FISIH:I:MI:N'S BIEMOKIAL AND I:I:CORD BOOK. G6 



then 1 by a Cape Ann skipper. Mackerel have bccu caught there every 

 year since, more or less, and rank in quality among the best. 



The first trip to the Buy of St. Lawrence for mackerel, from this 

 port, was made in 1800, by Cnpt. Charles P. Wood, in the Manner. 

 She was absent but four weeks, and came in full of large fat mack- 

 erel. This created quite an excitement among the fishermen, and the 

 next season the Bay fishing commenced in good earnest. The ves- 

 sels at first made but one trip, and finished up their season's work on 

 this shore. Two hundred and fifty barrels was considered a good 

 trip for a vessel of forty or fifty tons. As soon as the business was 

 found to be profitable, vessels of a larger class were added to the fleet, 

 and it has gradually increased from year to year, until the present 

 time. 



The seasons of 1825 and 1831 were the greatest known for mack- 

 erel, up to this date. Vessels not over fifty tons, landed upwards of 

 thirteen hundred barrels, averaging through the fleet about eight 

 hundred. Mackerel continued in Boston Bay, near the land, in the 

 year 1825, until the fourth day of December, the crew of schooner 

 Frances Elizabeth having caught twelve wash-barrels on that day. 

 The catch was not so large as in '31, to each vessel, but the aggregate 

 was much larger, and the mackerel of a better quality. These fish 

 were so plenty that the fishermen devoted the day to catching, and 

 the greater portion of the night to landing and dressing, and were 

 completely worn out with their arduous labors. One morning dur- 

 ing the first week in December, while the fleet were some ten miles 

 off Eastern Point, the mackerel failed to come to the surface, after 

 the usual throwing of bait. This was a pretty sure sign that they had 

 gone, and the fishermen, whose sore hands and tired bodies bore ev- 

 idence of the work they had accomplished in mackerel catching, were 

 heartily glad, that at last the fish had taken themselves off, and 

 many of the fleet hoisted their flags as a token of their rejoicing over 

 the event of the mackerels' departure. The price of mackerel this 

 year was $5.50 for 1's ; 83.50 for 2's ; $2.50 for 3's, and out of this, 

 $1.25 was paid for packing. 



From the dozen jiggers which composed the greater portion of the 

 mackerel fleet of 1821, we have to-day, fifty-two years later, a fleet of 

 some two hundred clipper schooners, perfect in all their appointments, 

 engaged in this branch of the fisheries. The hook and line has given 

 place, to a great extent, to seines, and the rapiclit}* which a seiner's 

 crew will surround a school and make a haul forms a scene of the 

 most intense excitement. It oftentimes happens that they are unable 



