Chapter II: Part 2

They have likewise a notable way to catch fish in their rivers, for
whereas they lack both iron and steel, they fasten unto their
reeds, or long rods, the hollow tail of a certain fish like to a
sea crab instead of a point, wherewith by night or day they strike
fishes, and take them up into their boats. They also know how to
use the prickles, and pricks of other fishes. They also make weirs,
with setting up reeds or twigs in the water, which they so plant
one with another, that they grow still narrower, and narrower.
There was never seen among us so cunning a way to take fish withal,
whereof sundry sorts as they found in their rivers unlike ours,
which are also of a very good taste. Doubtless it is a pleasant
sight to see the people, sometimes wading, and going sometimes
sailing in those rivers, which are shallow and not deep, free from
all care of heaping up riches for their posterity, content with
their state, and living friendly together of those things which God
of His bounty hath given unto them, yet without giving Him any
thanks according to His deserts.

The most vivid and comprehensive description of Indian fishing was given by historian Robert Beverley. Though his work was not published until 1705, he dealt with an earlier period:

Before the arrival of the English there, the Indians had fish in
such vast plenty that the boys and girls would take a pointed stick
and strike the lesser sort as they swam upon the flats. The larger
fish that kept in deeper water, they were put to a little more
difficulty to take. But for these they made weirs, that is, a hedge
of small rived sticks or reeds of the thickness of a man's finger.
These they wove together in a row with straps of green oak or other
tough wood, so close that the small fish could not pass through.
Upon high water mark they pitched one end of this hedge and the
other they extended into the river to the depth of eight or ten
foot, fastening it with stakes, making cods out from the hedge on
one side, almost at the end, and leaving a gap for the fish to go
into them. These were contrived so that the fish could easily find
their passage into those cods when they were at the gap, but not
see their way out again when they were in. Thus if they offered to
pass through, they were taken.

Sometimes they made such a hedge as this quite across a creek at
high water and at low would go into the run, so contracted into a
narrow stream, and take out what fish they pleased.

At the falls of the rivers where the water is shallow and the
current strong, the Indians use another kind of weir thus made.
They make a dam of loose stone, whereof there is plenty at hand,
quite across the river, leaving one, two, or more spaces or
trunnels for the water to pass through. At the mouth they set a pot
of reeds, wove in form of a cone, whose base is about three foot
[wide] and ten [foot] perpendicular, into which the swiftness of
the current carries the fish and wedges them so fast that they
cannot possibly return.

The Indian way of catching sturgeon, when they came into the narrow
part of the rivers, was by a man's clapping a noose over their
tails and by keeping fast his hold. Thus a fish, finding itself
entangled, would flounce and often pull him under water. Then that
man was counted a cockarouse, or brave fellow, that would not let
go till with swimming, wading and diving, he had tired the sturgeon
and brought it ashore. These sturgeon would also leap into their
canoes in crossing the river, as many of them do still every year
into the boats of the English.

They have also another way of fishing like those on the Euxine Sea,
by the help of a blazing fire by night. They make a hearth in the
middle of their canoe, raising it within two inches of the edge.
Upon this they lay their burning lightwood, split into small
shivers, each splinter whereof will blaze and burn end for end like
a candle. 'Tis one man's work to tend this fire and keep it
flaming. At each end of the canoe stands an Indian with a gig or
point spear, setting the canoe forward with the butt end of the
spear as gently as he can, by that means stealing upon the fish
without any noise or disturbing of the water. Then they with great
dexterity dart these spears into the fish and so take them. Now
there is a double convenience in the blaze of this fire, for it not
only dazzles the eyes of the fish, which will lie still glaring
upon it, but likewise discovers the bottom of the river clearly to
the fisherman, which the daylight does not.

Under Governor George Yeardley in 1616, there were 400 people at Jamestown and one old frigate, one old shallop and one boat belonging to the community. There were two boats privately owned. The boats best suited to local fishing, and the most easily available, were the Indian dugout canoes. Such was the size of the trees that it was possible to make them comparatively roomy, as Strachey noted.

Every passing year brought home to the steadily growing Colony the need of improving its fishing practices. Most nets had to be bought in England. Here is a London item from a 1623 _List of Subscribers and Subscriptions for Relief of the Colony_: "Richard Tatem will adventure [speculate] in cheese and fishing nets the sum of L30 sterling."

Jamestown had by 1624 begun to spawn little Jamestowns throughout the countryside. A census was ordered of all settlements. In January, 1625, there were 1209 white persons, and 23 negroes. This first American census listed, among general provisions, the stocks of salt fish. On hand at thirteen settlements was 58,380 pounds. James City had the largest supply, 24,880 pounds. Elizabeth City was next with 10,550 pounds. A community listed only as "Neck of Land" adjacent to Jamestown, consisting of perhaps ten dwellings and plantations, had 4,050 pounds. The smallest store, 450 pounds, was credited to another "Neck of Land" in Charles City. From the accumulated evidences of disorganized home fishing, coupled with the deficiency of salt, it is to be concluded that most of this supply had come from the Northern fishing grounds.

There were 40 boats of various sizes and uses listed in this census. For example, at Jamestown a "barque of 40 tons, a shallop of 4 tons and one skiff" were among the ten there.

