4: EARLY QUARANTINE ARRANGEMENTS OF SALEM. 



tify, in a degree, the extent to which I must draw on your 

 space and patience in this account. 



No settlement was attempted at this point until 1626. 

 A dozen families came here then from an abandoned 

 fishing station at Cape Ann, four or five leagues away, 

 where they had been established, with others, by the Dor- 

 chester Company in 1624. They were mostly fishermen 

 from the west coast of England, and, being dissatisfied 

 with their Cape Ann location, had abandoned it, some for 

 England, some for Virginia, and a little remnant for this 

 " pleasant and fruitful neck of land" now called Salem. 

 Couant, Woodbury, Balch, Pal fray and others, evincing 

 a determination to maintain themselves here, they were 

 reinforced, first, by a party under Endicott in 1628, then 

 by another which came with Higginson in 1629, and finally 

 by the great Suffolk Emigration of 1630, under Winthrop. 

 How promptly after their establishment here they began 

 to develop commercial relations will readily appear. 



In the summer of 1629 seven or more shipwrights 

 were at work here. Shallops for the fishing business were 

 already on the stocks. A barque had already been built 

 and was to go to the Banks and bring back the fishermen 

 from English fishing vessels, which returned to England 

 direct from the Banks with their fares of fish. A store- 

 house was ordered, April 17, for the shipwrights ; another, 

 May 28, for the fishermen ; nine fishermen are sent over 

 at the company's charges to remain and initiate others in 

 the craft ; fish is ordered for a return cargo ; lots are as- 

 signed in the common lands to fishermen in severally 

 to build flakes or stages, for curing their fares. 



In the year 1636-7, a town order prohibited the ex- 

 portation of lumber, which " hath not onely bared our 

 woods verie much of the best tymber trees, of all sorts, 

 but bereaved also our inhabitants of such boards & clap- 



