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William Priest - Travels in the United States of America
the coinage, will admit of the same even division by decimals. I am often asked why the English,
after having proved the great utility of this scheme in their chain of one hundred links for land
measuring, do not extend it to their coin, &c.? If you can think of a good solution to this question, pray
let me have it in your next to
Yours sincerely, &c.
* * * * *
Philadelphia, August 18th, 1794.
DEAR SIR,
In a former letter I mentioned the relishes of salt fish usual at breakfast and supper in this country; they
are chiefly of shad, a name given them by the first settlers, from their having some resemblance
to that fish, though in fact they are very different; and indeed this is the case with almost every fish, bird,
and other animal these Anglo-Americans took it into their heads to christen. It is a great pity they did not
call those peculiar to this continent by their indian names; and this should also have been the case
with mountains, lakes, rivers, &c. What man of any taste will not prefer the sonorous sounds of
Susquana, Patapsico, Allegany, Raphanock, Potomack, and other indian titles, to such stupid
appellations as Cape Cod, Mud Island, cat-fish, sheep's head-fish, whip poor will, &c.?
But to return to the shad, if it must be so called; it is an excellent fish, and comes up the rivers in
prodigious shoals, in the months of April and May, to spawn. The largest nets used in this fishery are on
the Delaware, where that river is from one to two miles wide. These nets are from one hundred and fifty
to three hundred yards long. The greatest hawl ever known was upwards of nine thousand, from four to
nine pounds per fish.
The revolution has not yet done away a fanatical law passed by the quakers, prohibiting the catching of
these fish on a sunday; which, considering the short time they remain in the river, is highly impolitic.
There are thirteen fisheries within ten miles of Philadelphia; allowing only eight sundays in the season,
and ten thousand shads lost in each of the twenty-four hours, a very moderate calculation, the aggregate
loss to Philadelphia, and the adjacent country, is eighty thousand fish, weighing five pounds each, on an
average. I say loss ; for the return of the fish is the same now as it was a hundred and thirty years
ago, when only a few dozen were taken in the season by the Indians.
There is also a small fish which comes up the rivers with the shad; the shoals this year have been
uncommonly large; upwards of ten thousand have been taken at one hawl. Like the shad, it takes salt
well; and, from it's having some resemblance to a herring, they give it that name, though very
different from the herring which visits the shores of Europe. I believe there is no instance of a herring
running a hundred and fifty miles up a fresh water river, or existing at all in water perfectly fresh.
The above particulars you may depend upon; they were communicated to me by Mr. West, who is
proprietor of the largest shad-fisheries on the Delaware.
This river also abounds in cat-fish, perch, jack, eels, and a great variety of others; above all, in sturgeon;
which are frequently caught by accident in the shad-nets, and either boiled for their oil, or suffered to rot
on the, shores, being very seldom sent to market: when this is the case, they are sold for a mere trifle,
chiefly to emigrants. The Americans have conceived a violent antipathy to this fish. I recollect no
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