[9] EARLY SHAD FISHERIES OF SUSQUEHANNA RIVER. 627 



3. Statement of H. C. Wilson^ Mount Vernon, Ohio, March Id, 1881. 



An article in the Union Leader in reference to the old shad fisheries 

 of the Susquehanna Eiver has brought back to my memory many 

 things that happened in my boyhood days, among which were the old 

 fishermen and the knitting of the shad seines. The seines were knit in 

 sections by the shareholders, each one owning so many yards of the net, 

 and each one receiving his share of fish according to the number of 

 j^ards owned. I lived one year with Mr. Pierce Butler, where I learned 

 to knit seines, and have never forgotten it. We used to knit on rainy 

 and cold days and evenings, and when the sections were all done, Dick 

 Covert, with the help of John Scott, would knit them together and 

 hang the seine, put on the corks and leads ; this was considered quite 

 a trick, and but few would undertake the job. 



I remember I used to go over on the beach on the line of the Butler 

 and Dorrance farms and help the fishermen^jick up the shad, and when 

 the luck was good was always given one to take home. 1 remember 

 seeing the shad put in piles on the beach, and after they were all equally 

 divided some one would turn his back and the brailman would say, " Who 

 shall have this?" until they all received their share, one pile left out for 

 the poor women. The boats with the seine shix^ped would row up to 

 the falls, and then hauled out down by the riffles opposite where Dick 

 Covert used to live. I think it was a bad day for the people along the 

 Susquehanna when the shad were prevented from coming up the river; 

 the fish would be worth more to the people than the old canal. You 

 had better buy the canal, put a railroad on the towing-path, burst up 

 the dams, and increase the value of all the flats above the dams, and 

 you would not have as high water at Wilkes Barre, and there would be 

 less damage done to property; then you would have plenty of shad and 

 all other kinds of fish, and then I think you could aftbrd to send some 

 to your friends out West. I got an old fish- dealer here to send to Bal- 

 timore for some shad last week, but they had been too long out of water 

 and too far from home to be good. It used always to be said that there 

 were no shad like the old Susquehanna shad. 



4. Statement of Alvan Dana, Kansas City, March 22, 1881. 



I have no remembrance of any shad being taken at or near Sheshe- 

 quin, but at Wilkes Barre I have seen them caught in seines before any 

 bridge was built there. The nets were drawn out on the north side of 

 the river. I don't remember to what extent was the catch, but I have 

 often heard my mother say that immense quantities were taken in the 

 vicinity of her father's, who lived about a mile below the old "Eed Tav- 

 ern," in Hanov^er; that at one haul 9,999 were caught; that when they 

 had got all they could procure salt to cure, or sell for tbree coppers, 

 they gave to the widows and the pooi-, and hung up their nets, though 

 the shad were as plenty as ever, lii 181(; 1 went to Owego to live, and 



