USA > New York > Suffolk County > Riverhead > History of Suffolk country, comprising the addresses delivered at the celebration of the bi-centennial of Suffolk county, N.Y., in Riverhead, November 15, 1883 > Part 8
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In the Great South Bay, that remarkable and noble body of water which forms the chief natural feature of the southern border of the county for its greater length, and at the same time is the main source of subsistence for the people inhabiting its northern shores, the early settlers quickly be- gan to navigate its shallow waters in canoes, flat-bottomed boats and scows, and in later years small sloops and schooners of light draft "were built to ply from place to place or, by way of the inlets from the outer ocean, to make trips to New York and other ports. As early as 1760 to '70 a few sloops traded through the Bay, carrying wood and produce. This trade, feeble as it had been, was closed by the war of the Revolution. It re- vived with renewed vigor and by 1785 there were 12 sloops and pirogues (or canoes) trading on the East Bay. By 1800 the number had increased to 30, among them being the sloop Woodcock built and owned by Hon. John Smith, at that time United States senator, which vessel was burned off Fire Island in 1814 by the British sloop-of-war Nimrod. In 1830 there were 50 vessels ranging from 25 to 50 tons engaged in carrying wood and farm produce. Since then, with some fluctuations; the business has devel- oped into great importance, employing many vessels and many persons to man them, though the building of the railroad along the shore of the bay has materially modified this business there, as railway competition has done elsewhere in the county. In 1806 three gun boats were built at Smith's Point, on the East Bay, for use in the Tripolitan war, and went out with Decatur, under whom they were put to good service. In all, 12 of these vessels were built. Many vessels of larger dimensions, from 100 to 400 tons, including some splendid specimens of marine architecture, have been built on the bay shore and launched into its placid waters. From 1825 to 1860, one informant states, was the palmy period of this business on that bay. Some of the finest and fleetest vessels, as is claimed, built anywhere
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during that period, were built by Boss Hiram Gerard and afterward by Boss O. Perry Smith at Patchogue, by Post Brothers, at Bellport, and one or two other builders-vessels of 150 to 300 tons, owned principally or wholly by Brookhaven or Islip men and employed in regular lines between Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, Newbern, Richmond and other south- ern ports. Trade was active for most of the time, freights were well sus- tained, and the owners got a fair percentage on their investments. With the introduction of steamers in those lines of coastwise trade the old mode of transportation must needs give way to the new, and the larger and better class of schooners were put into foreign trade. By the partial cessation of demand for that class of vessels, as well as by the death of the old build- ers, the business of ship-building on the Bay has been restricted to the smal- ler craft, cat-rigged and sloop-rigged boats, with a few schooners, which are employed in the oyster or other fisheries. Those that are left in the coast- ing trade are confined to coal or other coarser freights which the steamers do not care to handle, and are paid rates below what they used to get, so that the business is now less profitable. At present the vessels in which South Bay people are owners and which are engaged in foreign trade, are of 400 to 1,000 tons burden, are commanded by experienced men from Brookhaven and Islip towns, and by frugal and careful management pay a moderate profit. On the whole it may be said that both the foreign and the coasting trade as carried on by south side men and vessels is in a fairly prosperous state.
