The Lobster Fishery of Maine | Page 3

bold and rocky, while it is cut up by large deep inlets and coves which are studded with numerous islands, large and small, and by bold rocky promontories. Groups of islands are also numerous farther off shore, like the Fox and Matinicus Islands, Deer and Mount Desert islands. Large and small fresh-water rivers are numerous and the granite bottoms of these channels and inlets form admirable breeding grounds. In the western end the shores are not so rocky, being broken frequently with sandy reaches, while the rivers are small and comparatively shallow. West of Casco Bay the islands are infrequent. As a result of this conformation of coast the best fishing grounds in Maine are between Cape Elizabeth and Quoddy Head.
As early as 1830 smacks from Boston and Connecticut visited Harpswell for fresh lobsters, and it is very probable that even before this time they had visited the points farther west in the State, as the history of the fishery, so far as known, shows that it gradually worked to the eastward. This was doubtless owing to the fact that the trend of settlement in the early part of the century was in that direction. It is also probable that, for some time before the people along the coast took up the fishery, the smackmen themselves did their own fishing. This is easily believed when the great abundance is considered. It is known that this was done in Massachusetts.
During summer the lobsters were very common close in shore and could easily be gaffed by boys at low water; but this could hardly be called a regular fishery.
The regular fishery began with the use of hoop-net pots, which were generally of very rude construction, and the facility with which the lobsters escaped from them led to their disuse soon after the lath pots began to be introduced. The lath pots were essentially the same in construction as those now used on the coast of Maine, and each pair of fishermen then handled between 25 and 50.
Up to about 1865 it was the custom to set the traps singly, and two men were usually employed in the fishery, one to haul up, empty the pot, rebait it, and drop it overboard, while the other handled the boat. In the latter year it was discovered that by setting the pots on trawls more pots could be set and only one man would be required to work them. This invention, which was claimed by several different persons, proved quite successful for a while, but after a time, when the supply of lobsters began to drop off, better results were secured by scattering the pots over a greater area and shifting their position each time they were fished, which was very easily done. As a result of this the use of trawls decreased very rapidly.
The following facts regarding the early lobster fishery of Maine are from the Fishery Industries of the United States, section v, vol. II, pp. 700, 701:
In 1841 Capt. E. M. Oakes began to carry lobsters from Cundy's Harbor and Horse Island Harbor, Harpswell, to Mr. Eben Weeks, at East Boston. He was then running a well-smack, named the Swampscott, of 41 tons, old measurement. The season extended from the 1st of March until about the 4th of July, after which time the lobsters were supposed to be unfit for eating; the black lobsters, or shedders, were even considered poisonous. During this season of four months Captain Oakes made ten trips, carrying in all 35,000, by count. He continued in this trade about six years, taking the combined catch of about five or six fishermen. At this same period the smack _Hulda B. Hall_, 50 tons, of New London, Conn., Captain Chapell, was carrying lobsters from Cape Porpoise, Gloucester, Ipswich Bay, and occasionally Provincetown, to Boston, making 15 trips in the season of four months, and taking about 3,500 lobsters each trip. Captain Chapell was supplied with lobsters by four men at Cape Porpoise, and by the same number at both Gloucester and Ipswich Bay. For four months following the close of the lobster season on the Maine coast, or from July 4 until November, Captain Chapell ran his smack with lobsters to New York, obtaining most of his supplies at Provincetown.
In 1847 Captain Oakes purchased the smack Josephine, with which he began running to Johnson & Young's establishment, at Boston, in 1848, buying a portion of his lobsters in the Penobscot Bay region, where this fishery had just been started. The quantity of lobsters carried by him that year was 40,000. The prices paid to the fishermen for smack lobsters was as follows: During March, 3 cents each; April, 2-1/2 cents; May and June, 2 cents. In 1850, he began to obtain supplies from the Muscle Ridges, leaving Harpswell entirely, on