APPENDIX. 161 



about the lOth of November, and packed our mackerel — 193 barrels of No. 1 and 33 of No. 2. 

 After packing the mackerel out we took them in and carried them to Boston. They were then 

 worth $7.31 and $8.31. We concluded not to sell, and brought them home, and laid up the vessel 

 alongside the wharf to wait for them to raise. In February we went up to Boston, I think, again, 

 and they had raised $1 a barrel, so we made $225 by keeping them. From this trip we netted 

 $430 to a share, or $890 for the whole voyage. This was a big year for us. 



In the spring of 1837 the owner of our vessel sold out to go into the commission business. He 

 had a large packet called the Tarn O'Shanter, a brig; and when we were in Boston to sell our 

 mackerel in February he asked me to take charge of her. So I shipped in the brig, and came 

 down home to get my clothes. The first voyage was to Savannah, with an assorted cargo. I 

 hired at $50 a month. We left the 27th of March, and returned to Boston with a cargo of cotton , 

 This was the time of the panic, and we could get no freight, so we chartered to go to St 

 Thomas to look for freight there. There was no freight there, so we went to the island of Bonaire 

 and loaded with salt for Boston. We loaded deep and came out through the Mona passage. The 

 next day came a hurricane. What a time that was! It blowed away my sails, split off seven 

 stanchions, water-ways, and the bulwarks, aud it was all we could do to keep her afloat. She was 

 leaking badly, and the crew could not leave the pumps. I lost my mainsail, and had to lie to 

 under a close-reefed foresail. Then it died away a flat calm and held calm six days. Then it 

 breezed up fair, and we came up to Boston. We left home early in September. The brig was 

 next chartered to go to Port au Prince. My folks would not let me go, because it was sickly 

 there, and I engaged for the rest of the fall in fishing for dogfish and mackerel, and that winter I 

 went winter fishing until March, 1838, at which time we had got into the habit of going fishing 

 in dories. 



In 1838 my brother John and I bought a pink-stern boat of 46 tons, called the Orlando. She 

 was an old cheap thing, but we thought she would do to putter around the shore in. So we let 

 our schooner out to go to the Grand Bank. We fished around the shores of Cape Cod and on 

 Nantucket Shoals for cod and halibut, and carried them to market. Then in May, when the 

 dogfish began to trouble us, we came inshore to fish for mackerel, which were plenty along the 

 Truro shore. We fished until June, and then went to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Our sails 

 were so poor we did not stay there long, and we got only about 20 barrels. We returned home, 

 and fished along our bay for the balance of the fall. That winter I didn't go fishing. I didn't 

 feel very well, fori had hurt my knee in the summer. The folks over on the Point had got disap- 

 pointed in their school teacher, so they got me to teach school, and I got sick enough of it. I had 

 about thirty scholars. 



In the spring of 1839 we got another man to take the Orlando, and I took the Lucy Mary and 

 went to the Grand Bank with one sharesman and a cheap crew. I didn't go very early, for I fished 

 on the backside of Cape Cod the first part of the season, and sailed for tne Grand Bank about the 

 6th of June, returning about the middle of September. That was one of the years when mackerel 

 were scarce. As the prospect looked so bad for mackerel we concluded to wash out the fish and lay 

 up the vessel. So John and I cured up the fish. We could do better at that than to hire them cured 

 and go mackereling. When we arrived home with 557 quintals, fish were worth a good price, $3.50 

 a quintal, but when we got ours cured they had fallen to $2.50. We concluded we wouldn't sell 

 them, but keep them until spring. In February, 1839, we took the Lucy Mary and went fishing 

 for halibut in the gully between the cape and the middle grounds at a depth of 20 to 30 fathoms. 

 We fished there in the spring, and then went down the backside of (he Cape after halibut aud cod. 

 After the season was over I took in my fish and carried them to Boston, and could hardly sell 

 SEC IV 11 



