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HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



dense, since it has been approved as trustworthy by Mr. O. B. Goldsmith and other experienced 

 persons living at New Suffolk: 



"New Suffolk, Long Island, situated on the north shore, and midway of the length of Great 

 Peconic Bay, whose waters reach from Greenport, on Long Island Sound, to Riverhead, a distance 

 of 40 miles, is the great fishing-ground. * * * The favorite grounds lie in a line drawn 

 from northwest to southeast across the bay from New Suffolk toward Southampton, on the eastern 

 shore. Here the scallops are always found." 



The history of their discovery and the origin of the business has been detailed in a letter to 

 the Census Bureau by Capt. Ira B. Tuthill, jr., of New Suffolk. He says New Suffolk is the 

 chief, and has the largest number of individuals engaged in the trade. ''Fourteen vessels, in size 

 from the cat-rigged sail-boat of a couple of tons register to the schooner-rigged vessel of twenty, 

 hail from New Suffolk. The crews run from a man and a boy on the smaller to a half dozen able- 

 bodied men on the larger boats. The work is of the hardest and the coldest sort. No one that 

 has not the constitution of a horse could stand it. No weather is severe enough to keep these 

 hardy, tough men from making a catch whenever a 'bed' is found. The wages are not high- 

 are really low when the exposure incident to the trade is remembered but the work comes in at 

 a time of year when there is little demand for labor, and hence the men for the work are easily 

 procured. As was the case years ago in the whale fishery, boats are built or purchased for the 

 special purpose. The owner or owners receive such a proportion for interest money, the captain 

 of the boat gets a 'lay' in the profits instead of wages, while the men will average $1.50 a day 

 for their earnings. * * * The largest vessels of the fleet engaged in the scallop trade are as 

 named below : 



The origin of this business in that locality is recent. 



The fishing season lasts from October to April, but the catch varies from year to year. In 

 1877 it seems to have been remarkably high, 80,000 bushels, yielding 40,000 gallons (it is esti- 

 mated), having gone to New York from this locality. The price, however, ran down as low as 50 

 cents per gallon, barely paying expenses. In 1878 only 20,000 gallons were produced, or half 

 the previous season's yield, and in 1879 it was lighter yet. In 1857, the sloop Tradesman (40 or 50 

 tons), of Norwalk, Conn, (the captain of which was afterwards light-house keeper at Norwalk 

 Islands), came over to Long Island in search of scallops. After trying in several parts of Gardiner's 

 Bay without success, they started up the Peconic, and, being oystermeu, they had some idea as to 



