706 GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



were thus left to the care of the town, and the grief and suffering caused by these terrible calamities was very great. 

 There were at this time about 60 merchants engaged in the foreign trade, besides a very largo number of 'shoremen' 

 who prosecuted the fisheries. Some of the houses built by these merchants were among the finest in the province, 

 and one, the'palatial residence of Col. Jeremiah Lee, is said to have cost over 10,000."' 



"From 1708 to 1770," says Collector Dodge, of Marblehead, "the town lost 23 vessels and all (heir crews, 

 amounting to 1(52 men, who left 70 widows and 15o children. I rind by the records of the custom-house in the year 

 1790, there were 103 vessels with tonnage of 0,709 tons licensed in, the cod-fishery." 



We find the first fishing license on record at Marblehead dated 1789. As far back as 1708 it is recorded at the 

 custom-house there were 258 vessels belonging to this port, of which fully one-half were engaged in fishing, taking 

 their fish on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and near home, off the New England shore. A largo part of the catch 

 of codfish, after being thoroughly cured, was packed in drums and exported to France, England, West Indies, and 

 other foreign ports. 



"The British Parliament," says Road, "having prohibited the colonists in 1775 from carrying on fisheries on the 

 banks of Newfoundland, it was deemed imprudent for the fishing fleet to venture out. As nearly if not quite all the 

 vessels belonging to the town were ready for sea, a committee was chosen to wait upon the owners and shippers and 

 request them not to proceed on the voyages until after the time of prohibition had expired. A circular letter was also 

 addressed to the fishermen of other towns, requesting them to adopt a similar course, as the safety of their lives and 

 the welfare of their families depended upon their prudence and forbearance." 



In General Washington's diary may be found this statement, referring to the people of Marblehead in 17i-9: 



"The chief employment of the people of Marblehead (males) is fishing. About 110 vessels and 600 men and boys 

 are engaged in this business. Their chief export is fish. About 5,000 souls are said to be in this place, which has the 

 appearance of antiquity ; the houses are old, the streets dirty, and the common people are not very clean." 



THE FISHERIES AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PRESENT CENTURY. The Marblehead Ledger in 1860 gave the follow- 

 ing account of the fisheries of Marblehead in the early part-of the present century : 



"About 50 vessels sailed to the banks in the summer of 1815, and as the markets were bare of fish they did well. 

 * * * Seventeen new schooners were added to the fleet in 1816 or 1817 all built at Essex. The fisheries of Mar- 

 blehead were most prosperous during the first six or eight years of the century. An immense quantity of codfish was 

 then exported to France, Spain, and the West Indies, if not to other countries, and those exportatious were made 

 mostly in the winter in vessels that had been fishing in the summer, some going direct from the banks to foreign 

 ports. To Spain the fish was carried as often wet as dry, but that sent to the West Indies was always well dried and 

 packed in casks or 'drums.' As a general thing, no return cargoes weie brought from Spain. The fish sold at Bilboa 

 and other Spanish ports were paid for in doubloons, and our vessels would often proceed from those ports to the Cape 

 <le Verde Islands and there purchase cargoes of salt. From France we received our pay in silks, wines, o.'ive oil, and 

 other articles, all of which found a ready sale. Sugar, molasses, coffee, rum, pine-apples, oranges, lemons, and other 

 tropical products were brought from the West Indies, and disposed of without delay. There were times in the Spanish 

 and French harbors when fish commanded an extremely high price. I was in conversation not long since with an old 

 fisherman, who informed me that he once went to Bilboa as a mate of a fish-laden schooner, and that the cargo was 

 sold at the rate of 820 a quintal. ' We got,' said he, 'about $1 for every fish wo carried out.' lie added that he had 

 known the article to bring a still higher price, but this was soon after the termination of the war of 1812. 



" It appears to have been not an uncommon occurrence half a century ago for the skipper of a vessel, after having 

 loaded his craft with codfish on the banks, to set sail at once for some French or Spanish port, thus being away from 

 homo for six to nine months. Many years since a large number of our bankers used to make three trips in the course 

 of a season, leaving the harbor as early as the 1st of February and remaining out on their last cruise until the 1st of 

 December. On one occasion a banker on her third trip was so buffeted by adverse winds that she did not arrive home 

 until the 24th of January. At another time one of the fleet made Cape Cod Light on the 10th of December, the weather 

 being then very moderate; but on the following morning she encountered a furious northwester, which drove her off 

 the coast. The gale continued with unabated violence nearly four days, and when it had spent its force the skipper 

 of the vessel, finding himself far to the southward, without fish, provisions, and almost entirely destitute of water, 

 deemed it expedient to bear away for the Bermudas. lie arrived at one of those islands after a three days' run, and 

 remained there throughout the winter; and on the 20th of March, when he and his crew were supposed to have long 

 since perished in the surf of the Isle of Sable, the skipper rounded Neck Point and brought his craft to anchor off the 

 foot of Wharf Lane, reaching home just in season to prevent the marriage of his loving wife to the captain of a Penob- 

 ecot wood coaster." 



MARBLEHEAD IN 1821. Hodgson remarks of Marblehead as a fishing place in 1821 : 



"Marblehead, the second town in the Commonwealth before the Revolution, is now comparative!; 'the top of a 

 rock, a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea.' It is from this place, principally, that the Newfound- 

 land fishery is carried on. The trade, however, has latterly been very unproductive, and I saw the fishing craft, which 

 was now drawn on shore, very generally advertised for sale or charter. "' 



1 History of Marblebead, pp. 77, 78. 2 Hodgson's Journey, p. 237. 



