It Is Said, To Account For The
Destruction Of The Fishery, That Those Who At That Time
Represented The Interests
Of the fishermen and the fishes,
remembering between what dates they were accustomed to take the
grown shad, stipulated, that
The dams should be left open for
that season only, and the fry, which go down a month later, were
consequently stopped and destroyed by myriads. Others say that
the fish-ways were not properly constructed. Perchance, after a
few thousands of years, if the fishes will be patient, and pass
their summers elsewhere, meanwhile, nature will have levelled the
Billerica dam, and the Lowell factories, and the Grass-ground
River run clear again, to be explored by new migratory shoals,
even as far as the Hopkinton pond and Westborough swamp.
One would like to know more of that race, now extinct, whose
seines lie rotting in the garrets of their children, who openly
professed the trade of fishermen, and even fed their townsmen
creditably, not skulking through the meadows to a rainy afternoon
sport. Dim visions we still get of miraculous draughts of fishes,
and heaps uncountable by the river-side, from the tales of our
seniors sent on horseback in their childhood from the neighboring
towns, perched on saddle-bags, with instructions to get the one
bag filled with shad, the other with alewives. At least one
memento of those days may still exist in the memory of this
generation, in the familiar appellation of a celebrated
train-band of this town, whose untrained ancestors stood
creditably at Concord North Bridge. Their captain, a man of
piscatory tastes, having duly warned his company to turn out on a
certain day, they, like obedient soldiers, appeared promptly on
parade at the appointed time, but, unfortunately, they went
undrilled, except in the manuoevres of a soldier's wit and
unlicensed jesting, that May day; for their captain, forgetting
his own appointment, and warned only by the favorable aspect of
the heavens, as he had often done before, went a-fishing that
afternoon, and his company thenceforth was known to old and
young, grave and gay, as "The Shad," and by the youths of this
vicinity this was long regarded as the proper name of all the
irregular militia in Christendom. But, alas! 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.
Surely the fates are forever kind, though Nature's laws are more
immutable than any despot's, yet to man's daily life they rarely
seem rigid, but permit him to relax with license in summer
weather. He is not harshly reminded of the things he may not
do. She is very kind and liberal to all men of vicious habits,
and certainly does not deny them quarter; they do not die without
priest. Still they maintain life along the way, keeping this side
the Styx, still hearty, still resolute, "never better in their
lives"; and again, after a dozen years have elapsed, they start
up from behind a hedge, asking for work and wages for able-bodied
men. Who has not met such
"a beggar on the way,
Who sturdily could gang? ....
Who cared neither for wind nor wet,
In lands where'er he past?"
"That bold adopts each house he views, his own;
Makes every pulse his checquer, and, at pleasure,
Walks forth, and taxes all the world, like Caesar"; -
as if consistency were the secret of health, while the poor
inconsistent aspirant man, seeking to live a pure life, feeding
on air, divided against himself, cannot stand, but pines and dies
after a life of sickness, on beds of down.
The unwise are accustomed to speak as if some were not sick; but
methinks the difference between men in respect to health is not
great enough to lay much stress upon. Some are reputed sick and
some are not. It often happens that the sicker man is the nurse
to the sounder.
Shad are still taken in the basin of Concord River at Lowell,
where they are said to be a month earlier than the Merrimack
shad, on account of the warmth of the water. Still patiently,
almost pathetically, with instinct not to be discouraged, not to
be _reasoned_ with, revisiting their old haunts, as if their
stern fates would relent, and still met by the Corporation with
its dam. Poor shad! where is thy redress? When Nature gave thee
instinct, gave she thee the heart to bear thy fate? Still
wandering the sea in thy scaly armor to inquire humbly at the
mouths of rivers if man has perchance left them free for thee to
enter.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 9 of 113
Words from 8408 to 9419
of 116321
