THE SHAD STREAMS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 171 

soon obtaining a supply of fresh shad; about sixty were caught here on 
Wednesday (24th), and yesterday (25th) upwards of three hundred. We 
learn that at Berwick they are caught in abundance.” 
The following is extracted from Miner’s History of Wyoming: 
“The month of February, 1773, had so nearly exhausted the provi- 
sions of the Wilkes-Barre settlement that five persons were selected to 
go to the Delaware near Stroudsburg for supplies. * : * The 
distance was fifty miles through the wilderness, ete. - - 7 
The men took each an hundred pounds of flour, and welcome was their 
return to their half-famished friends at Wilkes-Barre. Never was an 
opening spring or the coming of the shad looked for with more anxiety 
or hailed with more cordial delight. The fishing season, of course, dis- 
sipated all fears, and the dim eye was soon exchanged for the glance of 
joy and the sparkle of pleasure, and the dry, sunken cheek of want as- 
sumed the plump appearance of health and plenty.” 
Hon. B. L. Hewit, of Hollidaysburg, formerly a state fish commis- 
sioner, in response to inquiries concerning the early history of shad 
fishing on the Juniata, says that his grandfather and others formerly 
caught shad above the Huntingdon dam. A fellow-townsman, who died 
at the age of ninety, told Mr. Hewit that several shad were caught in 
MecCahan’s mud race, a mile above Hollidaysburg. Long prior to the 
erection of the public works east of the Alleghenies known as the canal, 
which necessitated dams, the shad came up the river as high as they 
could go for spawning purposes, followed by the striped bass, not large 
ones, which fed on the spawn. ‘There were a few fisheries west of Lew- 
istown; pike-perch, locally known as “Susquehanna salmon,” were 
abundant and fine, but after the erection of the dams these disappeared, 
and but few shad were able to go west of Newport, Perry county, some 
of the more vigorous passing through the sluiceway at the Columbia 
dam. The early settlers living on the banks of Spruce creek above 
Huntingdon speared so many pike-perch that after using all they wished 
they took what were left (salted) down to Harrisburg and Columbia on 
arks in the spring freshets and exchanged the fish for coffee, sugar, etc. 
To a limited extent they salted shad, but they were not so abundant 
then as pike-perch. The fisheries extended from Lewistown down to 
Havre de Grace, increasing in number towards the Chesapeake. 
The manifest decrease in the supply of fish furnished by the Susque- 
hanna river aroused public attention, and in 1866 a convention met at 
Harrisburg to consider the existing condition of things, and an act was 
prepared requiring fishways to be constructed in all the dams of the 
Susquehanna and its tributaries. This was promptly passed by tie 
legislature then in session and was signed by the Governor on March 
30,1866. After reciting in its preamble that by the construction of a 
dam across the Susquehanna shad, salmon and other fish were prevented 
from passing up the said stream to the great detriment and injury of 
