USA > New Jersey > The New Jersey coast in three centuries; history of the New Jersey coast with genealogical and historic-biographical appendix, Vol. I > Part 46
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The brewing of malt liquors is another industry for which Newark is famous. There are now thirty-two breweries in the State, having an in- vested capital of $17,165,800; 1,800 men are employed, and $1,398,075 was paid in wages ; their joint product was 1,983,241 barrels of lager beer, ale, porter and other malt liquors, the selling value of which was $11,691,016. Sixteen of these establishments are in Newark.
In Newark and the adjoining village of Orange are fifty factories for making wool and felt hats, representing a capital of two million dollars, and employing more than five thousand operatives.
Elizabethport is famous the world over as being the seat of the great Singer Sewing Company, with buildings occupying more than fifteen acres of ground, in which an army of five thousand operatives are employed. Also located here are the extensive yards of the Nixon Shipbuilding Com- pany, numerous stove factories, and foundries and shops producing all classes of wood and metal working machinery.
In the coast region there are but few manufacturing centers of im- portance. The towns are for the greater number residential settlements or summer resorts, and those which possess industries are generally re- stricted to fishing, oyster culture and packing and boat-building. At points inland and not far distant the industries are principally brick making, and fruit and vegetable canning and drying.
The industry last named-that of canning-is of peculiar local inter- est, and with it is indissolubly connected the name of Harrison W. Crosby, for many years a resident of Jamesburg, Middlesex county, where he died, July 13, 1892. Ilis son, Benjamin H. Crosby, is the present editor and proprietor of the "Tuckerton (Ocean county) Beacon."
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Harrison W. Crosby was steward of Lafayette College, at Easton, Pennsylvania, and while serving in that position he conceived the idea of preserving tomatoes in hermetically sealed cans. The art of so treating meats had been practiced for some years, originating in France. In 1847 Mr. Crosby began his experiments with tomatoes, and in the following year he had attained so high a degree of perfection in his methods that he was emboldened to send out samples, and he received high testimonials, among thein one from the purveyor to Queen Victoria. In 1849 the "New York Tribune," which made agricultural concerns one of its important features, and was regarded throughout the country as the highest authority upon such subjects, in an editorial paragraph said, "Whatever the secret of their preparation, we are bound to acknowledge that their preservation has not impaired the flavor of the tomatoes. They taste as they would have tasted when plucked from the vines."
Mr. Crosby prosecuted the canning business (which was extended to include all manner of fruits and vegetables ) for many years in Middlesex county, New Jersey, and he lived to see it become one of the important industries of the State. A cannery in Newark prepared the fruits and vegetables for Dr. Elisha Kane's Arctic Expedition in 1850.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE COMMERCE OF THE SEA.
It is beyond doubt that the cariy settlement of the lower portions of the New Jersey coast was due to the belief that it would prove a profitable field for whalers. With others, David Pieterson de Vries, an enterprising man, and the first resident patroon owner of Cape May, planned for the colonization of the shores of the Delaware, and among their other pro- jects was the establishment of whale and seal fisheries. De Vries notes it his journal (March 29, 1633), "our people have caught seven whales ; we could have done more if we had good harpoons, for they had struck seventeen fish and only saved seven." He soon abandoned whaling as unprofitable, and returned to Holland.
The whaling period extended front the middle of the seventeenth cen- tury to the early part of the eighteenth century. As early as 1658 it is noted that in the vicinity of Cape May there were fourteen skilled pilots who led the whalemen. Beginning in 1685 the records of the courts show contention as to the ownership of carcasses which had been harpooned and broken away to be afterward taken by others. In the Burlington Court, July 4, 1685, in the case of Caleb Carman and John Carman against Evan Davis, it appears that the defendant brought in a whale which he asserted he had purchased from an Indian. A witness, Edward Pynde, "comeing to ye s'd ffish sayth it was a whale ffish and yt hee saw an Iron (with warp thereat ) in ye s'd whale ffish' which Iron & Warp ye s'd depon't knowing them to belong to s'd Caleb Carman & Company," and more to the same purport and in similar quaint phraseology. Caleb Carmen, after- ward indicted for unlawful whale taking, "pleads not guilty & referrs him- self to God and 'ye Countrey," and on trial he was acquitted. In 1678 a number of persons named were licensed to take "whales or like great fish" from Barnegat to the eastern end of the province (presumably Sandy llook), turning over to the Governor one-twentieth of the oil taken.