These remarks, with the proper changes of names and places, may ap- ply to the north side of Brookhaven, Smithtown and Huntington towns, and also to ports on Peconic and Gardiner's Bays. On Port Jefferson and Conscience Bays, Setauket and Stony Brook harbors, and the waters of Smithtown, Northport bay and harbor, Centreport, Huntington, Lloyd's and Cold Spring harbors, more or less of ship-building and ship-owning grew up with the growth of the communities on their shores, and, especial- ly at the first named place, ran far beyond the proportional development of the village itself. A number of conscientious, careful and skillful builders, taking a just pride in the work of their hands and laudably ambitious to excel in their chosen art, turned out of their small and poorly equipped yards some of the handsomest, swiftest and best constructed vessels of their class ever put afloat-vessels that gave renown to American ship-building and that made the name of Brookhaven (by which general term, in the absence of any separate port from which to hail, they were designated on the marine papers), known throughout the maritime world. A race of bold, active, hardy, energetic and intelligent seamen and masters grew up to man and to command these vessels, and they brought to their quiet homes on the wooded slopes or amid the grassy vallies of the beautiful North Side, tro- phies of peaceful conquest over the forces of nature or the combined power of time and space. To all the main marts of trade on all sea coasts they resorted, and from the least accessible and most distant markets they wrested something of the gain which is the soul of commercial activity. Time would fail me to speak in detail of the several places at which this industry of building and owning vessels to engage in fishing, in coasting, or in foreign trade, has been prosecuted by the enterprising descendants of those stout hearted and brawny-limbed settlers from the Suffolk of Old England which looked out upon the restless North Sea. At Sag Harbor, a Stirling and at Green Hill (afterwards Greenport), at East Marion and
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Orient, at the places previously named on both the north and south side of the county, many thousands of tons of shipping, comprising the smallest class of boats and yachts and rising to the majesty of one " big ship" that never floated, but actually including a ship of over 2,000 tons, have been added to the mercantile marine of our country. In the construction of these vessels large quantities of Long Island grown oak, chestnut and lo- cust timber have been used. There are now on the books of the Survey- or's office at Greenport 235 steam and sailing vessels aggregating 15,268 .- 82 tons engaged in actual and active commerce ; at Sag Harbor 20 vessels with an aggregate tonnage of 1,063.44 ; at Patchogue there has been a steady increase from 57 vessels and 934 tons in 1875 to 203 vessels and 2,611.53 tons in 1883 ; at Port Jefferson there are 114 vessels and 14,858 tons ; at Cold Spring 99 vessels and 4,574.82 tons. This makes an aggregate of 671 vessels and 39, 376.61 tons of shipping owned mostly in this county and engaged actively in commerce or the fisheries, manned by several thousands of Suffolk County's hardy seamen. The number of these seafaring men who are residents of our county is not definitely known, but I estimate it to be close upon 3,000, or about one-third of the active male inhabitants.
A few words ought to be given to the specific matter of aids to navi- gation through the waters in and about this county. It was not till near the close of the last century that the general government, to which the con- stitution entrusts exclusive jurisdiction over the coastwise commerce and navigation of the country, began to provide light-houses, beacons and buoys for lighting and marking the coasts and channels of the waters of this county. Previously, for over a hundred years from the first settle- ment, the daring and adventurous men who went down to the sea on ships from our ports made their voyages without any of these aids to navigation. Long Island Sound, not less than the northern seaboard and the eastern bays, lay in darkness and in uncharted obscurity so far as can now be learned. Mariners upon its broad bosom had to steer their courses and note their distances unhelped by any other resources than their own quick eye and ready memory. Many year later, when much had been done in the direction of supplying this need, Daniel Webster remarked in substance that L. I. Sound ought to be lighted as brilliantly as a ball room. This was said in view of the large growth to which its commerce had then at- tained, long before Hell Gate improvements had been begun. Could he have lived to see the immense expansion which has gone on since that day and to note how vast the tide of tonnage that constantly flows up and down this noble arm of the sea, how much more of emphasis and weight might not have been added to his notable saying. The federal government has from time to time expended considerable sums in providing light-houses and light-vessels for points of prominent exposure on or off the coasts of Long Island, and it has been liberal in placing buoys to mark the channels of its bays, and creeks, but there are other places that still need attention, and the necessity of one or more harbors of refuge on the long stretch of coast be- tween Orient Point and Port Jefferson Bay grows yearly greater. It has done an excellent work in improving the entrance to the last named bay and it is now building a breakwater to preserve part of the harbor at Greenport. Other points present claims to like improvements-claims which sooner or later will be heeded. The first light-house within the limits of the county was at Montauk, lighted for the
T
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first time in 1795 ; the latest is one in Cold Spring Harbor not yet com- pleted, and a light-ship is to be placed on Cerberus Shoal off Gardiner's Island. Long Island forms part of the Third Light-House District, which extends from Gooseberry Point, Mass., to include Squan Inlet, New Jersey, with its headquarters at Tompkinsville, Staten Island. The following is a list of light-houses, 14 in number, now in actual operation within this county, made up in the order of their establishment. I have the list here, but omit its reading : it will be found in a foot note. *
I come now to the Fisheries of Suffolk County. References made in the previous pages point out the facts that the early settlers were from a section of England largely engaged in fishing, and that they were attracted to this island by the facilities it offered for commerce and for fishing. To their experienced eyes it was as evident then as it is to their descendants now, that a large, a wholesome, and a nutritious part of their subsistence might be obtained from the waters that enclose and interlace the land in loving embrace. Swimming and shell fish abounded and were easily taken in quantities to supply their wants. Should other resources fail, should nature frown upon their agriculture and the earth refuse its fruits, should the wild game desert its haunts and the untended flocks of the air omit to make thetr annual migrations, they yet had a sure reliance in the teeming storehouse that always lay open to their industry. With hooks and rude nets they came provided, and beds of fat oysters and succulent clams, of meity mussels and prodigious periwinkles, spread invitingly before them. No fear of famine need oppress their thoughts as with busy axes they at- tacked the wilderness and let in the sunlight upon their little clearings. The advantages afforded by the nearness of water to all parts of the eastern section of the county were appreciated as soon as seen, and account for its priority of settlement. The same advantage led originally to the settlement and cultivation of the lands along the north and south sides of the county,
*LIGHT-HOUSES AND LIGHT-VESSELS IN SUFFOLK COUNTY WATERS.
