20 Fish, Fishing and Fisheries of Pennsylvania. 



years, some of the fisheries being located eight and ten miles above its 

 mouth. It is a singular fact in connection with this stream that shad 

 have been caught at these fisheries a week or ten days earlier than the 

 nets in the main waters of the Delaware. Many theories have been ad- 

 vanced to account for this curious fact but none give general satisfac- 

 tion. 



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. 



It is unfortunate that, as compared with the Susquehanna river, but 

 little is known of the early fisheries of the Delaware, though it is said 

 that the early Dutch and German settlers either did not know of or did 

 not make use of the seine for fish catching until long after the Connecti- 

 cut colonies in the Wyoming Valley. 



While there is no particular reason for making the assertion, it may 

 be that the English settlers along the Delaware held the same sentiments 

 towards shad that some of those did who settled on the banks of the 

 Connecticut river about two centuries or more ago. 



According to Judd's History of Hadley, Massachusetts," the shad, which 

 were very numerous, were despised and rejected by a large portion of 

 the English for nearly one hundred years in the old towns of Connecti- 

 cut, and for about seventy-five years in those Hampshire towns above 

 the falls. It was discreditable for those who had a competency to eat 

 shad, and it was disreputable to be destitute of salt-pork, and the eating 

 of shad implies a deficiency of pork. * * * * 



"Theie is told a story in Hadley of a family in that place who were 

 about to dine on shad when it was not reputable to eat them. Hearing 

 a knock at the door, the platter of shad was immediately hid under a 

 bed." 



The brief mention of the vast resources of the Delaware in the 

 way of fishes was mentioned by Mahlon Stacy in a letter to his brother 

 in England in 1680, and which has been quoted in the first chapter of 

 this work. 



About this time William Penn came, and recognizing the importance 

 of the fisheries, one of the first stipulations he made with the Delaware 

 Indians at a council held in the forest, was that he and his colonists 

 should have the right to fish in the Kiver Schuylkill. Whatever may 

 have been the amount of fishing in the lower Delaware in the early 

 days of the colony, it appears certain that as much attention was not given 

 it as might have been until the middle of the eighteenth century. Pre- 

 vious to that period the trade in Philadelphia seemed no more than 

 sufiicient to support those who sold at the shambles east and west of 

 the court house at Second and Market streets. In 1764, however a fish 

 market was erected, but even then for some time, it is said, not many 

 fish were sold except in cool weather. 



