Putnam patriot. [volume] (Putnam, Conn.) 1872-1962, 1919-06-13
SHAD IN THE
QUHlEBAUG
But II Was Years Ago When
Food Was Cheap and the
River Wasn't Saturated with
Oil.

There was a time when fish WAS
cheap. Every riparian farm owner
on the Quinsbaug river set his nets.
How far to the northward the shad
ran is not told. but perhaps some old
resident may have eaten one from
the stream that passed through Pom
fret Factory This shad story was
taken from the columns of the Boston
HERALD:
| would like to tell you of the shad
that were caught in the Qunebaug
river in eastern Connecticut.
On the 5th of May. 1902, there
were caught in our fshway near jew
EFT City at one haul of the sein 1908
shad and one salmon Immediately
after that at the second haul of the
seine 81 shad were taken. These
shad sold for 10 cents each and the
salmon brought as much per pound as
the shad apiece. These fishing rec
ords go back good distance into the
18th century and end in 1885 when
the Greenville dam was built. The
water power company that built the
dam was obliged to put 500 shad over
the dam every year, but the fish were
caught before they reached the
falls" whehe the Espinook Company
now has its dam. Shad were quite
plentiful until the year 1910 and
then the number seems to have grown
less and less until in the year 1919,
when at our fishway were taken less
than 1000 shad and no salmon in
the whole season.
The down stream shad taken in
June sold for 6 Il cents each. They
were thin and of light weight, mostly
bones. Of man or woman was thin
and scrawny, it was said of them that
they looked like down stream shad p.
These fish were hard to eat, yet there.
was man, living on the farm now
owned by Norman White of Brook
Incest of Black HILL Piainfield
Conn.-that could eat shad so fast, IT
is said that the fish went into his
mouth on one side. the bones went out
on the other, and the meat went down
his throat. Shad were SO cheap that
there was enacted statute (still on
the books) in Connecticut forbiddIng
the feeding bound-out boy shad
more than SO many times a week q
have forgotten how many)D. The
Legislature used to meet at Hartford
or New Haven the first Monday in
April and the legislators used to be
called 'the shad eaters" Brain food,
no doubt, and the cheapest food that
boarding houses and hotels could buy.
From the fshway on our farm were
sold, or rather traded, nearly all the
shad. The salmon were kept or sold
for cash to the Huntingtons, Buck
inghams, Traeys and others. We have
cedar tubs in use now, made by Lee
of Hanover, cooper, in our house on
the old homestead. | have heard my
grandfather say he was glad when
the Greenville dam was built" for
the fish were getting scarce because
the farms below us did not keep the
law, which read "that no fishway on
the river was to be fished except on
Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays"
Some farmers set nets and kept
them in the river all the time. The
fishway on the Sugar Brook farm
Norman White's) was noted for its
large hauls OF shad and salmon. This
farm is above us on the river. At the
falls where Aspinook is now the In
dams used to spear salmon as they
were near the surface when running
the rapids. There must have been a
great Indian encampment under the
lodges at the falls. Within my mem
DRY Emmons, the artist, had 20 acres
ploughed on the Haskell farm, fol-
lowing the furrow looking for Indian
arrows and spearheads, of which he
found a great many hundreds. We
have some of the old seins in our at
tic at the homestead; white pine floats
weighted with lead at lower edge, the
mesh about two inches. This would
let alewives ("buckeys") and porgies
(scup) through, as they were not
worth the taking out of the water.
The meaning Of Quinebaug is beauti
full valley or water. Aspinook means
clear, pure, fine, pertaining to water.
G. A. r.
WallaSlau