In 1691 the whaling interest at Cape May had become quite important. and many whalemen came from Connecticut and Long Island. October
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3, 1693, the assembly passed a bill providing that "Whereas the whaling in Delaware Bay has been in so great a measure invaded by strangers and foreigners that the greatest part of oyl and bone received and got by that employ hath been exported out of the province to the great detriment there- of; Be it enacted that any one killing a whale or whales in Delaware Bay or on its shores, to pay the value of one-tenth of the oyl and bone to the Governor of the Province."
In 1696 Governor Andrew Hamilton appointed George Taylor his agent to collect the portion of the "oyl" and bone due him. In 1698 Gabriel Thomas says in his "History of West Jersey:" "The commodities of Cape May County are oyl and whalebone, of which they make prodigious quantities every year, having mightily advanced that great fishery, taking great numbers of whales yearly."
The whaling industry appears to have been reasonably profitable until the opening of the Revolutionary war. The "Boston News Letter" of March 17-24, 1718, says "whale men catch'd six whales at Cape May and twelve at Egg Harbor." The "Pennsylvania Gazette" of March 13- 19, 1729, reports a whale about fifty feet long as having come ashore dead twenty miles from Cape May. The same paper ( March 11-18, 1735), re- ported two whales killed at Cape May. The last record of whaling prior to the beginning of the war was made February 28, 1775, when Aaron Leaming, of Seven-mile Beach, gave a thirty-day lease to whalemen.
The whale became rare prior to the year 1800, and the industry was finally abandoned about 1815. In 1803 an immense specimen came ashore at Absecon Inlet and was towed inside. Claim to it was laid by one Inman, from Great Swamp, who identified it by finding a part of his broken har- poon in the carcass, and his ownership was established in the courts, bene- fiting him to the extent of more than four thousand dollars. In 1844 a dead whale landed on Point-of-Beach, in Absecon Inlet, and portions of its skeleton were washed into view during a storm in 1868. In 188; a grampus whale twelve feet long and weighing twelve hundred pounds was captured at the lower end of Atlantic City.
October 8, 1891, a giant finback or rorqual whale came ashore dead at Ocean City. It measured sixty-eight feet in length, fifteen feet across the flukes, and thirteen feet across the jaws. The skeleton is the largest of its kind in the world. March 26, 1895. another of the same species was taken on Brigantine Beach. The latest recorded whale found on the New Jersey coast was one measuring thirty feet, which was washed ashore near the Brigantine Life Saving Station, May 4, 1900.
The use of the oyster came to us from the savages, and this edible was one which they were loath to abandon when they came to be dis-
OSSCUP & WEST END. CO
WHALE ASHORE AT OCEAN CITY.
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possessed of their lands contiguous to the New Jersey coast. For as late as 1802, when the last of them ceded their lands to the State, and were removed to the Oneida Reservation in New York, they reserved the riglit to return each summer to the Jersey shore to hunt and fish on unoccupied lands. There they roasted oysters and clams, which they dried in the sun, and carried back to their reservation on strings of bark.
The earlier chronicler displayed the spirit of the true "promoter" in exploiting the resources of the new country, and the contributions of the water were glowingly described. In 1631 mention is made of "oysters, some a foot long, containing pearls." One writer-William Wood, in a little volume entitled "New England's Prospects," printed in London- dropped into verse :
"The luscious lobster, with the crab-fish raw, The brinish oyster, mussel, periwigge, And tortoise sought by the Indian Squaw, Which to the flatts dance many a winter's jigge, To dive for cockles and to dig for clams, Whereby her lazy husband's guts she cramms."
In 1681 Sir George Carteret, in enumerating the advantages which he considers attractive to immigrants, mentions oysters "in great plenty and easy to take." At a somewhat later day oyster shells were utilized in the manufacture of lime.
