Historic Nantucket, Fall 1994, Vol. 43 No. 3

FALL

V 0 L U M E 43

1994

Fish Stories

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No.3

From the Executive Director.¡

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Douglas K. Burch, Editor Helen Winslow Chase, Historian Sybille Stillger Andersen, Art Director Elizabeth Oldham, Copy Editor Photos: NHA collections unless otherwise credited

Indian Fish and Fishing Off Coastal Massachusetts The beginnings.

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by J. Clinton Andrews

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Dory Fishing The way it was.

by Arthur McCleave

Aquaculture: Tomorrow's Fishery

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What it may become.

by Douglas K. Burch

Departments What's News at the NHA Items of Interest We Couldn't Do It Without You

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OFFICERS Ms. Kimberly C. Corkran, President Mrs. Thomas H. Gosnell, First Vice President Mrs. William B. Macomber, Second Vice President Mr. Alan F. Atwood, Treasurer Mrs. Hamilton Heard, Jr., Secretary Mr. C. Marshall Beale, Executive Director

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Mr. Alan F. Atwood Mrs. Charles Balas Mrs. Richard L. Brecker Mrs. Robert Champion Miss Nancy A. Chase Ms. Kimberly C. Corkran Mrs. Thomas H. Gosnell Mr. Erwin L. Greenberg Mrs. William E. Grieder Prof. William A. Hance

Mrs. Hamilton Heard, Jr. Mrs. Sharon Lorenzo

Mrs. William B. Macomber Mrs. Carl M. Mueller Mr. H. Flint Ranney Mrs. William L. Slover Rev. Georgia Ann Snell Mr. Paul A. Wolf, Jr. Mr. David H. Wood

ADVISORY BOARD Mr. Walter Beinecke, Jr. Ms. Patricia A. Butler Mr. Alcon Chadwick Mrs. james F. Chase Mr. Michael de Leo Mrs. Walker Groetzinger Mrs. Herbert L. Gutterson Mrs. Robert E. Hellman Mrs. john G. W. Husted

Mrs. Arthur jacobsen Mrs. janeT. Lamb Mr. Francis D. Lethbridge Mr. Reginald Levine Mrs. john A. Lodge Mrs. Thomas B. LOring Mr. William B. Macomber Mr. Robert F. Mooney

Mr. Peter Nash Mrs. R. Arthur Orleans Arthur Reade, Esq. Mrs. Frederick A. Richmond Mr. Alfred F. Sanford Ill Mrs. William A. Sevrens Mr. joseph F. Welch Mr. johnS. Winter Mrs. joseph C. Woodle

EDITORIAL BOARD Mrs. Dwight Beman Mr. Richard L. Brecker Mr. Robert F. I\ looney Ms. Elizabeth Oldham

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o say we've had a busy summer is an understa temcn .

Summer always flies by, but this centennial summ er wa ,\ whirlwind of special exhibit openings, lectures, social fl,â&#x20AC;˘ "tions, the big Birthday Bash on July 9, the gala birthday b<~'!, and the best NHA antiques show yet.

Planning our Centennial Celebration on such a grand s u' ' was a huge undertaking. Centennial chairs Dick and I >.t Brecker and Scott and Jane Stearns provided the leadersh ip k all of us, and most of the follow through was accomplished 1 , Lisa Rance, centennial coordinator. As I look back at all l ,' special events that highlighted this busy summer, I know ~<; does Lisa, that we would never have had so successful a p ogram without the dedicated help of the many volunteer-; it'1 the NHA staff. My hat is off to them all.

Our goal this centennial summer was to increase the pub lie's awareness of the Nantucket Historical Association and u encourage new membership. If the attendance at the centcn ri al events is any indication, recognition of the NH A h i! increased dramatically, and I'm pleased to report that o ur membership rolls have grown substantially. Long-time supporters of the NHA, like those loyal people who have kept u going for our first hundred years, came to all of our speCial events. We will always be grateful for their past and continuing support. Those attendees who are not NHA members wil l be hearing from me shortly with an invitation and encouragement to become annual members.

What's ahead? The centennial year is not over . Special events are scheduled through December. Further, there arc many issues critical to the association that we will be addressing. The NHA owns 26 properties. Many are in dire need of maintenance. Some have been closed to the public because we lack the funding necessary for proper interpretation. We have presented two spectacularly successful exhibitions this past summer: the China Trade Show and the Nantucket Lightship Basket Show. Both were generously underwritten. We want to mount similar exhibitions featuring other facets of our collections. Our Education Program has languished for lack of adequate staffing.

In short, the Nantucket Historical Association has come a long way in a hundred years, but there are still plans, issues, and needs to be addressed as we commence year one hundred one.

Mr. Nathaniel Philbrick Mrs. L. William Seidman Mrs. Susan Beegel TiHney Mr. David H. Wood

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C. Marshall Beale

Historic Nantucket welcomes articles on any aspect of Nantucket his-

tory . Original research, firsthand accounts, and reminiscences of island experiences, historic logs, letters, and phoiographs are examples of materials of interest to our reaaers. We expecf articles to be entertaining and instructive for a general audience and to adhere to high standards of historical accuracy. Although Historic Nantucket laCks the space to print notes or bibliow.aphies, we encourage our authors to use docum en tation and will make annotated copies available at the l\THA's Research Center. Historic Na ntucket strives to publish enjoyable reading that will promote public appreciation of Nantucket s history and preserve important mformafion about the island's past.

