Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay ColonyDow, George Francis
History
Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Dow, George Francis
Massachusetts -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
The coasting trade led to the building of small shallops and sloops
and the need for firewood in Boston and Charlestown brought about
the building of sloops, broad of beam, intended especially for that
trade. Fishing craft and wood sloops were soon being built all
along the coast. As early as 1634, one merchant in Marblehead owned
eight fishing craft, and Portsmouth, N. H., had six great shallops,
five fishing boats, with sails and anchors, and thirteen skiffs, in
the trade as early as 1635. Richard Hollingsworth, in 1637, had a
shipyard at Salem Neck and in 1641, built "a prodigious ship of 300
Tons."
The number of New England vessels used in foreign trading during
the seventeenth century was considerable and the mainstay of the
trade was the fishing business. Off-shore fishing in the early
days was carried on in shallops--capacious, open boats carrying
several pairs of oars and also fitted with masts and sails. They
were sometimes decked over, in whole or in part, and usually carried
one mast with a lug sail. Many of these small craft were built in
the winter time by the fishermen and their sons, as a fisherman is
always more or less of a boatbuilder by virtue of his calling. The
lumber for the boat would be cut in the common woods and got out, a
little at a time, and the boat when built would actually cost its
owner little more than the outlay for certain necessary fittings.
These boats might be framed-in anywhere--on the beach in front
of the fisherman's cottage; in his dooryard or in the woods, some
distance from the shore, to which the hull would be dragged by
oxen, on sledges of timber. The first vessels sent to "the banks,"
from Massachusetts, for deep-water fishing, were "a ship and other
vessels," rig unknown.[49] That was in 1645.
[49] _Winthrop's Journal_, New York, 1908.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account