Chapter III: Part 3

Sept. 28. Sent in the morning to have the seine drawn. They made
several hauls and got good fish, viz: three drum, one of them
large, trouts, greenfish, etc....

Oct. 6. Went with my wife to see the seine drawn. We dined very
agreeably on a point on fish and oysters....

Jan. 22,--Bought about 70 gallons of rum. Got fine oysters there.

Feb. 12. Went on board the New England man and bought some pots,
axes and mackerel.

Feb. 22. Drew the seine and got 125 fine rock and some shad.

July 14. Drew the seine today and got some fine rock.

Feb. 9, 1760. Went with my wife and Mr. Criswell to draw the seine.
We met in Eyck's Creek a school of rock--brought up 260. Some very
large; the finest haul I ever saw. Sent many of them to our
neighbors.

The term "greenfish" is unknown among Virginia Tidewater fishermen. Here again we have a British name brought into Virginia by a colonist not long removed from that country. There "greenfish" is applied to the bluefish, of which there were and are at times plenty in the Rappahannock river.

Another diarist, who lived only a few miles away from Gordon, also on the Rappahannock river, was Landon Carter, son of the famed Robert, or "King," Carter of Corotoman in Lancaster County. There is no doubt about it: he was an oyster lover. He not only knew a way to hold oysters over an extended period--one wishes one knew what it was--but he had the courage and originality to eat them in July, contrary to a widely respected superstition:

Jan. 14, 1770. My annual entertainment began on Monday, the 8th,
and held till Wednesday night, when, except one individual or two
that retired sooner, things pleased me much, and therefore, I will
conclude they gave the same satisfaction to others.

The oysters lasted till the third day of the feast, which to be
sure, proves that the methods of keeping them is good, although
much disputed by others.

July, 1776. Last night my cart came up from John E. Beale for iron
pots to make salt out of the bay water, which cart brought me eight
bushels oysters. I ordered them for family and immediate use. As we
are obliged to wash the salt we had of Col. Tayloe, I have ordered
that washing be carried into the vault and every oyster dipped into
it over all and then laid down on the floor again.... Out of the
eight bushels oysters I had six pickled and two bushels for
dressing. But I was asked why Beale sent oysters up in July. I
answered it was my orders. Who would eat oysters in July said the
mighty man; and the very day showed he not only could eat them but
did it in every shape, raw, stewed, caked in fritters and pickled.

George Washington, too, was an oyster fancier as this note to his New York friend George Taylor shows:

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 amusement 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 bass.

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,--bass and perch.

This is a fine sheepshead, Mr. Stadly [the music master], shall I
help you? Or would you prefer a bass 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 Saturday, 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 space 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 shore 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 offshore 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 shore 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 shores 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 Raccoon 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 L15 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 petition 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 shore
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 quantities
of fish are annually taken by such fishery which greatly
contributes to the support and maintenance of your petitioners and
their families.

Your petitioners further show that they have been informed that
several gentlemen have petitioned 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 petitioners 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 shores 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,
bass, carp, perch, sturgeon, etc., in great abundance. The borders
of the estate are washed by more than ten miles of tidewater, the
whole shore, in fact, is one entire fishery.

Washington generously ordered his overseer to admit "the honest poor" to fishing privileges at one of his shores, 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 reassembled 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 quantity 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 assured 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 assure 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.

These nets were designed for hauling ashore by hand. It was not till much later that other nets, of the styles so familiar today, gill nets and pound nets in particular, came into general use.

Much longer seines than Washington needed were used as fish became scarcer. There are tales of them four and five miles long, actually able to block off the entire river, being used in the neighborhood of Mt. Vernon before control laws were enacted and enforced. The catches were enormous. Barges were heaped high with all sorts of fish and towed into Washington City where they were sold before they spoiled, for what they would bring.

Today the pollution for which Washington and Alexandria are responsible has destroyed most fish life within several miles of Mt. Vernon.

Like his fishing predecessors ever since Jamestown, Washington had his troubles with salt. One of his business letters ordering a supply complained: "Liverpool salt is inadequate to the saving of fish.... Lisbon is the proper kind."

