244 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
of New London, Conn., Captain Chapel], was carrying lobsters from Cape Porpoise, Gloucester, 
Ipswich Bay, and occasionally Provincetown, to Boston, making 15 trips in the season of four 
months, and taking about 3,500 lobsters each trip. Captain Chapell was supplied with lobsters by four 
men at Cape Porpoise, and by the same number at both Gloucester and Ipswich Bay. For four months 
following the close of the lobster season on the Maine coast, or from July 4 until November, Captain 
Chapell ran his smack with lobsters to New York, obtaining most of his supplies at Provincetown. 
In 1847 Captain Oakes purchased the smack Josephine, with which he began running to Johnson & 
Young’s establishment, at Boston, in 1848, buying a portion of his lobsters in the Penobscot Bay 
region, where this fishery had just been started. The quantity of lobsters carried by him that year 
was40,000. The prices paid to the fishermen for smack lobsters was as follows : During March, 3 cents 
each; April, 24 cents; May and June, 2 cents. In 1850, he began to obtain supplies from the Muscle 
Ridges, leaving Harpswell entirely, on account of the small size of the lobsters then being caught 
there. At this time the average weight of the lobsters marketed was about 3 pounds, and all under 
104 inches in length were rejected. The traps were made of the same size as at present, but were 
constructed of round oak sticks, and with four hoops or bows to support tbe upper framework. A 
string of bait, consisting mainly of flounders and sculpins, was tied into each trap. About 50 traps 
were used by each fisherman, and they were hauled once a day. The warps or buoy lines, by which 
the traps were lowered and hauled, were cut in 12-fathom lengths. Lobsters were so abuudaut at the 
Muscle Ridges, at this period, that four nen could fully supply Captain Oakes with lobsters every trip. 
In the course of ten days each man would obtain between 1,200 and 1,500 marketable lobsters. In 
Captain Oakes’s opinion, the Muscle Ridges have furnished the most extensive lobster fishery of the 
Maine coast. He ran to this locality until 1874. 
Capt. S. S. Davis, of South Saint George, states that about 1864, when he first began buying 
lobsters at the Muscle Ridges, three men, tending 40 to 50 pots each, caught all the count lobsters be 
could carry to market in his smack. He could load 5,000 lobsters at a time, and averaged a trip in 
7 to 9 days. This traffic continued for six or seven years. In 1879, Captain Davis bought from 15 men 
in the same locality, and at times was obliged to buy also of others in order to make up a load. 
The fishery at North Haven began in 1848, but did not increase so rapidly at first 
as in sections farther west, as the smacks would only take the medium-sized lobsters, 
fearing that the largest would not be able to stand the trip. At Matinicus Island 
the fishing began in 186S. In 1852 the people on Deer Island began the fishery, and 
as the smackmen made frequent visits the business rapidly increased The establish- 
ment of a cannery at Oceanville, about 1800, also caused a considerable development 
of the fishery. The fishery was started at Isle au Haute about 1855, and at Swan 
Island in the early fifties. 
The canning of lobsters was first carried on at Eastport in 1842, but the fishery 
was not taken up until about 1853, as it was supposed there were no lobsters in the 
neighborhood. The supplies for these canneries previous to the inception of the 
fishery were obtained by smacks running to the westward. 
For some years the fishery was only prosecuted in the late spring, summer, and 
early fall months. Just when winter fishing began in the State is doubtful; but 
according to Capt. Charles Black, of Orr Island, it began in that region in 1845 at 
Harpswell. Previously the fishermen had the impression that lobsters could not be 
successfully caught earlier than March 20. 
During the summer of 1845 the captains of the well-smacks of New London, 
Conn., who bought most of the lobsters in that vicinity, induced Charles E. Clay, 
Samuel Orr, and a few others to fish during the winter, and they set their traps about 
the same distance from the shore that the fishermen do at present, and in almost the 
same depth of water. The smackmen paid them |4 for 100 lobsters. The next winter 
the fishermen refused to sell by number and wanted $1.25 per 100 pounds. The 
smackmen had no objection to buy them by weight, but refused to pay more than 
$1.12 per 100 pounds. This was accepted, and for several years the prices were from 
$1.12 to $1.25 per 100 pounds. 