Historic Nantucket (ISSN 0439-2248) is published quarterly as a privilege of membership by the Nantucket Historical Association,

5 Washington Street, Nantucket, MA 02554 Second.-class postage paid at Nantucket, MA Postmaster: Send address changes to Historic Nantucket, Box 1016,

Nantucket, MA 02554-1016 FAX 508.228.5618

WHAT'S NEWS AT THE NHA The Antiques Show he NHA's Seventeenth Annual Antiques Show was a great success thanks to the impeccable planning of show chairman Aileen Newquist who, with her dedicated and hard-working committee, mounted what many of the exhibitors and those who attended called the best show ever.

Honorary chair for the 1994 Antiques Show was Grace Grossman. Mrs. Grossman's contributions to the Nantucket Historical Association have been numerous and important. Perhaps the most special is our Museum Shop, a gem that we owe to her vision and leadership. The NHA is most grateful for her guidance and dedication over the years, and for her strong personal commitment to help preserve Nantucket's precious heritage.

The week-long event, featuring forty respected dealers from all over the nation, began on Monday evening, August 8, with the Friends of the NHA lecture. Albert Sack, an authority on early American furniture, shared his knowledge and insights

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Annual Meeting

Richard Brecker supervising the president, Kimberly Corkran as she cuts the birthday cake.

Photo: Doug I3urch

with an enthusiastic audience, who also enjoyed the cocktail reception following Mr. Sack's presentation.

Wednesday saw the exhibitors gathered at the Thomas Macy Warehouse for an informal dinner and social evening. The theme for Thursday's gala preview party, catered by Sarah Leah Chase, was Nantucket of Yesteryear, and several mannequins dressed in period costumes and perched upon a roof walk set the scene beautifully.

Many other events filled the schedule of the busy week. Chris Casson Madden spoke on the Decorator Showhouse, and a twoday symposium on the history of early American trade in the Pacific, featuring the presentations of five Grace Grossman, C. Marshall Beale, Aileen Newquist, historians with expertise on the sub- and Kimberly Corkran at the opening of the show. ject, attracted an interested audi- Photo: Sybille Stillger Andersen ence.

The show included a memorial turing scrimshaw of The Oldest House tribute to the late Edouard Stackpole, and The Old Mill, a catered dinner for ten Nantucket's internationally known mar- at 99 Main Street, and a host of other wonitime historian and past president of the derful items. association.

Again this year the Chase Manhattan The traditional raffle included many Private Bank was the title sponsor of the impressive prizes: a trip to St. Barth's, a show, and we thank them for their continlightship basket by The Golden Basket fea- uing interest and support. here was standing room only in the main dining room of the Jared Coffin House as more than a hundred association members gathered for the NHA's centennial year annual meeting. Regular business was transacted and annual reports presented.

The president, Kimberly Corkran, introduced Laurie Champion and David Wood, the newest members of the board of trustees, and Carl Crossman, who has consulted on and participated in some of the NHA's special centennial features and exhibits.

A well-deserved round of applause followed Joan Brecker's report on the activities of the centennial committee. Their ambitious undertaking has met with outstanding success.

Following the business meeting special guest Dr. Benjamin Franklin (as portrayed by actor Bill Meikle) traded ideas and comments with members of the audience for a half-hour of humor and sparkling plain talk.

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The annual meeting concluded with refreshments featuring the NHA's lOOth birthday cake.

"Dr. Franklin" confers with the executive director, C. Marshall Beale.

Photo: Doug I3urch

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ITEMS OF INTEREST Recent Acquisitions Betsy Tyler, NHA Research Librarian hanks to the generosity of several interested donors, the Research Center has added four collections of nineteenthcentury family papers and letters to its priceless inventory.

Carol and Bill LeGray of Livonia, Michigan, have given us the Thomas Edward Coffin papers. These contain an assortment of family correspondence concerning young Coffin who, as a boy, joined his parents, Eliza Ann (Worth) Coffin and Alexander Hall Coffin, on a tragic voyage. The ship Manchester sailed on a trading expedition from New York to Valparaiso in 1854. It was wrecked in the Tierra del Fuego group, and Thomas Edward's mother drowned in the accident. The boy, his father, and two crew members made it to shore, but not to safety. A month later local tribesmen killed Alexander, and shortly afterward one of the crew succumbed to illness. Thomas Edward and the other sailor were taken in by another local tribe who treated them as slaves, but they averted starvation. This episode in Thomas Ed ward Coffin's life was recorded by Phebe Ann Hanaford in her 1867 moralist adventure tale, The Captive Boy of Tierra del Fuego. A copy of the book is in the center's rare book collection. The Thomas Edward Coffin papers include letters written by Alexander Hall Coffin prior to the fateful voyage and other, later, correspondence among family members in Ohio, Michigan, and Nantucket.

Another collection of Coffin family material was given to us by Tristram Coffin Carpenter of Norwood, Massachusetts. Documents in this collection prove that Moses Coffin (1799-1882) took command of the Nantucket whaleship John Jay in 1827.

Alexander Starbuck's History of the American Whale Fishery states that the John Jay's first mate was "lost," and that the second mate died of injuries inflicted by the captain, Alexander Drew. Letters and official papers in this collection show that third mate Moses Coffin was made master of the vessel by authority of the U. S. Consul at Valparaiso, Chile. Alexander Drew was

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returned to Nantucket in irons aboard the John Jay. There is no evidence that Moses pursued a further seagoing career. Letters to him in the 1840s and 1860s are addressed to Unionville, Massachusetts.

