“In Chaumont, in Chaumont,
Where the great big ciscoes grow,
They catch ‘em in the fall,
And eat ‘em, bones and all,
In Chaumont.”

You don¹t hear fishermen talk much about ciscoes any more - white fish that once dominated the Great Lakes in such abundance that they were netted by the hundreds of millions as was done with Atlantic salmon for generations on the Grand Banks. Conservationists tell us they still exist to some degree, in deep water, but are no longer commercially viable. But there was a day, particularly on Lake Ontario, that netting these fish provided a livelihood for many fishermen, particularly in the region around Chaumont Bay. In fact, the daily life of the fishing industry and this area at the eastern end of Lake Ontario were inseparable for many years, dating back nearly 200 years. Even at that time, commercial fishing seems to have gotten a bit out of control.

Chaumont's fishing industry started with the first settlers. On March 28, 1800, the New York State Legislature passed a law prohibiting the placing of obstructions to the passage of fish, under a penalty of $25. Local commercial fishermen had become annoyed that outsiders, particularly from Canada, had placed seines (large nets with sinkers) in local rivers and streams. In 1808, fishing with scoop nets, locally known as “scaffs,“ began, and continued well into the mid-19th century. This net was about 12 feet square, stretched by two long bows crossing each other, and let down horizontally into the water. The whole thing was balanced on a long pole poised on a post on the banks. When fish passed over it, the net was suddenly raised and swung around to the bank. Sometimes 300 or more fish were thus caught in a single night.

Seines eventually came into use, the first being brought here from Kingston, N.Y. by Daniel Tremper in 1805. These seines could stretch out as much as 160 feet, and about 20 feet wide, wider in the middle, and narrower at the ends, where they were attached to rods called “jack stakes.” To the cords along one side were attached floats, and to the other leaden sinkers; and to each staff was fixed a long rope. When used, the seine was taken out in a boat, one rope being left on shore, and when 100 or so feet out in the water, it was allowed to run off in a wide circuit, until it was all off, when the other line was taken ashore. Both ends were then drawn in by windlasses that were turned by hand or by horsepower. The meshes of the net were from one to one and a half inches square, allowing smaller fish to escape while the larger ones were scooped out when the seine was drawn into shallow water. From one to three hours were required to draw the seine, and the haul varied greatly, sometimes being as high as 75 barrels. The seine fisheries primarily existed around Point Salubrious, near Chaumont. The seines were considered the property of adjacent landowners and the fishing was done by farmers with the hired help. For years the cisco, also known as lake herring, was the principal marketable fish. Those most acquainted with the business recalled that between 1816 and the 1850s, the annual take was 10,000 barrels. Seasons varied the abundance of fish and experience showed that the best yields occurred during high water. The fish, packed in salt brine in barrels, was shipped to New York and other metropolitan areas where they were served as expensive delicacies in upper-class restaurants.

The use of gill nets was introduced in 1845. These nets were from five to eight feet (about 50 meshes) wide, and up to nearly 2,500 feet long, uniform in width, and furnished with staves on the ends. These were provided with sinkers on the bottom and floats at the top, and connected together formed lines several thousand feet long. When in use they lay near the bottom, and their places marked by buoys. Once daily they were drawn up, and the fish removed, which sometimes amounted to several hundreds of barrels (the measurement then used) within a short distance. The wives of fishermen also made and repaired nets. The problem with this system was that many fish would become entangled by their gills and drown and would spoil before they could be properly preserved. The weather helped, however, as the spawning season for ciscoes was during the month of November. Thus, this sort of fishing was generally done in late autumn. The shore line was covered by immense quantities of their ova. Seines were drawn by preference in the evening.

(Because this article concerns itself with commercial fishing, little or no mention will be made of sport fishing, which is still, after nearly two centuries, popular in this region. It has grown tremendously in the past decade. There¹s an old saying that Chaumont Bay was long the favorite resort for the “disciples of Izaak Walton,” who, at most seasons, found an ample and inviting field for the use of the trolling line and the spear; a romantic cruise by torch light, and inducements to lounge away the lazy summer days with reasonable hopes for a nibble. Pike, pickerel, muskelunge, perch, bass and sunfish could be caught readily by the hook at all seasons.)

