FRESH HALIBUT FISHERY. 39 



winter and spring, until time for mackerel hooking on the coast of Maine. Thus with halibutiug 

 and mackereling a greater part of the season would be used up. The Pearl was soon joined by 

 schooner Fair Play, Capt. William Harris, and they continued in the business about five or six years. 



A third vessel, the schooner Nelson, engaged in the same business as early as 1850, going for 

 three years, after which she gave it up, owing largely to the want of a market for her fish. 



No Southport vessels have fished wholly for halibut since that time, and no other towns from 

 this section have ever sent any, except the schooner Columbus, of Booth Bay Harbor, a few years 

 later, for a few trips. 



The schooner Queen of the West went for haribnt from Georgetown. Me., during the winter 

 of 1857-'58, fishing with hand-lines and selling to Mr. Little, of Portland. She fished on Brown's 

 Bank and Banquereau mostly, in 60 to 90 fathoms. 



FIKST ATTEMPTS TO CATCH HALIBUT ON TRAWL-LINES. AS early as 1843, as previously 

 mentioned, Capt. N. E. Atwood, of Provincetown, set trawls for halibut in Massachusetts Bay, 

 and even before that time had been accustomed to make use of a simple form of the apparatus 

 arranged by fastening two or three hooks at intervals along the "rode-line" of his dory close to 

 his anchor, and thus occasionally catching a fish or two when the anchor was pulled in. In 1843 

 he was in the habit of setting a regular trawl-line 60 fathoms long, with snoods of 4 or 5 feet fast- 

 ened to it at intervals of 4 or 5 fathoms. According to Capt. Sylvauus Smith, of Gloucester, the 

 dory-fishermen of Cape Ann were also accustomed to fasten two or three hooks to the "rode- 

 liues" of their dories as early as 1839 or 1840, thus occasionally securing a halibut or two in addi- 

 tion to the fish taken on hand-lines. This method of putting hooks on the anchor line was for the 

 express purpose of catching halibut (generally for home use at that period), which could commonly 

 be more surely captured in that manner than by hand-lines, while il; was usually desirable to avoid 

 getting a halibut on the hand-lines, which might be broken, and considerable time and labor 

 would, of course, be wasted in securing a fish of less value than cod. The accompanying sketch 

 shows this method of halibut fishing. . 



Concerning the introduction of the trawl-line into the halibut fishery, which appears to have 

 been nearly at the same time as the introduction of the trawl into the cod-fisheries of the United 

 States, the following information has been obtained in interviews with Capt. Peter Sinclair, of 

 Gloucester : 



Captain Sinclair was born in Scotland, and, in his boyhood, engaged in the fisheries from his 

 native place. There, he says, he learned to rig and handle a set-line, or, as it is known to Ameri- 

 can fishermen, a trawl. While still a young man he came to this country and engaged in the 

 fisheries, sailing from Gloucester. In May, 1849, he was in command of the schooner Brant, of 

 30 tons, old measurement. He concluded to try trawl fishing as he had seen it done in the " old 

 country." He therefore rigged a small halibut trawl, having only thirty-seven hooks, and set it 

 for the first time a short distance outside of Kettle Island, just off the month of Gloucester Har- 

 bor, in 7 fathoms of water. Five halibut were caught on the first set. Captain Sinclair continued 

 fishing on the shore grounds of Massachusetts Bay and vicinity during the summer, and, he says, 

 it was a common occurrence to catch halibut any day during the month of May. 



Mr. Samuel Atwood, of Provincetown, who was one ot the crew of the Brant in the spring of 

 1849,* conceived the idea that trawls could be profitably employed on George's Bank, and, accord- 

 ing to Captain Sinclair, he shipped in the schooner Grace Darling the following year, making an 

 agreement with the skipper that he (Atwood) should have the privilege of using a trawl while on 



" This was probably 1850, a year later than Captain Sinclair has put it, for according to his statement Atwood 

 was lost two years later in the Golden Fleece which foundered in 1852. This gives us a point from which to reckon. 