It would be interesting for someone to research the fate of Captain Drew.

The third collection of family letters consists of the 1850s correspondence of the Brown, Marshall, and Pinkham families of Nantucket. These were given to us in memory of Florence Farrier Hall by Helen Marshall Hall Brown. A member of the Hall family has volunteered to help sort and describe the papers to give us what is sure to be a fascinating look into life on the island 140 years ago.

The business papers of Charles G. and Henry Coffin are the fourth of these important gifts. This extensive collection includes letters and papers of Micajah Coffin (1734-1827), Zenas Coffin (1764-1828), Charles G. Coffin (1801-1882), and Henry Coffin (1807-1900). Also in the collection are ships' papers for many of the more than a dozen whaling vessels owned by the family. Of particular interest are letters from ship captains at sea to the owners in Nantucket. Miles and Henry G. Carlisle, Jr., the donors of this impressive collection, are direct descendants of Henry Coffin and summer in the house he built at 75 Main Street. Their attic has provided a gold mine of precious information that we will preserve and make available to researchers.

Perhaps your attic contains Nantucket treasures that we can help to preserve.

Take a look! We are interested in twentieth-century material as well as older items.

Dates to

The Stackpole Papers

Files from the Stackpole collection.

Photo: Sybille Stillger Andersen hanks to funds raised by summer-long sales of raffle tickets for the prize of G. S. Hill's original oil painting Nantu cket Harbor-1894 and a substantial donation by an anonymous donor, the NHA is slightly more than half way toward accomplishing its goal of raising enough money to cover the cost of cataloging and archiving Edouard A. Stackpole's papers.

This extensive, and priceless, collection includes whaleships' logs, letters and journals from the "golden age" of Nantucket's whaling era, and hundreds of clippings, photographs, and miscellaneous documents that shed light on virtually every facet of the island's fascinating history.

The NHA welcomes and appreciates donations and gifts that will help to complete this vitally important project. Please send contributions to the Edouard A. Stackpole Fund, Nantucket Historical Association, Post Office Box 1016, Nantucket MA 02554.

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emember

October 13

Lecture by David Lazarus. 7:30PM, Whaling Museum

October 15

Cranberry Fest Gam. 4:30PM, Whaling Museum

October 28

Ghost Gam, Nantucket Ghost Stories. 8 PM, Whaling Museum

November 25

Historian/Musician Tom Goux, Songs of the Sea. 4 PM, Whaling Museum

December 3

Festival of Trees at the Thomas Macy Warehouse

New Gift Idea ur audio-visual archives in the Research Center house more than 20,000 nineteenth - and early twentieth-century photographs of Nantucket scenes. They range from pictures of individuals and houses to landscapes, lighthouses, farms, wharves, fetes, and fairs. Any of these images can be reproduced and are available to association members at attractive rates. Stop in at the Research Center on the second floor of the Peter Foulgcr Museum and browse through our catalogs. Select a favorite or two, and we'll have prints ready for you to frame in time for Christmas giving.

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Polpis Harbor salt haying.

The Old Mill.

Beaching -turn-of-the-century style .

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----.....-~ ---

-¡ Winter scene.

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The Beginnings

Indian Fish and Fishing Off Coastal Massachusetts

by J. Clinton Andreu;s

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erial photography and navigational charts show how near to the surface of the sea lie the Nantucket shoals. Geologists tell us that the floor of the ocean to the south and east of New England was above sea level at the time the Wisconsinan glacier began to recede about eighteen thousand years ago. Rivers of meltwater from the glacier cut trenches and channels through this coastal plain, forming deltas where they met the sea. The ponds, Fish-spear points from the collection of Paul C. Morris, Jr. bays, and harbors of Photo: SybilleStillgerAndersen today were the upper reaches of those streams. Most of the area ed in long sandy points, diverting the between the terminal moraine and the mouths of streams along the shore, or ancient shoreline is now under water, and enclosing bays. Those points are prime the inundation is still going on. The fishing areas.

It is doubtful that the early Indians waves of the ocean erode the higher land and throw sand bars across the depres- fished the ocean side of the points the way sions. Comparison of modern maps and modern anglers do. On the protected bay charts with the earliest ones shows the side the sand drops sharply into waters of recession of the shoreline and the erosion varying depths. Fish follow the shores and temporary replacement of barrier closely, bringing them within easy reach. beaches and sandy points. Personal obser- Before the introduction of otter trawling vation convinces me that the erosion at the (c. 1900) summer flounder were plentiful surf line extends as far below the surface here. They could be caught with a torch as the height of land above it. Some of the and spear at night, when many fish come sand stirred up by this process is deposit- close to l and. No elaborate gear was

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required.

We assume the technique the Indians used was to pin the fish to the sand with a simple sharpened stick, then grasp it by the gills and toss it ashore. Skate could be caught the same way. As there is no calcium in the skeletal structure of skate, no residue exists to show whether or not the Indians ate them as well.

The smooth dogfish, or shark, is like the skate, good to eat and easy to catch, but with no hard parts to survive over time and leave an archaeological record behind.

A fish weir would also be effective along these shores. A fish weir is a barrier of netting or brush anchored to the bottom at right angles to the shore. It ends in a circular or heart-shaped enclosure with an opening on one or both sides of the leader.

