COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 71 



sent by rail, besides large quantities from Quogue and other stations. Of 

 the oyster fishery in the Great South Bay and the bays on the north side of 

 the county, I sliall not attempt to speak in any detail. The facts are too 

 many and the ideas they suggest are too extensive, to be compressed into 

 such an article as this. Its growth, its present extent, and its prospective 

 greatness are all themes that might occupy attention for hours. Enough to 

 say that several hundreds of boats, thousands of persons, and large 

 amounts of capital are engaged in its prosecution, and in the South and 

 East Bays alone it has been computed that the value of the boats, scows, 

 and apparatus used in the fishery is fully half a million dollars, 'while the 

 number of families supported wholly or in part from this source is from 

 900 to 1,000, besides 200 to 300 unmarried men earning wages. Its yearly 

 products count up into the hundreds of thousands of bushels. The taking 

 of clams for the market from Peconic and Shinnecock bays, and in the 

 waters of the north shore, especially Smithtown harbor, has grown to be 

 a large business, but does not date back much, if any, further than 40 or 

 50 years ago. The Connecticut markets have long been supplied from the 

 east end and the bays along the north side have sent quantities of both the 

 long and round varieties to New York. 



Escalops are of still later introduction as an item of commercial fish- 

 ing- — comparatively fe>/ being taken 15 years ago. Of recent winters large 

 quantities have been taken by boats from New Suffolk, Greenport and other 

 places on Peconic Bay, and to a lesser extent in Northport and Hunting- 

 ton Bays. Lobsters were found many years ago near the rocks along the 

 north shore of Southold town, and at Montauk ; also near Plum Gull and 

 Fisher's Ishmd and in some years considerable quantities have been caught 

 at thosj places. 



The fishey that might have the greatest popular attractiveness for the 

 romance and picturesqueness attaching to many of its incidents; for the 

 striking illustrations of personal heroism it developed; for the extent to 

 which it was carried and the wide .scope of its operation, covering the acces- 

 sible waters of every ocean; for the number of persons and amount of capi- 

 tal engaged and the values of its products; and for the general prominence 

 before the country and before the world which it gave to Long Island 

 mariners, vessels and ports, is now extinct within our county, where once 

 it flourished to a degree not easily appreciated at this remove of time. Of 

 course I refer now to the whale fishery as it was carried on at Sag Harbor, 

 Greenport, New Suffolk, Jamesport and Cold Spring. I have here a mass 

 of notes and memoranda relating to this fishery, drawn from all the sources 

 to which I could gain access, including every historical document or works 

 available to my examination, and many traditionary and individual remi- 

 niscences, with espe,ial stress to be laid on a manuscript sketch of the 

 whaling business at the ])ort of S.ig Harbor prepared by the late Luther D. 

 Cook, of that place, and most kindly placed at my service by his son, Ben- 

 jamin A. Cook, of New York, and which I have found a storehouse replete 

 with recitals of the utmost interest to aJl descendants of the whalemen 

 whose voyages formed so larg:i a part in the past prosperity of my native 

 village. But, with great reluctance, I am constrained to lay them all aside 

 as their reading would tax too severely your patience, perhaps already 

 wearied with this necessaily discursive and ill-digested paper. 



I will, how-ever, detain you a moment longer on this head to group 

 a few prominent facts in illustration of the magnitude and value of this 