A token of the stress resulting from inadequate fisheries even after 16 years of active colonization is this letter preserved in the records of the Virginia Company. A Virginia citizen named Arundle in 1623 wrote to his friend, Mr. Caning, in London:

The most evident hope from altogether starving is oysters, and for
the easier getting of them I have agreed for a canoe which will
cost me 6 livres sterling.

Emigrants had been advised not to leave for Virginia without some
fishing equipment. In his _Travels_, John Smith had included the
warning: "A particular of such necessaries as either private
families or single persons shall have cause to provide to go to
Virginia ... nets, hooks and lines must be added."

Records of the Virginia Company in London throw light on the extensiveness of the fish trade. Robert Bennett wrote from Virginia to Edward Bennett in London in 1623:

My last letter I wrote you was in the _Adam_ from Newfoundland,
which I hope you shall receive before this. God send her back in
safety and this from Canada. I hope the fish will come to a good
reckoning for victuals is very scarce in the country. Your
Newfoundland fish is worth 30s. per hundred, your dry Canada [fish]
L3, 10s. and the wet L5, 10s. per hundred. I do not know nor hear
of any that is coming hither with fish but only the _Tiger_ which
went in company with the _Adam_ from this place and I know the
country will carry away all this forthwith.

And again from the records of the Company, this extract from _An Account of Sums Subscribed and Supplies Sent Since April_, dated July 23, 1623:

... We have received advice that from Canada there departed this
last month a ship called Furtherance with above forty thousand of
that fish which is little inferior to ling for the supply of the
Colony in Virginia and that fish is worth not less than L600.

Library of Congress Photo

The first settlers did not have to learn from the Indians how to cook fish, but this method was perhaps as appetizing as any they knew.]

Library of Congress Photo

The first colonists saw the Indians engaged in fishing practices that included spearing, luring with firelight, and entrapping in staked-off enclosures.]

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Photos]

caviar.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Photos]

[1] (we cannot be certain that much actual caviar was produced at
Jamestown. The chances are that the roe was merely salted down
and that the final processing took place in England)

Original drawing by Esther Derieux]

National Park Service]

An 18th century plan of a solar-evaporating works. Sea water is channeled into the primary reservoir (DD), from which it is conducted to (FFF) and (KKK) by progressive stages to the final basins where it crystallizes.]

The kernel of the situation was reflected by the Dutch traveler, David De Vries, who made voyages to America from 1632 to 1644:

In going down to Jamestown on board of a sloop, a sturgeon sprang
out of the river, into the sloop. We killed it, and it was eight
feet long. This river is full of sturgeon, as also are the two
rivers of New Netherland. When the English first began to plant
their Colony here, there came an English ship from England for the
purpose of fishing for sturgeon; but they found that this fishery
would not answer, because it is so hot in summer, which is the best
time for fishing, that the salt or pickle would not keep them as in
Muscovy whence the English obtain many sturgeon and where the
climate is colder than in the Virginias.

The effects of the Virginians' favoring tobacco-growing above fishing were also noted by De Vries on a visit to Canada:

Besides my vessel [at Newfoundland] there was a small boat of fifty
or sixty lasts [110 tons], with six guns, which had come out of the
Virginias with tobacco, in order to exchange the tobacco for fish.

A rather aggrieved reaction to the tales of abundant natural resources in Virginia is contained in this letter from one Tho. Niccolls to Sir Jo. Worstenholme in London in 1623:

If the Company would allow to each man a pound of butter and a
portion of cheese weekly, they would find more comfort therein then
by all the deer, fish, and fowl [that] is so talked of in England,
of which, I can assure you, your poor servants have not had so much
as the scent since their coming into the country.

To prevent profiteering in Canadian fish the Virginia authorities had set the selling prices:

January 3, 1625-6: Proclamation by the Governor and Council of
Virginia renewing a former proclamation of August 31, 1623,
restraining the excessive rates of commodities--commanding that no
person in Virginia, either adventurer or planter, shall vend,
utter, barter, or sell any of the commodities following above the
prices hereafter mentioned, viz: New Foundland fish, the hundred
... 10 pounds of tobacco; Canada dry fish, the hundred ... 24
pounds of tobacco; Canada wet fish, the hundred.... 30 pounds of
tobacco.

In one proposed deal of fish for tobacco the owner of the fish got scared off, as recorded in the Minutes of the Council and General Court, 1622-29:

Luke Edan, sworn and examined, says that there were sixteen
thousand fish offered him by one Corbin at Canada which afterward
the said Corbin refused to sell him for it was told him his tobacco
was not good, and as the examiner heard, it was Henry Hewat that
told him so.

A case of special concession for the sale of fish was shown in a ruling of the Virginia Council in 1626:

It is ordered that whereas Mr. Weston came up to James City, he
shall sell 3,000 of his fish there, which he has promised to sell
at reasonable rates. Therefore, in regard the proclamations are not
published for the choosing of merchants and factors, it is
permitted that such as are desirous to buy any of the said fish he
may have leave to deal with Mr. Weston, notwithstanding orders to
the contrary.

