138 FISH-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
Captain Atwood remembers seeing swordfish on the coast of 
Maine as early as 1826, although up to the time of his retirement 
from active participation in the fisheries, in 1867, no effort was 
made by the fishermen north of Cape Cod to capture them. 
The fishery apparently sprang into existence and importance 
between the years 1840 and 1855, upon the south coast of New 
England. Captain Ashby first engaged in it in 1859, when it 
was apparently a well-established industry. In 1861 it is re 
ported that some thirty vessels in Rew Bedford were profitably 
engaged in this business on the favorite ground, fifteen to 
twenty miles southeast of Noman’s Land.* 
Mr. Earll ascertained that little attention was paid by the 
fishermen of Portland, Me., to swordfish until within two or 
three years. This fishery is carried on at odd times by mack- 
erel gill-net fishermen, and by cod-trawling vessels when their 
regular industry is interfered with by the abundance of dogfish. 
The season for dogfish is also the time for swordfish, and at the 
present time, when the price of swordfish justifies it, smaller 
fishermen, when they are driven from their regular work by the 
dogfish, make trips for the express purpose of capturing sword- 
fish. Mackerel-seiners are beginning to carry swordfish irons, 
and are often very successful in killing the fish. 
At the present day, and for five or six years .past, perhaps 
much longer, there has been very little change in the number of 
vessels engaged, this varying from thirty to forty i sd sesamiae 3 
in different years 
Captain Epas W. Merchant, of Gloucester, who has been fa- 
miliar with the fisheries since 1804, tells me that the first sword- 
fish ever brought to Gloucester within his recollection, was 
caught on George’s Bank about the year 1831, by Captain Pugh, 
who brought it in and sold it at the rate of eight dollars a barrel, 
* Swordfish have been taken this season in large numbers. New Bedford vessels have 
made a good thing in them. Few of the boats failed to take one or two daily. Captain Cobb, 
of the pilot boat Vision, in a day and a half took nine, the largest weighing four hundred 
pounds. Thirty vessels are fifteen miles south and east from Noman’s Land, or sixty miles 
out from New Bedford, and same distance from Nantucket. The season extends from June to 
September. The fish generally weigh four hundred or five hundred pounds, and are from ten 
to twelve feet long. They are sold in New York. Aftera fish is harpooned it scuds away, 
with a coil of rope paying out, and sometimes an hour is used before he is brought on board. 
—Barnstable Patriot, August 20th, 1861. 
