372 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 
capstans. The capstans were formerly manned by men, but as they increased the size of the 
seines they commenced using horses to draw them. Each fishing company comprised sixteen 
men, and used four boats about 24 feet in length and 8 or 9 feet wide. These boats were propelled 
by oars, and were used for carrying the seine ropes and capstans, and also for carrying fish from 
one side of the bay to the other when occasion required. 
“Very large draughts of fish were sometimes taken in these seines. My earliest experience as 
a fisherman was in assisting in making a haul of 1,200,000 fish. It was a pleasant morning, and 
we were lying off Old Mill, just east of Jamesport. I was anxious to row and the steersman said we 
might row as much as we liked; he would steer. So we went off-shore about half a mile from 
where our boats lay, and we discovered a large shoul of fish and hoisted a signal to our captain, 
who immediately came to us, and I recollect asking one of the old fishermen how many he thought 
were in the bunch. He said about 300,000. Our captain concluded they were so far off-shore we 
could not reach them with our seine and line and signaled another gang, when we joined staffs or 
ends of seines together and laid the seine outside of them and went for shore with seines and lines. 
I staid at the staffs with the steersman of the boat I was in and kept the fish away from the 
seine, as the seines were narrow at the ends. The fish kept in a solid body all day. As near as I 
can remember it was sundown before we had the staffs on shore. They divided the fish before we 
shored them; one seine had 600,000, and the other a few thousand over that amount. 
“JT fished on the haul-seines two or three seasons and helped catch a number of good hauls, 
but no other as large as the above. The continued use of these shore-seines, as they were called, 
had the effect to make the fish keep off-shore in the wider and deeper parts of the bay until it be- 
eame difficult to reach them, and in the year 1848 or 1849 the first purse-seines were used in 
Peconic Bay by 8. M. Petty and Joshua Cleves. This mode of fishing had been adopted in Rhode 
Island a few years previous. In 1850 my father built part of a purse-seine. We knit it by hand 
during the winter, and this first seine was about 30 rods long and 275 meshes deep. We used cedar 
wood for corks, but used them only a few years when we exchanged them for cork. Our seine was 
carried on two small skiffs, and we used a little sloop of about seven tons burden to tow the seine 
and carry fish. The first few years of our fishing we cleared up the seine on the sloop. Our crew 
consisted of four men. We commenced fishing the first of June, 1850, and I remember well my 
first experience. We pursed the seine and got the sloop alongside to clear the seine, when the 
wind rose suddenly and blew a gale from the southeast, and we were obliged to hoist the seine on 
board the sloop the best we could and run for a harbor under a jib. We used this fishing rig for 
several years.” 
Mr. Conklin’s daily journal covers the period from 1852 to 1880, giving the record of the days 
when he went fishing and when prevented from fishing by unfavorable weather, and omitting the 
days when he remained ashore to hoe corn or to attend to other work. In 1852 he took charge of 
the fishing himself. As the entire journal covers more than three hundred pages of manuscript it 
is inexpedient to print it entire, but the following synopsis of the record of most of the years, 
together with a tabulated statement of the results of each day’s fishing during the entire period, 
will indicate the seasons and growth of the fishery and some of the changes in methods during 
those twenty-eight years: . 
1852. 
May 27th, Thursday: Commenced fishing for the season; caught nothing. Saturday, 29th: Went fishing p. m.; 
caught none. 
June 1st, Monday: Went fishing; saw none. Tuesday, 2d: Saw fish just at night, but caught none. Wednes- 
day, 3d: Went fishing; caught none; shower just at night. Thursday, 4th: Raining a. m.; p.m. caught 11,000 fish; 