Another dissuading factor in the unsubstantial fishing in Virginia was the threat of Indian attack. The Assembly in 1626 ruled:

It is ordered, according to the act of the late General Assembly,
that no man go or send abroad either upon fowling, fishing, or
otherwise whatsoever without a sufficient plenty of men, well armed
and provided of munition, upon penalty of undergoing severe censure
of punishment by the Governor and Council.

It was characteristic of Virginia's fisheries that the pessimists occupied the stage for a while, then the optimists. An example of the whipping-up of enthusiasm is this discourse of Edward Williams writing on Virginia at mid-century. China was a fabulous country, therefore he compared Virginia with it. Ideas ran riot as he contemplated the resources crying to be developed:

... What multitudes of fish to satisfy the most voluptuous of
wishes, can China glory in which Virginia may not in justice boast
of?... Let her publish a precedent so worthy of admiration (and
which will not admit belief in those bosoms where the eye cannot be
witness of the action) of five thousand fish taken at one draught
near Cape Charles, at the entry into Chesapeake bay, and which
swells the wonder greater, not one fish under the measure of two
feet in length. What fleets come yearly upon the coasts of
Newfoundland and New England for fish, with an incredible return?
Yet it is a most assured truth that if they would make experiment
upon the south of Cape Cod, and from thence to the coast of this
happy country, they would find fish of greater delicacy, and as
full handed plenty, which though foreigners know not, yet if our
own planters would make use of it, would yield them a revenue which
cannot admit of any diminution while there are ebbs and floods,
rivers feed and receive the ocean, or nature fails in (the
elemental original of all things) waters.

There wants nothing but industrious spirits and encouragement to
make a rich staple of this commodity; and would the Virginians but
make salt pits, in which they have a greater convenience of tides
(that part of the universe by reason of a full influence of the
moon upon the almost limitless Atlantic causing the most spacious
fluxes and refluxes, that any shore of the other divisions in the
world is sensible of) to leave their pits full of salt-water, and
more friendly and warm sunbeams to concoct it into salt, than
Rochel, or any parts of Europe. Yet notwithstanding these
advantages which prefer Virginia before Rochel, the French king
raises a large proportion of his revenues out of that staple
yearly, with which he supplies a great part of Christendom.

Nor would it be such a long interval (salt being first made)
betwixt the undertaking of this fishing, and the bringing it to
perfection, for if every servant were enjoined to practice rowing,
to be taught to handle sails, and trim a vessel, a work easily
practised, and suddenly learned, the pleasantness of weather in
fishing season, the delicacy of the fish, of which they usually
feed themselves with the best, the encouragement of some share in
the profit, and their understanding what their own benefit may be
when their freedom gives them an equality, will make them willing
and able fishermen and seamen. To add further to this, if we
consider the abundance, largeness, and peculiar excellency of the
sturgeon in that country, it will not fall into the least of
scruples, but that one species will be of an invaluable profit to
the buyer, or if we repeat to our thoughts the singular plenty of
herrings and mackerel, in goodness and greatness much exceeding
whatever of that kind these our seas produce, a very ordinary
understanding may at the first inspection perceive that it will be
no great difficulty to out-labor and out-vie the Hollander in that
his almost only staple.

This flowery author goes on to make ingenious suggestions about raising fish in captivity, like domesticated animals, by inclosing a creek against their egress but keeping it sluiced to permit the action of tides. He even guesses that a nutritious and medicinal oil could be produced from fish livers. It is worth noting that both these suggestions have been proved practical but they had to wait until modern times to be carried out.

In the anonymous _A Perfect Description of Virginia_, published in 1649, the population is given as 15,000 English and 300 negroes. The count of boats, remembering the shortage of 40 years before, is impressive: "They have in their Colony pinnaces, barks, great and small boats many hundreds, for most of their plantations stand upon the river sides or up little creeks, and but a small way into the land so that for transportation and fishing they use many boats."

The enmity of the Indians had been a constant irritation, and worse, ever since the first days. As soon as it became possible to do so, effort was made to cut them off from the resources of the tidal waters. It was reasoned, and as it turned out, rightly, that with them unable to supplement their food supplies with fish and shellfish, especially oysters, they would be weakened in body and more easily subdued. The word early went out: Keep the Indians away from the water. This strategy worked so successfully that by 1662 it was deemed safe to ease the pressure. Thus another milestone was reached: the first oyster licensing law, as recorded in Hening's _Statutes_:

Be it further enacted that for the better relief of the poor
Indians whom the seating of the English had forced from their
wonted convenience of oystering, fishing ... that the said Indians
upon address made to two of the justices of that county they desire
to oyster ... they, the said justices, shall grant a license to the
said Indians to oyster ... provided the said justices limit the
time the Indians are to stay, and the Indians bring not with them
any guns, or ammunition or any other offensive weapon but only such
tools or implements as serve for the end of their coming. If any
Englishman shall presume to take from the Indians so coming in any
of their goods, or shall kill, wound, maim any Indian, he shall
suffer as he had done the same to an Englishman and be fined for
his contempt.

