History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, 1620-1890, Part 16

Author: Deyo, Simeon L., ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: New York : Blake
Number of Pages: 1292

USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, 1620-1890 > Part 16

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Soon after the development of the cod fisheries, the taking of mack- erel became a very important and lucrative vocation, and from the first until the present moment it has, after the cod fishery, furnished regular employment and a source of revenue to more of the people than has any other branch of fishing. In the taking of these fish the most scientific methods are employed, and the habits of the fish have been most thoroughly and systematically investigated. Fishing for mackerel with hook and line was for many years a regular employ- ment, and the aged fishermen now maintain that a workman's share was then worth more than one has averaged since the introduction of methods requiring expensive outfits, in which, of course, capital has come in for a larger relative share.

The most sweeping change made in the method of capture was the introduction of the purse seine, by which whole schools of them may be surrounded off shore, in any depth of water, and speedily trans- ferred to the boats. Before this a similar seine had been used only in shoal water, where the seine would sweep the bottom. These sweep seines were usually two hundred fathoms long and three or four deep, but since the deep-water seining has been found practicable, the seines in use have been made somewhat longer and five or six times as wide, and hundreds of barrels of mackerel are taken at a single draught. This was a new idea in 1853, at which date it is said that Isaiah Baker first practiced it successfully off the south shores west of Monomoy. This wholesale taking of mackerel, although highly profitable to those engaged in it, is now the generally assigned reason of the disastrous

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decline of the business. Other causes have surely contributed to, and . possibly may have predominated in producing this result. The fish, not less than the men who pursue them. are creatures with habits and tastes which are continually changing. and coincident in time with their decrease on the Atlantic coasts, is their appearance in unusual numbers in other and distant waters.

Until within the last few years the annual migrations of the mack- erel from south to north and return have been computed with cer- tainty and relied upon by the fleets pursuing them. Chiefly from Wellfleet, but more or less from Dennis, Harwich and other towns, the boats went south to meet the great schools of this erratic fish at Chesapeake bay in March or April, and followed them in their season's course as they skirted their feeding grounds along the Atlantic coast as far northeast as the Bay of Fundy, and as late as September. Then the fish began their return and were followed by the fleet until, off Block island in November, the men usually began their own home- ward journey. For the last two or three seasons the movements of the mackerel have been less regular, and several vessels have made the entire season in the vicinity of Block island. The belief that the immense catches by the purse seiners were hazarding the future of the business, has taken form as a law, now prohibiting their capture by this method before the first of June in any year.

The people of every town have been more or less interested in the mackerel fisheries. A regular inspection of all that is brought to port is provided for by law, and the reports of the inspectors are filed as public records. Some figures may indicate how widely and yet how unequally the business is distributed.

In 1838 there were inspected at Barnstable, 1,843 barrels; at Chat- ham, 84 barrels; at Dennis, 2,674; at Provincetown, 2,686; at Truro, S,852; and at Yarmouth, 655 barrels.

At this time the Wellfleet men were taking quantities of this fish, but the absence of the name from the statistics quoted is accounted for by the fact that the fish were packed at Boston.

The industry, although permanent, is fluctuating. In 1840 there were inspected at Barnstable, 1,914 barrels; at Chatham, 240; at Dennis, 3,009; at Harwich, 60; at Provincetown, 2,086; at Truro, 2,790; at Well- fleet, 3,912; and at Yarmouth, 1,387 barrels were inspected. In 1844 Wellfleet secured 9,700 barrels; Truro, 6,740; Dennis, 3,605; Yarmouth, 3,412; Barnstable, 2,400; Orleans and Provincetown, 1,000 each; Har- wich, 650; Eastham, 550; and Chatham, 400. In 1854 the catch for Wellfleet was 12,600 barrels; for Dennis, 11,036; Provincetown, 6,000; Harwich, 5,700; Chatham, 3,000; Brewster, 1,500; Yarmouth, 1,217; Or- leans, 800; Eastham, 750; and Barnstable, 465. In 1864 Wellfleet re- ported 26,900 barrels; Provincetown, 19,395; Dennis, 8,799; Harwich,

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8,343; Truro, 7,955; Chatham, 6,746; Orleans. 2,000; and Yarmouth, 250. The census of 1875 shows that the total catch of the preceding year was 98,774 barrels, of which Provincetown received 46,173; Wellfleet, 35,817; Chatham, 8,342; Dennis, 6,000; Eastham, 1,082; Barnstable, 850; and Orleans, 511 barrels. In 1884 Wellfleet received 38,735 barrels; Provincetown, 32,065; Chatham, 10,765; Truro, 9,527: Dennis, 9,422; Harwich, 6,050; Brewster, 3,444; Sandwich, 2,178; Eastham, 1,762; Or- leans, 166; Falmouth, 94; Yarmouth, 2; and Barnstable, 1 barrel. The price has generally varied inversely and somewhat proportionately with the supply, so that the fluctuations in quantity are greater than in the current value of the catch.

