UNLOADING FISH.
To quote from Douglass, he says: "In 1746 Marblehead ships off more dried cod than all the rest of New England besides. Anno 1732 a good fish year, and in profound peace, Marblehead had about one hundred and twenty schooners of about fifty tons burden, seven men aboard, and one man ashore to make the fish, or about one thousand men employed, besides the seamen who carry the fish to market. Two hundred quintals considered a fare. In 1747 they have not exceeding seventy schooners, and make five fares yearly to I. Sables, St. George's Banks, etc."
M. Rochefoucauld Liancourt, who visited New England in 1799, making a tour of the coast as far as the Penobscot, says at that time the vessels were usually of seventy tons, and had a master, seven seamen, and a boy. The owner had a quarter, the dryer on the coast an eighth, and the rest was shared by the master and seamen, in proportion to the fish they had taken. Every man took care of his own fish.
As early as 1631 Governor Matthew Cradock established a fishing station at Marblehead, in charge of Isaac Allerton, whose name appears fifth on the celebrated compact of the Pilgrims, signed at Cape Cod, November 11th, 1620.[154] Winthrop mentions in his journal that as the Arabella was standing in for Naumkeag, on the 12th of June, 1630, Mr. Allerton boarded her in a shallop as he was sailing to Pemaquid. Moses Maverick lived at Marblehead with Allerton, and married his daughter Sarah. In 1635 Allerton conveyed to his son-in-law all the houses, buildings, and stages he had at Marblehead. In 1638 Moses was licensed to sell a tun of wine a year.
In Winthrop's "Journal," under the date of 1633, is the following with reference to this plantation:[155]
"February 1.—Mr. Cradock's house at Marblehead was burnt down about midnight before, there being then in it Mr. Allerton, and many fishermen whom he employed that season, who all were preserved by a special providence of God, with most of his goods therein, by a tailor, who sat up that night at work in the house, and, hearing a noise, looked out and saw the house on fire above the oven in the thatch."[156]
While retracing my steps back to town, I pictured the harbor in its day of prosperity. A hundred sail would have given it a degree of animation quite marvelous to see. Six hours a hundred sharp prows point up the harbor, and six they look out to sea. Above the tapering forest of equal growth are thrust the crossed spars of ships from Cadiz, in Spain. Innumerable wherries dart about, rowed by two men each; they are strongly built, for baiting trawls on the banks and in a sea is no child's play. The cheery cries, rattling of blocks, and universal bustle aboard the fleet announce the preparations for sailing. At the top of the flood up go a score of sails, and round go as many windlasses to a rattling chorus. Anchors are hove short in a trice. The vessels first under way draw out from among the fleet, clear the mouth of the harbor, and in a few minutes more are flinging the seas from their bows with Marblehead Light well under their lee.
I do not know who first discovered Marblehead. The vague idea associates it with a heap of sterile rocks, inhabited by fishermen speaking an unintelligible jargon. Though not twenty miles from the New England metropolis, and notwithstanding its past is interwoven with every page of our historic times, less is known of it than would seem credible to the intelligent reader. A faithful chronicle of its fortunes would, no doubt, be sufficiently curious, though many would, I fear, prefer the stories of Tyre and Carthage. But Marblehead is unique; there is nothing like it on this side of the water.