He was only briefly touching on a subject that had vexed the Colonists since the beginning. Through the years the cry for more and better salt had gone up. The fishermen of Virginia needed salt for their fish as badly as the Hebrews in Egypt needed straw for their bricks. Although trading with foreign countries increased steadily, the question of a salt supply for Virginia remained unsolved.

As the 18th century had progressed, matters grew even worse. In 1763 the Virginia Committee of Correspondence had written urgently to its agent in London to apply to Parliament for an act to

allow to this Colony the same liberty to import salt from Lisbon or
any other European ports, which they have long enjoyed in the
Colonies and provinces of New England, New York and Pennsylvania.
This is a point that hath been more than once unsuccessfully
labored; but we think it is so reasonable, that when it is set in a
proper light, we shall hope for success. The reason upon which the
opposition hath been supported, is this general one that it is
contrary to the interest of Great Britain to permit her plantations
to be supplied with any commodity, especially any manufacture from
a foreign country, which she herself can supply them with. This we
allow to be of force; provided the Mother Country can and does
supply her plantations with as much as they want; but the fact
being otherwise, we have been allowed to supply ourselves with
large quantities from Cercera, Isle of May, Sal Tortuga and so
forth. The course of this trade being hazardous, in time of war,
this useful and necessary article hath been brought to us at a high
price of late. The reason or pretence of granting this indulgence
to the Northern Colonies, in exclusion of the Southern, we presume
to be to enable them to carry on their fishery to greater
advantage, the salt from the Continent of Europe being fitter for
that purpose than the salt from Great Britain or that from any of
the islands we have mentioned. But surely this reason is but weakly
founded with respect to Pennsylvania, whose rivers scarcely supply
them with fish sufficient for their own use; whereas the Bay of
Chesapeake abounds with great plenty and variety of fish fit for
foreign markets, as well as for ourselves, if we could but get the
proper kind of salt to cure it. Herrings and shads might be
exported to the West Indies to great advantage; and we could supply
the British markets with finer sturgeon than they have yet tasted
from the Baltic. And it is an allowed principle that every
extension of the trade of the Colonies, which does not interfere
with that of the Mother Country is an advantage to the latter;
since all our profits ultimately center with her.

It was pointed out that the English merchants were not above sharp practices in filling orders for salt; they would reduce the amount shipped to individuals and provide the captain with all he could carry extra to be sold at high prices to needy buyers.

The plaint was just another of the rumblings of discontent contributing to the grand explosion of thirteen years later. The intricacies were entered into in detail by the Committee:

We have twelve different Colonies on the Continent of North
America. Four of them, viz., Pennsylvania, New York, New England,
and Newfoundland, have liberty to import salt from any part of
Europe directly. The other eight, viz., Virginia, Maryland, East
and West Jersey, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Nova Scotia,
as well as all the West India Islands, are deprived of it.

At present those Colonies on whose behalf the petition is given,
are supplied with salt from the Isle of Mays in Africa, Sal
Tortuga, and Turks Island in America, also a little from England;
but are deprived of the only salt that answers best for the
principal use, viz., to preserve fish and other provisions, twelve
months, or a longer time. What they have from Great Britain is made
from salt water by fire, which is preferred for all domestic uses.
The African or American salt is made from salt water by the sun;
which is used for curing and preserving provisions. The first, made
by fire, is found, by long experience, in warm climates, to be too
weak; the provisions cured with it turn rusty, and in six or eight
months become unfit for use. The second kind, by the quantity of
alum, or some other vicious quality in it, is so corrosive, that in
less than twelve months, the meat cured with it is entirely
deprived of all the fat, and the lean hardened, or so much
consumed, as to be of little service. The same ill qualities are
found in these salts with regard to fish: wherefore the arguments
used, that they ought to have English salt only, are as much as to
say, they should be allowed to catch fish, or salt any provisions,
but let their cattle and hogs die without reaping the advantage
nature has given them.

In all countries where a benefit can arise by fish or provisions,
salt must be cheap; and as its value where made is from ten to
twenty shillings the ton, so the carriage of it to America is often
more than the real value: It is in order to save part of the
expense of carriage, this application is made; for although some
gentlemen do not seem to know it, yet we have liberty, by the
present laws in force, to carry any kind of European salt to
America, the ship first coming to an English port, in order to make
an entry.