For several years Wellfleet has been most extensively engaged in t __ e mackerel business, sending out in 1879 twenty-four vessels, which brought in 9,348 barrels; in 1880, thirty vessels took 33,627 barrels; in 1881, thirty-one took 35,627; in 1882, twenty-nine, 32.850; in 1883, thirty-four, 15,725; in 1884, thirty, 36,784; 1885, twenty-nine, 23,144; 1886, twenty-nine, 3,566; 1887, twenty-eight, 9,203; 18SS, thirty, 4,832; and in 1889 thirteen seiners and eight hookers took 1,690. The other Cape ports making returns for 1889 are Provincetown, 1,697 barrels; Dennis, 469; Harwich, 224; and Chatham, 17. The rapid decline during the last four years has brought the business to its lowest point within the past seventy-five years.

An interesting topic of thought and investigation is suggested by the changes constantly going on in the demand for as well as the supply of the various food products. This change through which one generation comes to subsist upon foods which their ancestors did not regard as wholesome, is continually tending to modify the industries and the resources of the producing classes, and here in the various branches of fishing this tendency has been manifested. Scores of kinds of fish once unknown are now sought for.

The facts concerning the bluefish furnish the most striking illus- tration of this tendency. Middle-aged men well remember when this fish was so little valued that those which were caught simply for amusement became a drug on the market. In Wellfleet bay, for in- stance, it was no unusual occurrence for a fisherman with only a hook and line to take in a few hours a hundred bluefish of ten or fifteen pounds each. Then such a fish would hardly bring ten cents in the market; but people's tastes, continually changing, have within thirty years put them among the favorite sea fish. They are taken in greater or less quantities off every shore of the county, and while their cap- ture has been the source of royal revenues to the fishermen, it has also long been a standard sport with pleasure seekers. The waters of the sound are dotted, every season, with the sails of bluefishers. Con- sidering the subject as the Yankee is prone to consider every subject,

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HISTORY OF BARNSTABLE COUNTY.

it must be classed with the most profitable branches of the Cape fish- eries, the principal quantity being taken in the fish weirs and with gill seines in deep water. The people of Eastham have regarded it as their chief source of income. Their weirs, now for a short time less profit- able, have formerly yielded very handsome returns.

In 1884 nearly 587 tons of bluefish were landed in the town of Barnstable, largely at Hyannis, for shipment by rail, and in every town some were taken. In Eastham, 367,938 pounds; in Provincetown. 152,784 pounds; Dennis, 91,870; Bourne, 69,818; Wellfleet, 33,700; Chat- ham, 31,065; Yarmouth, 30,806: Falmouth, 24.435; Truro, 23,002; Har- wich, 18,827; Brewster, 17,820; Orleans, 7,406; Sandwich, 6,000; and Mashpee, 294 pounds. The market value then of the whole bluefish catch for the county was more than two hundred thousand dollars.

The invention of the modern fish weir marked an important period in the whole business of shore fishing, and began that controversy be- tween the line and seine fishermen which, with inore or less vigor, has continued to the present. Individuals and corporations are engaged on nearly every shore in the weir on trap fishing. The fish weir, or trap, now modified to various plans and purposes, was first used by its inventors on the shores of Long Island sound. At Monomoy Point in Chatham, where, about 1848, the first weir on these shores was set, at Woods Holl where a very large business is still carried on, and off the shores almost around the entire Cape, especially the lower towns. this branch of enterprise has furnished a channel of investment for large amounts of capital and employment to considerable numbers of people, whereby both capital and labor have for the most part been fairly rewarded.

Statistics have not been kept to show the methods by which fish have been taken, but the trap fishing is relatively important. Prince M. Stewart, of Woods Holl, says that he caught 80,000 scup in one trap within one hundred days preceding August 15th, and in one month following caught thirty-two barrels with hook and line. These traps sometimes serve a purpose for which they were not intended, as did one off South Harwich in 1889, in which Cyrus Nickerson found en- tangled a turtle reported as weighing half a ton.

