COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 69 



over 1,000 average codfish could be kept. About 1820 Boss Brown built 

 three others, viz : the Mary, Capt. Moses Griffin ; the Emeline, Capt. 

 Gamaliel King ; the Mars, Capt. Sylvester Rackett. After 1825, within a 

 few years, 10 or 15 other smacks were built, and new fishing grounds ex- 

 tending from Florida to New Foundland were occupied, while several new 

 varieties offish were found. From 1836 to 1840 a larger size of smacks 

 began to be built, and some were rigged as schooners. The first smacks' 

 crews consisted, beside the masters, of two and sometimes three men and a 

 boy who acted as cook. They started about the middle of March for cod- 

 fish, cruising off" Montauk, Block Island and No Man's Land. An aver- 

 age catch would be 800 to 1,000 fish, taken with the hook from the vessels 

 deck. They carried their cargo to the old Fly Market in Burling Slip, N. 

 Y. , where fish were retailed by a man assigned to each smack and receiving 

 an average share with the crew ; the vessel paid 2-5ths of the expense and 

 took 2-5ths of the proceeds, and the remainder was divided among the 

 crew equally. About May i they began fishing for mackerel at Sandy Hook, 

 using trolling lines, each man looking alter two lines — a slow mode of 

 taking this nimble fish. About the middle of June they went to their for- 

 mer ground and also to Vineyard Sound for sea bass. This was kept up' 

 till Oct. 1st, when, on the same grounds, they resumed codfishing until 

 December or January. A fair catch of sea bass would be from 1,500 to 

 1,800. For this fish a new ground was discovered about 1823, off the 

 Capes of the Delaware, where fish were plenty but small, seldom exceeding 

 a pound in weight, and in 2 or 2.]/^ days they would catch from 2,000 to 

 2,300. The season there lasted from May to August. 



On June 4,. 1825, in violent storm, two smacks were lost with all on 

 board, viz ; the Fame, Capt. James Beebe with his son Stafford and Joseph 

 and Benjamii' Griffin, brothers ; and the Emeline, Capt. Daniel Griffin, his 

 brother David, Joel King and Horace Clark. These are names that occur 

 to-day in the business of smack fishing from East jNIarion, which has long 

 been and now is more distinctivel\- a community of fishermen than any oth- 

 er in the county or p^^rhaps the State. At the present time there are hail- 

 ing from the port of (ireenport, which includes East Marion and Orient, 21 

 schooner and 4 sloop smacks, of an aggregate tonnage of 937.36 tons ; 

 same of them areas handsome craft, with as fine lines, shapely models, clean 

 run, and complete outfit of rigging, sails and all needed equipments, as it 

 they had been designed for pleasure yachts. In those little smacks of 15 

 or 18 tons, with no chronometer clock, no binocular glass, no marine in- 

 strument other than a compass and a quadrant, and with no further aid to 

 safety than the imperfect charts of those days, four or five bold, self-reliant 

 mariners bravely threw themselves upon the broad ocean and made trips as 

 tar south as Charleston, Savannah, or even Key West ; sometimes passing 

 months in fishing in those waters and finding markets for their catch in the 

 cit'es named, and going and returning not by any inside canal route but out 

 on the open sea, past the stormy Hatteras and down the inhospitable 

 beaches of the Carolinas. Taking in about $150 worth of provisions in N. 

 Y. , with 5 gallons of rum at a shilling a quart to last the cruise, thev made 

 harbors if occasion required but if caught in a gale would lay to under a 

 trysail and ride it out like a petrel of the storm, when a frigate might have 

 foundered. When fishing they were in 12 to 20 fathom water, and 

 when loaded with bass would run into port; in this business they would 

 occupy 6 to 9 months, generally from October to July, but sometimes 



