Part 13

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that no patent may be granted to any person or persons for the same lands or any part thereof; and that the same may remain a common for the benefit of the inhabitants of this Colony in general for carrying on a fishery and for such public uses as the same premises shall be found convenient.

Even when the new United States Government erected a lighthouse at Cape Henry a careful stipulation was made in the act ceding the property in 1790 that the public were not to be denied fishing privileges there:

Deed of cession of two acres of land at Cape Henry, in Princess Anne County, Virginia, for the purpose of erecting a lighthouse thereon ... provided that nothing contained in this act shall affect the right of this State to any materials heretofore placed at or near Cape Henry for the purpose of erecting a lighthouse, nor shall the citizens be debarred, in consequence of this cession, from the privileges they now enjoy of hauling their seines and fishing on the shores of the said land so ceded to the United States.

When George Washington had come, a newlywed, to be master of Mt. Vernon in 1759 he found the prospects for fishing very satisfying. One of his letters at this time boasted:

A river [the Potomac] well-stocked with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year, and in the spring with shad, herrings, bass, carp, perch, sturgeon, etc., in great abundance. The borders of the estate are washed by more than ten miles of tidewater, the whole shore, in fact, is one entire fishery.

Washington generously ordered his overseer to admit "the honest poor" to fishing privileges at one of his shores, a concession that may have been customary among many landowners.

He was a man who believed in keeping records, and so complete a file of them has now been reassembled at Mt. Vernon that it is possible to follow his career in any phase: officer, business speculator, host, farmer, legislative adviser, and friend. He gave to fishing the painstaking personal attention he gave to all else. As a "fisherman" he directed the manufacture as well as the repair of his nets, and the curing, shipping and marketing of his fish.

It seems obvious that suitable nets were not being manufactured in the desired quantity or variety in America, otherwise he would hardly have bought his in England.

He dealt with Robert Cary and Co., London, in 1771. Here is a typical order:

One seine, seventy-five fathoms long when rigged for hauling; to be ten feet deep in the middle and eight at the ends with meshes fit for the herring fishery. The corks to be two and a half feet asunder; the leads five feet apart; to be made of the best three-strand (small) twine and tanned.

400 fathom of white inch rope for hauling the above seine. 150 fathom of deep sea line.

To get ready for spring fishing he had to prepare as far ahead as July. Even then he was not always sure delivery would be on time:

... The goods you will please to forward by the first vessel for Potomac (which possibly may be Captain Jordan the bearer of this) as there are some articles that will be a good deal wanted, especially the seine, which will be altogether useless to me if I do not get them early in the spring, or in other words I shall sustain a considerable disappointment and loss, if they do not get to hand in time.

He wrote to Bradshaw and Davidson in London in 1772:

That I may have my seine net exactly agreeable to directions this year I give you the trouble of receiving this letter from me to desire that three may be made. One of them eighty fathom long, another seventy, and the third sixty-five fathom, all of them to be twelve feet deep in the middle and to decrease to seven at the ends when rigged and fit for use; to be so close-meshed in the middle as not to suffer the herrings (for which kind of fishery they are intended) to hang in them because, when this is the case it gives us a good deal of trouble at the busy hurrying season to disengage the seine, and often is the means of tearing it. But the meshes may widen as they approach the ends: the corks to be no more than two feet and a half asunder and fixed on flatways that they may swim and bear the seine up better with a float right in the middle to show the approach of the seine with greater certainty in case the corks should sink; the leads to be five feet apart. The seine I had from you last year had two faults, one of which is that of having the meshes too open in the middle; the other of being too strait rigged; to avoid which I wish you to loose at least one-third of the length in hanging these seines; that is, to let your 80 fathom seine be 120 in the strait measure (before it is hung in the lead and cork lines) and the other two to bear the same proportion, I could wish to have these seines tanned but it is thought the one I had from you last year was injured in the vat, for which reason I leave it to you to have these tanned or not, as you shall judge most expedient ... I would not wish to have them made of thick heavy twine as they are more liable to heat and require great force to work them....

A detailed reply came from James Davidson, a partner in the net company:

London, Sept. 29, 1772. Sir: I had the honour of receiving your letter with instructions concerning your seines. I shall always pay due attention to the contents. I persuade myself you'll say I have fulfilled your instructions given me in these three seines which I heartily hope will be in time for the intended fishery. Am not afraid but they will meet with your approbation and if you should see any alteration wanting if you'll be so obliging as to send a line in the same channel, it shall be attended to with great care. Your order is for the corks to be put on flat ways. I have only put them on the 65 fathom seine for these reasons. We have tried that method before with every other invention for the satisfaction of our fishermen here but they have assured us they really do not bear the net up so well. They are obliged to be tied on so tight that the twine cuts them and are much apter to break and after all in dragging the net they will swim sideways. Now, Sir, you'll readily see the above inconveniences. I have also put six floats in the middle, two together to show the center of the net. Likewise the length of the netting, 120 fathoms for the 80 fathoms, the other two in proportion.

I now enter upon tanning. This, you may assure yourself, they are pretty well wore if you have them tanned for we are obliged to haul them in and out to take the tan and after that hauling them about to get them thoroughly dry before we can possibly pack them or else they would soon rot. Among the hundreds of seines I sent abroad last year or this, I only tanned one besides yours. Therefore have not tanned any of these. I think the three-quarters inch mesh that I have put in the middle of the nets this year will be a cure for the malady you mention of the herrings hanging in the mesh, for last year I only put in inch mesh which upon examination you'll soon perceive. Therefore, sir, I entreat the honour of a line whether or not the two above three-quarters mesh seines answer the purpose. I have tapered them away at the ends to inch and a half.

These nets were designed for hauling ashore by hand. It was not till 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.