The Founding Fish (21 page)
Authors: John McPhee
Steve Quinn,
In-Fisherman
magazine:
In-Fisherman
magazine:
Rations dwindled and soldiers were driven to scavenge ⦠Morale ebbed ⦠Provisions were nearly gone by the end of March, with little hope of finding food ⦠Huge schools of migrating shad suddenly appeared, to feed the men and rekindle the revolutionary fire in their hearts. Although the soldiers reportedly grew weary of their shad diet, their assault on Philadelphia forced the British to evacuate in June 1778, and the tide of the war swung in favor of the Revolutionaries.
On Presidents' Day, 2002, television's History Channel presented “Save Our History: Valley Forge.” Scenes of buildings in present disrepair. Scenes of archaeologists meticulously digging. A happy scene far into the film showing actors, dressed as Valley Forge troops, wolfing down food. “The American army's luck was changing for the better now, in significant ways,” the narrator said. “Just months earlier, they had almost been starving. Now, huge amounts of food came to them, almost like in a Biblical miracle.” The film then cut to a head-and-shoulders shot of Roger Mc-Grathâ“Author/Historian”âwho said, “Late in the winter, early in the spring, of 1778, was a tremendous run of shad up the Schuylkill River that was intercepted with nets by the troops, and tens of thousands of fish headed upstream; and they feasted on these fish for a month. It almost seemed a sign of God's omnipotence, something of Biblical proportions.”
On Presidents' Day, 2002, those archaeological digs in progress among the cabin sites of Valley Forge were in the second of several projected years. In offal and garbage pits, a great many food remains had been uncovered. Bones of cattle and pigs, mainly. No deer bones. No rabbit bones. No fish bones.
In 2000, Wayne Bodle sent me an article from a recent issue of
Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies.
Called “Fish or Foul: A History of the Delaware River Basin Through the Perspective of the American Shad, 1682 to the Present,” the article was by Charles Hardy III, of West Chester University, near Philadelphia. Hardy's piece was thoroughly researched, with a huge bibliography. It was attractively written, and represented, at the very least, many months of work. Nonetheless, he did write:
Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies.
Called “Fish or Foul: A History of the Delaware River Basin Through the Perspective of the American Shad, 1682 to the Present,” the article was by Charles Hardy III, of West Chester University, near Philadelphia. Hardy's piece was thoroughly researched, with a huge bibliography. It was attractively written, and represented, at the very least, many months of work. Nonetheless, he did write:
Confronted by famine and starvation in the early years of settlement, the colonists, as the Indians before them, learned to preserve and husband food sources for the long winters. For human purposes anadromous species such as salmon and shad are by far the most important finfish. A migratory fish run concentrates a huge biological mass from the vast expanse of an ocean into a narrow geographical zone. Arriving in late March or early April, shad were one of the first food sources to relieve the shortages of the preceding winter. Indeed, Nathan Hale asserted that it was an uncommonly early run of the shad in the spring of 1778 that saved Washington and his troops camped in Valley Forge!
Some years before, Hardy had produced a public-radio documentary called “The Return of the Shad,” in which the narrator said, “It was the early appearance of the shad in the spring of 1779 [sic] that may well have saved our nation in its most trying hour.” At which point the apparent source, Max Hezelguesserâa dyed-in-the-wool-shirt Delaware River shad fisherman, a member of the Delaware River Shad Fishermen's Association, and, it goes without saying, a reader whose eye had often been caught by anything at all about shadâcame on and said:
In the time of the Revolutionary War the troops were very depressed in the winter of whatever at Valley Forge. They were starving and they were hungry and they were beaten down, ready to go home, and that would have been the end of it. The shad run for some reason started three weeks early in the Schuylkill River ⦠The word got to the troops. They took horses. They pulled trees into the shallow water and really scooped them together and they filled barrels and barrels and barrels of shad. They filled their stomachs. They felt good. They had the strength and the power to keep going. And this was in a letter that Nathan Hale wrote to somebody. And you know, be it at all true, that ought to be the American fish.
In a note accompanying the piece from
Pennsylvania History,
Wayne Bodle said, “The providentialist canard from Valley Forge pops up again, I suppose inevitably. I have come across it in a variety of versions over the years, although never in one quite this bizarre. Hale, of course, died on Long Island in September of 1776.”