This was followed, according to Hening, in 1676 by another cavalier gesture to the oppressed:

... It is hereby intended that our neighbor Indian friends be not
debarred from fishing and hunting within their own limits and
bounds, using bows and arrows only. Provided also that such
neighbor Indian friends who have occasion for corn to relieve their
lives and it shall and may be lawful for any English to employ in
fishing or deal with fish, canoes, bowls, mats, or baskets, and to
pay the said Indians for the same in Indian corn, but no other
commodities....

Thomas Glover, author of _An Account of Virginia_, addressed to the Royal Society in London, published in 1676, sides with the optimists. His catalogue has a familiar sound but it is valuable as substantiating many of the earlier reports. One impression to be gained from it is that after more than 60 years of occupancy of the new territory, the settlers had in no way depleted their fishery resources, had not, in fact, even scratched the surface:

In the rivers are great plenty and variety of delicate fish. One
kind whereof is by the English called a sheepshead from the
resemblance the eye of it bears with the eye of a sheep. This fish
is generally about fifteen or sixteen inches long and about half a
foot broad. It is a wholesome and pleasant fish and of easy
digestion. A planter does often times take a dozen or fourteen in
an hour's time with hook and line.

There is another sort which the English call a drum, many of which
are two foot and a half or three foot long. This is likewise a very
good fish, and there is plenty of them. In the head of this fish
there is a jelly, which being taken and dried in the sun, then
beaten to powder and given in broth, procures speedy delivery to
women in labour.

At the heads of the rivers there are sturgeon and in the creeks are
great store of small fish, as perch, croakers, taylors, eels, and
divers others whose name I know not. Here are such plenty of
oysters as they may load ships with them. At the mouth of Elizabeth
River, when it is low water, they appear in rocks a foot above
water. There are also in some places great store of mussels and
cockles. There is also a fish called a stingray, which resembles a
skate, only on one side of his tail grows out a sharp bone like a
bodkin about four or five inches long, with which he sticks and
wounds other fish and then preys upon them.

The same author went farther than any other reporter up to that time in telling a real fish story:

And now it comes into my mind, I shall here insert an account of a
very strange fish or rather a monster, which I happened to see in
Rappahannock River about a year before I came out of the country;
the manner of it was thus:

As I was coming down the forementioned river in a sloop bound for
the bay, it happened to prove calm, at which time we were three
leagues short of the river's mouth; the tide of ebb being then
done, the sloop-man dropped his grapline, and he and his boy took a
little boat belonging to the sloop, in which they went ashore for
water, leaving me aboard alone, in which time I took a small book
out of my pocket and sat down at the stern of the vessel to read;
but I had not read long before I heard a great rushing and flashing
of the water, which caused me suddenly to look up, and about half a
stone's cast from me appeared a prodigious creature, much
resembling a man, only somewhat larger, standing right up in the
water with his head, neck, shoulders, breast and waist, to the
cubits of his arms, above water; his skin was tawny, much like that
of an Indian; the figure of his head was pyramidal, and slick,
without hair; his eyes large and black, and so were his eyebrows;
his mouth very wide, with a broad streak on the upper lip, which
turned upward at each end like mustachioes; his countenance was
grim and terrible; his neck, shoulders, arms, breast and waist were
like unto the neck, arms, shoulders, breast and waist of a man; his
hands if he had any, were under water; he seemed to stand with his
eyes fixed on me for some time, and afterward dived down, and a
little after riseth at somewhat a farther distance, and turned his
head towards me again, and then immediately falleth a little under
water, and swimmeth away so near the top of the water, that I could
discern him throw out his arms, and gather them in as a man doth
when he swimmeth. At last he shoots with his head downwards, by
which means he cast his tail above the water, which exactly
resembled the tail of a fish with a broad fane at the end of it.

Judging from the few piddling regulations and restrictions referred to in extracts already cited, the Virginia lawmakers could see no need for intensive or even active supervision of the Tidewater fisheries. A rather epoch-making law was enacted in 1678 by the county court of Middlesex County, which is about 50 miles from James City, at the juncture of the Rappahannock river and Chesapeake bay:

Whereas, by the 15th act of Assembly made in the year 1662, liberty
is given to each respective county to make by-laws for themselves;
which laws, by virtue of the said act are to be binding upon them
as any other general law; and whereas several of the inhabitants of
this county have complained against the excessive and immoderate
striking and destroying of fish, by some fire, of the inhabitants
of this county by striking them by a light in the night time with
fish gigs, wherby they not only affright the fish from coming into
the rivers and creeks, but also wound four times that quantity that
they take, so that if a timely remedy be not applied, by that means
the fishing with hooks and lines will be thereby spoiled to the
great hurt and grievance of most of the inhabitants of this county.
It is therefore by this court ordered that from and after the 20th
day of March next ensuing, it shall not be lawful for any of the
inhabitants of this county to take, strike, or destroy any sort of
fish in the night time with fish gigs, harping irons, or any other
instrument of that nature, sort or kind, within any river, creek or
bay which are accounted belonging to or within the bounds or
precincts of this county. And it is further ordered that if any
person or persons being a freeman, shall offend against this order,
he or they so offending shall for the first offence be fined five
hundred pounds of good tobacco to be paid to the informer, and for
every other offence committed against this order after the first,
by any person, the said fine to be doubled and if any servants be
permitted or encouraged by their masters to keep or have in their
possession any fish gig, harping iron or any other instrument of
that kind or nature and shall therewith offend against this order,
that in such case the master of such servant or servants shall be
liable to pay the several fines above mentioned, and if any servant
or servants shall, contrary to and against their master's will and
knowledge, offend against this order, that for every offence they
receive such corporal punishment as by this court shall be thought
meet.