In 1840 Massachusetts produced half of all the fish products of the United States. At that date Provincetown had a thousand people en- gaged in cod and mackerel fishing. Barnstable had $57,000 invested in the fish business, and Dennis had $36,300. In 1850 Provincetown led all the other Cape towns in the extent and value of its fish indus. tries.

The fishing business as developed in this county has rendered com- binations of men and capital necessary, and from 1815 many such combinations were incorporated by the state, with authority to improve

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streams, wharves and harbors. One company, incorporated in 1817, had authority to open a canal from Nauset cove to Boat-meadow creek. The Duck Harbor and Beach Company of Wellfleet; the Union Wharf Company of Truro; the Skinnequits Fishing Company of Harwich; the Central Wharf Company of Yarmouth; the Eastham Fishing Com- pany; the Union Wharf Company of Provincetown; Rock Harbor Fishing Company of Orleans; the Andrews Fishing Company of Har- wich; the Herring River Company of Harwich; the Brewster Harbor Company; the Orleans Fishing Company; the North Falmouth Fish- ing Company; the Fish Wier Company of Orleans; the Boat-meadow River Company of Eastham; and the North Wharf Company of Truro, were incorporated prior to 1838, with special privileges.

The species of fish and the fish products which enter into the totals of this great industry include items not even mentioned by name thus far in this chapter. For the first nine months of 1889 the Province- town fishermen, not including the Grand bank cod-fishing fleet, brought in fresh cod, 6,159,850 pounds; haddock, 5,258,759 pounds; halibut, 766,300 pounds; hake, 1,270,600 pounds; salt cod, 336,700 pounds; salt herring, 2,700 pounds; frozen herring, 257,000 herring; cod oil, 19,845 gallons; dog liver oil, 5,670 gallons; fresh mackerel, 1,541 barrels; salt mackerel, 1,743 barrels; fresh herring, 11,528 barrels; fresh porgies, 2,000 barrels; fresh flounders, 417 barrels; fresh butter fish, 75 barrels; fresh albocaas, 310 barrels; fresh pollock, 15,400 pounds; total value, $352,137.

The fishermen's resources are by no means limited to the food fish. The waters abound in species not considered suitable for the table, and these are made to serve some humbler purpose, and minis- ter, through other channels, to the wealth and comfort of mankind.

The blackfish, a specie of whale, occasionally visits the shores of Cape Cod bay. For a century past we find the record of their frequent visitations at Provincetown, Truro and Wellfleet, where they are se- cured for their oil. They go in schools of old and young, numbering hundreds, and are easily driven upon the beach at high tide, where they are killed after the water recedes. Refineries for extracting their oil still exist at Wellfleet and Provincetown. The males are some- times thirty-five feet long, and the young are from five feet upwards. An average of a barrel of oil is obtained from each. The remarkable school of 1885, captured at Wellfleet, is further mentioned in the chapter on that town.

The blackfish yields a valuable lubricating oil, and from porgies or menhaden an oil is obtained which is available for adulterating paint oils, while the bones and flesh fibre appear in the market as a valuable fertilizer. With various additions the fish refuse becomes the basis of fertilizers known in the markets by a great variety of

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HISTORY OF BARNSTABLE COUNTY.

names. The fertilizer works at Woods Holl, about 1863, were in- tended to utilize menhaden scrap, but were used for other purposes after the supply of menhaden in the adjacent waters had diminished. The use of fish as a fertilizer was well understood and largely prac- ticed by the farmers in the old days. Food fish were so abundant that their fields were kept fertile by the use of the surplus. Placing one or more herrings in each hill of corn was a practice so general that it was thought to hazard the food supply, and was accordingly at one time prohibited by law. Other fish applied to the lands just as they are taken from the waters are found to be of great utility.

Almost every stream on the Cape swarms with herring in the spawning season. The right to take them was reserved by the origi- nal proprietors as a common privilege when they reduced their com- mon lands to individual ownership, and to-day the right to participate in this branch of fishery in any stream belongs equally to every free- holder in the respective towns. Some of the towns lease this privi- lege from year to year for a stipulated sum, thus realizing a revenue for the general uses of the town. This, by reducing the taxes of the town, spreads the benefit among the people in proportion to the valu- ation of their property, and to protect the rights of those who have but little taxable estate, most of the towns, in leasing the herring rights, fix a minimum price at which each family may be entitled to a supply for domestic uses from those who lease the privilege.