Pennsylvania History,
Wayne Bodle said, “The providentialist canard from Valley Forge pops up again, I suppose inevitably. I have come across it in a variety of versions over the years, although never in one quite this bizarre. Hale, of course, died on Long Island in September of 1776.”
R
estored to publication toward the end of the Revolution, the
Pennsylvania Gazette
, even in its shorter notices, was resonant with a couple of new terms, as on May 24, 1780:
estored to publication toward the end of the Revolution, the
Pennsylvania Gazette
, even in its shorter notices, was resonant with a couple of new terms, as on May 24, 1780:
WAS stolen from the fishery, near the mouth of Tyhukan Creek, on the Delaware, in the night of the 13th instant May, seven barrels salt SHAD, the property of the United States; the barrels are made of Black Oak Staves. Any person giving information ⦠shall receive FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS reward.
In 1782, a few months after the British surrender at Yorktown, the old fishing-and-hunting club called the Colony in Schuylkill changed its name to the State in Schuylkill and went on fishing and hunting. Colloquially, it would become known as the Fish House. Only two people among the twenty-seven were loyal to the king, and several signed the Declaration of Independence. The new State firmly retained the Colony's order of April 23, 1760, “that they may drink out of the Government Bowl of Punch as often as they like, and fill it again as often as they drink it out.” Samuel Morris Jr., their Governor from 1766 to 1812, is credited with the invention of Fish House Punch (lemon juice, sugar, rum, and brandy), a drink as American as Betsy Ross. The guiding agendum of their assemblies to this day, it is ladled from an elegant Government Bowl.
In 1789, Peter Cortelyou caught nearly sixteen thousand shad in the Narrows off New Utrechtâthe present-day Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He used fyke nets, balloonlike, held open with hoops. In the same place in the six seasons 1790-95, he caught about a hundred thousand shad. By the eighteen-twenties, according to his ledgers, his catch was down ninety-six per cent, the result of overfishing. By 1838, New York was buying shad from other rivers. On January 17, 1807, the
New York Commercial Advertiser
reported: “A shad weighing five pounds was caught this morning at the Narrows, and sold in our market for one dollar and twelve sents!” The exclamation point may have had something to do with the price but more with the date. It was even earlier than Philadelphia's harbinger shad of 1793, pulled out of the Delaware on January 20th, pronounced a “fine shad” by the
Pennsylvania Gazette
, and served that evening in the White Horse Tavern, on Market Street.
New York Commercial Advertiser
reported: “A shad weighing five pounds was caught this morning at the Narrows, and sold in our market for one dollar and twelve sents!” The exclamation point may have had something to do with the price but more with the date. It was even earlier than Philadelphia's harbinger shad of 1793, pulled out of the Delaware on January 20th, pronounced a “fine shad” by the
Pennsylvania Gazette
, and served that evening in the White Horse Tavern, on Market Street.
A fisherman in South Hadley, Massachusetts, “sold thousands of shad after the Revolution for three coppers each,” according to Sylvester Judd, and found it “much more difficult to sell salmon
than shad.” The fish came from below the Connecticut River falls, where Holyoke Dam would before long be. Judd's writing fills in the scene as if it were a Flemish populated canvas.
than shad.” The fish came from below the Connecticut River falls, where Holyoke Dam would before long be. Judd's writing fills in the scene as if it were a Flemish populated canvas.
Shad seasons brought to the falls, on both sides of the river, multitudes of people ⦠All came on horses with bags to carry shad, except a very few who had carts ⦠For some years there were only two licensed inn-keepers at the fallsâDaniel Lamb and widow Mary Pomeroy, but every house on both sides of the river was full ⦠A great number of the men brought victuals with them; many cooked shad, and others bought food at the houses ⦠Where there were so many men, and rum was plenty, there was of course much noise, bustle and confusion. The greater part were industrious farmers, and after leaving the falls, they wound over the hills and plains with bags of shad, in every direction. They were plainly dressed, according to their business. There was another class at these gatherings, composed of the idle, the intemperate and the dissipated. They came to drink and frolic, and some to buy shad if their money held out.