In the early days wonderfully prolific natural seeding oyster beds were found at the mouth of the rivers and creeks emptying into salt water bays and inlets, the most prolific of these being in Raritan Bay, Barnegat Bay, Little Egg Harbor and Maurice Cove. But, after a time, there was occa- sion for fear that the oyster was in course of extermination, and in 1719 the General Assembly of the Province passed the first oyster protective measure of record. It was recited in the preamble that the oyster beds are "wasted and destroyed by strangers and others at unseasonable times of the year, the preservation of which will tend to great benefit of the poor people and others inhabiting this province." . It was therefore enacted that no person should rake or gather up oysters or shells from May 10th to September Ist; and that non-residents should not gather them up at any time to take away with them, under a penalty of forfeiting their vessels and equipments. Commissioners were appointed to execute the provisions of the law, and were authorized to inspect oyster boats and to seize any which might be under suspicion. The fees of the officers were one-half of the forfeitures, while the remainder went to the provincial treasury.
February 11. 1775, the Assembly of New Jersey enacted a new law
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for the preservation of the oyster, and this is the last enactment upon the subject while New Jersey was a colony of Great Britain. Forty shillings was the forfeit for violation of the law, and twenty-six shillings and eight pence of this amount was to be paid to the informer. Burning oyster shells for lime was also an offense, for which the penalty was a fine of two pounds. The purposes of this provision was to ensure the return of the shells to the water, for the preservation of the oyster beds.
In subsequent years there were more stringent enactments for the protection of the oyster beds, and it was a standing bit of humor with members of the New Jersey legislature that all legislation with reference to oysters, clams and fish originated in Ocean county-a tacit recognition of the supremacy of that region in these industries.
During very many years continued effort was made to foster the oyster industry through legislation designed to protect the oyster fields against a too close expoliation which would lead to extermination. The fields were threatened by two classes of enemy-those who lived in their immediate neighborhood and derived their livelihood from marketing oysters, many of whom, intent only upon immediate gain, were regardless of the future; and those who came from a distance to poach upon property ini which they had no rightful interest.
The State had long ago asserted its claim to oyster-bearing grounds, and this claim had been sustained by the highest legal tribunal. Based upon this, protective legislation was further perfected in 1899 by the passage of an Act of the Legislature "For the better regulation of the taking, plant- ing and cultivating of oysters on lands lying under the tidal waters of the Delaware Bay and Maurice River Cove, in the State of New Jersey," and under this Act a State Oyster Commission was created. The particular protection of this field was made necessary by its proximity to Delaware, many of whose oystermen were regarded as perniciously enterprising. The planting bottoms known as Maurice Cove contain about thirty thousand acres, of which about one-half is occupied, but larger additions to "staked- up" or leased grounds are made each year. The law provides for a rental of twenty-five cents per acre for the planted grounds, and a tax of two dollars per ton on boats employed in the business. These taxes produce and command a revenue of nearly fourteen thousand dollars, which is expended in employing boats to police the Cove, and in the prosecution of unauthorized dredgers. The total annual product of this region amounts to at least three million dollars.
The Act above referred to is only operative in the Delaware Bay waters of New Jersey. Elsewhere in the State legislation is in a chaotic condi- tion. In the summer of 1902 a State Commission for the investigation of
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the oyster industry was engaged in preparing a report, with recommenda- tions as to protective oyster legislation for the Atlantic coast region.
Oyster planting and culture inay now be regarded as a science, so much have observation and experimentation been practiced. The necessity for planting was discovered so long ago as in 1810, when it was begun at Bergen Point, in New York Bay. A quarter of a century later the plant- ing of native oysters came into vogue in Raritan Bay, first at Keyport, and afterwards in the vicinity of Perth Amboy, and thence extended to the southern oyster fields. In later years the natural supply of seed oysters proved too small to meet the demand, and supplies were drawn from the Chesapeake and the small bays and rivers on the coasts of Delaware and. Maryland. The consumption is annually increasing, and it is shown by statistics that very nearly fifty per cent. of plant oysters are brought from outside the State, at an annual cost of more than three hundred thousand dollars.