We have also liberty to bring it from any salt island in Africa or
America; but by the Act of 15 Car. II. Chap. 7, salt is supposed to
be included under the word commodity; whereby it is, with all
European goods, prevented from being carried to America, unless
first landed in England: the consequence whereof is, that English
ships, which (I shall suppose) are hired to sail from London to
Lisbon with corn, and thence proceed to America, have not the
liberty to carry salt in place of ballast, and therefore under a
necessity to pay above L10 sterling at Lisbon for ballast (that is
to say, for sand), which they carry to America, or else return to
England in order to get a clearance for the salt, which would be
more expense than its value.

Now, had they liberty to carry salt directly to America, they would
not only save the money paid for the sand, but also gain by the
freight of salt perhaps L60 or L80 more. Thus on an average every
ship that goes now empty from these ports to America, might clear
L70 and there are above a hundred sail to that voyage every year.
This is an annual loss of L7,000 at least; and besides, as the ship
loses no time in this case (salt being as soon taken in as sand),
they could afford to sell the best salt as cheap in America as is
now paid for the worst; for as a ship must make a long voyage on
purpose to get, and make it in the salt islands, so the expense
thereof is more than the value of the salt at Lisbon, St. Ibbes,
and so forth.

The proponents of the petition made out a strong case. They went into the grading of the kinds of salt obtained from the West Indies, Africa and Europe and asserted that, inferior though some of them were, they nevertheless had been found to be "preferable to England salt for curing and preserving their fish":

To know the qualities of the different kinds of salt used in
America may be an amusement to a speculative man; but seems
entirely out of the question in this case; for whatever may be said
on that head, long experience and the universal agreement of all
from America, as well as former Acts of Parliament, show that the
common white salt will not answer the uses it is chiefly wanted for
there.

As to what is called Loundes's brine salt, that, and his many other
projects, seemed to be formed on the same plan with Subtle's in
_The Alchemist_, his scheme looking as if he only wanted the money,
and left it to others to make the salt.

Salt can, without doubt, be made of any desired quality, but the
price, the place of delivery, and the quantity to be had of so
useful a commodity must also be regarded.

We can get salt at Sal Tortuga for the raking and putting it into
our ships; but the expense of a voyage on purpose for it is greater
than to buy it at a place from whence the freight may be all saved,
and to have the best salt on the cheapest terms, is, no doubt the
intention of this application, as it certainly was of the other
Colonies that have obtained this privilege.

All the Virginians were asking, in effect, was the liberty to import from Europe what salt they wished!

As the moment of Independence neared, the stress grew greater. George Washington's Mt. Vernon overseer during the crucial years, his distant relative Lund Washington, addressed a letter to him in 1775:

The people are running mad about salt. You would hardly think it
possible there could be such a scarcity. Five and six shillings per
bushel. Conway's sloop came to Alexandria Monday last with a load.

A couple of months later the crisis was reached:

I have had 300 bushels more of salt put into fish barrels, which I
intend to move into Muddy Hole barn, for if it should be destroyed
by the enemy we shall not be able to get more. There is still fifty
or sixty more bushels, perhaps a hundred in the house. I was
unwilling to sell it, knowing we could not get more and our people
must have fish. Therefore I told the people I had none.

Two more years of adversity went by. Lund wrote in 1778:

I was told a day or two past that Congress had ordered a quantity
of shad to be cured on this river. I expect as everything sells
high, shad will also. I should be fond of curing about 100 barrels
of them, they finding salt. We have been unfortunate in our crops,
therefore I could wish to make something by fish.

He proposed that he cure fish "for the Continent" and make "upwards of 200 pounds":

I have very little salt, of which we must make the most. I mean to
make a brine and after cutting off the head and bellies, dipping
them in the brine for but a short time, then hang them up and cure
them by smoke, or dry them in the sun; for our people being so long
accustomed to have fish whenever they wanted, would think it very
bad to have none at all.

All ended well for that season. Lund wrote:

I have cured a sufficient quantity of fish for our people, together
with about 160 or 170 barrels of shad for the Continent.

