182 THE SHAD STREAMS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
tributaries, in 1891, for the first time in many years, had thousands of 
shad restored to its waters, many being taken twenty-five and thirty 
miles above the dam. 
The Lehigh river was, years ago, a fine shad stream. Tidewater ex- 
tends only a short distance above the river in the Neshaminy and the 
Brandywine, and the shad frequent these creeks for the purpose of 
spawning. 
The Schuylkill river at one time was the favorite resort of the shad. 
William Penn, in one of his letters mentioned that ‘‘six hundred shad 
had been taken with one sweep of the seine,” and in fact this river main- 
tained its reputation until the erection of the Fairmount dam rendered 
it almost barren of shad between the dam and its confluence with the 
Delaware, a distance of eight miles. This result has been attributed to 
the pollution of its waters by the refuse from the city gas works, but it 
occurred within three or four years after the erection of the dam in 
1820-21, whereas the gas works were not constructed till about 1830. 
Of the numerous streams flowing from the New Jersey side, and which 
are all spawning grounds for the shad, may be mentioned Cooper’s 
creek and Rancocas creek, above Gloucester city, and below that point 
are Big Timber creek, Salem creek, Raccoon creek, Old Man’s creek and 
Woodbury creek. 
In Big Timber and the Rancocas the shad run up a distance of fifteen 
or twenty miles. The former is one of the best shad fishing streams on 
the Jersey shore and has been successfully fished for many years, some 
of the fisheries being located eight and ten miles above its mouth, and 
it is a singular fact that shad have been caught at these fisheries a week 
or ten days earlier than the nets in the Delaware have taken any. 
Big Timber creek is about thirty miles in length, rising in the water- 
shed between the Delaware and the Atlantic, and has many sinuosities, 
with deep holes from thirty to forty feet of water. Young shad have 
frequently been seen jumping in the waters of this creek in the months 
of September and October, while they have been observed in the Dela- 
ware at Easton as late as November 12, in the year 1869, and one of the 
New Jersey fish commissioners, it is said, saw young shad two and a 
half inches long at Howell’s fishery on the eighth day of June the same 
year. 
The shad and herring seek our fresh water streams in early spring, 
moving in schools, sometimes of immense numbers. The shad usually 
spawn in the clear running waters above tide. The herring do not go 
above tide, which reaches Trenton, on the Delaware, but are believed to 
spawn upon the grassy flats below. The successive runs of shad con- 
tinue from about the middle of March to the last of June or early part 
of July, they having been sold on July 4, 1870, in Bucks county. They 
are few in number as a rule until the middle of April, from this time to 
the middle of May comes what is known among fishermen as the great 