Under the impression that the Wyoming Valley of the Susquehanna River was a chartered part of Connecticut, people from Connecticut began settling there in the seventeen-sixties. This resulted in the two Yankee-Pennamite Wars (1769-71, 1784) between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, not to mention the British-allied Mohawk attacks that included a massacre of Connecticut forces in 1778. The Connecticut settlers raised flax, spun it, made twine, and knit seines. They fished in the Susquehanna for shad. To a significant extent, they came to depend on shad after crops and livestock were destroyed in the hostilities. As much or more than anywhere in America, the spring migration in the
Susquehanna became, and remained, a major event in the subsistence year. In 1798, when “uncounted thousands” of shad were caught at Nanticoke alone, the
Wilkesbarre Gazette
lost control of its metaphorical perspective. “Bonaparte and all his army was captured!” the newspaper reported, in acclaim of the fishermen's triumph. Napoleon had recently overrun northern Italy.
Susquehanna became, and remained, a major event in the subsistence year. In 1798, when “uncounted thousands” of shad were caught at Nanticoke alone, the
Wilkesbarre Gazette
lost control of its metaphorical perspective. “Bonaparte and all his army was captured!” the newspaper reported, in acclaim of the fishermen's triumph. Napoleon had recently overrun northern Italy.
Gilbert Fowler, born in 1792 in Briar Creek Township, on the right bank of the river, recalled as an old man the spring migrations of his childhood. His words appear in a group of memoirs collected by the Wyoming Historical and Genealogical Society in 1881. “The Susquehanna shad constituted the principal food for all the inhabitants,” Fowler said. “No farmer or man with a family was without his barrel or barrels of shad the whole year round. Besides furnishing food for the immediate inhabitants, people from Mahantango, Blue Mountains, and, in fact, for fifty miles around, would bring salt in tight barrels and trade it for shad. They would clean and salt the shad on the river shore, put them in barrels, and return home.” Mary Coates: “The people had shad from spring to spring.” Jameson Harvey: “We used to have shad until shad came again.” C. Dorrance: “It was my business as a lad every evening, after school, to be with horse and wagon to receive our share of shad.” In the lunch baskets that children carried to school were corn bread and shad.
Here Fowler describes the fishery of Samuel Webb, about four miles upstream of Bloomsburg:
This was an immense shad fishery. From the banks of the river at this fishery could be seen great schools of shad coming up the river when they were a quarter of a mile distant. They came in such immense numbers and so compact as to cause or produce a wave or rising of the water in the middle of the river, extending from shore to shore.
Near the Old Red Tavern, in Hanover, fishermen reported nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine shad taken in one haul. In the annals of prevarication, this may be the most modest extant example of fishermen's well-known tendency to exaggerate. A Mr. Duane was among those hauling the net. Duane admitted in later years that the count was actually nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven, but he and the other fishermen added two so the digits would all be nines.
In Simsbury, Connecticut, in 1995, I happened into a book on my in-laws' shelves that was three and a half inches thick and weighed almost four pounds. It looked like dimension stone. Attracted by its arresting titleâ“United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Part IX, Report of the Commissioner for 1881”âI looked through its twelve hundred pages, and with an expanding sense of discovery found these memoirs about shad on the Susquehanna, to which nothing comparedâthat I knew ofâfrom any other river. I felt as if I had found in my own attic the lost letters of Georges D'Anthes. Since then, I have come upon the Susquehanna stories from the 1881 report in at least a dozen books, in numerous articles in historical quarterlies and general magazines, and in the newspaper pieces that appear routinely with the spring migration. So much for Scoopnose the Scholar.
A shad fishery on the Susquehanna would typically include about ten menâthe number it took to haul the net. Shareholders each owned “so many yards of the net, and each one receiving his share of fish according to the number of yards owned.” The fish usually weighed from three to nine pounds. Major John Fassett said he saw the weighing of a twelve-pound shad. Jennison Harvey said, “I saw one weighed, on a wager, which turned the scales at thirteen pounds!” There were several dozen shad fisheries in the Wyoming Valley, and at the end of the eighteenth century they were each averaging from ten to twenty thousand shad in a season. Circa 1790âno one seemed to recall the exact yearâten thousand
were caught in one haul at the Stewart fishery, midway between Wilkes-Barre and Plymouth. They were caught on the first Sunday of the shad season. After the 1778 massacre, there were so many widows and orphans in the valley that a custom developed of giving one haul per fishery per season to them, always on that first Sunday. It was known as the “Widows' Haul.” At roughly thirty cents apiece, the ten thousand shad from the Stewart fishery were worth about three thousand dollars.
were caught in one haul at the Stewart fishery, midway between Wilkes-Barre and Plymouth. They were caught on the first Sunday of the shad season. After the 1778 massacre, there were so many widows and orphans in the valley that a custom developed of giving one haul per fishery per season to them, always on that first Sunday. It was known as the “Widows' Haul.” At roughly thirty cents apiece, the ten thousand shad from the Stewart fishery were worth about three thousand dollars.