No positive documentation was kept during the early days but those involved in the business said that the annual catch, starting in 1816, and for many years, was about 10,000 barrels of herring and whitefish. This was the average annual catch until 1855. On April 15, 1818, a state law was passed requiring all fish barreled for sale in Jefferson County be inspected and branded; and the size of barrels and quantity of slat to be used were prescribed. It seemed bureaucracy had start to set in. These laws also appointed fish inspectors. Some laws were disregarded while others were strictly enforced. Eventually these prohibitions, which annoyed the freedoms of fishermen, were annulled and the position of fish inspector became passe.

The most successful fishing in Chaumont Bay was the pound-net, first introduced in the spring of 1859. Frederick Kirkland and Ralph Rogers set a pound-net off the shore of Point Peninsula, and about the middle of October another was set by O. H. Kirkland, Lucius P. Ingham and D. W. Clark, would came from Saybrook, Conn. for this purpose. The yields were enormous for two or three years. The average size of such a net was 30 feet square, and was set in about 30 feet of water. This was securely fastened to four staked driven firmly into the bottom of the lake, with the upper ends two or three feet out of water. From this pound, or “receiver,” towards the shore, was a large heart-shaped net, with the apex turning on the pound. From the base or the heart was a “leader,” running back to the shore, and fastened to stakes 100 feet apart, the average length of the “leader” being 1,300 feet, and the stakes, as in the other instance, were firmly

What fish were not sold were spread on farm lands and plowed under for fertilizer. In those days pike brought four cents per pound; perch, three cents; bullheads, four cents; pickerel, two to three cents; and white fish four cents per pound. Ciscoes, fresh and not dressed, brought 75 cents per 100. But if in 200-pound barrels, $10 per barrel. This resulted in the development of a sizable cooperage industry in Chaumont, where at the time there was a ready supply of spruce and pine. Most shipments were made in half barrels of 100 pounds, or what were known as “kits.“ A smaller keg-like package, weighing 50 pounds, for home use. Many 25 pound kits were packed, but the average family, being large in those days, and with husky appetites, never had less than a half or full barrel of ciscoes laid in as a good part of their winter¹s stores. The Watertown Times of Dec. 1, 1873 reported: "Main & Wilcox of Chaumont shipped 120 barrels of ciscoes today. There are also about 300 barrels more at the depot awaiting shipment. The market price of the fish is $5 per barrel." On Jan. 4, 1874, the Times reported "Chaumont fishermen caught a thousand barrels of ciscoes during the year 1873." So many nets being set in the waters off shore, mishaps sometimes occurred. The sturgeon was the worst enemy of ciscoe nets. When one of these big fish got into a net, it usually tore a large hole in it. A vessel with a centerboard coming into Chaumont or Three Mile Bay might also get snagged in the nets and tear them apart. Lanterns were then placed on poles to warn mariners that nets were set in this area. But a wave or wind might extinguish the light.

On the subject of sturgeon, in the early days they could not be put to practical use so they were thrown on the fields for fertilizer. About 1875, however, local fishermen, Lester Nugent and Leander Douglas discovered sturgeon were a delicacy and very tasty when smoked. From then on, no more sturgeon were hauled out onto the fields for fertilizer. The late Frank E. Smith of nearby Dexter, who for years was principal of the Brownville-Glen Park Central School, recalled that in the mid-19th century, “they used hoop-nets or gill-nets, and sailing boats.”

The means of carrying the fish from the boat to the cleaning shed was to shovel them, into a basket, hoist them to your shoulder or back, and horse them to the table. This left a man¹s clothes somewhat messed up; so the upper crust of the village (of Chaumont), who looked down on the fishermen, would call those of the lower level “ciscoe backs.” Also, when the young bucks of the village met with others of another town at a dance or a church supper, a bit of rum on the side might start an argument. Then the boys of the neighboring town would call those from Chaumont or Dexter “cisco-backs” whether or not they were fishermen. This was sufficient to start a full-sized brawl. So the name became commonly a term of derision.

Men were either rich or poor with the season¹s catch. One man is said to have had 200,000 pounds of fish one time. A buyer came along and offered him $10 a barrel for them. The fisherman held out for a higher price. Then the price of fish went down, and the next spring that fisherman had to spread his thousands of pounds of ciscoes out on farmers' fields for fertilizer.

