FRESH-HALIBUT FISHERY. 39 
winter and spring, until time for mackerel hooking on the coast of Maine. Thus with halibuting 
and mackereling a greater part of the season would be used up. The Pearl was soon joined by 
schooner Fair Play, Capt. William Harris, and they continued in the business about five or six years. 
A third vessel, the schooner Nelson, engaged in the same business as early as 1850, going for 
three years, after which she gave it up, owing largely to the want of a market for her fish. 
No Southport vessels have fished wholly for halibut since that time, and no other towns from 
this section have ever sent any, except the schooner Columbus, of Booth Bay Harbor, a few years 
later, for a few trips. 
The schooner Queen of the West went for halibut from Georgetown, Me., during the winter 
of 185758, fishing with hand-lines and selling to Mr. Little, of Portland. She fished on Brown’s 
Bank and Banquereau mostly, in 60 to 90 fathoms. 
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO CATCH HALIBUT ON TRAWL-LINES.—AS early as 1843, as previously 
mentioned, Capt. N. E. Atwood, of Provincetown, set trawls for halibut in Massachusetts Bay, 
and even before that time had been accustomed to make use of a simple form of the apparatus 
arranged by fastening two or three hooks at intervals along the “rode-line” of his dory close to 
his anchor, and thus occasionally catching a fish or two when the anchor was pulled in. In 1843 
he was in the habit of setting aregular trawl-line 60 fathoms long, with snoods of 4 or 5 feet fast- 
ened to it at intervals of 4 or 5 fathoms. According to Capt. Sylvanus Smith, of Gloucester, the 
dory-fishermen of Cape Ann were also accustomed to fasten two or three hooks to the “rode- 
lines” of their dories as early as 1839 or 1840, thus occasionally securing a halibut or two in addi- 
tion to the fish taken on hand-lines. This method of putting hooks on the anchor line was for the 
express purpose of catching halibut (generally for home use at that period), which could commonly 
be more surely captured in that manner than by hand-lines, while it was usually desirable to avoid 
getting a ‘halibut on the hand-lines, which might be broken, and considerable time and labor 
would, of course, be wasted in securing a fish of less value than cod. The accompanying sketch 
shows this method of halibut fishing. , 
Concerning the introduction of the trawl-line into the halibut fishery, which appears to have 
been nearly at the same time as the introduction of the trawl into the cod-fisheries of the United 
States, the following information has been obtained in interviews with Capt. Peter Sinclair, of 
Gloucester : 
Captain Sinclair was born in Scotland,.and, in his boyhood, engaged in the fisheries from his 
native place. There, he says, he learned to rig and handle a set-line, or, as it is known to Ameri- 
can fishermen, a trawl. While still a young man he came to this country and engaged in the 
fisheries, sailing from Gloucester. In May, 1849, he was in command of the schooner Brant, of 
30 tons, old measurement. He concluded to try trawl fishing as he had setén it done in the “old 
country.” He therefore rigged a small halibut trawl, having only thirty-seven hooks, and set it 
for the first time a short distance outside of Kettle Island, just off the mouth of Gloucester Har- 
bor, in 7 fathoms of water. Five halibut were caught on the first set. Captain Sinclair continued 
fishing on the shore grounds of Massachusetts Bay and vicinity during the summer, and, he says, 
it was a common occurrence to catch halibut any day during the month of May. 
Mr. Samuel Atwood, of Provincetown, who was one of the crew of the Brant in the spring of 
1849,* conceived the idea that trawls could be profitably employed on George’s Bank, and, accord- 
ing to Captain Sinclair, he shipped in the schooner Grace Darling the following year, making an 
agreeinent with the skipper that he (Atwood) should have the privilege of using a trawl while on 
*This was probably 1850, a year later than Captain Sinclair has put it, for according to his statement Atwood 
was lost two years later in the Golden Fleece which foundered in 1852. This gives us a point from which to reckon, 