Schools of fish tend to swim parallel to obstructions, so after entering the enclosure they circle around the walls . When they reach the vicinity of the entrance they are headed away from it. Since they are unable to look backwards, they do not discover the way to escape, so continue cir-

cling. Once confined, the fish may be taken out with a net. Larger ones may be speared. If the tidal range is great enough, they may be stranded at low tide.

Striped bass, which were highly prized by both Indians and early settlers, run into the salt marsh creeks and ponds on a rising tide in late June. When the tide begins to ebb they head back to deeper waters in a rush. A traditional method of catching them is to place a temporary blockage across the channel, leaving a gap that herds the fish into a net, or spearing them as they pass through the narrow slot. At Muskcgct Island, west of Nantucket, both a long point and an inner bay provide a double choice of good fishing spots. I have seen schools of large bass three to four feet long rooting the bottom of the inner bay.

A well-documented species is the alewife. Tradition has it that the Indians used the alewife as fertilizer for their corn crops. It is certainly the easiest fish to catch in great numbers with the most primitive equipment. Alewives figure prominently in the accounts of early settlers, probably because they were such an important source of food.

Herring cured in various ways were as common a food for the English of that time as hamburgers arc for us today.

Nantucket's Madakct Ditch was dug by the combined efforts of settlers and Indians. The Indians were allotted half of the catch of a fish weir in Long Pond, provided they tended it diligently; history does not record whether or not they did so. The Madakct Ditch herring run continues to this day, and some twenty thou-

A portion of the Paul Morris collection.

Photo: Sybille Stillger Andersen

sand fish run through it each year.

Today's catch, however, is very small, as is the market for alewives.

Alewives are a schooling fish, moving

Fish-spear points found on Nantucket by Paul Morris.

Photo: Sybille Stillger Andersen

in large groups that act as a single large fish, which is why they can be herded into a fish weir with such ease. When they run up a small brook they may separate and move individually through shallow stretches, where they are easily scooped up. I3ut there is some sort of communication among them, and unless some get through safely the run will stop until the way is clear.

White perch run in the opposite direction, between alewife runs. In the spring alewives move from salt water into fresh water ponds to spawn. White perch go from the ponds to spawn in the brackish water of estuaries . They bite readily at baited hooks. It is assumed that the Indians used nets to catch these small fish .

I would like to know about the type of net they made. Nets are quite bulky as opposed to spears and lines. A lot of labor goes into the making of a net, particularly when one has to manufacture the cord as well as knit the mesh. Natural fiber nets require a lot of care in drying and must be stored safely when not in use, protected from the ravages of weather and rodents.

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Stone plummets, net weights, and bone fishhook.

Illustration courtesy of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society

On Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard the ponds of the south shore have been connected to the sea by digging a ditch across the barrier beach when the pond level is high. The pond water rushes out, cutting a wide channel and dropping the pond level to that of the ocean. This allows alewives to enter the pond and eels to leave it. Fishing has to be done in the short time before the channel gets too wide and deep, or before the natural forces of the tides close it up again. It is believed by today' s fishermen that this practice of opening the ponds originated with the Indians long, long ago.

People using primitive equipment depend on great concentrations of fish to be successful. When the surf breaks over the barrier beaches of the fresh or brackish

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water ponds, eels, white perch, and winter flounders swarm at the very edge of the sand, particularly at night. Eels may be picked up by hand when they are left stranded between surges of the ocean waves crossing the beach. In fall, the inner beach is where the mature eels in breeding condition, with large eyes and bronze and silver coloring, cruise back and forth waiting for the storm swells to wash over the beach. These eels were called "eeshaws" by the Indians, and are still known by that name on the islands.

This is one of the principal reasons leading us to believe that many of the fishing methods and much of the fishing gear originated with the Indians rather than with the European colonists.

Eels were a staple food of the early set-

tiers and, apparently, for the Indians as well. In winter eels hibernate in muddy areas where they can be speared through holes cut in the ice.

The prongs of the island's traditional eel spear terminate in hooks that grasp the eel when the spear is pulled up. This design differs from the European trident, which ends in sharp barbed points.

There is a spring run of eels as well. Beginning with the first warm rain after the ice has melted, eels that have wintered in the muddy bottoms of ponds and estuaries work their way to the salt water. They progress slowly and in the daytime, or when the temperature drops, they shelter in aquatic vegetation. Finding and catching eels during this migration is also very easy.

When salt water comes into the ponds, yellow perch and pickerel move as far from it as they can. Both take a hook very well, and pickerel often lie motionless at the surface ncar weed beds and can be speared from a canoe.

Ocean fishing centers on the codfish . Since the European codfishermen left no records, we don't know when their influence began to be felt over here . Wire fishhooks, which could increase their catch enormously, were a most important trade item for primitive people.

William Wood wrote in 1633 that their lines were " . . . wrought of stronger materials than ours."

The records of Nantucket's early settlers indicate that the Indians became very good codfishermen, but by that time they were fishing for trade, not for subsistence.

The fact that large cod often stranded on the outer beaches in the fall complicates relating their remains in midden s to prehistoric deep sea fishing. A few vertebrae used as ornaments could have come from stranded fish. However, many early accounts tell that the Indians did use their canoes in the ocean, and we know that they went back and forth between Nantucket and the mainland on a regular basis. It is not realistic to expect to find deep sea fishing equipment discarded in refuse pits because it would likely have been lost to large fish before being com-

pletc!y worn out.