As population became more dense it was inevitable that rights previously of little significance began to be asserted. This case of 1679 taken from Hening's _Statutes_, was a forerunner of countless others like it which continue to this day:

Robert Liny, having complained to this Grand Assembly that whereas
he had cleared a fishing place in the river against his own land to
his great cost and charge supposing the right thereof in himself by
virtue of his patents, yet nevertheless several persons have
frequently obstructed him in his just privilege of fishing there,
and despite of him came upon his land and hauled their seines on
shore to his great prejudice, alleging that the water was the King
Majesty's and not by him granted away in any patent and therefore
equally free to all His Majesty's subjects to fish in and haul
their seines on shore, and praying for relief therein by a
declaratory order of this Grand Assembly; it is ordered and
declared by this Grand Assembly that every man's right by virtue of
his patent extends into the rivers or creeks so far as low water
mark and it is a privilege granted to him in and by his patent, and
that therefore no person ought to come and fish there above low
water mark or haul seines on shore without leave first obtained,
under the hazard of comitting a trespass for which he is sueable by
law.

In most cases this decision somewhat limited a landowner's claim. But on the seaside of Virginia's Eastern Shore conditions have always been so that at low tide thousands of acres of land are laid bare, with the result that "low water mark" is in many cases difficult of interpretation as a boundary between waterfront properties and the public domain.

Toward the close of the century fishing methods had shaped up advantageously compared to the crudities and hit-or-miss practices of the first settlers. Robert Beverley described them in 1705:

The Indian invention of weirs in fishing is mightily improved by
the English, besides which, they make use of seines, trolls,
casting nets, setting nets, hand fishing and angling and in each
find abundance of diversion. I have sat in the shade at the heads
of the rivers angling and spent as much time in taking the fish off
the hook as in waiting for their taking it. Like those of the
Euxine Sea, they also fish with spilyards which is a long line
staked out in the river and hung with a great many hooks on short
strings, fastened to the main line, about four foot asunder. The
only difference is that our line is supported by stakes and theirs
is buoyed up with gourds.

The abundance of the fisheries never ceased impressing visitors. A French tourist added to the chorus in 1687:

Fish too is wonderfully plentiful. There are so many shell oysters
that almost every Saturday my host craved them. He had only to send
one of his servants in one of the small boats and two hours after
ebb tide he brought it back full. These boats, made of a single
tree hollowed in the middle, can hold as many as fourteen people
and twenty-five hundredweight of merchandise.

As if to crown the final emergence of recognition of the home fisheries William Byrd I instructed his agent in Boston in 1689 to send him a variety of commodities in return for a bill of exchange but _no salt fish_:

By the advice of my friend, Captain Peter Perry, I made bold to
give you the trouble of a letter of the 1st instant with two small
bills of exchange which I desired you to receive and return the
effects to me in the upper part of James River, either in rum,
sugar, Madeira wine, turnery, earthenware, or anything else you may
judge convenient to this country (fish excepted)....

Evidently at least some good salt was now at hand to preserve the roe herring that choked the rivers and creeks in the spring. The salt-herring breakfast was on its way to becoming a Virginia institution, and the salt-fish monopolies of New England and Canada were cracking after three-quarters of a century.

The score of "firsts" in the Virginia fishery world have been noted as they occurred. Among them were the first fishery statistics, the first licensing law, the first price control, the first diamond-back terrapin, the first conservation measures. And now in 1698 there was the first agitation against polluted waters:

We, the Council and Burgesses of the present General Assembly,
being sensible to the great mischiefs and inconveniences that
accrue to the inhabitants of this, his Majesty's Colony and
Dominion of Virginia, by killing of whales within the capes
thereof, in all humility take leave to represent the same unto Your
Excellency and withal to acquaint you that by the means thereof
great quantities of fish are poisoned and destroyed and the rivers
also made noisome and offensive. For prevention of which evils in
regard the restraint of the killing of whales is a branch of His
Majesty's royal prerogative.

We humbly pray that Your Excellency [the Governor, Francis
Nicholson] will be pleased to issue out a proclamation forbidding
all persons whatsoever to strike or kill any whales within the bay
of Chesapeake in the limits of Virginia which we hope will prove an
effectual means to prevent the many evils that arise therefrom.

As Jamestown reached the end of its span, the fisheries came of age. Inequities were being ironed out, methods were being perfected, and planners were at work on ways of employing more and more of the fast-growing population in searching out and making available the bounty of the fair Chesapeake.

