Fish, Fishing and Fisheries of Pennsylvania. 35 



The bush seines, eel weirs, aiid the like, also, were the means of de- 

 stroying thousands more of shad. So great was this slaughter from the 

 upper stretches of the river to tide watei', that at Milford they almost 

 entirely disappeared, and in 1872 the fisheries at that place yielded only 

 a single shad, where about the beginning of the century the annual 

 catches had run into the thousands . 



All along the Delaware the fishing fell off, until in 1873 the fisheries 

 failed to pay expenses, the total yield being the year previous but 

 $81,000. Of one fishery belonging to the Howell family of Woodbury, 

 New Jersey, a record of catches has been kept for more than a century 

 and a half. From that record it appears that prior to 1825 the average 

 annual returns were about 130,000 ; from 1845 to 1849, the average fell 

 to 66,890 ; from 1866 to 1869, the average catches were 60,739 ; from 

 1870 to 1873 the yearly average was less than 25,000. 



A company composed of Mr. B. Wilkins and two partners carried to 

 market and sold the product of sixty-three nets for about thirteen years 

 prior to 1840. From Mr. Wilkins' statements it appears that in 1870 

 and 1871 no single gilling-net approached in the number of its catch to 

 the quantity formerly obtained, though the length of the nets had been 

 greatly increased. He instances the case of one gilling seine of 200 

 fathoms, in the vicinity of Fort Delaware, as having taken, while he 

 was carrying for its owner, 850 shad in one drift ; and says that at no 

 time for five years previous to 1870 were over 200 taken in the same 

 time, and 100 perhaps would be a high average. 



Not only did the number of fish caught fall off thus rapidly in the 

 Delaware year by year, but their size appreciably decreased. In 1843 

 shad of seven and eight pounds in weight were by no means uncommon, 

 and the average run was between five and five and a half pounds ; but 

 in 1873, and for many years before, a four pound fish was a curiosity. 

 The writer remembers well in 1879 capturing in a net at Bay Side a shad 

 weighing eight and one-half pounds. On bringing it to shore, from its 

 size, it attracted the fishermen of the place, and at their request, 

 was hung upon the wall of a building on the wharf and attracted fish- 

 ermen from along the shore for several miles above and below. In 1843 

 and thereabouts forty shad usually filled a pork barrel ; in 1873 it re- 

 quired over one hundred to occupy the same space. 



The story of the devastation of the fisheries on the Susquehanna is 

 equally a gloomy one. Although fish weirs and baskets and other 

 deadly devices were practiced for the capture of shad from the earliest 

 coming of the whites, yet the river yielded enormous returns until about 

 1830. Then the Columbian dam, which belonged to the Tide Water 

 Canal Company, was erected. Other dams were afterwards put up above 

 and below this as feeders to the canals along the Susquehanna. 



Some years after the one below Columbia, called the Safe Harbor dam, 

 was carried away by a flood and was not rebuilt. These dams, unlike 



