714 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



was closed to the anadromous fishes by legislative sanction in 1800. At present it has only a few 

 smelts. There is a prospective alewife fishery, the result of the encouragement given this species 

 through the construction of fishways and restricted fishing, but in 1880 the capture of alewives 

 was still forbidden. 



The smelt fishery is limited to the operations of 3 weirs built in Broad Cove, and a large num- 

 ber of hook fishermen, of whom about 80 are estimated to have fished for them for sale in cloth 

 huts similar to those used in other places. The total catch in 1879-'80 was 33,910 pounds. The 

 smelt fishery of the Medomak dates from the year 1871, when one George Preble came from the 

 Kennebec and built a weir about 1J miles below the village on the east side of the river. He met 

 with good success, and the next year two weirs were built. From this the weir fishery suddenly 

 developed itself until the hedges were forbidden by law as impediments to navigation. About 

 1877 it was discovered that smelts could be taken here with hook, and there was an immediate 

 development of that fishery. The fishing grounds are at various points within 2 miles of Waldo-' 

 borough village. 



PEMAQTJID RIVER. This is a very small stream, having a drainage basin of only some 10 or 15 

 square miles. An alewife fishery of some local importance once existed here, but it was destroyed 

 by impassable dams and improvident management. 



DAMARISCOTTA RIVER. This is also a small river, having a drainage basin of little more than 

 50 square miles, and a lake surface of 10 square miles. In the matter of fisheries it is, however, 

 the most important river in the State after the Penobscot and Kennebec. The river has its source 

 in a lake of 10 miles area, known as "Damariscotta Pond," which is fed by many small brooks. 

 From the outlet of this lake to the sea is about 19 miles, of which less than a quarter of a mile is 

 fresh water, the rest being a tidal brackish estuary. From the lake the river plunges at Damaris- 

 cotta Mills down over a steep rocky descent, at the foot of which it enters Damariscotta Bay, a 

 sheet of slightly brackish water about 2 miles long, which is connected with the lower and salter 

 part of the river by a narrow and rather shallow passage. This bay appears to be especially well 

 fitted for a winter home for smelts and eels, and here all the fisheries for those species are 

 plied. 



The alewife fishery is claimed and generally believed to have been in its origin wholly artifi- 

 cial, but there is some evidence to the contrary, and it must be regarded as an unsettled question 

 whether alewives ever succeeded in ascending to the lake before they were assisted by man. This 

 much, however, seems to be established, that if such was the fact the extermination of the original 

 brood (doubtless by dams which were very early erected here) was effected so long ago that its ex- 

 istence was unknown to those living in the vicinity seventy-five years ago. The tradition is that 

 up to 1803 no alewives had ever ascended the falls. A few stragglers came yearly to the foot of 

 the falls and by plying the dip net industriously a man might get a mess of them, but as they 

 were unable to reach any breeding ground, they did not increase. In 1803, however, some of the 

 citizens got a lot of alewives from Pemaquid River (some say from Warren) and put them into the 

 lake, and when their descendants in due course of time came back from the sea a rude fish way was 

 constructed of loose stones for them to ascend. The result was the establishment of a flourishing 

 fishery. In 1810 the towns of Nobleborough and Newcastle, whose boundary is formed by the 

 river at the falls, assumed control, under legislative sanction, of this fishery, and have continued to 

 manage it down' to the present time after the manner of town fisheries in other parts. Until 1865 

 the fish were taken by the fish committee and sold to the citizens and the public at 25 cents per 



