662 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 
“ The following account of the fishery at the falls, after the Revolution, was derived from two 
aged men in 1848, Joseph Ely, in his ninety-second year, and Justin Alvord, in his eighty-fifth year, 
who had often caught fish at the falls, and from others since 1848: 
‘‘ Fishing generally began between April 15 and May 1, very seldom as early as April15. The 
best fishing season was in May. Shad were caught in seines below the falls, and in scoop-nets on 
the falls. Boats were drawn to places on the rocky falls, fastened, and filled with shad by scoop- 
nets, then taken ashore, efaptied and returned. A manin this manner could take from 2,000 to 
3,000 shad ina day, and sometimes more with the aid of a boatman. These movements required 
men of some dexterity. There were some large hauls of fish at the wharves below the falls. The 
greatest haul known was 3,500, according to Ely, and 3,300, according to Alvord. (One man, of 
South Hadley, gives 3,000 as the largest haul. Connecticut archives contain an account of 3,000 
shad taken at a haul in the cove at East Haddam before 1766. The number in these great 
hauls is probably exaggerated.) It was not often that 1,500 or even 1,200 shad were taken by one 
sweep of the net. (Morse’s Geography, fifth edition, says there were as many as fourteen fishing 
wharves at the foot of the falls in 1801, and that they sometimes caught 1,200 fish at one haul; 
it was reported that one company cleared $4,300 in one season.) 
‘Salmon were taken on the falls in dip-nets, and below, in seines, with shad. Before their 
day salmon had been taken at the foot of the falls, in places called pens. Ely had never known 
a salmon taken at the falls that weighed over 30 pounds; some weighed 20, and many from 6 to 
10 pounds. They were always few in number compared with shad. The river seemed to be full 
of shad at times in some places, and in crossing it the oars often struck shad. Ely and Alvord, 
like other old men, related that fishermen formerly took salmon from the net and let the shad go 
into the river again, but not in their time, and that people in former days were ashamed to have 
jt known that they ate shad, owing, in part, to the disgrace of being without pork. Alvord sold 
thousands of shad after the Revolution for 3 coppers each, and salmon were sold from 2 to 3 pence 
per pound. It was much more difficult to sell salmon than shad. Some bass were caught with 
hooks after shad time. Sturgeon were taken at the falls with spears. Lampreys, called lamprey- 
eels, had long been plenty on the falls, and many were taken at night by hand by the aid of 
torch-lights. Some were eaten in a few towns in Old Hampshire, but most were carried to Granby, 
Simsbury, and other towns in Connecticut. (Lampreys came above the falls in great numbers, 
and entered the streams that run into the Connecticut, until the Holyoke dam was built in 1849. 
They were very numerous in Fort River, in Hadley, below Smith’s'Mills, and were caught by the 
light of torches, sometimes several hundred in a night. Men waded into the streams and grasped 
them with a mittened hand and placed them in a bag. Sometimes the lampreys in the night 
crawled into and about the flutter-wheel of the mill and into the throat of the gate in such great 
numbers that the wheel could not be turned in the morning until they were cleared away. ‘In 
Northampton Mill River, below the lower mills, lampreys were caught in the same manner as 
in Hadley, and in other ways. Ina dark night men might be seen in the river, clasping now 
and then with one hand a squirming lamprey, and holding in the other a birch-bark torch, which 
threw light on the river and on all objects on its borders. Very few were cooked in Northampton 
and Hadley; many were given to hogs. Some were conveyed to other towns in Massachusetts, 
but most to Connecticut. None are now caught above Holyoke dam.) 
“Shad seasons brought to the falls, on both sides of the river, multitudes of people from various 
quarters. Some came from Berkshire County. All came on horses with bags to carry shad, except 
a very few who had carts. Some, intending tq purchase two loads of shad, led a horse. For 
