270 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 
with special appliances adapting it for use on board of a vessel, was not uscd in New England until 
1853 or 1854. There is also another tradition to the effect that the purse-seine was invented about 
the year 1837 by a native of Maine who had for some years been employed as a hand on a Glou- 
cester schooner, and who conceived the idea of capturing mackerel in large numbers, and invented 
a seine substantially like the one now in use, which, finding the Gloucester fishermen unwilling to 
enter into experiments, he carried to Rhode Island, where it was used in the vicinity of Seaconnet 
for seining menhaden. This would appear to be a conglomeration of errors, partly imaginary, 
partly based upon the circumstances already narrated by Captain Deblois. 
‘Reference has already been made to the claim that the purse-seine was invented in Rhode 
Island as early as 1814. Another early allusion to this new instrument of capture is given in the 
following paragraph, quoted from the Gloucester Telegraph of Wednesday, July 21, 1839: 
“ New Fishing Tackle-—We noticed, # week or two since, the fact that Capt. Isaiah Baker, of 
Harwich, had recently commenced fishing with a seine of entirely new construction and with 
remarkable success. It was stated in the Yarmouth Register that he had cleared about $3,000 in 
one week by taking shad. A correspondent writes us from West Harwich that the fortunate 
captain still continues to-make equally ‘glorious hauls” He is now in Provincetown with his seine 
catching mackerel, and recently took 60 barrels at one ‘shoot. This new mode of fishing bids fair 
to create an entire revolution in the mackerel] and shad fisheries. Our correspondent says that the 
Vineyard Sound will soon become a great fishing ground. It is well known that all the shad, 
bass, mackerel, &c., which are found in Block Island Channel early in the spring pass through the 
sound, and it is now ascertained that with proper seines they may be caught in great abundance. 
With a purse-seine, when mackerel are schooling or shoaling, the fishermen may run around them 
and inclose 100 barrels. They will not bite at bobs, as in years past, but Cape Cod ingenuity has 
devised something to outgeneral them.” 
The purse-seine was undoubtedly a development and extension of the idea of the drag-seine 
supplemented by that of the gill-net used at sea in sweeping around schools of fish. 
The first seine used north of Cape Cod was that carried by Capt. Nathaniel Adams, of Glouces- 
ter, in the schooner Splendid, in the year 1850. Capt. Nathaniel Watson, of the Raphael, began 
using one the same year. According to Mr. Luther Maddox, the earliest experiments were at 
Chelsea Beach. It is claimed by some that Gorham Babson, of Gloucester, had one in use as early 
as 1847. : : 
The early seines were about 200 yards in length, 22 fathoms in depth, and of 24-inch mesh, the 
bunts being about 250 meshes square. The twine was much heavier than that used in the present 
seine; the whole net weighed 600 or 700 pounds. The seine in its present form did not come into 
general use until about 1860. . 
The rapidity with which this expensive form of apparatus has come to be generally employed 
in our fisheries seems almost marvelous. At the present time the total number of these nets used 
in the mackerel fishery is not far from four hundred, valued at $160,000; in the menhaden fishery, 
three hundred and sixty-six, valued at $138,400. The total value of the. purse-seines with the 
value added of the seine-boats, which really are parts of the same apparatus, cannot be less than 
$440,000. 
Capt. W. H. Oakes states that in early days a certain kind of net was used in catching men- 
haden which reached to the bottom in shallow water and which was pursed by means of ropes. 
Capt. George Blatchford used to go for menhaden in an old pinkey, and used one of these nets. 
Captain Oakes is of the opinion that Capt. William Ratcliff, of Rocky Neck, Gloucester, was 
the first man who caught mackerel in deep water off-shore. He used some kind of a purse-seine, 