One of the most interesting diarists of Revolutionary days was young Nicholas Cresswell, an Englishman of 24 when he arrived in America for a three-years visit. He was in Leesburg, Virginia, in December 1776 when he recorded this occurrence:

A Dutch mob of about forty horsemen went through the town today on
their way to Alexandria to search for salt. If they find any they
will take it by force.... This article is exceedingly scarce; if
none comes the people will revolt. They cannot possibly subsist
without a considerable quantity of this article.

The raiders were pacified by an allotment of three pints of salt per man.

A vivid picture of what the lack of salt entailed was given by Cresswell in April 1777:

Saw a seine drawn for herrings and caught upwards of 40,000 with
about 300 shad fish. The shads they use but the herrings are left
upon the shore useless for want of salt. Such immense quantities of
this fish is left upon the shore to rot, I am surprised it does not
bring some epidemic disorder to the inhabitants by the nauseous
stench arising from such a mass of putrefaction.

A fishery by-product of importance to early Virginians, lime, was of interest to Washington. It was extensively obtained by burning oyster shells.

Early Virginia masonry shows that such lime was mixed in mortar and it was usually of poor quality, perhaps because of crude facilities for burning. Today's shell lime is much in demand in agriculture and its price is higher than mined lime. George Washington found that for the purpose of building it left much to be desired. He wrote to Henry Knox from Mt. Vernon in 1785:

I use a great deal of lime every year, made of the oyster shells,
which, before they are burnt, cost me twenty-five to thirty
shillings per hundred bushels; but it is of mean quality, which
makes me desirous of trying stone lime.

He was paying about seven cents a bushel for shells, which seems high for those days of abundant oysters and cheap labor. Until recently the Virginia market price was very little more.

Washington's probing, weighing mind slighted no phase of his fishery. About to fertilize crops with fish experimentally, he wrote to his overseer: "If you tried both fresh and salt fish as a manure the different aspects of them should be attended to." A few weeks later, after watching results, he wrote: "The corn that is manured with fish, though it does not appear to promise much at first, may nevertheless be fine.... It is not only possible but highly probable."

This opinion was abundantly confirmed years later when vast quantities of menhaden were converted into guano for crops by Atlantic coast factories, a practice changed only when livestock-nutrition studies showed that menhaden scrap was too valuable a protein source to be spread on land. The fish referred to by Washington were in all probability river-herring, or alewives, used as fertilizer at such times as they were caught in greater abundance than the food market could absorb.

The probable yield of his fish trade was always carefully calculated, even when the pressure of national affairs required his absence from home. From Philadelphia we find him writing to his manager about a fish merchant's offer: "Ten shillings per hundred for shad is very low. I am at this moment paying six shillings apiece for every shad I buy." He usually tried to get at least twelve shillings a hundred for his shad, which were salted prior to marketing, although there were instances when he let them go for as little as one pence apiece. The extraordinary price of six shillings for one shad cited by him in Philadelphia is hard to explain. It probably referred to a fresh one caught early in the season and prepared especially for his table. Though records of the average weight of shad in those days are lacking, seven pounds is a fair estimate, and it may have been greater. The weights now seldom exceed three or four pounds, because in the more recent years of intensive fishing, shad have been widely caught up as they returned from the ocean to spawn for the first time. Shad, along with other anadromous, or "up-running," fish are born near the head-waters of rivers, and seek the ocean for feeding and growth. Unlike salmon they do not perish after one spawning and the oftener they return, the larger they are. What conservationists call "escapement," or the freedom to get back to the ocean from the rivers, is considered vital to their survival in quantity.

All through the two-score years of fishing at Mount Vernon, Washington suffered, judging by his unceasing preoccupation with minor details, from the lack of a fishing foreman to whom he could entrust the operation with any confidence. Letters toward the close of his life bearing on this subject are still replete with reminders concerning trifles which would have been routine for any competent boss. The fish runs start about March; therefore, in January he finds it necessary to write; "It would be well to have the seines overhauled immediately, that is, if new ones are wanting, or the old ones requiring much repair, they may be set about without loss of time." He must even look beyond his own help for the skill necessary to put his nets in order. "I would have you immediately upon the receipt of this letter send for the man who usually does this work for me.... Let him choose his twine (if it is to be had in Alexandria) and set about them immediately."