At the start of the 18th century, however, there was little evidence of an organized industry in any phase. Everywhere were unlimited opportunities for exploitation. The abundance of oysters still impressed travelers. In the extract to follow, Francis Louis Michel of Switzerland speaks of the method of tonging oysters in 1701, but note that he says, "They usually pull from six to ten times." This could be taken to mean that each individual procured his own oysters from the lavish supply virtually at his doorstep, and stopped as soon as he had a "mess" to enjoy over the week-end:

The water is no less prolific, because an indescribably large
number of big and little fish are found in the many creeks, as well
as in the large rivers. The abundance is so great and they are so
easily caught that I was much surprised. Many fish are dried,
especially those that are fat. Those who have a line can catch as
many as they please. Most of them are caught with the hook or the
spear, as I know from personal experience, for when I went out
several times with the line, I was surprised that I could pull out
one fish after another, and, through the clear water I could see a
large number of all kinds, whose names are unknown to me. They
cannot be compared with our fish, except the herring, which is
caught and dried in large numbers. Thus the so-called catfish is
not unlike the large turbot. A very good fish and one easily caught
is the eel, also like those here [in Switzerland]. There is also a
kind like a pike. They have a long and pointed mouth, with which
they like to bite into the hook. They are not wild, but it happens
rarely that one can keep them on the line, for they cut it in two
with their sharp teeth. We always had our harpoons and guns with us
when we went out fishing, and when the fish came near we shot at
them or harpooned them. A good fish, which is common and found in
large numbers is the porpoise. They are so large that by their
unusual leaps, especially when the weather changes, they make a
great noise and often cause anxiety for the small boats or canoes.
Especially do they endanger those that bathe. Once I cooled and
amused myself in the water with swimming, not knowing that there
was any danger, but my host informed me that there was.... The
waters and especially the tributaries are filled with turtles. They
show themselves in large numbers when it is warm. Then they come to
the land or climb up on pieces of wood or trees lying in the water.
When one travels in a ship their heads can be seen everywhere
coming out of the water. The abundance of oysters is incredible.
There are whole banks of them so that the ships must avoid them. A
sloop, which was to land us at Kingscreek, struck an oyster bed,
where we had to wait about two hours for the tide. They surpass
those in England by far in size, indeed, they are four times as
large. I often cut them in two, before I could put them into my
mouth. The inhabitants usually catch them on Saturday. It is not
troublesome. A pair of wooden tongs is needed. Below they are wide,
tipped with iron. At the time of the ebb they row to the beds and
with the long tongs they reach down to the bottom. They pinch them
together tightly and then pull or tear up that which has been
seized. They usually pull from six to ten times. In summer they are
not very good, but unhealthy and can cause fever.

The most comprehensive list of fish thus far given by the early historians was offered by Robert Beverley in 1705. Again as with John Smith, there are names that do not fit in today. But these are very few: "greenfish," "maid," "wife," and "frogfish" perhaps, all of which, however, are well-known in England. The recurring mention of carp in the early authorities quoted is interesting, since it has long been believed that carp were introduced into the Chesapeake region in 1877 by the U.S. Fish Commission. No doubt that was carp of another species. The esteemed sheepshead is today very rare:

As for fish, both of fresh and salt water, of shellfish, and
others, no country can boast of more variety, greater plenty, or of
better in their several kinds.

In the spring of the year, herrings come up in such abundance into
their brooks and fords to spawn that it is almost impossible to
ride through without treading on them. Thus do those poor creatures
expose their own lives to some hazard out of their care to find a
more convenient reception for their young, which are not yet alive.
Thence it is that at this time of the year, the freshes of the
rivers, like that of the Broadruck, stink of fish.

Besides these herrings, there come up likewise into the freshes
from the sea multitudes of shad, rock, sturgeon, and some few
lampreys, which fasten themselves to the shad, as the remora of
Imperatus is said to do to the shark of Tiburon. They continue
their stay there about three months. The shad at their first coming
up are fat and fleshy, but they waste so extremely in milting and
spawning that at their going down they are poor and seem fuller of
bones, only because they have less flesh. As these are in the
freshes, so the salts afford at certain times of the year many
other kinds of fish in infinite shoals, such as the oldwife, a fish
not much unlike a herring, and the sheepshead, a sort of fish which
they esteem in the number of their best.

There is likewise great plenty of other fish all the summer long
and almost in every part of the rivers and brooks there are found
of different kinds. Wherefore I shall not pretend to give a detail
of them, but venture to mention the names only of such as I have
eaten and seen myself and so leave the rest to those that are
better skilled in natural history. However, I may add that besides
all those that I have met with myself, I have heard of a great many
very good sorts, both in the salts and freshes, and such people
too, as have not always spent their time in that country, have
commended them to me, beyond any they had ever eaten before.

Those which I know myself, I remember by the names of herring,
rock, sturgeon, shad, oldwife, sheepshead, black and red drums,
trout, taylor, greenfish, sunfish, bass, chub, plaice, flounder,
whiting, fatback, maid, wife, small turtle, crab, oyster, mussel,
cockle, shrimp, needlefish, bream, carp, pike, jack, mullet, eel,
conger eel, perch, and catfish.

Those which I remember to have seen there of the kinds that are not
eaten are the whale, porpoise, shark, dogfish, gar, stingray,
thornback, sawfish, toadfish, frogfish, land crabs, fiddlers, and
periwinkle.