Pollock and hake are caught with cod, and hake are subject to stranding even more than cod. Mackerel go through extreme cycles of abundance and scarcity that have not yet been related to either weather conditions or fishing pressure.

Some years mackerel are plentiful and swarm into harbors and creeks in great numbers. Along with herring they are an important food fish for the larger predators of the ocean. These predators, and marine mammals, drive the mackerel into even the smallest creeks and marshes.

William Wood noted that so many might be stranded that people could carry away all they could use. When not disturbed, mackerel bite readily at bait. Tautog, a fish inhabiting rocky areas, have been found in middens on Martha's Vineyard. This is a little surprising because tautog don't come close to shore at Nantucket. They have a hard mouth with heavy, rounded teeth, adapted for crushing shellfish. The Indian gear for catching tautog must have been sturdier than some of the bone hooks with which we are familiar. Tautog, the Indian name for this fish, is also its common name and the scientific name, an unusual circumstance in technical nomenclature.

Unless the balance of fish populations has been changed by modern fishing methods, sea robin should show up somewhere in middens. Their skulls are durable and distinctive. Sea robin are edible, and it is hard to do any bottom fishing without catching some of them. They also tend to strand when arriving in early spring.

Scup are in the Martha's Vineyard middens. Some follow the inner shores of the

Skate-dart harpoon point from Morris collection.

Photo: Sybille Stillger Andersen

depositional sandy points.

Most are caught in deeper water. They are great bait stealers and not easily hooked.

Scup are quite plentiful and are around throughout the summer.

Sea bass go with the scup, more often in schools, but are not found so frequently. Bass have a large mouth, grow to a substantial size, and take a hook readily.

At various times in Nantucket's history bluefish have played an important role.

Older fishermen thought that bluefish were important to the Indians, but I have no reference as to how they caught them. Dory fishermen found long lines of passing bluefish and could get near enough alongside to toss an eelskin lure and catch some. These fish could have been speared from a canoe. However, I have never seen an Indian artifact that could have been used as a lure.

I31uefish have disappeared Fish-spear points from the Morris collection. from Nantucket waters from Photo: Sybille Stillger Andersen time to time and for varying To summarize our knowledge of Indian periods of time according to both legends and records. One Indian legend says that, fishing it is fair to say that we don't have a in prehistoric times, the bluefish disap- great deal. In contrast to professional peared and an old sachem prophesied that explorers, fishermen have always been too they would return when Nantucket suf- secretive to leave many records of their fered a disastrous fire. That legend is still activities. Most of the tools of the trade are remembered and, at times, events have too fragile to survive over long periods of time. Those artifacts which do survive are convinced some people of its validity. unusually important because fishing is so involved with the culture of the people. Some activities can be inferred from the materials that have survived. Netmaking is often a family affair, and their use requires the cooperation of many individuals.

Therefore, the fabrication and use of large nets can be presumed to indicate a society as stable as one engaged in agriculture.

Mr. Andrews's article was first published, as entitled, in the Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archeological Society in 1986 and is reprinted here by permission of the society.

Shortly before Mr. Andrews passed away earlier this year, the author told us that he was delighted to have the article reprinted in Historic Nantucket.

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The Way It Was

Dory Fishing

by Arthur McCleave, as told to Henry Carlisle

Fishing on the south shore.

In 1959 the late Henry Carlisle spoke with Arthur McCleave, then aged 83, about his experiences in the fishing grounds off Nantucket . This is a transcript of that tape-recorded conversation. Arthur McCleave died in 1964 at the age of 88 .

Arthur, they tell me you've been fishing off the beach in dories for over sixty years.

Now how did all this start?

Well, in the early days before I can remember, fishin' was done in boats about the size of whale boats, manned by six men.

And that was not a dory?

Very much larger. Each man kept what fish he caught, and they were all threw together, and in order to distinguish them they had private marks such as a slit tail or a cut across the head, and so forth. When they landed on the beach they had so

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many fights over dividing up the fish that they abandoned the large boats and took to large skiffs manned by two men. The skiffs did not prove to be practical for landing on the beach in rough weather.

Then someone introduced the dory which proved to be the best type of boat for shoving in and landing through the surf.

That was about, ah, eighteen hundred 'n' ninety. About the time I started fishin', in 1891, there were about forty dories fishin' from 'Sconset, twenty from Quidnet, and a few from Wauwinet. These were all one-man dories, thirteen foot on the bottom and seventeen foot over all.

Each man had a fish house on the beach where he dressed and salted his catch, and durin' the fishin' season, October to Thanksgivin' and March to June, we all had a small house on the beach to live in.

In those days everyone salted their fish.

We would keep them under salt for four days, wash them out and dry them on the

flakes for four days, and then ship them to Boston, Providence, New Bedford, and to wholesale grocers.

It would be at least a month before we received any money from the time we caught the fish. Now after the fall season was over, around Thanksgivin', we would double up-that is, we would go two men to a dory-larger dories. These dories would be fifteen foot on the bottom and about twenty feet over all. We would live in town and drive to Surfside with a horse and wagon. At Surfside, we'd fish for haddock with trawls. Each dory would have four tubs of trawls, five hundred hooks in each tub.

That's two thousand hooks. Is that right?

Each dory. My dory mate and myself have often landed five or six hundred fish in one dory. We would start from town at four a.m. and it would often be one a.m. the next mornin' before we were through

of January . We had four ten-line tubs out. Y'know, that's with two thousand hooks.