Abundance of fish created a bottleneck:

In the height of the fishery they are not prepared to cure or
otherwise dispose of them as fast as they could be caught; of
course the seines slacken in their work, or the fish lie and spoil
when that is the only time I can make anything by the seine, for
small hauls will hardly pay the wear and tear of the seine and the
hire of the hands.

However, then as now, fishing was a gamble:

Unless the weather grows warmer your fishing this season will, I
fear, prove unproductive; for it has always been observed that in
cold and windy weather the fish keep in deep water and are never
caught in numbers, especially at shallow landings.

And in 1794, he states, with the rather weary voice of experience,

I am of opinion that selling the fish all to one man is best ... if
Mr. Smith will give five shillings per thousand for herrings and
twelve shillings a hundred for shad, and will oblige himself to
take all you have to spare, you had better strike and enter into a
written agreement with him.... I never choose to sell to wagoners;
their horses have always been found troublesome, and themselves
indeed not less so, being much addicted to the pulling down and
burning the fences. If you do not sell to Smith the next best thing
is to sell to the watermen.... I again repeat that when the schools
of fish run you must draw night and day; and whether Smith is
prepared to take them or not, they must be caught and charged to
him; for it is then and then only I have a return for my expenses;
and then it is the want of several purchasers is felt; for unless
one person is extremely well prepared he cannot dispose of the fish
as fast as they can be drawn at those times and if the seine or
seines do no more than keep pace with his convenience my harvest is
lost and of course my profit; for the herrings will not wait to be
caught as they are wanted to be cured.

Thus did Washington become one of the first to encounter the besetting plague of American mass production: the problem of distribution.

That fishing was a vital prop in plantation economy is evidenced by a letter of April 24, 1796, to his manager:

As your prospect for gain is discouraging, it may, in a degree, be
made up in a good fishing season for herrings; that for shad must,
I presume, be almost, if not quite, over.

Salt herrings were a staple in the feeding of the "black people," and were issued to those at Mount Vernon at the rate of twenty a month per head. But he warned about waiting for the annually expected herring "glut" to occur before the slaves were provided for. If it should fail to materialize--as had been known--what then? Save a "sufficiency of fish" from the first runs, he wisely ordered.

In 1781 he suggested that salt fish be contracted for the troops, and possibly it was tried for a while, but the year following, army leaders voted to exclude fish from the rations.

Accounting records for 1774, presumably an average fishing year, show receipts of L170 for the catch at the Posey's ferry fishery, with L26 debited to operating cost. At the Johnson's ferry fishery L114 was taken in and L28 paid out. The catch here represented consisted of 9,862 shad and 1,591,500 river herring, but other large hauls were also made on the estate. Profits would seem to be adequate, although costs of nets and boats were not figured in. Fishing boats were usually small maneuverable craft that never had to put out very far from shore, and cost about L5 to build.

Occasionally Washington was approached by speculators offering to rent the season's privileges at one of his fisheries for a flat sum. About one such proposal in 1796 he expressed the opinion to his manager that "under all chances fishing yourself will be more profitable than hiring out the landing for L60." Nevertheless, the headaches had for years made the transference of fishing to someone for cash on the barrelhead a temptation. In February, 1770, he had entered into an agreement as to sales while retaining the responsibility of catching:

Mr. Robert Adams is obliged to take all I catch at Posey's landing
provided the quantity does not exceed 500 barrels and will take
more than this quantity if he can get casks to put them in. He is
to take them as fast as they are catched, without giving any
interruption to my people, and is to have the use of the fish house
for his salt, fish, etc., taking care to have the house clear at
least before the next fishing season; is to pay L10 for the use of
the house and 3 shillings 4 pence, Maryland currency, per hundred
for white fish.

But in 1787 he wrote: "A good rent would induce me to let the fishery that I have no trouble or perplexity about it." The _Diary_ shows a good deal more interest during the early years in how the fish ran than it does later. In April, 1760, he writes:

Apprehending the herring were come, hauled the seine but catched
only a few of them, though a good many of other sorts.... Hauled
the seine again, catched two or three white fish, more herring than
yesterday and a great number of cats.

August, 1768: Hauling the seine upon the bar of Cedar Point for
sheepshead but catched none.