The “fish runs” occurred in early spring and late fall. A “cisco boat,” which is said to have been an adaptation of the much earlier Durham boat, was about 25 feet long. Nearly half its length was full-bodied like the old Durham boat. The ends under water were finely tapered. The loads were centered amidships and two oarsmen could reach a good spread in rough water. It was lightly constructed and easy to store. This type of fishing boat was used locally from 1820 to 1880 for setting and hauling large nets and carrying tons of fish to fish houses to be packed.

The cisco boats and even smaller skiffs plied from Chaumont and Three Mile Bay to Little Marsh at Stoney Point, some 30 miles down Lake Ontario. To some degree, the fishery extended all the way to Port Ontario. Also fished were Galloo, Grenadier and Fox Islands, Point Peninsula and Black River Bay in the vicinity of Sackets Harbor.

Link (intersite): End of Fishing Season - Watertown Daily Times, Dec. 19, 1870

The extent of commercial fishing on eastern Lake Ontario is described in this article in the Oswego Palladium of July 9, 1885:

---------

A Large Amount of Capital Invested --
The Largest Fresh Water Dealers in the World.

“Writing of the fishing interests of Lake Ontario a correspondent of the Syracuse Herald says that at Port Ontario, Sackets Harbor, Cape Vincent, Three Mile Bay and Chaumont are concerns of considerable capital and extent, who deal in fish and whose names are daily spoken in every market from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic. At Port Ontario there is a fleet of a half dozen sailing vessels, employing thirty men and a capital of $3,000.

“At Sackets Harbor, Clark Robbins, probably the largest fresh water dealers in the world, have their headquarters. They estimate the capital employed in the fishing business between Oswego and Cape Vincent at $50,000, employing from 800 to 1,000 men, yet the production is not one-tenth of what it was ten years ago, and the large nets then used have gone out of date. Clark Robbins for the year ending April 1st paid $50,000 for fish, and nearly the whole sum went to the Canadian side of the lake. As the industry on the American shore decreased, Clark Robbins were compelled to go to foreign waters for their fish.

“Continuing the trip down the lake, the next principal fisheries are found at Chaumont and Three Mile Bay. These villages were once noted for their cisco trade, but that, too, has almost entirely disappeared, and with it has gone much of the life which formerly abounded there. At present, in the two places, there are fifty men employed in fishing, representing a capital of $10,000.

“At Cape Vincent, for the last twenty-five years, fishing has been quite an extensive industry, but there, as in all other cases, it is declining. At present the sales of there averages $1,500 a week, giving employment to eighty men, twenty-five boats, fifty miles of gill nets and to 200 pound, trap and hoop nets. The amount of capital thus employed and represented is $80,000. Below Cape Vincent no net fishing is allowed.

“When fishing houses existed, high water and waves would frequently carry them away so they had to be well anchored. Once, a spring ice flow pushed a fish house ashore more than 50 feet to dry ground. But by 1900, commercial cisco fishing at Chaumont was pretty much a thing of the past. Various theories were advanced for the sudden disappearance of the cisco from these waters. But the general supposition was that they found new spawning grounds. Oldtimers said simply, ‘the lake was fished out.’ “

In their "History of the Town of Lyme," written in 1912, Historians Charles R. and Harriet L. Knapp, wrote:

"Many wonderful stories are told of the catches. it is said that the drawing of a seine has netted over 100 barrels of fish. It is not so many years ago that the farmers drove in from the surrounding country to meet the fishing boats as they came in, and but for a mere fraction of what would be present cost, a wagon load of fish which they used for fertilizing their lands. Such wholesale slaughter of fish must necessarily have an effect on this industry. At the present time only seven or eight people in the town are actively engaged in fishing as a livelihood.

"The fame of Lyme through her fishing industry was not limited by county or even by state lines as attested by a story told by Lawrence Gaige, a resident of Chaumont, who was a prominent man in this section and operated the Gaige Quarries. He was in Philadelphia, Pa., and on being asked by a Philadelphian where he was from, answered 'Watertown,' desiring thereby to impress his importance. He was somewhat taken down when the gentleman said: ‘Watertown! Watertown! Is that anywhere near Chaumont where they catch ciscoes?' Mr. Gaige said from that time he never again denied his town. It is nothing uncommon, even at that day, no matter in what part of the United States you might be, on mentioning that you are from Chaumont to have a reply come back quickly, 'so you are a cisco chaser.'

