MASSACHUSETTS: BAENSTABLE DISTRICT. 241 



hadeu and herring are sold to Gloucester fishing schooners for bait. The fish are transported to 

 Boston by the way of Dennis Port. Five or six little schooners carry them from Chatham to 

 Dennis Port. 



About twenty men in Chatham and about the same number making their summer quarters 

 at Monomoy set pots for the capture of lobsters, from the beginning of June to November. Each 

 fisherman owns from 40 to 80 pots. The lobsters are sold in Boston and arc carried thither in 

 smacks. 



The winter clam fishery is carried on by fishermen who do not make sufficient money during 

 the summer to support their families, by old men who are unable to join in offshore fishing, and by 

 boys. Altogether about one hundred and fifty persons are employed. They begin in November 

 and rake on every fair day until April. The sea clams are either sent directly to Provincetowu 

 fresh, or are salted and sold to the grocers of the village, who advance money on the same and 

 hold them until spring, when they bring good prices. In 1879 about 700 barrels were raked and 

 barrelled. 



Five or six bluefish and bass seines are owned in Chatham. They are shot from the beach, 

 sometimes on the ocean side and sometimes in the harbor. Five men are required to manage each 

 seine. The season begins in May and lasts until October. In 1879 the catch was 12,000 pounds of 

 bluefish and 3,000 pounds of bass. The fish are iced in boxes arid sent to New York. 



The fisheries of North Chatham and Chatham Port are not important. A number of boats 

 from North Chatham join the cod fishing fleet, and twenty men are engaged in digging clams in 

 Eyder's Cove in winter. 



West Chatham is not situated near the water and is only indirectly interested in the fisheries. 



HARWICH. The town of Harwich lies between Dennis and Chatham. Its only coast line is 

 on the south, being shut in on the north by Brewster. It contains the villages of Harwich, North, 

 East, South, and West Harwich, and Harwich Port. The last named is the only important fishing- 

 village in the town. West Harwich, in regard to fishing interests, can scarcely be considered as 

 a separate village. It is separated from Dennis Port only b,y an imaginary line and the interests 

 of the two arc identical; they will therefore be treated together under "Dennis Port." 



Harwich Port, like many of the Cape Cod villages, is built mainly upon one long street run- 

 ning parallel to the coast line. From this street others make off at right angles leading to the 

 wharves. About 200 men are engaged in the fisheries. In 187!) about 40 men shipped at Ports- 

 mouth, 125 manned the vessels sailing from the villages, and from 30 to 40 were employed at the 

 wharves in preparing the fish for market. Nearly the entire remainder of the male population of 

 Harwich Port, in many cases with their families, are engaged in the merchant service and are scat- 

 tered all over the earth. There are two sail-lofts in Harwich Port, which together would furnish 

 about enough employment for one man during the whole year. The sails made here are princi- 

 pally for the cat-rig boats of Chatham. A boat factory, established over twenty years ago, gives 

 rather scanty employment to two men. During the winter of 1878 two cat-rig boats, worth about 

 $300 each, were made for some Chatham fishermen. 



The only fisheries carried on at Harwich Port are the mackerel and the weir fisheries and inci- 

 dentally the cod fishery. The mackerel fishery is carried on by two firms at two wharves a few 

 hundred yards apart. Each firm in 1879 owned six schooners, carrying crews of fourteen or fifteen 

 men each. In that year one vessel fished in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, but the others mostly on 

 the Maine coast. 



The fishing season opens about the 1st of April and closes about the 10th of November, after 

 which time the vessels are hauled up for the winter. The trips average about three weeks each. 

 16 G n F 



