2378 AWARD OP THE FISHERY COMMISSION 



either his name or the steamer's name. I forget them now ; it is so long 

 ago, and I do not know that I knew them at the time. 



So. 35. 



MOSES TARR, of Gloucester, Massachusetts, fish-merchant and fisher- 

 man, called on behalf of the Government of the United States, sworn 

 and examined. 



By Mr. Trescot : 



Question. You are a native of Gloucester ? Answer. Yes. 



Q. State to the Commissioners what your business and occupation 

 have been in Gloucester ; what positions you have held, and the char- 

 acter of the experience you have had. A. I commenced to go a fishing 

 when a boy. I worked on a farm, aud afterwards, early in life, I fished 

 some. I have made mercantile voyages, and have, subsequent to that 

 time, been in a commercial and fishing business, owning and fitting a 

 large number of vessels, and I have held under two or three adminis- 

 trations office under the General Government. I have been president 

 of a Gloucester Mutual Fire Insurance Company for several years, and 

 was, during our rebellion, four or five years doing business at Charlotte- 

 town, Prince Edward Island. I have done most of the different classes 

 of business for New England men. 



Q. So that in various capacities, partially in the custom-house, par- 

 tially as president of an insurance company, partly as fisherman, and 

 partly as fish-merchant you have had a large and full experience of the 

 Gloucester fisheries ? A. Yes, I have. 



Q. Now, with regard to the mackerel-fishing of Gloucester, has it in- 

 creased or declined in the course of your experience ? A. It has, in the 

 course of my experience, done both. In my first knowledge of it our 

 vessels were small aud the catch quite small, and it grew to be an im- 

 portant business subsequent to 1833, 1834, and 1835. About our earliest 

 fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, I should say, for mackerel was 

 from 1832 to 1834. I don't remember the date of the first catching of 

 mackerel in the bay. I was in 1832 there myself as a youngster, for 

 codfish. I don't remember knowing anything about any mackerel in the 

 bay or mackerel-fishing at that time, or previous to that time. 



Q. Then it grew up from that time ? A. The mackerel fishery in the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence grew up from about that time. That was the first. 

 We commenced by a vessel or two at a time. Perhaps the two first 

 years they didn't catch but a few hundred barrels, or a few thousand 

 perhaps, aud it grew from that time up to eighteen hundred and some 

 of the earliest years of forty, forty-one, and forty-two. It afterward 

 declined and nearly failed out. I had a vessel that came in, after being 

 there for the whole season, with as low as 30 or 60 barrels. I have 

 known the mackerel to be very plenty on our coast for a series of years 

 and then to run down, and almost no fish ; only 100 barrels would be an 

 ordinary fair catch for the season. 



Q. Now, what, according to your recollection and knowledge of the 

 Gloucester business, was the fleet employed in the mackerel fishery in 

 the gulf when it was at its highest ? A. I should think it was at its 

 highest during the rebellion. 



Q. What was the number of the fleet employed then ? A. I should 

 think we had over two hundred vessels. 



Q. What is it now in the gulf from Gloucester ? A. We had when I 

 came away vessels that were considered to have gone there 68. 



Q. When you say that the number of vessels employed in the gulf 



