LABRADOR AND GULF OF SAINT LAWRENCE COD FISHERIES. 147 
remained a few days, and when they struck the fishermen had to work pretty hard to get their trip 
before the fish left. 
During the height of the season, fifteen to twenty-five days, the men would “turn out a little 
after 2 in the morning and fish until about 11 at night.” They used what they called “set lines,” 
which were merely hand-lines tied to the side of the boat and reaching to the bottom; and “jigs” 
for fishing near the surface, made on something the same principle of the mackerel jigs. While 
fishing at the bottom with “set lines” they frequently caught large cod, but with the jigs they 
often got the small ones as fast as they could haul them, and had an arrangement for slatting them 
from the hook to save time. 
Among the first vessels to go to Labrador was the schooner Angler, Capt. Thomas Pinkham, 
belonging to Wiscasset, while the smallest one that ever went from this section was the schooner 
Frederick Reed, of East Booth Bay, being only 45 tons, old measurement. 
Most of the fishing towns in Eastern Maine engaged in the Labrador fisheries to a greater or 
less extent during the early part of the present century. The fishermen of Vinal Haven (one of 
the Fox Islands) began to visit Labrador about 1805. They did not pursue this fishery with much 
regularity, sending two or three vessels some seasons, and perhaps none for several years in suc- 
cession. No vessels went after 1840. Lamoine, Maine, sent two vessels, 65 and 67 tons respect- 
ively, to Labrador in 1850, but has never at any other time engaged in the cod fishery of that 
locality. 
Capt. J. S. Mayo, of Tremont, Maine, says that the Labrador cod fishery was pursued by the 
fishermen of Mount Desert and the adjacent islands as early as the beginning of the present cen- 
tury. The fishery prospered until 1839, after which time it declined and was finally abandoned about 
1845. The reasons that induced the fishermen of Mount Desert to give up this branch of the fishery 
were (1) the shortness of the season, (2) the uncertainty of obtaining bait, without a full supply of 
which it was impossible to procure a fare of codfish, and (3) the small size of the fish taken and 
consequent low market value of the same. 
The fleet belonging at Southwest Harbor and Cranberry Islands that fished on the Labrador 
coast in 1839 numbered eight schooners, namely: the Brainard of 78 tons, Temperance of 56 tons, 
(from Cranberry Islands); Four Sisters of 35 tons, Bannister, 68 tons, Eratus, 46 tons, James, 70 
tons, Sea Serpent, 75 tons, and Leo of. 56 tons, (from Southwest Harbor), the total tonnage em- 
ployed being 484 tons, old measurement. These vessels were usually engaged in the Magdalen 
herring-fishery in the spring; making one trip for herring before starting for the Labrador coast. 
According to Capt. E. B. Stanley, of Cranberry Islands, the Labrador cod fishery revived 
somewhat after 1845, and in 1857 three schooners owned at Cranberry Islands engaged in bringing 
home a total of 2,100 quintals of codfish. 
The fishery was kept up by two or three vessels until 1862, since which time no one at Mount 
Desert has engaged in it. 
Mr. W. E. Hadlock states that the first vessel which went to Labrador from the Cranberry 
Islands was a schooner of about 40 tons, under command of Capt. Samuel Hadlock. This trip was 
made in 1810. The fish were cured at Cranberry Island, after which they were loaded on board 
of the same vessel that had caught them, and carried to Spain. 
The schooner Starlight, of Cranberry Island, made a cod fishing trip in 1862 to Bellesimore 
Bank, off the coast of Labrador. She secured a good fare of large fish, but the prospects were not 
sufficiently encouraging for her or others to engage in the same fishery afterwards. 
