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.