THE FISHERIES OF THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. 661 



could they ascend the falls of Chicopee River. Salmon passed up both. In 1739 Brookfield peti- 

 tioned the general court for liberty to make a passage for shad through the bars of rocks across 

 Chickopee River in Springfield, so that they might come up the river into the ponds. Springfield 

 opposed, and liberty was not granted. 



" Salmon were used, but were seldom noticed in records in the seventeenth century. Salmon- 

 nets began to appear before 1700, and some salmon were salted in casks by families before and 

 after 1700. They were seldom sold, and the price in Hartford, in 1700, was less than 1 penny per 

 pound. Fish were so plenty in the Connecticut and its branches that laws were not necessary to 

 regulate fishing for a long time. There was a law in Massachusetts against erecting wears or 

 fish-dams in rivers without permission from the court of sessions. Petitions for liberty to erect 

 wears to catch fish in the Hampshire streams began in 1729, and there were several after 1760. 

 These wears were chiefly for the purpose of catching salmon. In Northampton salmon were sold 

 from 1730 to 1740 at a price equal to 1 penny per pound, in lawful money, and some at 1 pence. 

 The price in 1742 was 1J pence, aud from 1750 to 1775 it was commonly 2 pence per pound. 

 Josiah Pierce, of Hadley, bought salmon from 1762 to 1765 at 2 pence, and some at Is. 6d., old 

 tenor, or 2f pence. He bought some years about 70 pouuds of salmou. Oliver Smith bought 27 

 pounds of salmon in 1773 at 2 pence, and Enos Smith 57 pounds in 1776 at 2 pence. The price 

 was from 2 to 3 pence from 1781 to 1787, 4 pence in 1794, and it advanced to 7 or 8 pence in 1798. 

 The first dam at South Hadley, about 1795, impeded the salmon, and the dam at Montague was a 

 much greater obstruction, and salmon soon ceased to ascend the river. Few were caught after 

 1800. Some of the prices of shad and salmon noted were retail barter prices. 



" There were at least three [fishing places] in Hadley. One was below the mouth of Mill 

 River, on Forty Acre Meadow. A more important one was a little east of the lower end of the 

 street, where the river flowed near the street. There was another in Hockauum Meadows. Op- 

 posite to the two last, Northampton men had fishing places. (The Northampton and Hadley men 

 were often near each other, and they bantered and joked abundantly, and sometimes played tricks 

 and encroached upon each other. These things proceeded not from ill-nature, but from love of fun.) 



" The late Elihn Warner remembered when forty salmon were caught in a day, near the lower 

 end of the street, about 1773, the largest of which weighed between 30 and 40 pounds. (Mr. Pierce 

 and six others owned a seine in Hadley in 1766. The whole income of the seine for the fish season 

 was 22 17s., and the expenses were 14 12s. 10<i., leaving for gain 8 4s. 2d. Shad were then 

 1 penny each.) 



" In South Hadley there was a noted fishing place near the mouth of Stony Brook, and 

 another above Bachelor's Brook against Cook's Hill. Many salmou were taken at those places ; 

 24 are said to have been caught at one haul near Stony Brook, weighing from 6 or 8 to 40 

 pounds. There were other fishing places in South Hadley above the falls. 



" The falls of rivers were great fishing places in New England for the Indians and the English. 

 The falls at South Hadley, called Patucket by the Indians, were one of the most favorable places 

 on the Connecticut for taking fish. Though there is no intimation in any old writing that the 

 Indians resorted to that place for fishing, and very little is found recorded which indicates that 

 the English frequented it for that purpose before 1740, yet it cannot be doubted that the Indians 

 caught fish there in early days and the English before 1700. (In 1685, when Northampton and 

 Springfield settled the line between them, west of the river, it was agreed that Northampton might 

 catch fish at the lower falls, below the line. The fishery was then thought to be of some 

 importance.) 