Francis Makemie, often called the father of American Presbyterianism, was concerned, in his _A Plain and Friendly Perswasive to the Inhabitants of Virginia and Maryland for Promoting Towns and Cohabitations_, about the dearth of markets for fishery products. It was a condition brought about largely by a general lack of money in circulation. It was easily possible for entire families to subsist the year around on the fruits of land and water plus unexacting manual labor. Wealth was concentrated in the hands of the more important planters whose estates were usually self-sufficient and concentrating on trade with England. The natural bounty of the Tidewater region thus actually deterred the development of Virginia along the lines of New England with its urban centers:

Cohabitation would not only employ thousands of people ... others
would be employed in hunting, fishing, and fowling, and the more
diligently if assured of a public market....

So also our fishing would be advanced and improved highly by
encouraging many poor men to follow that calling, and sundry sorts
which are now slighted would be fit for a town market, as sturgeon,
thornback, and catfish. Our vast plenty of oysters would make a
beneficial trade, both with the town and foreign traders, believing
we have the best oysters for pickling and transportation if
carefully and skillfully managed.

By 1705 the seat of government had been transferred to nearby Williamsburg. The need of establishing towns as foci for the developing countryside had been felt and now the legislators turned their attention to promoting the fish markets therein, followed by some essential protection of the rights of fishermen and others. Hening's _Statutes_ gives the details:

October, 1705. For the encouragement and bettering of the markets
in the said town, Be it enacted, That no dead provision, either of
flesh or fish shall be sold within five miles of any of the ports
or towns appointed by this act, on the same side the great river
the town shall stand upon, but within the limits of the town, on
pain of forfeiture and loss of all such provision by the purchases,
and the purchase money of such provision sold by the vendor,
cognizable by any justice of the county....

Be it further enacted and declared, That if any person or persons
shall at any time hereafter shoot, hunt or range upon the lands and
tenements, or fish or fowl in any creeks or waters included within
the lands of any other person or persons without license for the
same, first obtained of the owner and proprietor thereof, every
such person so shooting, hunting, fishing, fowling, or ranging,
shall forfeit and pay for every such offence, the sum of five
hundred pounds of tobacco....

Be it further enacted, That if any person shall set, or cause to be
set, a weir in any river or creek, such person shall cause the
stayes thereof to be taken up again, as soon as the weir becomes
useless; and if any person shall fail of performing his duty
herein, he shall forfeit and pay fifteen shillings current money,
to the informer: To be recovered, with costs, before a justice of
the peace.

The essentials of any stable industry are: control of supply and means of distribution. The fisheries of Virginia were blessed with neither of these advantages. Any progress had to be made in spite of uncertain harvests and lack of packing and handling facilities. Distribution of fresh seafoods was impossible without rapid transportation and adequate refrigeration. Neither was available for two centuries. Virginia's huge supply of oysters was a case in point. Consumption of oysters was limited to those who lived on the spot, and though they figured importantly in the Tidewater diet, as a palpable resource they were untouched until the 19th century. The principal means of preserving them before then was by pickling. In that form they were quite popular during the Colonial period. Fish were salted when there was a surplus and in certain seasons, especially the spawning time of the anadromous river-herring, they were available in phenomenal quantities. They remain today among Virginia's most plentiful fish but the salting industry has now become a mere token of its former magnitude.

The Chesapeake bay blue crab which today constitutes a resource worth about $5,000,000 a year to Virginia crabbers and packers, had to wait even longer than fish and oysters did for development. Salting and pickling were unsuitable to this delicate food and expeditious handling methods did not exist.

In an exhaustive catalogue of the marine life of Virginia William Byrd II, of Westover said:

Herring are not as large as the European ones, but better and more
delicious. After being salted they become red. If one prepares them
with vinegar and olive oil, they then taste like anchovies or
sardines, since they are far better in salt than the English or
European herring. When they spawn, all streams and waters are
completely filled with them, and one might believe, when he sees
such terrible amounts of them, that there was as great a supply of
herring as there is water. In a word, it is unbelievable, indeed,
indescribable, as also incomprehensible, what quantity is found
there. One must behold oneself.

At the time he wrote Virginians were beginning to compete with Canadians and New Englanders in exporting salt fish, particularly to the West Indies, where a large proportion of them were exchanged for the rum so freely used on the plantations as slave rations.

There were no dams barring access to the highest reaches of the rivers and no cities and factories to discharge pollution, so that the river-herring and shad made their way far inland even to the Blue Ridge mountains. There the pioneers awaited them eagerly each spring and salted down a supply to tide them over till the next run. Small wonder, then, that the love of salt herring--always with corn bread--became ingrained in so many Old Virginians!

They had an illustrious exemplar. Once, in 1782, when George Washington was due to visit Robert Howe the honored host wrote to a friend: "General Washington dines with me tomorrow. He is exceedingly fond of salt fish."