And it come up snow squalls, the wind breezed up nor'west, and we had about four hundred fish in'er-big codfish-and we was just gettin' ready to dump 'em overboard. The boat started to roll and we'd fill her every time, y'know, so one man was just pad'Sconset fish dray on the beach at the foot of the gully. dlin'. My pardbaiting up two thousand hooks and ready ncr says, "Are we gainin'?" I says, "Sure."

We was goin' astern all the time. There to go again .

Well, did you bait them every day happened to be a vessel out there and he was lookin' for us. It was comin' up-the two thousand hooks?

At night. Bait 'em at night, have 'em all snow squall was comin' up-and he shot ready to go the next mornin'. Then we up alongside. He says, "Boys, you're had to open clams first, for bait. Had to takin' long chances." We says, "We know dress the fish, ice 'em out, and pack 'em. it." So we hove out a couple hundred on That's when we were fresh fishin', y'know his deck, and he towed us in under ... y'had to pack them.

'Sconset. We made two trips ashore with the fish, what we had in the dory and Why, that's a terrible day.

You know it! You used to work twenty, what he had on deck, and we had to hire a twenty-two hours steady. horse and wagon from 'Sconset from Jim And nobody could do it now, could Coffin to bring part of them to town. So they? that night he parted, this vessel parted God no. They don' t try- he, he. We that towed us in. had a dory at Wauwinet, 'Sconse t, What do you mean "parted"?

Surfside, and 'Sachacha.

Parted his cable. The only thing that One in each place? saved him was a Lathrop engine. He'd Durin' the winter if 'twas too rough to get off in one place, we could fish at another, see, and we used to fish all winter.

Now, let me get the kind of fish straight. There was, it was codfish except at Surfside, and Surfside was-Yup, haddock. It was haddock at Surfside. Of course, we got some codfish mixed in, y'know, but it was mostly haddock at Surfside.

And bluefish. We used to get bluefish to 'Sconset in the summer.

It was a common occurrence for someone to smash up a dory in Iandin' on the beach. But in those days we would chip up and buy him a new one the same night.

That's the way we worked them days.

Tirey must have had a few narrow escapes or close calls in that work.

Well, we had a few. I remember one particular. We was off Sankaty, thirteenth South-shore landing.

start her up-'twas a moonlight night and run in under the land fer ten minutes and let her drift ten minutes. And the next mornin' it was down to three. The only thing that saved him was that Lathrop engine. If that engine'd ever played out he'd have gone on the beach.

But you were -you'd gone ashore.

Yeah, we'd gone ashore. Down to thirty-eight when we landed.

And you'd come in in the dark in the middle of the night.

Yeah.

You had your fish, though.

We had the fish. Oh, one time we was off Surfside, my pardner and I. In fact, this pardner I was speakin' about, he and I went together for twenty years. He used to be a skipper out of Boston, big vessels, and his name was Ed Travoy. He was with me in dories. One time we was off Surfside, sou' west of Miacomet Rip, in the winter, and we had so many fish in the dory the seas would come in one sidethe fish was piled up aft-and go out the other. One of us was bail in' with a bucket and the other fella was rowin' til we got by the end of Miacomet Rip . When we landed the keeper of the Surfside Stationthey was all down there when we landed.

We had seven hundred fish in 'er and the keeper says, "Don't never do that again."

He says, "All I could see was the tops of your heads." He says, "We was comin' off, but we didn't think 'twould be any use." And this was in the middle of winter.

We had seven hundred fish, and they were cod and haddock mixed.

They shoved in the dory and took out three hundred of 'em before we landed .

....

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We was about that much out of the water, that's all.

They averaged four or five pounds apiece. Now that' s a load. That's seven hundred fish in a dory.

Now, one of the worst things, the hardest, was getting the lines baited and cutting the bait.

Yes, yes, cut the bait. Open the clams. Sometimes we had to use quahogs, sometimes we used sea clams, sometimes soft clams-whatever we could get.

How did they get sea clams? I've seen them after a storm here on the beach. How did you get them without a storm?

Oh, there was a lot in the harbor at one time. They used to tong them. Use tongs, y'know. You've seen tongs.

We used scallop rims, too.

Codfish Park.

Aren't they very soft?

Yeah. We used to put 'em on the bench and let 'em drain instead of pickin' them up in your hand, hookin' them on. We used to put the hook in and wind 'em around the hook, They'd stay on better than any bait there was. They'd dry right on the hook. Best bait there was.

Let's have a little more detail on this hook trawling.

Fish shacks on 'Sconset beach. â&#x20AC;˘ Gang ion: an extension of the line or leader

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Well, we'd have four tubs. They were sugar barrels cut off about two thirds of the way up. We'd have these lines, what we call sixteen-pound lines, about half as big as your finger, and every six feet apart we'd tie on a ganjun* with a hook on the end and it would hang down from the big line. And we'd anchor on one end. \'/hen

you first started yo u ' d throw out an anchor w ith the trawl attached to it, t hen one man would row and the other fella would throw these h ooks out and they'd run about two miles to the four tubs . When we got 'em all out we'd drop an anchor on the other end then leave it for about an hour. Sometim es we'd row back to th e other end to start the haul. Sometimes we'd lay on that e nd where we dropped . All d epended on the tide and cond itions, y' know.

We'd be over in about an hour and a half. We got codfish and haddock. One fella would haul and the other fella' d coil in the tub and coil it all back . Then they'd have a gaff. Come to a fish, just hook the gaff in and slip 'em in.