Name.
First Lighted.
Remarks.
Montauk
1795
Daboll's Trumpet.
Eaton's Neck
1798
Little Gull Island
1806
Steam siren; south side of entrance to L. I. Sound.
Old Field Point
1823
North of Setauket.
Fire Island
1826
East side of Fire Island Inlet.
Cedar Island
1839
Bell; entrance to Sag Harbor.
North Dumpling
1848
"' Fisher's Island Sound.
Gardiner's Island
1855
North point of Gardiner's Island.
Lloyd's Harbor
1857
Huntington Bay; S. E. point of Lloyd's Neck.
Horton's Point
1857
Horton's Point, north of Southold vil- lage.
Shinnecock
1857
Pondquogue Point.
Long Beach Bar
1871
Entrance from Gardiner's Bay to Orient and Greenport harbors and Peconic Bay; bell.
Stratford Shoal
1877
Middle Ground, L. I. Sound, trumpet and bell.
Race Rock
1878
Fisher's Island Point, to mark north side of entrance to L. I. Sound.
Plum Island
1827
Cold Spring Harbor-not yet built.
Cerberus Shoal-light-ship to be placed thereon.
Bell, west end of Plum Island to mark enterance to Plum Gut,
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to the comparative neglect of the central portions, though much of the lat- ter is arable and sufficiently fertile. It is of course known to all that the bulk of the population of the towns of Brookhaven, Smithtown, and Hunt- ington on the north. and Babylon, Islip and Brookhaven on the south, in- habit the regions lying within a few miles from the shores respectively of the Sound and Bay, while large tracts in the middle section are still given up to pine forests or scrub-oak plains. This peculiarity of the topographi- cal distribution of Suffolk County's population may be attributed, primarily, to the fact that its early settlers were fishermen and were naturally drawn to the water side in preference to the interior. That they began the catching of fish for their own tables as soon as they landed may be said to be past doubt. While for many years no records exist to show what progress was made in this indus- try, it is reasonably certain that from the first they took out of the waters by their doors not only enough of food for present needs but also quant ties to be salted, smoked or dried for winter use. This would be likely enough in the nature of things, but its probability is increased toward certainty when we find from the records that with the first year of their settlement the Southampton people commenced the pursuit of whales in boats from the shore. How great a degree of hardihood and courage, of pluck and per- sistence, was needed to prosecute this conquest of Leviathan, with such rough boats or canoes and such inadequate gear as was then at hand, bold- ly chasing him out to sea, striking him with their rude harpoons and lances, holding tenaciously to their warps as he dragged them over the boiling surges for miles on miles, watching warily his death flurries, and then toil- somely towing his huge bulk to the shore, only those can estimate who, as I have done, have seen this mightiest game which any nimrod of land or sea pursues, stretched upon the sand and rolling grandly in the surf.
