Henry P. Smith: Farmer, Fisherman

Henry P. Smith

They claim that on a damp or rainy night the eels go right over the sandy beach to the ocean. And I have seen the marks on the beach, but I have never seen the eels.

This post was contributed by Linsey Lee and The Martha's Vineyard Museum

"I was born within about 100 yards of where I am now. My father was a farmer and a fisherman.
"They did the farm chores in the morning and then they went into the harbor here, shellfishing and that stuff all day. After eels in the fall, and herring in the spring. They would come back late in the afternoon and do their chores and everything. Him and his brother.
When I grew up we were just about going out of farming. When I was a kid we had 17 or 18 head of cattle. We used to supply milk, mostly to other farms – that was the funniest part of it – for the milk routes. I was brought up to work around the farm when I was a kid. I was doing chores and that stuff.
"They got up probably at 3:30 or quarter of four. Then they would get their breakfast and go to the barn to do the milking and clean the barns out, get the cattle out here in the pasture and everything and be gone by 7 o'clock, down the lower end of the harbor, after quahogs or something like that.
"Then they'd come home and call the cattle. In those days it was all open, the whole Katama was open. There wasn't a house. And there were no trees here. . . it was all flat land, pasture land.
"You could go over here where I am now and look over and see your cattle and then they would walk, or they took a horse or something like that, and went down to get them, and drive them home, and do the milking for the night.
"My father had the Mattakesett Creek Company for years. He was there for 33 years and then I took over after that. There had been herring runs there back to Indian days. There had been a Mattakesett Creek Company since the 1700s. My family and some others set up the new Mattakesett Company in about 1888 and dug a new creek.
"Every morning early, if we were herringing, we would go over and see if there was any herring in the net. The net was all spread out over the creek. The herring were going into the fresh water side to spawn and they would butt up against the net. We'd pull the net ashore, and bunch it up, and back the horse and wagon right down to the net. Then we would bale the herring out with dip nets. If we were going to ship them we had ice we had gathered in the winter. Ice them up, put them in barrels, and roll the barrels on the skid into the wagon. And then go from there into town and put them on the steamboat wharf and be ready for the boat the next morning.
"The boat would go to New Bedford. Then they'd transport the barrels over to the Fall River - New York line. Everything for 50¢.
"Our payment was shipped back by mail. You never knew what you were going to get for about a month. The prices were whatever they wanted to send you. Sometimes you just got some postage stamps, but most of the time we did pretty well. You knew most of your buyers.
"We had fishing trawlers coming here from Gloucester and getting bait for halibut fishing. They wanted fresh bait. Actually at that time this was the largest herring fishery on the East coast. One night when my father was still there we baited over eight fishing smacks in one day. . . 800 or some odd barrels. That was a night's run!
"And the Priscilla Pearls set up here. We would take the scales right off the herring and sell them the scales. They would put them through a process and they'd get a chemical and they'd make artificial pearls.
"They made them right here on the Island. In the parking lot behind Fligor's, alongside the Kelley House.
"We had a big building right by the creek and they used to hire fellows to do the scaling. Sometimes there were 25 people there in the spring just scaling herring. You could make $8 to $10 a day if you were a good scaler. That was big money in those days.
"It didn't pay to keep rehandling the herring after they had been scaled, so farmers would use them for fertilizer. Anyone who wanted them would just come over with a horse and wagon and get all they wanted.
"We'd start eeling right after the full moon in October. You never catch any eels with a full moon or when the moon is up. You want a dark night or dark or damp or rainy night, or something like that. And then probably two or three weeks at the most out of October and then we would knock off when the moon got bright. Five days either side of the full moon, you might just as well stay home.
"You never knew what night they were going to run, and when they did come there were plenty of them.
"They claim that on a damp or rainy night the eels go right over the sandy beach to the ocean. And I have seen the marks on the beach, but I have never seen the eels.
"The old-timers used to claim that's how they'd go."