The supply of the various kinds of shell-fish has always been a resource of considerable importance. Oysters, clams, quahaugs, scal- lops, shrimps, and lobsters are the more abundant. The oyster, so long a popular food, was found here by the first settlers, who made them a staple article of diet. The great use which the Indians made of shell-fish is evinced by the immense heaps of shells which now, partially covered, are the best existing records of the location of their principal settlements. The latter part of last century marked an epoch in the oyster industry. Implements and methods employed in taking them from the natural beds destroyed large quantities of the small ones, and the legislation aimed at this reckless destruction came too late. During this century the oyster business has consisted in transplanting to grounds favorable to their development, oyster seed from other localities. They have been common in Wellfleet bay, where the once famous Wellfleet oysters were taken, in the coves of Eastham, Orleans and Chatham, and on the shores of all the towns of the upper Cape. In the palmy days of the Wellfleet oyster business, forty or fifty sail of vessels were engaged each winter in transferring the product to the Boston market.

The last state census shows that Barnstable county has 5623 acres of oyster beds, which is more than two-thirds of all the grounds in

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the state. Bourne, on its Buzzards bay front, has 168} acres, which is nearly all the native beds of the county, and has also 124 acres of planted beds. Barnstable has two acres of native and 249 of planted; Chatham has ten acres of planted; Dennis three of planted; Mashpee 3} of planted; and Harwich has three acres of native beds. These beds of native oysters are the only ones in Massachusetts, excepting 250 acres at Somerset, in Bristol county. This census report does not notice the beds on the west of Waquoit bay, planted in 1877, where F. C. Davis now has the only oyster beds in Falmouth, and has done an increasing business during the last year. In the town histories of Bourne. Barnstable. Mashpee, Chatham and Wellfleet, their cultiva- tion by the various planters is noticed.

By that inexorable law of change and succession, the oyster and the oysterman are, so far as these shores are concerned, slowly, but surely, passing away. Their doom is the shifting sand, and the busi- ness as a source of gain or general employment must be now regarded as among the things that have been. The man who followed this vocation has been made immortal in literature by Thoreau, in his in- imitable description of the Wellfleet oysterman, and the oyster him- self has made a pleasant and lasting impression, very near, if not quite, upon the hearts of all who knew him.

The perennial clam, the abundance of which the Pilgrims made the subject of thanksgiving, still abides as a blessing to their posterity. He figures in all the affairs here except politics -- at the church fair, at the picnic dinner, in the menu of every well-regulated hotel, at the rich man's feast, and at the poor man's board, he appears in various guises. He and his hard-shelled cousin, the quahaug, are indigenous to the sands of every shore. Here are 150 miles of shore line, greatly in- creased by indentations of coves and bays, and almost throughout this entire stretch of tide-water margins, these nutritious shell-fish are in greater or less abundance.

The business of clam-digging calls for the minimum investment of capital and the maximum employment of labor, hence it has ever fur- nished employment and profit to many whose tastes or finances de- terred them from embarking in other fishing enterprises. The old saying that there is no royal road to learning is equally true of clam digging. Any man or boy not necessarily well-dressed, and equipped with a short-handled hoe and a pair of long-handled boots, is fully pre- pared to make the business remunerative.

The various branches of the fishing business which accustomed the boys to the sea was the great school whose graduates became the master marines. Every product of the sea and of the soil made cargo for the coasters, whose prosperity began so early in the Cape history, and continued so late. Before the modern railway, this coasting busi-

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HISTORY OF BARNSTABLE COUNTY.

ness was of immense importance as an employment for capital and labor. Almost every port had its craft of various tonnage engaged in the carrying business. From the first the building of their vessels was one of their staple industries, and long after the local supply of material had been exhausted, ship timber was brought here, and the brain and muscle of the Cape people converted it into cash through the construction of staunch ships of no mean proportions. Since yachting has been popular small craft have been built at several ports in the county; but these enterprises, as well as the building of larger vessels earlier, have been regarded as business enterprises of the towns or villages in which they were carried on.

