The Bounty of the Chesapeake Part 6

Mt. Vernon, 1786. Sir: ... Mrs. Washington joins me in thanking you also for your kind present of pickled oysters which were very fine.

This mark of your politeness is flattering and we beg you to accept every good wish of ours in return.

When in 1770 a notice appeared in the _Virginia Gazette_ about the proposed academy in New Kent County an added attraction was featured: "Among other things the fine fishery at the place will admit of an agreeable and salutary exercise and amus.e.m.e.nt all the year." It was the Chickahominy river, a tributary of the James, that was referred to.

Fishing is still "agreeable" there. Citizens of Richmond, recreation-bent, throng to it along with the residents of its banks, many of whom make their living out of it. This is one of the sections where the water, though tidal, is fresh. Anadromous herring, shad, rock and sturgeon are caught. Unlike the salty bay, fish can be caught here the year round. Among them are catfish, carp, perch and ba.s.s.

One of the most accurate and vivid reporters of Colonial Virginia plantation life was Philip Vickers Fithian, tutor to the family of Councillor Robert Carter of Nominy Hall on the lower Potomac river. In his _Journals_ are appetizing references to seafood:

1774, March: With Mr. Randolph, I went a-fishing, but we had only the luck to catch one apiece.

April. We had an elegant dinner; beef and greens, roast pig, fine boiled rockfish.

July. We dined today on the fish called the sheepshead, with crabs.

Twice every week we have fine fish.

On the edges of these shoals in Nominy River or in holes between the rocks is plenty of fish.

Well, Ben, you and Mr. Fithian are invited by Mr. Turberville, to a fish feast tomorrow, said Mr. Carter when we entered the Hall to dinner.

As we were rowing up Nominy we saw fishermen in great numbers in canoes and almost constantly taking in fish,--ba.s.s and perch.

This is a fine sheepshead, Mr. Stadly [the music master], shall I help you? Or would you prefer a ba.s.s or a perch? Or perhaps you will rather help yourself to some picked crab. It is all extremely fine, sir, I'll help myself.

August. Each Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day, we dine on fish all the summer, always plenty of rock, perch, and crabs, and often sheepshead and trout.

September. We dined on fish and crabs, which were provided for our company, tomorrow being fish day.

September. Dined on fish,--rock, perch, fine crabs, and a large fresh mackerel.

I was invited this morning by Captain Tibbs to a barbecue. This differs but little from the fish feasts, instead of fish the dinner is roasted pig, with the proper appendages, but the diversion and exercise are the very same at both.

An English traveler in 1759, Andrew Burnaby, registered his wonder at the way fish were taken in the reaches of the Chesapeake:

Sturgeon and shad are in such prodigious numbers [in Chesapeake Bay] that one day within the s.p.a.ce of two miles only, some gentlemen in canoes caught above six hundred of the former with hooks, which they let down to the bottom and drew up at a venture when they perceived them to rub against a fish; and of the latter above five thousand have been caught at one single haul of the seine.

The "gentlemen" concerned were obviously not slaves serving the needs of a plantation, but, judging from the amount caught, expert commercial fishermen. The sturgeon, after the roe was removed, were stacked in carts and peddled in nearby towns. The shad, after as many as possible were sold fresh, were salted down.

The snagging of big sturgeon as recounted by the French traveler Francois J. de Chastellux in 1781 remained in common practice into the 20th Century, when the big ones became much scarcer:

As I was walking by the river side [James near Westover], I saw two negroes carrying an immense sturgeon, and on asking them how they had taken it, they told me that at this season they were so common as to be taken easily in a seine and that fifteen or twenty were found sometimes in the net; but that there was a much more simple method of taking them, which they had just been using. This species of monster, which are so active in the evening as to be perpetually leaping to a great height above the surface of the water, usually sleep profoundly at mid-day. Two or three negroes then proceed in a little boat, furnished with a long cord at the end of which is a sharp iron crook, which they hold suspended like a log line. As soon as they find this line stopped by some obstacle, they draw it forcibly towards them so as to strike the hook into the sturgeon, which they either drag out of the water, or which, after some struggling and losing all his blood, floats at length upon the surface and is easily taken.

