THE SHAD STREAMS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 161 

furnishing them with large quantities for curing and barreling. Shad 
were plenty but salt scarce. There was no salt except what was wagoned 
from the cities or from the saltworks at Onandaga, New York, and it 
was not unusual that a bushel of salt would purchase one hundred shad, 
in fact it was difficult to procure salt to cure them. At this time the 
German population in the lower counties of the state had not learned 
the art of taking shad by means of the seine. 
“There were no dams or other obstructions to the ascent of the fish 
up the river, and large quantities of the finest shad in the world annu- 
ally ascended the Susquehanna, many of them when taken weighing 
from six to eight pounds each. The distance being so long (about two 
hundred miles) from tide water to the Wyoming valley the flavor of the 
shad was very much improved by contact with fresh water. 
“The Susquehanna shad were superior to the Delaware, the Potomac, 
the Connecticut or the North river shad. The reason generally given 
was their being so long in fresh water, which imparted to the fish a 
freshness and richness not found in the shad of other rivers. Then none 
but the strong healthy shad could stem the current and reach the upper 
water of our beautiful river. Miller and McCord cured and put up annu- 
ally shad for the market. They boated down the river a large quantity 
for the times, and sold to the people on the lower Susquehanna. They 
also boated shad up the river as far as Newtown, now Elmira, from 
thence they were carted to the head of Seneca lake, a distance of twenty 
miles, and from there were taken to Geneva and other towns, in what 
was then called the Lake country, and sold. 
“There was a fishery on the upper point of the island opposite Mc- 
Kee’s station on the Lehigh Valley railroad. This island was known 
- by the early settlers as one of the Three Brothers. There was also an 
important fishery at Hunt’s Ferry, about five miles above Tunkhannock. 
Here large quantities of shad were caught every spring. This fishery 
was owned by twenty rights, ten fishing at alternate nights. There was 
also another fishery at Black Walnut, below Skinner’s Eddy. At all 
these fisheries more or less Oswego bass were caught, called down the 
river Susquehanna salmon, a most excellent fish, but they are now 
nearly extinct.. The river ought to be restocked with that same species; 
they are a fine-flavored fish, solid in meat, and grow to twelve or fifteen 
pounds in weight. The late George M. Hollanback, Esq., of Wilkes- 
Barre, told me that this bass was brought from the Oswego lake and 
put into the Susquehanna at Newtown, now Elmira. They were called 
by the old settlers swager bass. Since the building of dams across the 
Susquehanna there have been no shad caught above the Nanticoke 
dam. These dams also largely obstruct the passage of bass and other 
food fish up the river. 
“The Susquehanna is really one of the finest streams for fish in the 
United States—the water pure, the bottom rocky and pebbly, affording 
11 FiIsu. 