The records of the state bureau of labor statistics show that during the five years preceding 1837 the total value of all craft built in the county was $316,790. The census of the state since then gives the fol- lowing figures: In 1845 Barnstable built fifteen vessels; Chatham, six; Falmouth, eight; Orleans, six; Provincetown, 150, all small craft, and Sandwich one vessel of four hundred tons, worth $15,000. The census year 1855 gives Barnstable, fifteen; Chatham, fifteen; Harwich, forty; and Provincetown seventy small craft. Dennis at this time had fifty people employed, and built two vessels of 630 tons each, and Falmouth one of 260 tons. In 1865 Barnstable reported four; Harwich fourteen; and Provincetown nineteen small boats, built withing the census year. At the close of the next decade it appeared that Barnstable was build- ing ten small boats each year, and that Provincetown had built one worth $11,420. The census of 1885 showed that Barnstable had built in the preceding year seventeen vessels, worth $6,377; Bourne, three, worth $4,000; Harwich, eight, worth $2,000, and Provincetown, thirty- nine, worth $6,800.

Unless the building of boats be regarded as such, manufacturing has received comparatively little attention in this county. Prior to the revolution, however, the Cape people were largely engaged in the manufacture of cloth. The families not only generally made their own, but the Marston's and Winslow's were prominent in its manufac- ture for commerce. In 1768 the best ladies of the county, as well as gentlemen, were dressed in homespun, even to their gloves. Barn- stable and Falmouth were the principal towns engaged in making woolen goods. The glass factories at Sandwich, the brick works at West Barnstable, and the pants factory at Orleans and Wellfleet, the shoe factory at West Dennis, the guano works at Woods Holl and the oil and fertilizer works at Wellfleet and Provincetown, are or have been local enterprises, and will receive attention in the several village histories.

In yet another way has the sea contributed to the wealth of Barn- stable county. Here 350 gallons of its waters are found to contain

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one bushel of salt. It was during the revolution that the first prac- tical use was made of this fact. A bushel of salt in 1783 was worth eight dollars, and its extraction by boiling was the child of their necessity. The general court, six years before, saw fit to encourage its manufacture by a bounty of three shillings per bushel. As the diplomatic relations which led to the war of 1812 were unsettling values, and salt was rising rapidly in price, works were erected in various parts of the Cape, where salt was obtained by solar evapora- tion. One company was incorporated in 1809, and in 1821 a Wellfleet company was incorporated, with a capital of fifty thousand dollars. Before the gradual decline of the business began, two million dollars were at one time invested in salt works.

Many crude methods were employed, but at last a regular Cape Cod salt works consisted of one or more wind mills for pumping the water, and a series of pine-plank vats to receive it. These vats, usu- ally nine inches deep and from twelve to twenty feet square, were furnished with movable covers that their contents might be exposed to the sun or shielded from the rain. Several plans of vats and cov- ers were in use, each serving this general purpose. First, the covers were made to slide to and fro on suitable ways; next, they were so made as to be swung to and from their places; and finally this idea was elaborated and the double revolving covers came into use. In 1803, John Sears, of East Dennis, proposed an improvement in vats

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HISTORY OF BARNSTABLE COUNTY.

and covers, which for years bore the name of Sears' Folly. As the process of evaporation progressed, which required weeks to complete, the brine was conducted from the first vats, called water-rooms, into a second range called pickle-rooms, where the lime was removed and the crystals commenced forming. Then the brine was run into other vats, called salt-rooms, where the crystalization went on until salt could be raked out and placed in warehouses to dry.

The first public record regarding this industry, in details by towns, is the state census of 1837; and since that time the number of people employed, capital invested, bushels produced. number of establish- ments engaged in its manufacture, and the value of the product, have been ascertained for each state census.

Barnstable in 1837 had thirty-four establishments, producing an- nually 27,125 bushels; in 1845, twenty-four, producing 21.000: in 1855, eleven, producing 10,550; and in 1865, three, producing 3.382 bushels.

Brewster in 1837 had sixty different works, producing 34,500 bush- els; in 1845, thirty-nine, producing 20,500; in 1855, seventeen, produc- ing 5,000; and in 1865, twelve, producing 5,000 bushels.

Chatham had eighty plants in 1837, which produced 27.400 bush- els; in 1845. fifty-four, producing 18,000; and in 1855, fourteen, pro- ducing 3.300 bushels.

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History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, 1620-1890, Part 16

Author: Deyo, Simeon L., ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: New York : Blake Number of Pages: 1292

Author: Deyo, Simeon L., ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: New York : Blake
Number of Pages: 1292