“Many of the old time fishermen lived in Point Salubrious. On the west shore were: D. L. Pomeroy, Alonzo Diefendorf, Chester and Eben Fisher; on the south short there were Edward Horton, Dow, Minot and Ralph Rogers; on the west shore, Ellis Ryder, Ambrose and Alva Warner, Louis Marsh, Leander Douglas and his son, Earl S., Lester Nugent, Enoch Dewey and his son, Andrew J., Lorenzo Johnson, James Lince, Nathaniel Warner and Noah Dunham and his son, Fordyce.

It was Andrew J. Dewey who first established a small store on Point Salubrious to cater to fishermen. This business grew and when, in 1851, the Watertown & Rome Railroad was built to Cape Vincent, and he moved his business to Chaumont. His partner for a time was Jonathan "Tot" Phelps. They employed five to ten coopers in their barrel shop which was located near the intersection of Academy and Madison streets. On June 17, 1881 the Watertown Times reported: "A.J. Dewey & Son of Chaumont last week shipped 15 tons of fish. This week including the shipments, they have forwarded 40 tons."

The coopers of those days were Zenas Ellis, Chapin Warner, Lester Nugent, John A. Wilson, Jonathan Phelps, Sylvester Ridgeway, John Lince, C. Frank James, Hiram Wilson, M. Gouverneur Phelps, Nathaniel Warner and others. Barrels were made of spruce and pine, cut into barrels and half barrels ("kits"). Sometimes the staves had to be sawed out, but many times were split in the rough and then hand-shaved on a "horse," as it was called, a tool which held the stave while a draw-shave in the hand of a cooper, shaped them for the barrel.

In 1865, when the fishing was so great, molasses barrels were imported from Syracuse. Every conceivable container was used for temporary storage until the barrels and kits could be made in which to ship the fish. James C. Dillenbeck Sr. recalled that as a young boy a lot later used as a park by the railroad depot was piled with barrels three to five deep with fish waiting to be shipped. He was employed by Dewey and Phelps to re-brine the fish daily. He would finish at one end, only to start at the other end all over again. Later, Dillenbeck came in with a fish-sharpie or scow known as the "Allen C. Beach," with a cargo of about a ton of fish from Point Peninsula. When about opposite the Point Salubrious Club House, about a mile and a half out, a wave brought the scow up and over a post that had been driven into the water to hold a lantern from a pound net. The bottom of the scow was rotten and the post came up through and soon the fish were floating over the top. Dillenbeck was rescued by Alvah W. Warner. When asked if got a reprimand from his employers, Dillenbeck said, "No, fish were so cheap. After the scow was repaired I was sent out after more." Dillenbeck also recalled that youngsters strung night-lines across Saw Mill Bay, for a private supply of fish.

At least once, Chaumont Bay gained national attention with an article in the New York Times on Aug. 23, 1886, with the following story entitled:

Point Peninsula, Aug. 21. - Jutting out into the waters of Lake Ontario and to the south of Cape Vincent is a huge triangle of land about seven miles long. Its width at one place - the base of the triangle - is more than three miles. The apex connects with the mainland in an isthmus about 60 feet wide. To one side of the triangle and enclosed between it and the jutting arm of the mainland is an indentation called Chaumont Bay. Nobody here, however, thinks of calling it Chaumont. It goes by the name of Shamo, with the accent on the o. There is a village near the exterior point of the triangle which is called Point Peninsula, or the Point. This village consists of a tavern, two stores, about a dozen houses, and a church. The nearest railroad station is Three-Mile Bay, on the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad. This is 10 miles from the Point. Cape Vincent is about six miles further off, but there is a good road connecting it with this place.

The village tavern is quite an institution. it is kept by one George Putnam, a very clever and obliging host, who comes nearer the ideal of one of the jolly old English landlords that one is apt to meet in the course of a year's journey. Putnam isn't old, however, except in experience and in his aptitude for making folks feel comfortable.. Village life centers at the tavern, especially in the evening, and the chairs ranged on the long porch are usually well filled after nightfall. The talk one hears is mainly about fish and fishing.