But when y ou coil with a thousand hooks on, you've really got a job of keeping it from getting tangled.

Oh no, no trouble at all. Just lay 'em in there, every hook's right on top.

It's the way you haul 'em. When you come to bait up you don't touch the ground line at all. You just pick up the hooks and bait 'em.

The way you say it, it sounds easy.

But if you took a greenho rn and did it . ..

He wouldn't last five m inutes, hell no.

I've seen greenhorns start to go trawl in'.

They'd see how 'twas d one and one day they'd never tackle it. Another d ay they'd get all balled up. I had an old fella with me one winter, trawlin ' . W e was off Quidnet, it breezed up nor'east and we had a big load of fish on-three or four hundred. It breezed up, getting rougher and rougher every minute. 'Course, every sea on the beach was a breaker. No chance to land a'tall. So on the way in I says, "Johnny, when she strikes the beach, drop your oars and jump. Never mind the dory, never mind the oars or anything.

Just jump and get clear of the dory."

"Well," he says, "my grandfather was drowned and I had one brother drowned." So I says, "You're damned conso lin' . You think we're goin' to drown today?" And he says, "We might, you seaweed." When we did land, the next sea leveled us right off. After we struck the beach the next sea filled 'er full of water, washed the fish out . That's when you have to look out, when you're Iandin'.

You're liable to get hurt when them dories hit you.

What It May Become

Aquaculture: Tomorrow's Fishery

by Douglas K. Burch

Martin Ceely with fi rst mate "Caller."

The oyster farm.

Photos: Doug Burch

......,here's a farm ou t in Polpis that may very well be the harbinger of the fishcries of tomorrow.

Ten acres of the shallows at the northeastern quarter of the entrance to Polpis Harbor have been home to Martin Ceely's oyster farm since 1980 . He states: "We

1

Setting seed oysters.

chose this particular location because in order to get a grant to begin with you have to go into an unproductive area where there are not a lot of shellfish for commercial or domestic taking . This whole area had to be surveyed by the state - a random survey to find out what was

here. I knew this place was unproductive and I knew this would be a good place to grow oysters because you've got fresh water coming out of the estuary over to the east and the Polpis Harbor on the south . You get a lot of food early in the spring and a lot of food late in the fall and

Constructing rebar racks.

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"If you start out with a million oysters, and they all live, in three years you'd probably have about two to three hundred thousand ready for market; the fourth year, six hundred thousand; and it would take that fifth year to get the final two hundred thousand to market. The rate of growth depends upon the quality of the water, the food in the water; but what determines one oyster to grow faster than another we don't really know."

Adult oysters are taken from the farm to the town's marine laboratory on Brant Point, where they spawn. The hatchery has been developed at the lab to assure that only disease-free seed is planted A half-inch pen at low tide with growing oysters. in the farm. The larval oysters in the hatchery it sweeps right across here, so it's a very attach themselves to tiny individual pieces good area to grow oysters. It always was. of ground-up oyster shells rather than "Years ago there was a large natural growing together in a clump, as is often bed of oysters over in what's known as the the case in nature. When the larvae have meadows at the entrance to Polpis Harbor started to develop their shells, the seed is till they got wiped out. That's the reason I returned to the farm where the growing took this area -knowing that it wasn't process takes place. productive."

The farm produces these "single set" Today, long rack systems of rebar oysters exclusively. Single-set oysters are frames supporting plastic bags holding the top of the line, served at raw bars, for millions of oysters in various stages of Oysters Rockefeller, and for other treats development stretch hundreds of feet requiring single shellfish as opposed to across the flats. In the early days of the farm large seed was merely placed on the bottom and allowed to grow. Severe wind storms blew most of the seed up on the beach, and more than 80 percent of the potential crop was lost.

Following that disastrous experience, floating racks fastened together with chains served as pens to contain the growing oysters, but once again severe storms broke up the gear and another crop was lost. Today's racks, firmly secured to the bottom, hold together w ell, can withstand the pressures of all but hurricane-force storms, and have successfully produced an initial crop of mature, market-sized oysters.

There's a lot more to oyster farming than merely planting seed and waiting for it to grow. It takes three to five years to grow an oyster to market size. They don't all grow at the same rate. Ceely explains, Mature oysters ready for market.

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bulk oysters as in stews and chowd ers.

Oyster farming is a lab or-in te n sive business. The oysters have to be hand led at least five times before they have grown to market size and are read y to be shipped off. The tiny seed oysters, abou t the size of the nail on your little finger, are p ut into plastic bags with an eighth -inch m esh.

Each eighth-inch bag contains 5,000 oysters. As they grow, they are moved to larger bags, or pens. There are 1,600 oysters in each of the quarter-inch pens, 600 in each of the half-inch pens, and 200 in the final, three-quarter-inch pens, wh ich are removed from the racks and laid on the bottom for the last few week s of growth.

If the crop holds up well, the return on the yield is sufficiently h igh so tha t the whole enterprise is economically feasible.

Once the sequence is established and new seed is set as the mature oysters are harvested, the whole three-to-five-year cycle is self perpetuating. If nat ural perils don't cause too many casualties along the way, the oyster farm becomes a productive and profitable business.

Ceely expects to harvest his first profitable crop of marketable oysters in the summer of 1995, provid ed that w inter storms and temperatur es are no t too extreme. "Whatever else," he says, "we have to remember that we're dealing with Mother Nature here. We can do everything possible to assure a safe and healthy set of oysters, to protect them from predators, keep them clean and uncrowded; but a bad storm or a long deep freeze can cancel out an awful lot of hard work, just as in any other kind of farming."

