§60 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 
have disappeared since the erection of numerous dams along its course. At Bellow’s Falls the 
Connecticut River descends about 60 feet by precipitous slopes. These falls, though effectually 
obstructing the further ascent of the shad, did not prevent the upward passage of the salmon, 
many of which ascended above this point to suitable spawning ground. An interesting account 
of these early fisheries is given in Judd’s History of Hadley, Mass., which is here reproduced : 
“When the English established themselves on the banks of the Connecticut there was in the 
river and tributary streams, in the proper seasons, a great abundance of shad, salmon, bass, and 
other fish, suéh as the Indians had long used for food. The shad, which were very numerous, 
were despised and rejected by a large portion of the English for near one hundred years in the old 
towns of Connecticut, and for about seventy-five years in those Hampshire towns above the falls. 
It was discreditable for those who had a competency to eat shad; and it was disreputable to be 
destitute of salt pork, and the eating of shad implies a deficiency of pork. The story which has 
been handed down that in former days the fishermen took the salmon from the net and often 
restored the shad to the stream is not afable. Poor families ate shad, and doubtless some that 
were not poor, and they were sometimes put in barrels for exportation. Connecticut shad in 
barrels were advertised in Boston in 1736. The first purchase of shad found in any account book 
in those towns was made by Joseph Hawley, of Northampton, in 1733; he gave for thirty shad 1 
penny each, which was not equal to half a penny in Jawful money. Ebenezer Hunt gave 13 pence 
for shad in 1736, 2 pence for ‘good fat shad’ in 1737, and 2 and 3 pence in 1742 and 1743. 
Ebenezer Hunt bought bass, suckers, pickerels, and common eels. No trout are mentioned. He 
says of shad in 1743, ‘shad ar> very good, whetber one has pork or not.’ These prices were all 
less than a penny .in lawful money. 
“The early settlers of Pelham bought many shad. After the specie currency in 1750 shad were 
usually 1 penny each. Josiah Pierce, of Hadley, bought one hundred shad at a penny each in 
1762, ninety shad at a penny in 1763, and shad at a penny in 1764, 1765, and 1766. Oliver Smith, 
of Hailey, gave a penny each for thirty shad in 1767. For forty years after 1733 the price did 
not exceed a lawful penny. From 1773 to 1776 the price was 2 coppérs each, or 14 pence; from 
1781 to 1784, from 2 to 3 coppers; in 1788, 24 and 3 pence; in 1796, 34 and 4 pence; and in 1797 
and 1800, 4 pence half penny.. The dams across the river and other impediments diminished the 
number of shad, and they gradually advanced in value to 6 pence, 9 pence, 1 shilling, and higher 
prices, and men ceased to buy shad to barrel for family use. 
“Field’s account of the county of Middlesex, Conn., 1819 (Middletown, Haddam, &c.), says there 
was such prejudice against shad and some other fish, because they were so generally used by the 
Indians, or from some other cause, that little effort was made to take them for more than a century 
after the county. was settled. Within the memory of persons living (1863) there was very little 
demand for salmon, and as for shad it was disreputable to eat them. A story is told in Hadley of 
a family in that place who were about to dine on shad when it was not reputable to eat them, 
hearing a knock at the door, the platter of shad was immediately hid undera bed. There is a 
minute in John Pynchon’s account book which shows that shad were not slighted by all those who 
were in good circumstances in the seventeenth century. In 1683 he sold a fish-net and agreed to 
receive for pay some shad packed for market, and ‘fifty shad for my family spending at times. 
“Shad-eating became reputable thirty years before the Revolution. Shad were caught plenti- 
fully in many places in Connecticut before 1760, and were sold at 1 penny and 14 pence each some 
years later. They were carried away on horses. Some thousands of barrels of shad were put up in 
Connecticut for the troops from 1778 to 1781. Shad never ascended Bellows Falls at Walpole, nor 
