72 COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 



now vanished trade. 



Starting in 1790 with one brig of 150 tons, it grew slowly 'till 1820, 

 when six vessels brought to port 531 barrels of sperm and 7,850 barrels of 

 whale oil. In the 30 years from 1820, to 1850, for which period Mr. 

 Cook has full records of arrivals at the port of Sag Harbor, with their car- 

 goes, the aggregates are 490 vessels bringing in 83,101 1-2 barrels of 

 sperm and 812,595 1-2 barrels of whale oil and 6,728,809 pounds of whale- 

 bone, worth at very low average prices nearly 115,000,000. In 1847 there 

 were 32 arrivals, bringing 3,919 barrels of sperm and 63,712 barrels of 

 whale oil and 605,340 pounds of whalebone, worth, Mr. Cook says, at 

 then current rates, $996,413. In that year Sag Harbor owned 63 whale 

 ships, with an aggregate of 22,233 tons. The whaling business at that 

 port was then at its highest level, and from that year may be dated the be- 

 ginning of its decline. 



I must ask your attention for but a short time longer to what is now 

 the most important fishery interest in our county — an interest that has 

 grown up with the life time of one generation, and yet overtops all other 

 interests of the sort within this State, except, perhaps, the oyster fishery. 

 When first our ancestors began to utilize that branch of the herring family 

 which is now known as the menhaden by using them to fertilize their fields, 

 cannot be precisely stated. The earliest mention, so far as I have learned, 

 is in Spofford's Gazetteer, where it is stated that about the year 1797 a seine 

 at Town Harbor, Southold, drew to land at one haul 250,000 moss bunk- 

 ers. The knowledge of this fact was derived by the compiler of the Ga- 

 zetteer from a paper entitled " Observations on Manures" read in 1795 before 

 the Society (State) for the Promotion of Agriculture by Hon. Ezra L'Hom- 

 medieu, of Southold village, one of the foremost men in the long period of 

 his active career and one of the brightest intellects to which Southold Town 

 ever gave birth. In this paper he says: "This year I saw 250,000 taken 

 at one draught, which must have been much more than 100 tons;" and 

 he adds: " One seine near me caught more than one million the last sea- 

 son, which season lasts about one m'onth."' As this paper was read in 

 March, before menhaden ordinarily visit these waters, it is fair to presume 

 that the paper was prepared during the previous Fall or Winter, and that 

 the words " this year" must have referred to the season of 1794. How 

 much earlier than this latter date the industry of taking menhaden for ma- 

 nure had become established as an important adjunct to the agriculture of 

 the eastern towns, it is impossible to say, but doubtless it had been prose- 

 cuted more or less for forty or fifty years — perhaps longer. [See note B, 

 page 77. 



Both in Peconic Bay and Long Island Sound, and on the ocean shore 

 in the Hamptons, seines were used from an early period in the history of 

 the eastern towns to take bunkers for manure. Regular organizations were 

 formed, seines and boats adapted to the work were procured, and fish 

 houses for storage and for dwelling, were put up at suitable points on the 

 bay or beach shores, and for several weeks of the Spring and Fall the crews 

 made a business of fishing whenever the weather served and fish were to be 

 seen — the catch being shared among themselves and the owners of the 

 outfit. This practice, while superseded or mainly forced to give way by 

 later improved methods, is still maintained to some limited extent, at a few 

 points. 



But the use of Menhaden as a material for the manufacture of oil for 



