Fishing

Whether as a food source, an industry, or as recreation, fishing has always been important to the people of Havre de Grace. Native Americans had long seen the value of the area and used it as both hunting and fishing grounds. When Captain John Smith explored the area in 1608, he reported that the fish were so thick in the water that his crew attempted to catch them with frying pans! This began a period of squabbles between Europeans and Natives over land and water rights in the area. A 1652 treaty between the Maryland Colony and the Susquehannock Indians settled the issue and divided the colony, with the upper bay area, including Havre de Grace, belonging to the Susquehannocks. When Susquehanna Lower Ferry was established in 1695, after the treaty was broken by the colonists, fishing was already an important industry. By 1760, salted herring was sold in practically all the eastern colonies.

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The plentiful herring and shad in the Susquehanna River area were harvested using bows and arrows and fishing nets. Early nets were spun from river grass but both Natives and Europeans eventually switched to those made from cotton. The invention of the cotton gin allowed for the creation of larger nets which led to larger catches. In 1820, Havre de Gracian Aashel Bailey is credited with revolutionizing commercial fishing in the area. He invented the fishing float which consisted of large shanties built on scows that could be moved to different areas wherever the fish were the most plentiful. The floats had packing houses, sleeping quarters, and stables for the horses that were used to pull in the fishing nets. Fishermen, and often their families, lived on the floats, or batteries as they were sometimes called, for 3-4 weeks at a time.

 

One of the largest and most successful fishing operations was operated by the Spencer family. A. Hughes Spencer estimated that a good haul for one float was a half million fish, mostly herring and that sometimes the catch was so heavy it nearly sank the float. By 1925, commercial fishing for shad and herring in the Susquehanna River by Silver, Spencer and Company and others ended because as Spencer noted, there “just weren’t enough fish anymore.”