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the Western Golconda. This was the one hope not doomed to disappoint. And while the Queen and her adventurers, says Bancroft, "were dazzled by the glittering prospect of mines of gold in the frozen regions of the remote North, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a step-brother to Raleigh, with a sounder judgment and a better knowledge, watched the progress of the fisheries and formed healthy plans for colonization." And Sir Walter Raleigh himself was able in the House of Commons, in 1593, to pronounce the Newfoundland fisheries to be the stay and support of the West counties of England.

In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold, conceiving, with Raleigh's concurrence, the idea of a direct voyage to America, steered in a small bark straight across the Atlantic, and in seven weeks reached Massachusetts Bay, with a ship's company enlisted for colonizing and fishing. Passing this Cape, he found himself, on the morning of May 15th, off another great headland, upon which he landed with four men, and to which he gave a name. For the first time the soil of New-England was trod by English men. The name he gave, on account, as he says, of the number of codfish which "pestered the ships," has been retained, and the Southern arm of Massachusetts Bay, the first point visited by the English on our coast, is known to-day as CAPE Cod.

Next came Smith, of Jamestown notoriety, in 1614.

He explored the coast from Penobscot to Narragansett Bay. He made a map, on which he distinguished Cape Ann by the unpronouncable name of a Turkish Lady whose slave he was during his captivity at Constantinople. "Our waters,” he reports, "afforded codfish larger than the Banks of Newfoundland." "Where, in Newfoundland," he says, "a common fisherman shared six or seven pounds," in New England he "shared fourteen pounds." "Man, woman and child," he adds, "with a small hook and line, may by angling take divers sorts of excellent fish at their pleasure. And what sport doth yield a more pleasing content, and less hurt or charge, than angling with a hook and crossing the sweet air, from isle to isle, over the silent streams of a calm sea?"

Painted in such glowing colors the fishing grounds of New England came to be regarded as the best in the world. A passion for enterprise in this quarter was kept alive by Smith, Raleigh, Fernando Gorges and others. The conviction had grown, since 1602, in the

minds of capitalists in Dorchester and London, that the true way to pursue the fisheries was to people some of the harbors on our coast. Twenty-five good harbors had been explored by Smith, and were shown

on his map. It was only during a limited season that fishing could be pursued. The large number of hands required during this season were of no use in the navigation of the voyage, and could only be carried back and forth at great loss of service and provisions. In 1623 a plan for surmounting this difficulty took shape. The plan was to double man the fishing ships from England, as before, and, when the fare of fish was secured, to sail for home with a single crew, leaving the extra hands, with a winter's outfit, to plant and build, and be ready to assist in the fisheries again with the returning season. Thus the fishing craft would soon be able to sail with a few men for navigation, and the cost of double-manning and double-victualling, on both outward and homeward voyages, be saved. In accordance with this sagacious plan fourteen men were left at Cape Ann late in the fall of 1623, and then and there began the settlement of Massachusetts Bay. For from this point of landing Roger Conant took his way to Salem in 1626. The precise landing place is supposed to be at a point first known as "Fisherman's Field," and since called "Stage Rocks," the name being derived from the stages erected there for the use of fishermen.

So intimate is the connexion of the Fisheries with the foundation of Massachusetts.

Simultaneously with the settlement began the despatching of cargoes of dried codfish to every country of Western Europe, as well as to the other American colonies. This trade has continued with little abatement of its activity through all the vicissitudes of our national life. The first product of American industry exported from Massachusetts was, without doubt, a cargo of fish. Even the neighboring colony at Plymouth seems at first to have depended upon Cape Ann for a supply of fish. Though famine threatened, they could not at once relieve themselves by resorting to the Bay, for their patrons in London had neglected as yet to provide for such pursuits. Once, when men staggered, says Winslow, "by reason of faintness for want of food," they were saved from famishing by the benevolence of fishermen off the coast. They were not slow, however, in supplying the want of appliances for taking fish, and and there

is reason to think that the historic May Flower herself may have "wet her salt," of which she brought several cargoes from England, among the early company of fishermen which put out into the Bay.

Time fails us to show what the fisheries have since done for Massachusetts. How profitable and important they became during the colonial period; how largely they have grown. with the growth of the country, and of railroad facilities for transportation; to what remote ports our fish have been a staple export; what part the fishing interest played in the wars between France and the Mother Country; what part in the difficulties preceding the Revolutionary struggle, these are interesting topies, already ably treated by your local historian, Mr. Babson, and by Mr. Sabine, in a report on the fisheries, printed in 1852 by the United States Government. Suffice it to say here that if the fisheries have been shown to be prominent among the causes leading to the settlement of the Commonwealth, they contributed no less to its subsequent growth and prosperity. The successful siege of Louisburg, conducted in 1745 by Sir Wm. Pepperell, the son of a fisherman, whose whole property was embarked in the fisheries, was but a glorious assertion of their value to New England. And the impost attempted to be collected in 1764 upon sugar and molasses, brought from the West Indies in exchange for fish, had probably as much effect in bringing on the revolt of the colonies as had the stamp act subsequently passed, or the duties levied on tea.

