MASSACHUSETTS: BAHNSTABLE DISTRICT. 247 



prosperity, however, is due, perhaps, more to the fact that it contains the residences of many 

 wealthy retired captaius, than that a portion of its citizens arc fishermen. The wharf, at which 

 the fishing business is carried on. is distant more than a mile from the village, and is owned by the 

 railroad company, that also use it and have connected it by rail with the main part of their road. 



In 1879 the fisheries at this place gave employment to about one hundred men. The principal 

 branches engaged in are the offshore cod and mackerel, fisheries, the boat line-fishery, and the 

 bluefish fishery with gill-nets. The cod and mackerel fisheries are carried on by a single fir. a, 

 which owns three schooners. Each of these vessels carries about twelve men. In 1879 only one 

 crew was composed of Hyannis men, the others living at Chatham and Harwich. In spring and 

 summer the vessels are employed in the cod fishery, going about 23 miles from Hyannis, off Mono- 

 moy. In 1879 the three vessels brought in GOO quintals of codfish. In fall the mackerel fishing 

 takes place. One vessel was stranded in the August storm of 1879, and hence only two went 

 mackereling that season. The vessels are withdrawn in winter and the fishing is not carried on. 



The boat' line-fishery cmploys-about forty men, twenty-five of whom belong in Hyannis ; the 

 others come from West Yarmouth and other places. About one-half of the boats carry two men, 

 and the remainder one man. They are all cat-rigged, and are worth from $23 to $300 each. The first 

 fish taken in spring is the flounder, then follow scup and bluefish, tautog and sea-bass, and in fall 

 the flounder again. About 1.000 barrels of fresh fish are shipped to market annually, of which 

 the larger proportion are bluefish and scup. Four firms arc engaged iu shipping the fish, but one 

 has a much larger business than the other, and ships, perhaps, two-thirds of the whole quantity. 

 The fishermen do not like to trust a .distant and fluctuating market for their compensation, and 

 therefore sell the fish they catch directly to the shippers; the latter then reselling to Boston and 

 New York dealers. 



The bluefish fishery is carried on by four men, who together own about twenty-five gill-nets. 

 They also employ four other men to assist them iu setting the nets. The fishing begins about the 

 loth of May and lasts until October. In 1879 some 12,000 pounds of bluefish were taken, and 

 $1,200 was stocked. The fish are usually sent to New York. A net weir was erected at the west 

 of the village in the spring of 1879, for the purpose of capturing menhaden. Only 50 barrels of 

 menhaden were taken, however, and the enterprise failed. The weir was taken up in June. About 

 300 barrels of scallops are taken every winter in Hyannis Bay, by a varying number of men. 

 They are usually shipped to New York by rail. 



Messrs. Hall & Thatcher, of Hyannis, have planted a few hundred bushels of oysters annually 

 for six years in Mill Creek, cast of Hyannis. At one time they planted COO bushels. In 1879 none 

 were planted, and all were taken up, except about 100 bushels. Seed is obtained from Long Island 

 Sound and Buzzard's Bay. The above firm has shipped a few oysters annually to Hoston, selling 

 them to the hotels at $0 per barrel in the shell. 



Twenty-five or thirty years ago about thirty vessels sailed from the west bay of Hyannis. 

 There were six bankers; the rest were mackcrelmen. The crews cumefrom Hyaunis and vicinity. 

 In the East Bay, or Lewis Bay, as it is called, there were two wharves, from each of which twenty 

 vessels were sent out, mostly for mackerel. They went iu the spring to Virginia and followed the 

 fish up to the Bay Chaleur. In the winter season they were laid up. They were from 50 to 100 

 tons burden, old measurement. Among the last to go out were the Blue Bock, Faithful, lied 

 Kover, Voltaire, Splendid, Enchantress, Euphrates, William King, Shade, Adrian, Potomac, 

 Eunice Cobb, and John C. Calhonn. All these vessels were owned in Hyanuis. 



During the past five years every firm formed for carrying on the salt-fish trade has failed in a 

 few months. The men concerned have been scattered, and it is very .difficult to obtain information 

 in regard to the cod and mackerel fisheries during and prior to this period. 



