160 THE OEE’ ose oe eee et 


“Tam uals nee that our society is agitating the ony ae re- 
storing the shad to the people of the North Branch, not as a luxury for 
the few, but for all, cheap and faithful and coming at a season of the 
year when most desirable for food, for nowhere on this continent were 
finer shad found than those taken from the North Branch of the Susque- 
hanna river. 
“The long run of the pure, cold, spring-made waters of the Susque- 
hanna made them large, hard and fat, nowhere equaled 
“Why must we be denied this luxury when other streams are being 
filled with fish?” 
The following extracts are taken from a history of early shad fishing 
in the Susquehanna, written by Hon. P. M. Osterhout: 
“The first shad caught in the Susquehanna river was by the early 
settlers of the Wyoming valley, who emigrated thither from Connecticut. 
The food of the early emigrants was, in the main, the fish in the streams 
and the game on the mountains. The first seine in the valley was 
brought from Connecticut, and upon the first trial, in the spring of the 
year, the river was found to be full of shad. These emigrants had set- 
tlements along the Susquehanna from Wyoming to Tioga Point, now 
called Athens; and each neighborhood would establish a fishery for their 
own accommodation. It was generally done in this way: Say about ten 
men (and it took about that number to man a seine) would form them- 
selves into a company for the purpose of a shad fishery. They raised 
the flax, their wives would spin and make the twine and the men would 
knit the seine. The river being on an average forty rods wide the seine 
would be from sixty to eighty rods long. The shad congregated mostly 
on shoals or the point of some island for spawning and there the fish- 
eries were generally established. Shad fishing was mostly done in the 
night, commencing soon after dark and continuing until daylight in the - 
morning, when the shad caught would be made into as many piles as 
there were rights in the seine. One of their number would then turn 
his back and another would touch them off, saying, pointing to a pile, 
who shall have this and who shall have that, and so on until all were 
disposed of, when the happy fishermen would go to their homes well 
laden with the spoils of the night. Between the times of drawing the 
net, which would be generally about an hour, the time was spent in the 
recitation of fish stories, hair-breadth escapes from the beasts of the 
forests, the wily Indian, or the Yankee production, the ghosts and 
witches of New England. 
“As early as 1800 George Miller and John McCord moved from Coxes- 
town—a small town on the Susquehanna, about five miles above Harris- 
burg—up the river in a Durham boat, and bringing with them a stock 
of goods located at Tunkhannock, where they opened a store. They 
were both young men aud unmarried. In the spring of the year they 
dealt quite largely in shad, the different fisheries in the neighborhood 
