MASSACHUSETTS: XEWBURYPOBT DISTRICT. 135 



mackerel in a season, valued at about $3,000. Some of them have stocked $5,000 in a season, 

 taking fish in a seine in one night to the value of $100 to $150. 



About forty open boats, nineteen-foot dories, are engaged in the winter cod fishery out of 

 Newburyport. The fishery commences in December and continues till April. In summer the cod 

 fishery is discontinued, the fishermen being employed in seining menhaden in the Merrimac Eiver. 

 In addition to these open boats there are about forty dories carried to the fishing grounds on 

 the small schooners engaged in the gill-net fishery for mackerel. In all, about eighty dories and 

 one hundred and sixty men are employed. A fair average return for a day's fishing was estimated 

 by Captain Pettingell at GOO pounds of cod and similar fish. 



Mr. John G. Plummer writes us the following historical sketch of the Labrador fishery from 

 Newburyport : 



"Capt. Charles Sandborn says that he went first in 1833, and there were then about 

 eighteen or twenty large vessels. One was a ship of 360 tons. They went down to Salmon 

 River, anchored in the river, and cruised along the shore in boats, and caught most of the cod 

 with nets or seines. They used those seines that were knit flat and gathered at the sides, so as 

 to have them bag some, and when they could not take all the fish in the boats they used to buoy up 

 the lead line and leave the lish in the nets until they returned for them. Sometimes they used 

 large bags made of nets, which they would fill with fish, and anchor them until the boats could 

 return for them. The vessels carried fine mesh nets in which to catch capelin for bait. The 

 voyage usually lasted about three months. The fish were dried at home, and the cost of drying 

 (one-twelfth) was paid in shares. They were then packed in drums and shipped to the West 

 Indies, to Bilboa, Spain, and up the Straits. 



"The vessels employed were not very high cost, and were fitted at low rates. They had a 

 codfish bounty from the Government, and so made good voyages ; but after a while the Govern- 

 ment cut off the bounty, and the cost of vessels and expense of fitting, including wages, increased 

 so that there was no money in it. One after another the vessels were withdrawn until now (1881) 

 not one is left. Last year there was one vessel and this year none. 



"The cod that were dried here in Newburyport and packed in drums brought the best price 

 in the West Indies of any in the world. They were not very salt and were thoroughly dry, so as 

 to stand the heat. 



"Fishermen all say that even now, with good large vessels and with a little assistance from the 

 Government, they could compete with the French and English fishermen and make it pay ; but 

 where the French get a good bounty from Government and we get none, and the cost of fitting is 

 higher than in France, it is impossible to make the fishery pay. These small Labrador fish have 

 to be shipped to the same market as the English and French fish. 



'< Our vessels carried mostly young men and boys, and taught them to be sailors. Some of 

 these men were in our Navy during the war, and one or two in the Kearsarge when she sank the 

 Alabama. About twenty of them, I think, were in the .Navy. 



" We used to have great times here when the vessels came in from Labrador. All the men and 

 boys we could scare up were employed in washing, hauling, drying, and packing the fish and ship- 

 ping them to market. The oil was shipped mostly to Philadelphia, and the vessels usually brought 

 back coal, corn, sugar, and molasses." 



The first American vessel to engage in the Labrador cod fishery from Newburyport sailed about 

 the year 1794, and from that time until the year 1879 there was scarcely a year when one or more 

 vessels were not sent to that fishing ground. In 1806 this fleet numbered 45 sail; in 1817, G5 sail; 

 in 1860, 60 sail; in 1874, 2 sail; in 1876, 2 sail; in 1879, none; iu 1880, 1 sail. 



