In middle life the Deacon bought a sloop and employed her in fishing, and in taking fishing parties into the bay. He scorned the fishing ledges generally resorted to, such as the Offer ledge, the House ledge, Faunce’s ledge and the Thrum Caps, and fished on ledges of his own, the bearings of which he kept to himself. I was with him once, one of a party of ten, and before ten o’clock, the party caught one hundred and sixty cod and one hundred and forty haddock. In those days haddock were thought an inferior fish, and were difficult to dispose of in the Plymouth market at one cent a pound. In fact, they were not even dignified by the name of “fish,” and I remember hearing a servant ordered to get a fish at the fish market, and if he could not get a fish, to get a haddock. But some critical person found worms between the flakes of a codfish, and then another discovered that a haddock made a superior fry, and still another that in a chowder the flesh of a haddock was firmer than that of a codfish, and finally both came to be held in equal estimation. In my early days no lover of salt cod would eat anything but dunfish, and Deacon Hall was the only person in Plymouth, who cured them, Swampscott being generally looked to for a supply. They received their name from their dun color, which was of a reddish brown. They were caught in the spring, slack salted, and when partially dry, piled in a dark room covered with seaweed. After several weeks they were repiled, and after several weeks more, they were ready to be eaten. In my mother’s day short, thick fish were selected for the table, and every Saturday three were served with a napkin above and below, the upper one being removed to the kitchen, and the middle one eaten, while the other two supplied minced fish for Sunday’s breakfast, and the Monday washing day dinner. A slice of dunfish cut up with potatoes, beets, carrots and onions, well covered with pork scraps and sweet oil, judiciously peppered, makes a dinner, which, with the white salt fish of today, it is impossible to prepare. Fish balls were not in vogue in my early days, but gradually took the place of mince fish, especially Sunday morning. Baked beans, now improperly called distinctively a New England dish, were according to my recollection, unknown in Plymouth, and were associated exclusively with Beverly, whose people were called Beverly beaners. A story was told of a vessel at sea running down to a schooner in distress, and finding that she was from Beverly, and out of beans. The first dish of baked beans I ever saw, was on a club dining table in Cambridge, after I entered college in 1838.