52 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



on the south to the farthest bounds of territory claimed by 

 the English on the coast of Maine. 



It was the intention of the promoters of the Colony 

 of Massachusetts Bay to profit by the disastrous experiences 

 of many of their kinsmen on these shores. In a letter of 

 instructions to Governor Winthrop, written from London 

 early in 1629, it was ordered that a storehouse be built 

 for shipwrights and their provisions, and that a responsible 

 person be selected to have the matter in his special charge. 

 Fishermen, salt and apparatus for fishing were sent over 

 in 1629. Governor Winthrop took an active interest in 

 the fisheries from the first. On the passage over he records 

 the taking, "in less than two hours, with a few hooks, 

 sixty-seven codfish, most of them very great fish, some of 

 them a yard and a half long and a yard in compass." A 

 few days afterwards he writes, "we took many mackerels, 

 and met a shallop, which belonged to some English fisher- 

 men." 1 



The governor's interest in the sea was manifested in 

 practical form when on the fourth of July, 1631, he 

 launched a ship, built at Mystic, named the Blessing of 

 the Bay. The little boat was of thirty tons only. She was 

 used by the colonists in opening up commerce with the 

 Dutch on the Hudson, and in maintaining intercourse with 

 other parts of Massachusetts Bay. It is a matter of just 

 pride, especially to those who go down to the sea in ships, 

 that the first governor of Massachusetts thus dignified the 

 calling of the sea, and by his influence helped to make 

 Massachusetts become, in the fisheries, the empire state 

 of the Union. 



Activity in the fisheries and in shipbuilding continued 

 in other places. In the fall of 1633, Isaac Allerton, a 

 prominent citizen of Plymouth, set sail in the White Angel 

 for Marblehead. There he helped to establish the first 



i Winthrop, History of New England, I, p. 25. 