April, 1769: The white fish ran plentifully at my seine landing,
having catched about 300 at one haul....

The term "white fish" is not now generally applied to any species caught in the Potomac, but a good guess is that, with Washington, it was an alternate for shad.

The Revolution was fought, but even before the surrender the minds of America's statesmen were actively considering peace terms. Both Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Jefferson suggested that the valuable fisheries off Newfoundland be freely open to American ships. This time it was not a question of the Northern Colony keeping the Southern Colony out as it had been 150 years before. Thomas Jefferson, writing in 1778, wanted the United Colonies to exclude England:

If they [Britain] really are coming to their senses at last, and it
should be proposed to treat of peace, will not Newfoundland
fisheries be worthy particular attention to exclude them and all
others from them except our _tres grand_ and _chers amis_ and
allies? Their great value to whatever nation possesses them is as a
nursery for seamen. In the present very prosperous situation of our
affairs, I have thought it would be wise to endeavor to gain a
regular and acknowledged access in every court in Europe but most
the Southern. The countries bordering on the Mediterranean I think
will merit our earliest attention. They will be the important
markets for our great commodities of fish, wheat, tobacco, and
rice.

Lee saw how fishing in Northern waters had started America on its way to being a maritime power. In a series of letters to George Mason and others he expresses his opinions forcibly:

Our news here is most excellent; both from Williamsburg and from
Richmond it comes that our countrymen have given the enemy in the
South a complete overthrow.... Heaven grant it may be so. I shall
then with infinite pleasure congratulate my friend on the recovery
of his property, and our common country on so great a step towards
really putting a period to the war. I think that in this case we
may insist on our full share of the fishery, and the free
navigation of the Mississippi. These are things of very great and
lasting importance to America, the yielding of which will not
procure the Congress thanks either from the present age or
posterity.

I rejoice greatly at the news from South Carolina. God grant it may
be true. If this should force the enemy to reason and to peace,
would you give up the navigation of the Mississippi and our
domestic fishery on the Banks of Newfoundland? The former almost
infinitely depreciating our back country and the latter totally
destroying us as a maritime power. That is taking the name of
independence without the means of supporting it.

I rejoice exceedingly at our successes both in the North and in the
South. If we continue to do thus, it will not be in the power of
the execrable junto to prevent us from having a safe and honorable
peace next winter. In this idea I shall ever include the fisheries
and the navigation of the Mississippi. These, Sir, are the strong
legs on which North America can alone walk securely in
independence.

If you do not get a wise and very firm friend to negotiate the
fishery, it is my clear opinion that it will be lost, and upon this
principle that it is the interest of every European power to weaken
us and strengthen themselves.

I heartily wish you success in your negotiations and that when you
secure one valuable point for us (the fishery) that you will not
less exert yourself for another very important object,--the free
navigation of the Mississippi, provided guilty Britain should
remain in possession of the Floridas.

Fishing as a matter of states' rights resulted in the pioneering Potomac River Compact of 1785, when representatives of Maryland and Virginia met under George Washington's sponsorship at Mt. Vernon to deal with fishing and tolls. Maryland owned the river to the Virginia shore line, and agreed to allow Virginians to fish in it in return for free entry of Maryland ships through the Virginia capes. The compact, in force to this day, was the first step taken in behalf of interstate commerce. With its example to follow, other states eased the barriers to their commercial interests, with immeasurable benefit to the Union.

Commercial fishing in Virginia was, as the century closed, on the verge of the stability it had sorely lacked. Its reliance on Indians for knowledge and skill, as in the first of the 17th century, was as dead as its reliance on England for manufactures in the last of the 18th. Just around the corner were railroads and steamboats with their comparatively swift transportation. Teeming cities needed to be fed, and after nearly two centuries of education in the ways of the Chesapeake Bay and its marine life, Virginia fishermen knew how to keep the markets stocked. In 1794 a French visitor, Moreau de Saint Mery, wrote:

Fish is the commodity that sells for a ridiculously low price in
Norfolk. One can purchase weakfish weighing more than twenty pounds
for 4 or 5 francs and sometimes one that weighs three times more
for a gourde, 5 francs, 10 sous. Drum is also very cheap. Sturgeon,
weighing up to 60 pounds, can be bought for 6 French sous a pound,
about the same price paid for little codfish that are brought in
alive and are delicious to eat. Shad is also plentiful there. In
addition, one can get perch, porpoise, eels, leatherjackets, summer
flounder, turbot, mullet, trout, blackfish, herring, sole, garfish,
etc. In short, fish is so abundant in Norfolk that sometimes the
police find it necessary to throw back into the water those that
are not bought.

