38 FISHERMEN'S OWN BOOK. 



veteran of the sea. We found him open-hearted and free, as we knew him 

 of old, and carrying his eighty and odd years remarkably well. 



" Do I know anything about the old fishing establishment just below here 

 on Riggs' Point.-* Well, I ought to, seeing that I went from there when 

 a boy. Capt. Samuel Riggs carried it on then. I do not know who carried 

 it on before him. Somebody must have done so, for he did not build the 

 wharf or the warehouses ; he built only the drying houses that stood further 

 up the hill. They were all pulled down about forty years ago. He owned 

 three vessels, standing-room pinkeys of about twenty -five tons burthen, one 

 called Xhejohn, another the Mary Ann^ and the third the Sally. 



"I was a small boy when I commenced to go. We used to start about 

 the first of May and go down on Tantor, Southeastern Jeffries, Cashes, and 

 sometimes to Wood Island, and would be gone about a week. Fish were 

 plenty enough, and we could catch just as many as we wanted. 



"I do not remember anything about the old Banking fleet ; that was before 

 I can remember. I have heard say that they used to have them up to Done 

 Fudging. Cod and haddock were all the fish we used to market. Halibut 

 were plenty enough. They would come up alongside and swim with their 

 fins out of water, but we never thought of catching them. Sometimes, 

 though not often, we would catch one and smoke it — for our own eating — 

 in the pinkey's chimney, which made a nice smoke-house. When they got 

 too plenty we would haul up and seek another * berth.' They used to bother 

 us, as I have heard my father say the pollock used to bother them when he 

 went. They did not know what a pollock was in his day, and used to think 

 it a bad haul when they got one on the hook. At one time he used to go 

 coasting in what would now be thought a small craft, but what they consid- 

 ered a monster, an old-fashioned standing-room pinkey of forty-two tons, 

 with timber heads coming up along her sides six or eight inches, around 

 which a plank was bent to serve as bulwarks — then called a waist. She 

 had fore-and-aft standing rooms, a fore-cuddy with a brick chimney and 

 fireplace, carried fore-and-aft sails, and was without shrouds or bowsprit. 

 She had hemp, or what was then called Raven's duck, sails — cotton duck 

 was then unknown — and carried a scout horn* to wet them down when the 

 wind was moderate. They used to coast along shore, carrying corn and 

 lumber, and once went as far south as Charleston. 



"Aaron Hodgkins had a pinkey of twenty tons, called the Willow. He 

 went in her himself, going from here. Aaron and Vincent Wheeler, broth- 

 ers, had a square-stern boat whose name I do not remember. They went 

 from Wheeler's Point. Over in Goose Cove, above the mill dam, where 



*As hemp sails were porous, and had not the wind-holding properties of cotton duck, the 

 " scout horn," a pole about fifteen feet in length with a leather pocket holding about a pint 

 of water to throw on the sails and close them up, was an indispensable instrument. 



