THE FISHERIES OF THE CONNEOTICUT RIVER. 66] 
could they ascend the falls of Chicopee River. Salmon passed up both. In 1739 Brookfiela peti- 
tioned the general court for liberty to make a passage for sha@ through the bars of rocks across 
Chickopee River in Springfield, so that they might come up the river into the ponds. Springfield 
opposed, and liberty was not granted. 
‘Salmon were used, but were seldom noticed in records in the seventeenth century. Salmon- 
nets began to appear before 1700, and some salmon were salted in casks by families before and 
after 1700. They were seldom sold, and the price in Hartford, in 1700, was less than 1 penny per 
pound. Fish were so plenty in the Connecticut and its branches that laws were not necessary to 
regulate fishing for a long time. There was a law in Massachusetts against erecting wears or 
fish-dams in rivers without permission from the court of sessions. Petitions for liberty to erect 
wears to catch fish in the Hampshire streams began in 1729, and .there were several after 1760. 
These wears were chiefly for the purpose of catching salmon. In Northampton salmon were sold 
from 1730 to 1740 at a price equal to 1 penny per pound, in lawful money, and some at 14 pence. 
The price in 1742 was 14 pence, and from 1750 to 1775 it was commonly 2 pence per pound. 
Josiah Pierce, of Hadley, bought salmon from 1762 to 1765 at 2 pence, and somé at 1s. 6d., old 
tenor, or 22 pence. He bought some years about 70 pounds of salmon. Oliver Smith bought 27 
pounds of salmon in 1773 at 2 pence, and Enos Smith 57 pounds in 1774 at 24 pence. The price 
was from 2 to 3 pence from 1781 to 1787, 4 pence in 1794, and it advanced to 7 or 8 pence in 1798. 
The first dam at South Hadley, about 1795, impeded the salmon, and the dam at Montague was a 
much greater obstruction, and salmon soon ceased, to ascend the river. Few were caught after 
1800. Some of the prices of shad and salmon noted were retail barter prices. 
“There were at least three [fishing places] in Hadley. One was below the mouth of Mill 
River, on Forty Acre Meadow. A more important one was a little east of the lower end of the 
street, where the river flowed near the street. There was another in Hockanum Meadows. Op- 
posite to the two last, Northampton men had fishing places. (The Northampton and Hadley men 
were often near each other, and they bantered and joked abundantly, and sometimes played tricks 
and encroached upon each other. These things proceeded not from ill-nature, but from love of fun.) 
“The late Elihu Warner remembered when forty salmon were caught in a day, near the lower 
end of the street, about 1773, the largest of which weighed between 30 and 40 pounds. (Mr. Pierce 
and six others owned a seine in Hadley in 1766. The whole income of the seine for the fish season 
was £22 17s., and the expenses were £14 12s.10d., leaving for gain £8 4s. 2d. Shad were then 
1 penny each.) 
“Jn South Hadley there was a noted fishing place near the mouth of Stony Brook, and 
another above Bachelor’s Brook against Cook’s Hill. Many salmon were taken at those places ; 
24 are said to have been caught at one haul near Stony Brook, weighing from 6 or 8 to 40 
pounds. There were other fishing places in South Hadley above the falls. 
“The falls of rivers were great fishing places in New England for the Indians and the English. 
The falls at South Hadley, called Patucket by the Indians, were one of the most favorable places 
on the Connecticut for taking fish. Though there is no intimation in any old writing that the 
Indians resorted to that place for fishing, and very little is found recorded which indicates that 
the English frequented it for that purpose before 1740, yet it cannot be doubted that the Indians 
caught fish there in early days and the English before 1700. (In 1685, when Northampton and 
Springfield settled the line between them, west of the river, it was agreed that Northampton might 
catch fish at the lower falls, below the line. The fishery was then thought to be of some 
importance.) * 
