Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast. Drake Samuel Adams
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first-comers are lean, and will make only a gallon of oil to the barrel; those of September yield four gallons. A fleet of propellers, as well as sailing-craft of forty to fifty tons burden, are kept constantly employed.
At Pemaquid harbor, the fish cargoes are transferred from the steamer to an elevated tank of the capacity of four thousand barrels. Underneath the tank a tram-way, conducting by an inclined plane to the second story of the factory, is laid upon the wharf. In the bottom of the tank is a trap-door that, upon being opened, quickly fills a car placed below. The fish are then taken into the factory and dumped into other tanks, containing each three car-loads, or about sixty barrels. Here steam is introduced, rapidly converting the fish into unsavory chowder, or "mash." As many as a dozen of these vats were in constant use. The oil and water being drawn off into other vats, the product is obtained through the simplest of machinery, and the well-known principle that in an admixture with water oil will rise to the surface. The residuum from the first process is shoveled into perforated iron cylinders, by men standing up to their knees in the steaming mass. It is then subjected to hydraulic pressure, and, after the extraction of every drop of oil, is carefully housed, to be converted into phosphates. The water is passed from tank to tank until completely free of oil. Nothing is lost.
This factory had a capacity of three thousand barrels per day, though not of the largest class. Others were working day and night through the season, which continues for about three months.
I walked afterward by the side of a seine two hundred fathoms in length, spread upon the grass in order to contract the meshes. One of them frequently costs above a thousand dollars, and is sometimes destroyed at the first casting by being caught on the ledges in shallow water.
An old hand can easily tell the difference between a school of mackerel and one of menhaden. The former rush in a body on the top of the water, while the shoal of porgees merely ripples the surface, as is sometimes seen when a moving body of water impinges against a counter-current. The mackerel takes the hook, while the porgee and herring never do.
The talk was more fishy here than in any place I have visited. Here they call a school, or shoal, "a pod of fish;" "we sot round a pod" being a common expression. The small vessels are called seiners. When they approach a school, the seine is carried out in boats, one end being attached to the vessel, except when a bad sea is running. I have seen the men standing up to the middle among the fish they were hauling in; and they are sometimes obliged to abandon half their draught.
The whole process of rendering menhaden into oil is less offensive to the olfactories than might be supposed. The works at Pemaquid Point are owned by Judson, Tarr, and Co., of Rockport, Massachusetts. As against the generally received opinion that they were destroying fish faster than the losses could be repaired, the unusual abundance of mackerel the last year was cited. Mackerel, however, are not ground up at the rate of many thousand barrels per day. It is easy to conjecture that present profit is more looked to than future scarcity. The product of menhaden is chiefly used in the adulteration of linseed-oil. This fish is probably the same called by the French "gasparot," and found by them in great abundance on the coasts of Acadia.
Some account of the habits of the mackerel, as given by veteran fishermen, is of interest to such as esteem this valuable fish – and the number is legion – if not in explanation of the seemingly purposeless drifting of the mackerel fleet along shore, which is, nevertheless, guided by calculation.
In early spring the old breeding fish come into the bays and rivers to spawn. They then return northward. These mackerel are not apt to take the hook, but are caught in weirs and seines, a practice tending to inevitable scarcity in the future. The parent fish come back, in September, to the localities where they have spawned, and, taking their young in charge, proceed to the warmer waters west and south. Few if any mackerel spawn south of Cape Cod.
By the time this migration occurs, the young fish have grown to six or seven inches in length, and are called "tinkers." They frequently take the bait with avidity, but are too small for market. When this school comes along, the fishermen prepare to follow, saying, "The mackerel are bound west, and we must work west with them." These first-comers are usually followed by a second school of better size and quality. I have often seen numbers of young mackerel, of three to four inches in length, left in shallow pools upon the flats by the tide in midsummer.
In the midst of a "biting school" no sport could be more exciting or satisfying. At such times the mackerel resemble famished wolves, snapping and crowding for the bait, rather than harmless fishes. This unexampled voracity makes them an easy prey, and they are taken as fast as the line can be thrown over. It not unfrequently happens that the school will either sink or suddenly refuse the bait, even while swarming about the sides of the vessels. This is vexatious, but there is no help for it. The fleet must lie idle until the capricious or overfed fish is hungry.
Mackerel swim in deep water, and are brought to the surface by casting over quantities of ground bait. If they happen to be on the surface in a storm, at the first peal of thunder they will sink to the bottom. The movements of the fish in the water are like a gleam of light, and it dies hard when out of it. The mackerel was in great abundance when New England was first visited.
In the confusion naturally incident to accounts of early discoveries on our coast of New England, it is pleasant to find one vantage-ground from which you can not be dislodged. In this respect Pemaquid stands almost alone. It has never been called by any other name. Possibly it may have embraced either more or less of the surrounding territory or adjacent waters than at present; still there is eminent satisfaction in standing at Pemaquid on impregnable ground.
In the minds of some old writers Pemaquid was unquestionably confounded with the Penobscot. There is a description of Pemaquid River from the Hakluyt papers,46 which makes it the easternmost river, one excepted, of Mavoshen, manifestly a name erroneously applied, as the description is as far from coinciding with the true Pemaquid as is its location by Hakluyt. In this account the Sagadahoc and town of Kennebec are also mentioned. Like many others, it is more curious than instructive.
It also appears, to the student's dismay, that in some instances the discoverers were apprehensive of drawing attention to any new-found port or harbor, as it would render their monopoly of less value. The account of Weymouth's voyage by James Rosier omitted the latitude, doubtless with this object. His narrative, if not written to mislead, was confessedly not intended to instruct. How is the historian to follow such a clue? Fortunately, after many puzzling and unsatisfactory conjectures, the account of William Strachey makes all clear, so far as Pemaquid is in question. Weymouth's first landfall was in 42°, and he coasted northward to 44°. Strachey speaks of "the isles and rivers, together with that little one of Pemaquid."
Sir F. Gorges, in his "Brief Narration," mentions that "it pleased God" to bring Captain Weymouth, on his return in 1605, into the harbor of Plymouth, where he, Sir Ferdinando, then commanded.47 Captain Weymouth, he continues, had been dispatched by the Lord Arundel of Wardour in search of the North-west Passage, but falling short of his course, had happened into a river on the coast of America called Pemaquid. In the reprint of Sir F. Gorges's invaluable narrative48 the word Penobscot is placed after Pemaquid in brackets. It does not appear in the original.
Pemaquid, then, becomes one of the pivotal points of New England discovery, as it subsequently was of her history. As the French had directed their early efforts toward the Penobscot, so the English had imbibed strong predilections for the Sagadahoc, or Kennebec. Weymouth and Pring had paved the way; the Indians transported to England had been able to give an intelligible account of the country, the configuration of the coasts, the magnitude of the rivers, and power of the nations peopling the banks.
The Kennebec was known to the French earlier than to the English, and by its proper name. Champlain's voyage in the autumn of 1604 extended, it is believed, as far as Monhegan, as he names an isle ten leagues from "Quinebequi" and says he went three or four leagues beyond it. Moreover, he had coasted both shores of the Penobscot bay, penetrating at least as far as the Narrows, below Bucksport. He calls the Camden hills Bedabedec, and says the Kennebec and Penobscot Indians were at enmity. De Monts followed Champlain in June, 1605, having sailed from St. Croix two
"Purchas," vol. iv., 1874.
In 1603 Gorges was deprived of the command, but had it restored to him the same year.
"Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society," vol. vi., 3d series.