As early as 1644 the male inhabitants of that town were divided into four squadrons, each having a ward or division of the beach to watch. Starbuck, the author of the only complete and comprehensive History of the American Whale Fishery, in a private note to myself, says : "I look upon the set- tlers of Southampton and vicinity as among the first, if not the first, in our country, to pursue the art of whaling as an organized industry, as will ap- pear in my own work-pp. 9. 10, II, etc. He there records this fact, con- clusive of both the antiquity and the importance of the business, that "In 1672 the towns of Southampton, East-Hampton. and Southold presented a memorial to the court at Whitehall, in which, as the ground for an appeal from Dutch oppression, they set forth that they have spent much time and pains, and the greater part of their estates, in settling the trade of whale fishing in the adjacent seas, having endeavored it above these 20 years but could not bring it to any perfection till within these 2 or 3 years last past." This shows that prior to 1652 the whale fishery along the south shore of the Island had become a settled and a diligently prosecuted industry. Mr. Egbert T. Smith informs me that in 1700 Martha Tunstall Smith, wife of his ancestor Gol. Smith, owned a whaling station at Smith's Point, manned by a crew of Indians who on an average killed 20 whales of a winter, and sent their oil and bone to England. In 1850 he himself established a sta- tion at which the crew had good success. In 1703, Lord Cornbury, Gov- ernor of the Province, moved thereto by the fact that no whale oil was sent to New York from castern Long Island, whence, as he says, "the greater quantity" of it then came, wrote to the Lords of Trade in England
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complaining that Connecticut fills the island with European goods cheaper than New York can, and that the people here, being full of New England principles, would rather trade with Boston, Rhode Island and Connecticut than with New York." In another letter he says that in 1707 Long Island made 4,000 barrels of train oil, adding that " about the middle of October they began to look out for fish ; the season lasts all November, Decem- ber, January, February and a part of March ; a yearling will make about 40 barrels of oil, a stunt or whale will make sometimes 50, sometimes 60 barrels of oil, and the largest whale that I heard of in these parts yielded 110 barrels of oil and 1, 200 weight of bone." In 1678 a Boston merchant, named Alfred, had permission from the Dutch authorities to clear a vessel from Southampton direct for England with oil bought at that place. I cite these scattered facts in illustration of the extent and value to which the whale fishing in boats from the shore had grown in the first century after the settlement, not only because of their intrinsic interest, but because they are attested by undoubted records and may be accepted without hesitation. From them, in the absence of definite proof, it may safely be inferred that men who could with such rare skill and success prosecute the highest branch of fishing, would be equally skillful and successful in pursuit of the lesser fisheries.
Beside the moss bunker or bony fish, which, then as now, came in countless numbers, and, while very palatable as food, were, then as now, overshadowed by the superior toothsomeness of other species and were thrown aside when caught or used merely as manure, the better sorts of fish most common in these waters were the sea and striped bass, black fish, . cod, chequet, eels, flounders, flat-fish, frost fish, mackerel, perch, 'porgies, shad, sheepshead, tom-cod, etc., while of shell fish the most abundant and important were oysters, clams, crabs, lobsters, escalops, mussels and winkles.
When the taking of these various swimming and shell fish in quantities beyond the needs of the local markets, and the sending them across the sound or to New York for sale, began to be a regular branch of trade, it is not possible to say, but it is probable that it did not become a business of much magnitude till long after the Revolution. Smacks, or vessels provided with wells in which to carry live fish, or with apartments for preserving them in ice, were not built till after the present century began. Neither were the modes of fishing at an earlier date such as to admit of keeping the fish any great length of time. They were caught with hook and line, with seines, or with gill nets, and were dead when brought to land. As late as 1825 or 30, it is stated that there was no demand in N. Y. market for dead fish. Using ice in which to box and ship dead fish is a modern invention and has grown up mostly within the past 20 or 25 years ; it was perhaps suggested and made possible by the putting on of steam packets, with the old propell- er Albany as one of the pioneers, to ply between our eastern bays and New York, and was promoted by the facilities afforded to fishermen by the L. I. R. R. Co., which has derived and does still derive a large revenue from the transportation of boxed fish-how large, I could not ascertain. The earliest knowledge I have had of building fishing smacks in the county goes back to about 1810, when, and during succeeding years, several were built at Rocky Point (now East Marion), a few miles east of Stirling (as Green- port was then called), by Boss Jerry Brown, whose old shipyard was where
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the elegant country seat of Thomas A. Howell, Esq., now is. * In 1818, as I have from the pen of a venerable friend, Mr. William O. Winters, of Brooklyn, formerly of East Marion, and long engaged in the business, there were II smacks belonging at Rocky Point, Orient and Stirling, but hailing from sag Harbor. As an item of local it not general interest I mention their names and the names of their Masters. These were :- the Rover, Capt. Robert Clark,; the Independence, Capt. Warren Griffin ; the Fame, Capt. James Beebe ; the Comet, Capt. William Roberts ; the Rose, Capt. Warren Youngs ; the Charlotte, Capt. James Griffing ; the Jane, Capt. Noah Rack - ett ; the Wasp, Capt. S. Rackett ; the Java, Capt. Gilson Vail; the Echo, Capt. E. Beebe ; the Dolphin, Capt. Daniel Harris. They were not clink- er built, as were the smacks first built at Mystic, Ct., which were soon con- demned because of their tendency to leak, but were deep keel boats, with bluff bows ; the lines of their models were not so sharp and graceful as those built now, but they were strongly put together and were excellent sea-boats, riding like ducks over the highest waves and sometimes safely encountering the fury of the severest storms in which larger craft went to the bottom or were helplessly disabled by the violence of the sea. They ranged in size from 15 to 22 tons, were sloop-rigged and had wells in which
* After the foregoing had been written and this paper completed, I received from another venerable friend, Capt. John A. Rackett, of Orient, in answer to an application a letter giv- ing some fresh information and going a few years further back in point of time. The let- ter is of so readable a character that it has been thought proper to print it in full, as follows: ORIENT, January 16, 1884.
