2 28 HfS TOR y OF COHASSE T. 



or two without the varieties of cooking which our modern 

 stoves afford. But our Cohasset ancestors had a greater 

 variety of flesh foods than farmers living away from the 

 shore, for fish of many kinds came swarming almost to 

 their doors. 



To catch mackerel, cod, bass, perch, alewives, smelts, 

 eels, lobsters, and clams was an easy art where they 

 swarmed the water as they did here. 



In fact, already before the year 1750 fishing had become 

 a special industry of much importance. Boats were ply- 

 ing the sea for food while the farmers were drawing food 

 from the soil. In 1737 Canterbury Stoddard, son of 



/ . ' .' / • • :■ 



; r/rr/- :lr"'"- , " r; 



■ Jc^'l-f • , ^' - - 



Beginning of a Logbook showing a Voyage to the West Indies, 



KY Peter Humphrey, son of Thomas, Commander of the 



Summer Land, 1754. 



Stephen Stoddard, of Beech wood, owned a vessel of 

 eighteen tons and carried on a large business at catching 

 fish until he was drowned off Wellfleet Harbor, Cape Cod, 

 May 30, 1742, a young man of only thirty-three years. 



A still greater fishing vessel, measuring twenty-four 

 tons, was sailed by John Stephenson, an enterprising 

 young man who had deserted the English war ship Luci- 

 tanus in Massachusetts Bay, escaping to Cohasset Harbor. 



A third fisherman as early as 1 737 was Roger Nichols, the 

 son of Israel, whose home on Jerusalem Road was one of the 

 first homes. His craft was only fifteen tons measurement. 



