THE FISfinVG IND USTRY. 4 1 3 



One of them now living, who remembers as far back as 

 1834,* recalls the busy experience of packing mackerel 

 into the barrels and half barrels at the wharves of our Cove. 

 Boys from ten to fifteen years of age could earn about 

 twenty-five cents by a hard day's work, packing about a 

 dozen barrels of mackerel containing two hundred fish in 

 each at two cents a barrel. The winter's school was ended 

 by the time of the June return of fishing vessels, so that 

 a score of industrious boys over ten years of age flocked 

 upon our little wharves at the " chance to pack." 



The barrels used had been made in our cooper shops, of 

 which there were several at the Cove. Zealous Bates, 

 Thaddeus Lawrence, John Parker, George Stetson, Henry 

 Hall, and others had cooper shops of large output. The 

 staves of these barrels were made of pine wood. A 

 sufficient number to make a barrel were held together 

 by an iron hoop at the top, while a fire of shavings inside 

 upon the ground heated and softened them so that the 

 lower ends were drawn together by a rope and windlass. 

 They were hooped by strips of white oak or birch or 

 maple and headed by boards of pine ; then they were 

 tumbled upon the wharves by the hundred, costing in the 

 neighborhood of seventy-five cents apiece. All winter 

 long these barrels and half barrels, and in later years 

 firkins, were being made by our bygone coopers. 



The salt industry was another enterprise connected with 

 our fisheries. As early as the year 1836,! which we are 

 now recalling, there were many acres of salt works in the 

 vicinity of Sandy Cove and of Beach Island. 



The accompanying map, which is taken from a govern- 

 ment coast survey of that period, indicates the positions 

 and proportions of these salt vats. The process % was 



* S. T. Snow. 



t Captain Wm. V. Creed says : " When we first went fishing, 1828, salt was not 

 made here, but was brought from Cape Cod." 



X Details as told by Nathaniel Treat, who made and tended salt works for many 

 years. 