The importance of the oyster industry may be discerned in the fact that it is the most extensive and remunerative of all fishery pursuits, being in value three times greater than cod fishing. The system of culture begins with the preservation of the natural oyster beds, or the construction of new beds. To advance this end, legislation affords its aid through the operations of the "Rough Cull Law," which makes it obligatory on the oystermen engaged in catching "plants" to roughly cull them as they are brought on deck, and to throw the old shells and refuse overboard at once. The importance of this cannot be overestimated, and its beneficial effects during the past two years have practically demonstrated its value. Under its enforcement the natural beds are steadily and rapidly improving, instead of deteriorating, as heretofore they had been steadily doing.
The oyster begins to spawn in April or May-in the former month in southern and in the latter month in northern waters. The spawn floats away as a . whitish or grayish cloud. If the floating spawn meets with the milt the egg is fertilized and a young oyster is produced. The discharge by the parent oysters of the spawn and milt is not a continuous process, but continues for two or three weeks, until the supply is exhausted. If the spawn does not meet the milt it soon dies and falls to the bottom. If all the conditions are favorable, within forty-eight hours of their dis- charge the eggs rise to the surface, or near it, where, in the warmer sur- face water, they hatch into a free swimming animacula. In this con- dition they swim about for a short time and then slowly sink to the bottom. Here, if suitable bottom is found -- that is, one with clean shells, stones, sticks or other substances -- the young oyster at once fastens to them and commences to grow a shell. It is absolutely necessary that the object,
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whatever it may be, to which the young oyster seeks to attach itself, must be clean-that is, free from slime and mud. If it is not the young oyster will be unable to secure a lodgment, and will surely die. These young or seed oysters are taken and thrown upon the planting ground, there to Jie for three to four years and grow to marketable size.
The actual labor of planting ceases about the end of May, but the beds are as closely watched as is a land crop of grain. A warm equable season, with smooth waters, is propitious. Storms and freshets, partic- ularly in July and August, have a serious effect, covering the beds with mud and smothering the young oysters. A natural enemy of the oyster, which can in no way be guarded against, is the borer. Man, too, in various localities, works injury and sometimes utter destruction by polluting the waters with deleterious substances from manufactories and chemical works.
Oyster gathering usually begins in September. At the present time (August, 1902) oysters may lawfully be taken at any time, but restric- tions were looked for by the enactment of a closed season law during the following session of the legislature. This is effected by "tonging" from small boats, which put their gatherings aboard a sloop anchored conveniently near. Another method (practiced by sloops and other craft) is to cast a dredge overboard, and cruise backward and forward, gathering the oysters and drawing them inboard, in some instances by hand-hauling, and in others by means of a windlass. In some of the more extensive fields, steam dredges are operated. The total annual product on the coast line is esti- mated by the oyster commission at five hundred thousand dollars.
The statistics of the oyster industry on the Atlantic coast of New Jersey are based upon a not too recent report -. but the only one available- that for the year 1896. The oyster acreage then in use was somewhat more than 5,000 acres, but this has necessarily been somewhat increased, yet not greatly. About one-half of this acreage was in the neighborhood of Keyport (2,760 acres). Tuckerton was credited with 528 acres and Absecon with 360 acres. Other points were: Shrewsbury, 232 acres ; Barnegat, 296 acres; Great Bay and Egg Harbor, 155 acres ; Eagle Bay, 184 acres; Lake's Bay, 166 acres ; Ludlams, 64 acres; Great Sound, 61 acres ; and Leaming and Townsends, 116 acres. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics ( 1901) reported 3, 154 persons as engaged in oyster dredging and packing. This includes the clamming industry, which is a principal feature 'longshore in the neighborhood of Tuckerton.
Dependent upon the oyster industry are hundreds of men engaged in boat-building, sail-making and turning fish offal into fertilizers, to say noth- ing of the many others engaged in clerical and other capacities.
The Jersey coast waters are rich in edible fish. Those inhabiting the 28
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rivers have been protected by legislation which is made reasonably effective through a Board of Fish and Game Commissioners, and this body has been particularly useful in lessening the number of cases of law infraction, particularly with reference to Sunday and night shooting in Barnegat Bay, a region which affords peculiar temptations to sportsmen.
