The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-04-30

WW 1)-"As Uncle Sam's mer-
 V V chant marine expands. many an historic port where ships from every cline once rode at anchor is likely to be restored to it's one time maritime glory" says d bulletin from the Natlon- al Geographic society.
 Gloucester, long a fishing city or world importance which once had thriving international trade, is de- scribed in bulletin which is the nrst of a. series dealing with these har- bors which may recover the trade of by gone days.
 Almost as conspicuous as Cape Cod' the gaunt, half clenched fist to the south, is the knob protruding from the northeast corner of Massachusetts, known as Cape Ann, where Gloucester grew. Though the latter furnished b1eaker and more barren haven for ad- venturous explorers, a temporary set clement was made there only three years after the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth.
 Some evidence indicates that Thorn wald's Cane of the Cross which he thought to be projection of Greenland' was the bleak Cape Ann. Gosnold, Firing and Weymouth, to mention only few, voyaged about the region, and Capt. John Smith explored the coast within two decades before the Pilgrims came. Smith landed on what now is Cape Ann, and called it Tragabigzanda, in honor of a Turkish Pocahontas who did not risk her head. but who fed him while he was a prisoner.
 "Whether the dozen or so sailors dropped off at Cape Ann in 1923 by an English fishing vessel all moved on later to Salem, or whether a few re- mained, is in dispute. Within Is years Gloucester's authenticated history be- gins In 1642 a township was formed which. in 1875 raised, by draft. it's quota for the Indian war. In 1888 six acres of land were allotted to every able bodied native male and in that same year the sturdy pioneers evinced that spirit which gave birth century later to free nation by declining to pay cer- tain taxes levied by the royal governor. Sir Edwin Andros.
 "Though reports like that of Capt. John Smith of angling with hook' and crossing the sweet air, from lsle to isle. attracted many English fishing vessels. early settlers seem to have sought subsistence largely from the barren soil. Not until about 170O was Gloucester identified particularly with fishing. From that time the story oi Gloucester's fisher folk would fill books and has. in fact-such books as those of James B. Connolly, Mrs. Wards Old Maids Paradise and Kipling's Cap tains Courageous
 Farther and farther sea went the doughty fishermen, discovering the Cape Sable grounds, off Nova Scotia; the Grand Bank, off Newfoundland; and the St. Georges Bank, 120 miles to the southeast of the headland. It was oil the St. Georges Banks that the pig storm of 1862 carried IS schooners and 16S men to the bottom.
 EplC OI iluAlCiOho oOCP SS~~ dies of this sort is Longfellow's wreck of the Hesperus, of which Norman's 8 Woe, off Gloucester, is the scene, though that particular story is only tradition al. Thacher's Woe marks the wreck of a vessel from Ipswich bound for Mar blehead. carrying clergyman and his six children, son-in-law, and his four children. When the vessel was battered to pieces on rock the only survivors were this son-in-law, Anthony Thacher' and his wife.
 .The fishing banks lie between the Atlantic shores and the gulf stream. The theory of their formation IS that ice masses float southward until they encounter the streams warm currents. As they melt the earth and sand they carry is deposited to form the banks and hollows where fish spawn.
 "Schooners are said to have origi- mated in Gloucester and to have been so named by a Gloucester ship wright when he launched a vessel, heard a spectator exclaim, oh, how she scoons. That expression was used to describe the bounding of pebble thrown side wise into the water.
 "The cooperative arrangements or the fishermen. making each voyage a partnership enterprise, has interested students of economies. Except Tor such authority as the commander needs to direct the vessel the crews are as dem ocratic as the town meetings. Hence the fishing industry of Gloucester is almost unique for its record of nearly three centuries without, labor troubles.
 "Quaint town and family records of Gloucester afford priceless records of early Colonial customs. Abstemious for their time, some said squeamish, it merely proves that times change to note that at an all-day session of the Gloucester selectmen in TAO the muni-