The fishermen did their fishing after dark. They drank “old rye.” Customers bartered with them, paying whiskey for shad. They were also paid with leather, iron, cider, maple sugar (“one good shad was worth a pound of sugar”), and cider royal (cider + whiskey). A bushel of salt bought a hundred shad. Walter Green, of Black Walnut Bottom, “gave twenty barrels of shad for a good Durham cow.”
By the eighteen-twenties, several shad floats appeared annually near the mouth of the Susquehannaâgreat rafts, river-borne factories, as much as a hundred feet wide and three hundred feet long. On each raft was a bunkhouse, a mess hall, an office.
T
homas Jefferson, of Virginia, was born in Shadwell in 1743. His grandfather had settled there. The young Jefferson hauled seine for shad. Shadwell is about four miles east of Monticello, on the Rivanna, a tributary of the James. Jefferson was always mindful of the spring migration, mentioning it in letters and in his Garden Books and Memorandum Books. In 1798, he wrote from Philadelphia to Marie Jefferson Eppes: “Mar. 16. the 1st. shad here. 28. the weeping willow begins to shew green leaves.” March 17, 1800: “First shad at market.” April 9, 1801: “Paid $1.25 for three shad.” May 8, 1809: “Paid $1.75 for six shad.” In July, 1809, he wrote to Gordon, Trokes & Co., in Richmond, placing an order for, among other things, “Cod's tongues and sounds. 1 keg” and “salted white
shads. 1. barrel of best quality.” According to the historian Helen D. Bullock, “Jefferson retained his fondness for such native staples as sweet potatoes, corn, black-eyed peas, turnip greens, shad, Virginia ham, venison, wild swan, crab, scuppernong wine and grapes, throughout his life.” A 1993 news release from Virginia's Department of Game and Inland Fisheries informed the public that “Jefferson once noted that shad in the Rivanna near his Monticello home were thick enough to walk across”âa remembrance unknown to Jefferson scholars. Shad-roe soufflé has been associated with his table, apparently in error. Jefferson liked his fresh shad laid open, broiled, and addressed with pepper, salt, and butter, and is not known to have eaten shad cooked another way. In 1812, he made a fish pond at Monticello, intent to fill it with carp. He sent a boatman down the Rivanna with a letter to his friend John Ashlin.
homas Jefferson, of Virginia, was born in Shadwell in 1743. His grandfather had settled there. The young Jefferson hauled seine for shad. Shadwell is about four miles east of Monticello, on the Rivanna, a tributary of the James. Jefferson was always mindful of the spring migration, mentioning it in letters and in his Garden Books and Memorandum Books. In 1798, he wrote from Philadelphia to Marie Jefferson Eppes: “Mar. 16. the 1st. shad here. 28. the weeping willow begins to shew green leaves.” March 17, 1800: “First shad at market.” April 9, 1801: “Paid $1.25 for three shad.” May 8, 1809: “Paid $1.75 for six shad.” In July, 1809, he wrote to Gordon, Trokes & Co., in Richmond, placing an order for, among other things, “Cod's tongues and sounds. 1 keg” and “salted white
shads. 1. barrel of best quality.” According to the historian Helen D. Bullock, “Jefferson retained his fondness for such native staples as sweet potatoes, corn, black-eyed peas, turnip greens, shad, Virginia ham, venison, wild swan, crab, scuppernong wine and grapes, throughout his life.” A 1993 news release from Virginia's Department of Game and Inland Fisheries informed the public that “Jefferson once noted that shad in the Rivanna near his Monticello home were thick enough to walk across”âa remembrance unknown to Jefferson scholars. Shad-roe soufflé has been associated with his table, apparently in error. Jefferson liked his fresh shad laid open, broiled, and addressed with pepper, salt, and butter, and is not known to have eaten shad cooked another way. In 1812, he made a fish pond at Monticello, intent to fill it with carp. He sent a boatman down the Rivanna with a letter to his friend John Ashlin.
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