Herring fishing began to be abandoned by the planters, many of whom were up to their necks in a variety of enterprises, in favor of business men intending to specialize. Letters from a Virginia speculator, John F. Mercer, to Richard Sprigg, sketch the situation:

April 19, 1779. To cure fish properly requires two days in the
brine before packing and they can only lie packed with safety in
dry weather. These circumstances joined with the heading and
drawing almost all the fish (a very tedious operation) will show
that no time was lost--only 9 days elapsed from his arrival here to
his completing his load of 15,000 herrings, a time beyond which
many wagons have waited on these shores for 4,000 uncured fish and
many have been obliged to return without one, after coming 40 and
50 miles and offering 2 and 5 dollars a thousand. Several indeed
from my own shore and six who want 36,000 herring will, I believe,
quit this night without a fish, after waiting all this storm on the
shore five days.

Mr. Clarke has had his fish completed two days.... He has been
delayed by the almost continual storm that has prevailed since his
arrival and which has ruined us fishermen.

My fishery has been miserably conducted from the beginning as might
be expected from my entire ignorance and the penury of my partner
who was poorer than myself.... Still I have expectations that it
may turn out an immense thing from the trial we have made. The
shores being opposite to Maryland Point, the reach above and below
with the mouths of the two creeks on this side form a sweep, both
tides upon them, that must collect for fish; and they are kept in
by a kind of pound on the Virginia shore's trend. There apparent
advantages accord with the experiment for, with a desperate
patched-up seine that always breaks with a good haul, we have
contrived to land 20,000 a day, every day we can haul. We are
nearer to the Fredericksburg and Falmouth Virginia markets than any
shore that is or can be opened on the river by 10 miles
notwithstanding every discouragement and particularly the activity
and lies practiced against us by the Little Creek fisheries on each
side, who must fail with our success.

April 10, 1795. Herrings they tell me are 10 shillings per thousand
at all the shores. If I had your lease I could make a fortune. I
have a great mind to send Pollard and George up for your small boat
and seine.... If Peyton comes down with his seine to haul at my
shore, I will seine salted herrings enough for us both.

That acidulous but always colorful roving reporter from the mid-west, Anne Royall, offers the best picture, for accuracy and detail, of hauling a seine ever presented by anyone not a technician. Though written almost 50 years after the Revolution, it describes the kind of fishing on which Virginians had principally depended since Christopher Newport began the Colonial era and George Washington ended it:

The market of Alexandria is abundant and cheap; though much
inferior to any in any part of the western country, except beef and
fish, which are by far superior to that of the western markets....
Their exquisite fish, oysters, crabs, and foreign fruits upon the
whole bring them upon a value with us.

Their fish differ from ours, even some species. Their catfish is
the only sort in which we excel; they have none that answer to our
blue cat, either in size or flavor, and nothing like our mud-cat.
Their catfish is from ten to fifteen inches in length, with a wide
mouth, like the mud-cat of the Western waters; but their cat differ
from both ours in substance and color; they are soft, pied black
and white. They are principally used to make soup, which is much
esteemed by the inhabitants. All their fish are small compared with
ours. Besides the catfish which they take in the latter part of the
winter, they have the rock, winter shad, mackerel, and perch, shad
and herring. The winter shad is very fine indeed. They are like our
perch, but infinitely smaller. These fish are sold very low; a
large string, enough for a dozen persons, may be purchased for a
few cents. No fish, however, that I have tasted, equal our trout.

The Potomac at Alexandria, is rather over a mile in width; it is
celebrated for its beauty. It is certainly a great blessing to this
country in supplying its inhabitants with food in the article of
fish.

Fish is abundant (at Washington), and cheap at all seasons, shad is
three dollars per hundred; herrings, one dollar per thousand.