WE CouLN'T Do IT WITHOUT You ... he Friends of the Nantucket Historical Association have been busy during the T past year, and the association's collections have benefited greatly from this dedicated activity.

In addition to the Walter Folger, Jr., tall case clock and the log of the second voyage of the Nantucket whaleship Alpha, noted in last winter's is sue of Ilistoric Nantucket, the Friends have acquired at auction the log of the ship Nantucket, 1855-59, a collection of French and American whaling prints, and, in memory of Mr. John W. Eckman, the log of the ship Maria, the log of the whaleship Nantucket, 1837-1845, and the personal journal of Captain Anthony Smalley of Nantucket.

Captain Smalley commanded the 13oston ships Jennie Cushman, Emma C. Latham, and Annie Fairfax on trading voyages to Africa, Portugal, and the Cape Verde

islands from 1870 to 1884. The Friends also provided one half of the matching funds to obtain the William Swain portraits of Obed and Abigail Macy.

Once again, we extend our sincerest thanks to The Friends of the NHA for their continuing and invaluable contributions to the work of the association.

Help Needed s the association's outstandingly successful China Trade exhibit departs the Peter Foulger Museum's display space to travel to a limited engagement at New York City's South Street Seaport, the business of moving NHA's administrative offices to the second floor of the building is getting under way.

A

Your staff members are delighted at the prospect of occupying up-to-date, efficient, and comfortable quarters. The administration is equally pleased about the significant savings in operating costs to be realized by the move into this modern building.

While all of the equipment presently in use at the Old Town Building headquarters will be installed in the Peter Foulger offices, we lack several essential items, and hope that you NHA members and friends may be able to provide us with one or more of them. Our "wish list" includes: A Macintosh SE 30 (or better) computer A Macintosh StyleWriter II printer A 386 (or better) compatible computer Office desks and chairs Printer stands

If you are able to contribute any of these, please contact the NHA office at (508) 228-1894. We will arrange for pick up and delivery.

Macy Portraits Come Home brief article about the campaign to A return the nineteenth-century Willia m Swain portraits of Obed and Abigai l Macy to Nantucket appeared in the spring 1994 issue of Historic Nantucket.

Tha t story has a happy ending.

The NHA was able to provide half of the funds required to purchase the portraits from a Cape Cod an tiques dealer and return them to Nantucket.

Nantucketer Orrin Macy, an eleventh-generation descendant of one of the island 's original settlers, Thomas Macy, then organized the Macy Acquisition Committee to raise enough addit ional money to complete the transaction. Letters asking for contributions to the fund were sent to more than a thousand descendants of Obed and Abigail Macy. A modest but encouraging response resulted, aided by a major contribution from the Josiah Macy, Jr., Foundation.

As the deadline for the sale approached, the fund, still far short of the necessary total, was suddenly put over the top by two generous donations. The first came from Judith and Richard Macy 13iggs, who resided at 99 Main Street several years ago when the portraits hung there.

The final, and crucial, donation was

Tom, Lois, Dee, Orrin, and Millie Macy welcome the portraits home.

Photo: Sybille Stillger Andersen

from an anonymous donor who explained the reason for the gift this way: "During the great depression of the 1930s our family was very badly off. One day my mother went to the R.H. Macy department store in New York City and bought a set of dining room-furniture. The store sold it to her for a dollar down and twenty-five cents a week. During the years that followed Mother fell behind on her payments more than once, but Macy's never pressed her. Ultimately she paid off the entire debt, and she never shopped anywhere else for the rest of her life.

When I learned of the drive to secure the funds to acquire the portraits I looked at that set of furniture, which we have in our home here on Nantucket today, and remembered the gentle, thoughtful way the Macy store treated my mother. This gift is my way of showing appreciation for that kind understanding."

The William Swain portraits of Obed and Abigail Macy are now displayed on the balcony of the Peter Foulger Museum for Nantucket residents and visitors to see and admire.

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THE MUSEUM SHOP

This centennial Christmas provides the finale to an exciting and successful year.

Several items specially produced for NHA's centennial make excellent gifts, gifts that are also unique mementos of this banner year.

The NHA calendar for 1995 features 100-year-old photographs of Nantucket scenes and people, and daily vignettes noting historic happenings through the years.

Our centennial plate is decorated with hand-painted illustrations of historic island sites . The plate is boxed and comes with a description of each location and its place in Nantucket history.

Beautifully illustrated descriptive catalogs of the association's two major centennial exhibitions-The Lightship Baskets of Nantucket: A Continuing Craft-and From Brant Point to the Boca Tigris: Nantucket and the China Trade-are important additions to every island library.

These and other fine items may be ordered by mail or telephone.

Association members receive a discount of 10% from the prices listed here.

NHA 1995 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . $ 10.95 Centennial Plate with Seal . . . .

37.00 Centennial Plate minus Seal...

35.00 China Trade Catalog . . . . . . . . . . 25.00 Lightship Baskets Catalog . . . . . 10.00 Shipping and handling costs-$3.00 for books and calendar, $6.00 for plates-are in addition.

The Museum Shop Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Reproductions and Adaptations Featuring Fine China, Furniture, Brass, and Silver Adjacent to the Whaling Museum, Nantucket (508)-228-5785 Members of th e Historical Associa tion are entitled to a 10% cliscount u pon presenting their membership card.