The frequently met-with term, "fishery," in Colonial writings took on a special meaning as the industry developed. It was used in the sense of what the present Virginia lawbook calls a "regularly hauled fishing landing."

This is usually a sh.o.r.e privately owned where the fronting waters have been cleared of obstructions. The owner, or some one permitted by him, operates a long seine at that place by carrying it offsh.o.r.e in boats and hauling it to land. So long as he thus uses the spot "regularly"

the law protects him, now as in the past, by making it illegal for any other person to fish with nets within a quarter-mile of "any part of the sh.o.r.e of the owner of any such fishery."

The rights to such a property were, and are, in many cases extremely profitable. George Washington was among the Virginia planters zealously caring for their "fisheries."

Often the privilege of using these was advertised in the newspapers or otherwise for rent for a long or short term. Some owners who did not themselves wish to fish counted on their sh.o.r.es to yield rental. One of these, George William Fairfax, must have expressed himself to Washington on the subject, for the latter wrote him in June, 1774:

... As to your fishery at the Racc.o.o.n Branch, I think you will be disappointed there likewise as there is no landing on this side of river that rents for more than one half of what you expect for that, and that on the other side opposite to you (equally good they say) to be had at 15 Maryland currency....

But growing along with this practice was sentiment favoring fishing places open to the general public. When an attempt was made about 1770 to take over certain lands near Cape Henry for private operation, a vigorous protest ensued:

The pet.i.tion of the subscribers, inhabitants of the county of Princess Anne in behalf of themselves and the other inhabitants of this colony, humbly shows: That the point of land called Cape Henry bounded eastward by the Atlantic Ocean, northwardly by Chesapeake Bay, westwardly and southwardly by part of Lynnhaven River and by a creek called Long Creek and the branches thereof, is chiefly desert banks of sand and unfit for tillage or cultivation and contains several thousand acres.

And that for many years past a common fishery has been carried on by many of the inhabitants of said county and others on the sh.o.r.e of the ocean and bay aforesaid, as far as the western mouth of Lynnhaven River. And that during the fishing season the fishermen usually encamp amongst the said sand hills and get wood for fuel and stages from the desert, and that very considerable quant.i.ties of fish are annually taken by such fishery which greatly contributes to the support and maintenance of your pet.i.tioners and their families.

Your pet.i.tioners further show that they have been informed that several gentlemen have pet.i.tioned your Honour to have the land aforesaid granted to them by patent and that one Keeling has lately surveyed a part thereof situated near the mouth of Long Creek aforesaid, and that if a patent should be granted for the same, it would greatly prejudice the said fishery.

Your pet.i.tioners therefore humbly pray that no patent may be granted to any person or persons for the same lands or any part thereof; and that the same may remain a common for the benefit of the inhabitants of this Colony in general for carrying on a fishery and for such public uses as the same premises shall be found convenient.

Even when the new United States Government erected a lighthouse at Cape Henry a careful stipulation was made in the act ceding the property in 1790 that the public were not to be denied fishing privileges there:

Deed of cession of two acres of land at Cape Henry, in Princess Anne County, Virginia, for the purpose of erecting a lighthouse thereon ... provided that nothing contained in this act shall affect the right of this State to any materials heretofore placed at or near Cape Henry for the purpose of erecting a lighthouse, nor shall the citizens be debarred, in consequence of this cession, from the privileges they now enjoy of hauling their seines and fishing on the sh.o.r.es of the said land so ceded to the United States.

When George Washington had come, a newlywed, to be master of Mt. Vernon in 1759 he found the prospects for fishing very satisfying. One of his letters at this time boasted:

A river [the Potomac] well-stocked with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year, and in the spring with shad, herrings, ba.s.s, carp, perch, sturgeon, etc., in great abundance. The borders of the estate are washed by more than ten miles of tidewater, the whole sh.o.r.e, in fact, is one entire fishery.

Washington generously ordered his overseer to admit "the honest poor"

to fishing privileges at one of his sh.o.r.es, a concession that may have been customary among many landowners.

He was a man who believed in keeping records, and so complete a file of them has now been rea.s.sembled at Mt. Vernon that it is possible to follow his career in any phase: officer, business speculator, host, farmer, legislative adviser, and friend. He gave to fishing the painstaking personal attention he gave to all else. As a "fisherman" he directed the manufacture as well as the repair of his nets, and the curing, shipping and marketing of his fish.

