the boundaries of the field. These dredges are great iron rakes, attached to 

 the vessel by iron chains, and which trail through the oyster-beds while the vessel is moving over them by the force of the wiud in her 

 sails. In this way many more oysters are dragged and loosened from the mud than the rake wiU take up, and thus are left free to 

 propagate another future supply. 



It is said to bea false kiuduess to oysters to let them alone, as they did in New York to their famous "Blue Points", by a protecting 

 law, which served only to have them so covered with mud as to actually destroy them. 



An old oysterman informed me, as an instauce of the increase of oyster-beds, that he used to visit a little one, thirty years ago, of 

 one to two hundred feet long, and growing, known as the new led. There is a field of size, also beds of size, oft' Benj. Davis' point, and 

 Maurice river. New Jersey, and oft' Mahant's river, Delaware side. Since the formation of the Breakwater, lobsters and black-fish have 

 come there in quantities. By and by we may expect much increase of them there. It is discovered to be a fact, in all the jjonds found 

 in the sedge marshes lining the two shores of the Delaware, that in them are found the best oyster.-f, and that in one of them called the 

 Ditch, which is an artificial canal cut into the marsh, fine oysters are always to be fished out. It has been remarked by my informant, 

 and corroborated by others, that although oysters are found in salt-water, they will not bear to be removed to water which is Salter. 

 Experiments have been made of hanging a basket of bay oysters over the vessel's side exposed to the Salter sea-water, and they have 

 been found to die in twelve hours. Hence the necessity of planting them in waters less salt, or at least not Salter than their native beds. 

 Those caught after a copious rain are said to be much finer than those taken from the same place before the rain. 



The oyster is of a tenacious nature, attaching its gelatinous substance to almost all bodies with which it comes in contact — such 

 as wood, iron, or stone. When they are found attached to glass bottles, they are always found much fatter for it. 



Those who make a business of transplanting come early in the season, and carry them away in their boats to the inlond imtcrs 

 about Egg Hiirbor, etc., from whence they are taken in the fall quite fat, and carried overland to the city market and sold as Egg 

 Harbor oysters. 



Not all of this quotation may be wholly relevant, but there is so much in it that I have thought it no harm to 

 give it all. 



Special legislation previous to 1856.— So important had the oyster-fisheries in this region become thirty 

 years ago, that they were the subject of much special legislation, which appears in the revised statutes of 1850. 

 These laws are substantially as follows : 



Section 1. Authorizes the board of chosen freeholders of Cumberland county to occupy for twenty years, for the use hereinafter stated, 

 Maurice river cove within the following boundaries : "Beginning at low-water mark, directly opposite East point, in the township of 

 Maurice river, Cumberland county, and running thence a south course to the main ship channel ; thence by a straight line to low-water 

 mark, directly opposite to Egg Island point, in the township of Downe, in said county, and thence by low-water mark the several 

 courses and distances of the shore bordering on the said cove, and covering the mouths of the several streams that empty into said cove, 

 to the place of beginiiiug." But the "natural oyster-beds in Maurice river cove or Delaware b-iy, known severally as the East point 

 beds, Andr(iws' ditch beds, the Pepper beds, and the Ballast beds, and the beds that fall bare at low tide, shall not be occupied for planting 

 oysters, nor <lredged upon, nor shall oysters be taken from Ihe said beds, nor from any of the rivers or creeks of Cumberland county, for the 

 purpose of planting (but all citizens of this state shall have free access to them to catch oysters for their own use)", under heji.vy 

 penalties for violation. ' 



Sec. 2. Authorizes the board of chosen freeholders of Cumberland county to appoint one or more persons, holding ofiBce for one year, 

 to stake off' the said cove and make a survey ami inai> of the slioics and laud covered witU water, a copy of which shall be filed in the 



