71 



may never again witness the wholesale destruction of life which they 

 have so often seen in the years that are past. 



And while the loss of stranger crews upon her shores has so often 

 awakened sympathy and regret, Gloucester has constantly been call- 

 ed upon to mourn her own sons who have gone down at sea. The 

 ambition of her youth has not been circumscribed by the narrow 

 confines of her fishing ventures or local commerce. Gloucester men 

 have sailed all seas, and their bones have whitened beneath the wa- 

 ters of both hemispheres. Many a sailor and officer and ship-master 

 has graduated from her fishing craft from earlier to latest days, and 

 many a home has been darkened by the loss of husband or father or 

 brother upon some distant voyage. Whole families of sons, taking 

 to the sea one after another, have perished thus. The dark da} r s of 

 the Revolution, brightened by the loyalty of Gloucester sailors and 

 fishers, took on more sombre guise from the sad fate of many of the 

 number. Sixt}- wives were made widows and scores of children fath- 

 erless, by the loss of the privateer ship Gloucester in 1777. The 

 Cumberland carried down many of "the flower of the town" in 

 1778, and a large number were lost in the Tempest in 1782. 



The history of the Gloucester fisheries has been written in tears. 

 No other industry by sea or land, sustains such a drain upon its re- 

 sources and employes. Other callings may shorten life, but none 

 show such constant and wholesale destruction. The men who go 

 out upon the Banks take their lives in their hands as surely as he 

 who goes into battle ; nay, the proportion of fatal casualties upon 

 the battle-field is much smaller than in this perilous calling. The 

 growing importance of the business has not been accompanied by 

 greater exemption from disaster and death. In the last 46 years 

 the aggregate fishing losses of Gloucester have amounted to 333 ves- 

 sels, of a value of $1,361,300, and 1590 lives, or an average annual 

 loss of 7 vessels, valued at $27,420, and 35 lives. For the past 

 five years the average annual loss has been 18 vessels, $81,860, and 

 114 lives. And these figures, so far as loss of property is concern- 

 ed, represent only the total losses of Gloucester vessels, and would 

 be largely augmented if we added the losses of cables and anchors 

 and spars, the damages by collision and stranding, and other disas- 

 ters resulting only in a partial loss. 



Think of a business in which, outside of ordinary depreciation of 

 wear and tear, and added to all other expenses and out-goes, one- 

 fiftieth of its capital and three per cent, of its employes are swept 

 away annually by disaster. In May, 1875, sixty persons lost their 