The same Board some years ago entered upon the work of stocking the inland waters with fish from the great lakes-white bass, calico bass, wall- eved pike and channel cat-fish. The results have been quite gratifying, and there is every prospect that all the lakes in the State-some one hundred and forty in number-will before many years contain a good supply of all these various species.
SHIP BUILDING.
Veritable "hearts of oak" were the vessels of an olden time! Built under the very eye of him who was to command, he had seen every piece of material entering into the construction, and he could well say that he knew
"What master laid thy keel, Who made each mast, each sail, each rope, What anvils rang, what hammers beat, In what a forge and what a heat, Were shaped the anchors of thy hope."
When builded they were mastered and manned by such old-time sailors as Dibdin told of in verse, and whom Marryat and Cooper painted in graphic story. Their crew weighed anchor by pushing the capstan-bars to the chanty of the old country man-o'-warsman of a century ago, and when once it was at the cathead the sailors sprang to bowline and sheet- rope, one after another, until every stitch of canvas was fully set. No machine-work aided in propulsion or sailing. The old sea-dog who was in command was at once master, executive officer and navigator. He read the skies as readily as he did his compass, and his stentorian voice rang out from hour to hour in directions to send aloft studding-sails, sky- scrapers and moon-rakers when breezes were light, or to shorten sail and send down the upper spars on indication of gale or tempest.
But-alas! for the romance of the sea-the old skipper and the old sailor and the old ship have vanished into the past, and with them, too, the literature that inspired and delighted generation after generation. For who can weave a romance or write a song out of a great floating machine shop, and out of the quiet life of the well-groomed gentleman who in- creases or reduces speed, and who changes his course, by his finger's pres- sure upon a button ?
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The pioneer settlers along the New Jersey coast fashioned their first water craft in the same manner as did the savages whom they came to supplant, making dugout canoes by burning out one side of a great log and shaping it to the rude semblance of a boat. In a later day they built such vessels as could be made by the most ordinary worker with saw and axe, giving little attention to symmetry of form or even ease of propulsion, but only to buoyancy. Of such were the sail scow, used in transporting salt hay from the marshes to the farm, and the garvey, which was used in gathering and bringing to shore oysters and clams.
Prosaic, certainly, were the uses of these water craft with their burden of oysters, fish and marsh hay. Yet there were occasional pleasure boats to be seen, or one with something of decoration when it was called into service to convey a high official or a gentleman of importance on a public errand or a visit of ceremony. Such an incident was witnessed at New Burnswick, on the Fourth of July, 1791, when Governor Paterson came up the Raritan river in a barge decorated with flowers and laurels, with twelve men dressed in white as oarsmen, and it was commemorated by Moses Guest, a poet of the time, in the following exuberant verse :
"On Raritan's smooth-gliding stream we view- With pleasure view-the man whom we admire, On this auspicious day with laurel crowned ; How gracefully the honored barge moves on! See Neptune's sons, all clad in white, Timing their oars to the melodious flutes. Not Cleopatra's barge
When she, full armed with each bewitching charm, A tyrant bound in the sweet chains of love, More elegant or pleasing could appear, Nor did contain a jewel of such worth ; Not freighted with a proud, intriguing queen,
She nobly bears New Jersey's favorite son, Our guardian chief, our friend, a Paterson!"
With the development of the fishing and lumber industries, the latter through the introduction of the saw mill, vessels of larger build came into vogue, first of the sloop and later of the schooner type, but of limited size, for many years not exceeding thirty tons. The first authentic record of ship-building occurs in 1683, at Perth Amboy, where Miles Foster was granted a town lot by the Proprietors as a reward for building the first sloop in that place. In 1694 the Assembly passed an act for the encourage- ment of ship-building, and forbade the exportation of timber except to Great Britain. There is evidence of ship-building at Cape May as early as 1688,
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when a vessel was on the stocks there, but nothing appears to indicate its dimensions or style of rig. Work upon it was suspended at the death of the owner, James Budd, and although whalemen agreed to saw plank for its completion the promise was unfulfilled. In all the settlements on the shores of the counties of Middlesex and Monmouth, and well up their rivers, were many ship carpenters who built vessels out of the splendid and abund- ant forest timber at their very doors.
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