184 



GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW OP THE FISHERIES. 



65. THE FISHERIES OF MARBLEHEAD, SWAMPSCOTT, NAHANT, AND LYNN. 



MAEBLEHEAD. From 184G to the present time tLc fishery industry of Marblehead shows a 

 steady decline. The system of giving bounties to fishing vessels, continued until 18G7, failed to 

 revive the interest formerly taken in this industry. This may be seen by an examination of the 

 following table, giving the number of vessels and amount of bounty paid during the last few years 

 of the existence of the bounty system : 



The bounty was at the rate of $4 a ton on the measurement of the vessel up to 90 tons, ceasing 

 in 1866, since which time no bounty has been paid, the amount paid in 18G7 being for fish caught 

 in 18C6. 



In 1879 only one vessel was sent to the Grand Banks from this port. Seventeen vessels of 

 small tonnage engaged in the home-shore fishery with ten sail idle, or occasionally engaged for 

 sailing parties. A total of twenty-eight sail of 807.36 aggregate tonnage represents the fishing 

 fleet of this once celebrated port. The fishing business of Marblehead has always been mostly cod, 

 but few have engaged in the mackerel catch, and none to make a special business of it during the 

 past twenty years. The old-established custom of the Grand Bankers was fishing on shares; the 

 vessel receiving three-eighths, the captain, mate, and crew five eighths; all bills for bait, stores, 

 provisions, &c., being first paid. By the oldest living masters \ve are told that Marblehead vessels 

 never fished in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, nor for the past twenty years in any waters of the 

 Provinces. In the prosperous days of the past a large number of vessels were built here, but, 

 with the exception of a few yachts, none have been built for several years. 



The appended statements show the extremely reduced condition of the fleet of vessels fishing 

 on the Banks. Mr. Critteuden writes : 



" Marblehead sends but one Banker this year (187!)), fitted by George Knight. Less than forty 

 years ago Marblehead sent seventy-five Bankers. There is considerable small-boat fishing. There 

 are no large vessels engaged in the mackerel fishery." 



Mr. Martin, of Marblehead, wrote to Professor Baird in 1879 : 



"Our fleet of vessels which several years since numbered from eighty to one hundred sail 

 (engaged in the fisheries at the Grand Banks of Newfoundland) has been reduced to one vessel 

 of about 80 tons burden." 



It is sufficient to say of the fishery industry from 1877 to 1879 that there was nothing done, 

 except by the shore boatmen. The larger vessels were tied to the wharf and the owners offered 

 the use of them to the Gloucester men on condition that the latter pay the insurance, preferring 

 that their vessels should be in use and taken care of than that they should lie idle at the wharf, 

 depreciating in value every day. 



The eighteen vessels which were engaged in fishing in the year 1879 were, with one exception, 

 schooners ranging from 5 to 70 tons burden, with an average of 20 tons. They were all owned in 

 Marblehead. The largest, the Oceana, 70.94 tons burden, was the only one engaged in the cod 



