690 



GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



owning one or two vessels each, were not put in ; enough in all to make up the eighty mentioned as belonging hero 

 in 1775. The number of our fishing-boats at that time cannot bo ascertained ; but, on the authority of the selectmen 

 for 1779, I can state that, 'in foreign merchantmen, coasters, and lishiug-boats,' wo had 1,000 tons. I suppose that 

 about one-half of this tonnage was in fishing-boats, averaging, as they did a few years later, 12 tons each, and making 

 1 lie whole number about forty. In that case we should have the aggregate of one hundred and twenty fishing-vessels 

 belonging to the town in 1775, of the total burthen of 4,500 tons. The schooners probably carried an average number 

 of six men each, and tho boats two, making the whole number of fishermen five hundred. Nearly all the fishermen 

 who sailed from the town at that time belonged to it ; and when wo consider that our list of polls then numbered but 

 1,053, we see at once that the number of men employed in the fisheries here, given in the table above mentioned, must 

 be exaggerated. [Pitkin gives the quantity of fish exported from Gloucester just prior to the Revolutionary War at 

 77,500 quintals.] 



PROFITS TO THE FISHERMEN. "The business yielded a scanty support to the fishermen; and, as a class, they 

 were poor, though then, as in a more recent period of our history, according to the natural course of things, the mer- 

 chants who carried it on with most success were men who had themselves served an apprenticeship at the hook and 

 line. No means exist for ascertaining the average annual earnings of these men before the war; but the accounts of 

 a single vessel for 1773 are preserved, and show the product of her two trips to the Banks to have been 550 quintals of 

 fish, which sold for 302. After deducting a few small expenses, one-half of this sum belonged to the fishermen. 

 Supposing their number to have been six, we can see that the amount received by each was but a small sum for the 

 payment of his proportion of tho provisions for the voyage and the support of his family :it home. 



" In these fishing voyages it was the custom for4he men to go, as it was called, 'on their own hook.' An account 

 was kept of the fish caught by each man, and at the end of the voyage the proceeds were distributed accordingly. 

 The following account of a season's work by one crew on the Grand Banks a hundred years ago may possess interest 

 for modern fishermen : Account offish taken on board the schooner Abagail, Capt. Paul Hughes, in three fares to the 

 Grand Banks in 1757. She sailed on the first fare May 16, and fished twenty-three days ; on the second fare July 13, 

 and fished twenty days ; on the third fare September 22, and fished twenty-four days. She left the Banks on the last 

 fare November 5. 



" Tho largest number taken in one day was 1886, on June 1. 



THE FISHERIES INTERRUPTED BY WAR. "The revolutionary crisis approached, and the commerce and fishing of 

 the town could be no longer pursued. A great majority of the people comprising the merchants, mechanics, fisher- 

 men, and sailors, who depended upon the maritime business of the place for a livelihood could find no employment 

 in their regular pursuits, and were the more eager, therefore, to prove the sincerity of their declaration, that they 

 would defend their liberties at the expense of all that was dear to them. At the commencement of tho Revolutionary 

 War eight schooners and a large number of Chebacco boats were engaged in the fisheries of Gloucester. The schooners 

 were, employed in distant grounds, and were therefore, during the war, useless for the business in which they had 

 been engaged. Several were converted into privateers, a few rotted at the wharves, and some were preserved till 

 peace again made it safe to resort to the 'Banks.' Oue of them, of 55 tons, survived every accident, to be registered 

 in 1790, at, the venerable age of twenty-two, in the foreign commerce of the town. No means exist for ascertaining 

 how many vessels engaged in the Bank fishery immediaiely upon the return of peace. -One statement says that 60 

 were employed in it in 1788 and 50 in 1789. Another, in giving an account of fish caught by vessels from the town in 

 the fall of the last-named year, shows that 44 vessels took 426,700 fish, and that 15 of those vessels belonged to Eben 

 Parsons and Daniel Sargent, two merchants of Boston. Seven more belonged to each of the tw,o principal merchants 

 of Gloucester, David Pearee and Daniel Rogers. Concerning this revival of the fishery, it may be further stated that 

 tho custom-house records show the enrollment between October 2, 1789, and September 10, 1790, of 1 brig, 16 sloops, 

 and 40 schooners, of an aggregate burthen of 3, 108 tons. Some of the 'Bankers' made three trips in a season, and, if 

 remarkably fortunate, landed from all, together, as many as 40,000 fish ; but all the traditions of the business report that 

 the average earnings of the fishermen were so small that they were kept in a condition of poverty. It is not surprising, 

 therefore, that the number of vessels engaged in it decreased from year to year till 1804, when we find that only 8 of 

 more than 30 tons burthen were engaged in the Gloucester fisheries. This small number had probably dwindled to 

 less in 1819, when an effort was made to put new vigor into the business by the establishment of a corporation to 

 carry it on. In that year the Gloucester Fishing Company, with an authorized capital of $50,000, went into operation. 