It seems obvious that suitable nets were not being manufactured in the desired quant.i.ty or variety in America, otherwise he would hardly have bought his in England.

He dealt with Robert Cary and Co., London, in 1771. Here is a typical order:

One seine, seventy-five fathoms long when rigged for hauling; to be ten feet deep in the middle and eight at the ends with meshes fit for the herring fishery. The corks to be two and a half feet asunder; the leads five feet apart; to be made of the best three-strand (small) twine and tanned.

400 fathom of white inch rope for hauling the above seine. 150 fathom of deep sea line.

To get ready for spring fishing he had to prepare as far ahead as July.

Even then he was not always sure delivery would be on time:

... The goods you will please to forward by the first vessel for Potomac (which possibly may be Captain Jordan the bearer of this) as there are some articles that will be a good deal wanted, especially the seine, which will be altogether useless to me if I do not get them early in the spring, or in other words I shall sustain a considerable disappointment and loss, if they do not get to hand in time.

He wrote to Bradshaw and Davidson in London in 1772:

That I may have my seine net exactly agreeable to directions this year I give you the trouble of receiving this letter from me to desire that three may be made. One of them eighty fathom long, another seventy, and the third sixty-five fathom, all of them to be twelve feet deep in the middle and to decrease to seven at the ends when rigged and fit for use; to be so close-meshed in the middle as not to suffer the herrings (for which kind of fishery they are intended) to hang in them because, when this is the case it gives us a good deal of trouble at the busy hurrying season to disengage the seine, and often is the means of tearing it. But the meshes may widen as they approach the ends: the corks to be no more than two feet and a half asunder and fixed on flatways that they may swim and bear the seine up better with a float right in the middle to show the approach of the seine with greater certainty in case the corks should sink; the leads to be five feet apart. The seine I had from you last year had two faults, one of which is that of having the meshes too open in the middle; the other of being too strait rigged; to avoid which I wish you to loose at least one-third of the length in hanging these seines; that is, to let your 80 fathom seine be 120 in the strait measure (before it is hung in the lead and cork lines) and the other two to bear the same proportion, I could wish to have these seines tanned but it is thought the one I had from you last year was injured in the vat, for which reason I leave it to you to have these tanned or not, as you shall judge most expedient ... I would not wish to have them made of thick heavy twine as they are more liable to heat and require great force to work them....

A detailed reply came from James Davidson, a partner in the net company:

London, Sept. 29, 1772. Sir: I had the honour of receiving your letter with instructions concerning your seines. I shall always pay due attention to the contents. I persuade myself you'll say I have fulfilled your instructions given me in these three seines which I heartily hope will be in time for the intended fishery. Am not afraid but they will meet with your approbation and if you should see any alteration wanting if you'll be so obliging as to send a line in the same channel, it shall be attended to with great care.

Your order is for the corks to be put on flat ways. I have only put them on the 65 fathom seine for these reasons. We have tried that method before with every other invention for the satisfaction of our fishermen here but they have a.s.sured us they really do not bear the net up so well. They are obliged to be tied on so tight that the twine cuts them and are much apter to break and after all in dragging the net they will swim sideways. Now, Sir, you'll readily see the above inconveniences. I have also put six floats in the middle, two together to show the center of the net. Likewise the length of the netting, 120 fathoms for the 80 fathoms, the other two in proportion.

I now enter upon tanning. This, you may a.s.sure yourself, they are pretty well wore if you have them tanned for we are obliged to haul them in and out to take the tan and after that hauling them about to get them thoroughly dry before we can possibly pack them or else they would soon rot. Among the hundreds of seines I sent abroad last year or this, I only tanned one besides yours. Therefore have not tanned any of these. I think the three-quarters inch mesh that I have put in the middle of the nets this year will be a cure for the malady you mention of the herrings hanging in the mesh, for last year I only put in inch mesh which upon examination you'll soon perceive. Therefore, sir, I entreat the honour of a line whether or not the two above three-quarters mesh seines answer the purpose. I have tapered them away at the ends to [an] inch and a half.