CHAPTER XIX. 



THE FISHING INDUSTRY. 



OUR narrative of the industries of the town was 

 interrupted by the story of the War of 1812, and 

 by the two subsequent chapters upon the church and the 

 school. 



It is necessary now to go back some years and to follow 

 along- the events of shipbuilding and fishing which accom- 

 panied the progress of the church and the school. 



It will be remembered that in the previous century, 

 1737, there were eight vessels, averaging twenty-two tons 

 each, assessed in this town. It would be a great satisfac- 

 tion to know the exact employment of these vessels, 

 whether carrying commerce between the seaports of the 

 different colonies and the West Indies, or fishing for cod 

 in the waters of northern New England, or being dashed 

 in helpless wrecks upon some rocky coast. 



In any case, we may be sure that codfishing was an im- 

 portant part of their business in summer. 



All along the Atlantic shore from Newfoundland to 

 Maine codfishing had been carried on for a century or 

 more by French and English from across the ocean and 

 by settlers in America. Clumsy sailing craft with high 

 sterns, like the accompanying illustration, sailed from 

 Cohasset with some of our ancestors each season for the 

 codfishing grounds. 



No early records of this industry are known to exist, 

 but the annual catch for the hundred years intervening 

 between 1737 and 1837 may have been worth more than 

 a thousand dollars. At any rate, in the year 1837,* when 

 mackerel fishing had come to usurp almost the exclusive 



* Barber's Historical Collections, p. 455. 



