No record of these
fishers' lives remains that we know, unless it be one brief page
of hard but unquestionable history, which occurs in Day Book
No.
4, of an old trader of this town, long since dead, which
shows pretty plainly what constituted a fisherman's stock in
trade in those days. It purports to be a Fisherman's Account
Current, probably for the fishing season of the year 1805, during
which months he purchased daily rum and sugar, sugar and rum,
N. E. and W. I., "one cod line," "one brown mug," and "a line for
the seine"; rum and sugar, sugar and rum, "good loaf sugar," and
"good brown," W. I. and N. E., in short and uniform entries to
the bottom of the page, all carried out in pounds, shillings, and
pence, from March 25th to June 5th, and promptly settled by
receiving "cash in full" at the last date. But perhaps not so
settled altogether. These were the necessaries of life in those
days; with salmon, shad, and alewives, fresh and pickled, he was
thereafter independent on the groceries. Rather a preponderance
of the fluid elements; but such is the fisherman's nature. I can
faintly remember to have seen this same fisher in my earliest
youth, still as near the river as he could get, with uncertain
undulatory step, after so many things had gone down stream,
swinging a scythe in the meadow, his bottle like a serpent hid in
the grass; himself as yet not cut down by the Great Mower.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 32 of 422
Words from 8787 to 9043
of 116321