To trace the changes in the modes of building, from the heavy sea-going craft of the early settlers, or even from the first schooner, the pioneer of a mighty host, built at Gloucester in 1714, to the light-sailing fisherman of the present, framed for swift passage and frequent returns; to trace the different modes of fishing, from the good old Yankee fashion of fishing "on one's own hook" to the modern method called trawling, adopted from the French, where a thousand hooks are suspended from a single line; to describe what various grounds have been preferred from time to time, and by what nations frequented; would be to recount a familiar but interesting chapter in the history of the fisheries of Massachusetts.

It would be profitable, too, had we time, to note at what pains the governments of France and England, as well as our own, have been from the remotest periods in fostering the fisheries as a nursery from which to man the gundecks of their ships of war. What har

dier occupation, indeed, can times of peace afford, than battling night and day with wind and wave,-a perpetual warfare with the elements. What firmer nerve,-what bolder daring can men display - than to lie down to rest, shrouded in the gloomy solitude of a Newfoundland mist-a darkness no sentry light can pierce,-where the Steam Packet, terrible as Leviathan, and driven by a force almost as subtile as life, ploughs screaming and panting through the upper and the nether night, too often shattering at a stroke the hull in which they sleep. Bold indeed in battle should be the followers of such a life. The cradle which rocks them may be their grave; the sleep they court may know no waking. Year after year swells the dismal list of those who "go down to the sea in ships" and return not again,-a catalogue of losses almost comparable, in numbers, with the casualties of Scores of unpensioned widows and orphan children, all along our seaboard, bear tearful witness to the persistency with which New England enterprise, through good and ill success, has clung to this bravest of the pursuits of peace

*

"For men must work and women must weep,
Though storms be sudden and waters deep,
And the harbor-bar be moaning.”

When the Pilgrims had resolved to quit Holland and come to these shores, and the consent of King James was solicited to the proposed enterprise, the monarch asked, "What profit might arise?" He was answered in a single word, "Fishing!" Whereupon James replied, "So God have my soul, 'tis an honest trade; 'twas the Apostles' own calling."

*Fourteen vessels and twenty six lives have been lost in prosecuting the fishing business off Gloucester during the past year. The loss of life is more than double that of last year. The value of vessels and property lost amounts to $104,000. Ten of the men lost left widows, and eighteen children are made fatherless by their loss.

NOTE. The following statement from the New Bedford Mercury, shows that our tutelary genius is reverenced at Cape Cod. ED.

When the company of Seneca Indians recently gave a concert in Barnstable, Hon-non-deah, the Chief, made a speech in the court room where the musical entertainment was given. In the room is suspended the effigy of a codtish, and in his speech the Chief, who is a lawyer, pointed to it and called it the "emblem of justice." After the concert some one remarked to Hon-non-deah that he had misapprehended the symbol; that it was only a codfish. “And yet,' said the Chief, "it is an emblem of justice. Does it not bear the scales?”

MATERIALS FOR A GENEALO- and lived to the advanced age of 90.
GY OF THE BECKET FAMILY The street now called Becket street
OF SALEM.
was formerly called Cromwell's Lane.

SECOND GENERATION.

As a suitable appendix to an article printed in the 7th volume of the Historical Collections of the Essex Insti- (1) JOHN', by his wife Margaret had

issue.

WILLIAM2.

MARY' m. Daniell Webb 20 July, 1675; son John b. 17. april 1676; Margaret b. 20. 12. 1677, died 14. 8. 1682; Perez 1. 2mo. 1680; Mary b. 14. 6. 1682; Elizabeth bap. 1st ch. June 1692; Marget bapt. 1st ch. May 24. 1692. SARAH.

tute, page 207 entitled, "Materials for
(2) I.
the History of Ship Building in Salem,
No. 5, by William Leavitt," the fol- (3) II.
lowing gleanings (the result of a cur-
sory examination of the Records) in
relation to the Becket family may be
inserted. A family, that has for sev-
eral generations. been noted in the
Commercial History of Salem, as em-
bracing among its members several
(4) III.
skilful and enterprising shipbuilders.
That the perusal of these detached (5) IV.
memoranda may awaken an interest in
some person of leisure and inclination
to renew these investigations and pre-
pare a more extended notice, is the sin-
cere wish of the compilers.

John Becket of Salem, shipwright, 9th of April, 1655, buys of Samuel Archard of Salem, carpenter, "one

JOHN2, probably the John

Becket who married Elizabeth the daughter of Mrs. Lydia Locker, wife of Mr. George Locker of Salem and grandaughter of Tamasin Buffum, of Salem. The consideration of this branch of the family is deferred for the present.

dwelling house and three acres of land (6) V. HANNAH2,

behind it be it more or less for the sum

of sixteen pounds and is situated and being betweene Edward Harnett and Ric. Lambert."

Sterns.

THIRD GENERATION.

married Isaac

The above is the earliest notice in (2) WILLIAM BECKET, married

the records. He died Nov. 26, 1683, aged 57, in the same house now standing (1866) at the corner of Becket's Lane, and opposite to the Essex Marine Railway. Margaret, the widow, afterwards married Philip Cromwell

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*Philip Cromwell (eldest son of Giles) born 1610, a butcher of Salem, had 100 acres of land

Hannah. His estate was administered upon Sept. 2, 1731. A shipwright.

10 of meadow granted him in Salem, in 1649, admitted Freeman 1665, married 1st, Mary,

who died 14 Nov., 1683, aged 72; married 2dly, Margaret Becket; he died 30 Mch., 1693, aged 83.

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