HON. HENRY A. REEVES-Dear Sir: After an exhaustive investigation, from such dates as we have, we find that in 1795 there were a number of men from the village of Oysterponds (now Orient) engaged in the cod-fishery at the Straits of Bellisle on the coast of New Foundland. few years afterward, so 1800, some of the young men of our own and the adjacent village of Rocky Point (now East Marion) were employed as fishermen in "well smacks" owned at New London and Mystic. A little anterior to the last date a number of families emigrated from the places last named to Rocky Point. They were directly or indirectly engaged in smack-fishing be- fore leaving those Connecticut towns. Induced doubtless by their description of the business as well as a desire to share in its profits, a number of young men from Oysterponds, Rocky Pomt and Sterling engaged in the business in smacks owned at New London and Mystic, some as fishermen, others as marketmen. Among the new comers was Capt. Amos Ryan, who settled at Rocky Point and built the house now occupied by Capt. Maxon Tuthill. The name of his smack we have not been able to ascertain. Capt. Ryan was an active, energet- ic man. On his way to Charleston, on one occasion, he fell in with an abandoned ship near the western edge of the gulf stream. With his small craft he succeeded in towing the ship to Charleston bar, where he had to anchor her, the wind preventing his getting her into harbor. During the night an easterly gale. came up and forced the ship ashore. Next morning the beach was strewn with cases and bales of dry goods. It seems hard that with a fortune so near his reach he was not permitted to enjoy it.
Next we find the smack Patriot, Capt. Elisha Rackett. The transfer papers of this vessel are in our possession. They bear the date 1813. Whether or not this was the first smack built in our town we have not been able definitely to determine. The next was the Jupiter, Capt. Eliphelet Beebe. She was burned by the British in the war of 1812-14, and her remains lie embedded in the sand not far from the Long Beach phosphate works. The next, the Little Jay, was commanded by Capt. Henry Beebe, ot Sterling. The fifth was the Jefferson, Capt. Grant B. Rackett. The sixth, and last we have been able to find out about, is the Sylph, Capt. Barzellius Beebe.
The above we believe to have been the pioneers of the smack-fishing industry in the three villages or hamlets of Oysterponds, Rocky Point and Sterling. The names of the smacks immediately succeeding those named above, we believe you have. The date of the commencement of building and navigating the fishing smacks by the people of this town, we believe to have been about 1800. Respectfully yours,
JOHN A. RACKETT.
.
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over 1,000 average codfish could be kept. About 1820 Boss Brown built three others, viz : the Mary, Capt. Moses Griffin : the Emeline, Capt. Gamaliel King ; the Mars, Capt. Sylvester Rackett. After 1825, within a few years, 10. or 15 other smacks were built, and new fishing grounds ex- tending from Florida to New Foundland were occupied, while several new varieties of fish were found. From 1836 to 1840 a larger size of smacks began to be built, and some were rigged as schooners. The first smacks' crews consisted, beside the masters. of two and sometimes three men and a boy who acted as cook. They started about the middle of March for cod- fish, cruising off Montauk, Block Island and No Man's Land. An aver- age catch would be 800 to 1,000 fish, taken with the hook from the vessels deck. They carried their cargo to the old Fly Market in Burling Slip, N. Y., where fish were retailed by a man assigned to each smack and receiving an average share with the crew ; the vessel paid 2-5ths of the expense and took 2-5ths of the proceeds, and the remainder was divided among the crew equally. About May I they began fishing for mackerel at Sandy Hook, using trolling lines, each man looking after two lines-a slow mode of taking this nimble fish. About the middle of June they went to their for- mer ground and also to Vineyard Sound for sea bass. This was kept up till Oct. Ist, when, on the same grounds, they resumed codfishing until December or January. A fair catch of sea bass would be from 1,500 to 1, 800. For this fish a new ground was discovered about 1823, off the Capes of the Delaware, where fish were plenty but small, seldom exceeding a pound in weight, and in 2 or 212 days they would catch from 2,000 to 2,500. The season there lasted from May to August.
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