164 oaee eee ete eats — eae Be 

tors were J ee Teny, Esq., Major note Horton, Sr. Meee a 
Gaylord, Gilbert Merritt, William Crawford and William Wacom Year 
after year, for a long time, these men operated this fishery, generally 
taking the month of May and a part of June of each year, always regal- 
ing themselves with a little goo'l old rye, and having a fine sociable every 
night when counting off and distributing the shad caught during the 
day. Occasionally they sent substitutes, but the fishery never changed 
proprietors. Some seasons they caught largely ; others not so many. 
I well recollect one draught or haul, when they caught five hundred; but 
ordinarily twenty to fifty at one drawing of the seine was considered good. 
The average per day, according to the best of my recollection, would be 
about one hundred and fifty.” 
“ People came from the eastern part of the country, then just settling, 
up to Wyalusing, as far or nearly as far as from Montrose, to buy shad. 
The trade was quite large; some of the time maple sugar was quite a 
commodity brought down to exchange for shad. 
“Very few of any other kind of fish except shad were ever caught. 
Occasionally a striped bass, large pickerel, carp, sunfish, mullet, sucker 
or a bullhead was taken; no small fish, as the meshes of the seine were 
large enough to let them through. 
“The shad were worth from ten to twenty-five cents each, according 
to size. I have seen them caught here weighing nine pounds; ordi- 
narily their weight was from four to seven pounds. If we could have 
that old shad trade here again it would make us all, if not rich, merry 
again. But very few are now left among us who saw those glorious old 
fishing days. The fishing for black bass of these days does not begin 
with those old fishing days. 
“T can recollect of but one tishery between Wyalusing and Towanda, 
and only two between Wyalusing and Tunkhannock.” 
The following interesting statement comes from Mr. 8. Jenkins. 
“The present inhabitants of Wyoming have but a faint idea of the 
value of fish to the early settlers. They performed as important a part 
at Wyoming as they have in the history of all new settlements. A care- 
ful study of the advance of immigration and the settlement of new re- 
gions shows that those settlements have been guided and controlled by 
the streams and waters in which fish abounded, and hence were made 
along their shores. Fish furnished the people a plentiful and healthful 
supply of food, easily attainable, until the forests could be hewn down, 
clearings made, crops raised, cattle could increase and multiply. 
“Tt is unquestionable that the early progress made in settling up of our 
country was due in a large measure to the presence of fish, which tur- 
nished food 1n absolute abundance in the midst of desert lands; and 1t 
would be idle to attempt to disparage the value in the economy of those 
times as it would be to prove the value now beyond the mere mention 
of the fact. 
