THE FISHING INDUSTRY. 405 



dozen able-bodied men could be gathered by an emergency 

 like a house on fire. 



The actual experiences of these fishermen in a business 

 now extinct in our town are worthy of a careful review. 



At least one skipper * living to-day remembers a fishing 

 voyage as early as the year 1828. But the methods of 

 fishing and of living were substantially the same until the 

 middle of the century. 



We will imagine ourselves at one of those early years,f 

 say 1836, making a first cruise on a mackerel schooner. 



On some spring day at the close of April we get per- 

 mission of Abraham Hobart Tower or of James Cutler 

 Doane or of John Bates or of some other vessel owner to 

 join the crew of ten fishermen in one of their schooners. 

 That means a chance to fish from the deck of the schooner 

 alongside of the others, upon the understanding that we 

 are to get our share of the profits according to the number 

 of fish that each of us may catch. 



The share of the profit going to the owner of the 

 schooner is to be about one third. The first day's work 

 is to heave aboard ballast and butts and salt. Twenty or 

 thirty hogsheads or butts are rolled into the hold and 

 placed at convenient positions under the hatches. These 

 are to hold the fish we catch. 



Into the spaces between these butts we next throw 

 about twenty tons of ballast, consisting of field stones 

 that the old glacier left in our drumlins, and which 

 "Uncle Job Gushing" or some other farmer hauls down 

 to the wharf at one dollar per ton. These stones hold 

 down the keel and keep the hogsheads in place, besides 

 leaving room in the fields for better farming. 



Salt is next put in, perhaps twenty hogsheads of it. 

 The salt room in a pinky was aft against the cabin, while 

 in a "square stern " it was abreast the "coal hole," which 



* Captain Wm. V. Creed. 



+ In the year 1836 as described by Isaiah Lincohi. 