Despite obstacles a healthy experimentation in the various phases of fishing was now and then manifest. For example, in 1710 one adventurous fisherman wished to extend the home fisheries to whaling and applied to the Virginia Council for a license. Whales, though not common in Chesapeake bay or the ocean area near it, had been noted from time to time ever since the birth of the Colony. Most often they were washed ashore dead. John Custis, of Northampton County, succeeded in making 30 barrels of oil from one such in 1747. The year before that a live one was spotted in the James river by some Scottish sailors who were able to comer it in shallow water. After killing it, they found it to measure 54 feet! The _Virginia Gazette_, published in Williamsburg, carried this item in 1751:

Some principal gentlemen of the Colony, having by voluntary
subscription agreed to fit out vessels to be employed in the whale
fishery on our coast, a small sloop called the _Experiment_ was
some time ago sent on a cruise, and we have the pleasure to
acquaint the public that she is now returned with a valuable whale.
Though she is the first vessel sent from Virginia in this employ,
yet her success, we hope, will give encouragement to the further
prosecution of the design which, we doubt not, will tend very much
to the advantage of the Colony as well as excite us to other
profitable undertakings hitherto too much neglected.

Commented John Blair in his _Diary_ on the incident: "Heard our first whale brought in and three more struck but lost." The _Experiment_ continued its whaling career successfully for three years. When it retired, no similar enterprise replaced it. Yet in a list of exports from Virginia for the year ending September 30, 1791, 1263 gallons of whale oil appears. Even today whales are occasionally represented in Virginia fishery products, as when one is washed up on a beach and removed by the Coast Guard to a processing plant to be turned into meal and oil.

The overall value of Virginia's fisheries as an industrial resource was glacially slow in reaching public consciousness. Here and there, like dim lights along an uncertain voyage, bits of legislation or isolated conservation procedures appeared. In due course it became evident that natural fishways--to choose one example--were being obstructed to the disadvantage of both the fish and navigation. Hening records the law enacted to keep the rivers open:

1745. And whereas the making and raising of mill dams, and
stone-stops, or hedges for catching of fish, is a great obstruction
to the navigation of the said rivers [James and Appomattox]: Be it
further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all mill dams,
stone-stops, and hedges, already made across either of the said
rivers, where they are navigable, shall be thrown down and
destroyed by the person or persons who made the same....

Like most hastily framed and passed laws this one proved unsatisfactory and a second one, with more detailed provisions was passed. Hening records it:

1762. Whereas the act of assembly made in the first year of his
present Majesty's reign [1761], entitled, an act to oblige the
owners of mills, hedges, or stone-stops, on sundry rivers therein
mentioned, to make openings or slopes therein for the passage of
fish, has been found defective, and not to answer the purposes for
which it was intended, and it is therefore necessary that the same
should be amended: Be it therefore enacted by the Lieutenant
Governor, Council and Burgesses, of this present General Assembly,
and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That the
owner or proprietor of all and every mill, hedge, or stone-stop, on
either of the rivers Nottoway and Meherrin, shall in the space of
nine months from and after the passing of this act, make an opening
or slope in their respective mill-dams, hedges, or stops, in that
part of the same where there shall happen to be the deepest water,
which shall be in width at least ten feet in the clear, in length
at least three times the height of the dam, and that the bottoms
and sides thereof shall be planked, and that the sides shall be at
least fourteen inches deep, so as to admit a current of water
through the same twelve inches deep, which shall be kept open from
the tenth day of February to the last day of May in every year....
And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any
such owner or proprietor shall neglect or refuse so to do, within
the time aforesaid, the person so offending shall forfeit and pay
the sum of five pounds of tobacco for every day he or they shall so
neglect or refuse....

Still the fundamental problem was not solved; fish were not by-passing the remaining obstructions in sufficient quantity to maintain the expected harvest. After various amendments and additions this explicit definition of a fishway or slope was enacted into law in 1771:

That a gap be cut in the top of the dam contiguous to the deepest
part of the water below the dam, in which shall be set a slope ten
feet wide, and so deep that the water may run through it 18 inches
before it will through the waste, or over the dam, that the
direction of the said slope be so, as with a perpendicular to be
dropped from the top of the dam, will form an angle of at least 75
degrees, and to continue in that direction to the bottom of the
river, below the dam, to be planked up the sides 2 feet high; that
there be pits or basins built in the bottom, at 8 feet distance,
the width of the said slope, and to be 12 inches deep, and that the
whole be tight and strong; which said slope shall be kept open from
the 10th day of February to the last day of May, annually, and any
owner not complying to forfeit 5 pounds of tobacco a day.

The effort was of little avail. Before many dams could be so laboriously modified the Revolutionary War arrived to obscure placid matters like fish conservation.

The diaries of the 18th Century Virginia planters abound with references to seafoods. Most of them lived either on or within easy distance of Tidewater. Most of them had nets and other fishing implements of their own and crews among the slaves to work them. Whenever their needs required, an expedition was made. Perhaps there was a season of bountiful entertaining in prospect. The seine would be taken to a likely spot and hauled ashore. Or a boat would go out and load up with oysters. The fish had to be eaten right away or salted down. But oysters stored in a dark cellar, especially in cool weather, would keep for weeks if moistened from time to time.

One diarist, James Gordon, lived near the Rappahannock river in a section affording a variety of seafoods. Note these typical entries:

Sept. 20, 1759. Fine weather. Went in the afternoon and drew the
seine. Had very agreeable diversion and got great plenty of fine
fish....

Sept. 26. Went with my wife in the evening to draw the seine. Got
about sixty greenfish and a few other sorts.