Chaumont Bay was in times past one of the best fishing grounds in the world, not only because of the quantity of fish obtained but also owing to the variety prevalent. Just think of taking from one water tremendous black bass, white fish, trout, pike, pickerel, enormous eels, muskallonge (sic), perch, sturgeon, cisco, and a dozen other kinds!

A sturdy old fellow who frequents the tavern is old Mr. Mayhew, who has lived on the peninsula more than 60 years, and whose age is well up in the eighties. He was telling the other night of how the fish used to be in the bay. "We put out a net one day right out yonder," said he, pointing to an old dock jutting out about 50 feet from shore. "the net was about 250 feet long, and we rigged up a windlass arrangement to draw her in. When we got ready to pull in the net we found it so full of fish that we could not haul it. So a number of men went out with big baskets, right out into the net, and began to pull them in. In that one haul we had just 70 barrels full, each holding about 200 pounds of fish. That made, you see, about 7 tons of fish. I ain't seen any such fishing since.

Of the smaller fish the cisco was remarkably numerous. These fish, properly salted down, make a dainty that appeals to many palates. They take the place of herring in divers places. Barrels and barrels of them were taken up and shipped all over the country. One ingenious fellow at the Point some years ago thought that ciscoes would make good bait for trout. and he resorted to what was then an entirely new way of using them for the purpose. He caught a number of the little fish, inserted a quill in an opening in the skin, and then proceeded to inflate them like bladders. A little wooden plug was put in the fish to prevent the escape of the air and then the ciscoes were hooked and hung out attached to a long line secured by stakes driven into the bed of the bay. The inflated ciscoes floated and bobbed on the surface of the water all one evening. Next morning the fisherman went out to look at the yield. He found a big trout attached to nearly every hook. Then he repeated the experiment, using more hooks. He caught so many trout that he set folks to wondering how he did it. Finally he was prevailed upon by offers of reward to let some others into the secret, and after a time the method became common property. So many got to fishing this way that one farmer made a great clamor because the fishermen had whittled up his cedar fence to make plugs with.

A ton of black bass being taken in a single haul of a net, tremendous quantities of sturgeon, one of them weighing 120 pounds, being fished up in the same way, nearly 800 pounds of lively, squirming eels being scooped up at a time, and other yarns to the same purport form part of the staple of conversation when the subject of fishing is broached. But the little fish, especially the ciscoes, were as a great a source of profit as the larger ones. Mr. Putnam vouches for the story of a man catching at odd times during September 900 barrelfuls of ciscoes. The man was greedy. He was offered $9.50 a barrel for his catch, but he wanted just 50 cents more to make up an even $10. There was considerable haggling, which ended in the would-be purchaser going away. The fisherman hung his property until the fish became tainted, and then he threw them over his farmland for fertilizing purposes. He never got another chance to do as well as he might have done with those ciscoes. Black bass, in traveling along the lake, use to come in great schools to Chaumont Bay. They would turn around the peak of mainland into the bay, keeping just outside of the shoals, and would follow the shore around the bay. The net fishermen have taken advantage of this fact. By a very curious bit of sharp practice in the Legislature the bay has been exempted from the operation of the law regarding net fishing directly off shore. The result is that the fishermen who make a business of it have come to this bay and set up their nets here, going out hundreds of feet off shore. These abominations known as trap nets are set in nearly every available spot and they give no show to the black bass. Still, despite this fact and the difficulties attending trolling under such circumstances, the fishing remains pretty good here. T he shadines or alewives are not here to stuff the bass and prevent their biting. Two of us trolling within 100 yards of the shore caught 18 lively black bass within an hour. The fish ranged in weight from three-quarters of a pound to two pounds and three-quarters each. Most of them were over one and one-half pounds weight. They were caught as fast as the nine-ounce rods used could bear. The fish were caught in from 20 to 30 feet of water, some 60 or 70 feet of line being out. The boat was given just the least perceptible motion and at times was allowed to drift with the current.

Mr. Seth Green, in a letter to The Times, seems to hint that the lack of success in fishing at Cape Vincent and around the neighboring islands is in no wise due to the presence of the alewives, but is owing to the fact that the proper means of fishing for black bass is not resorted to. The experience obtained by our party in fishing more than 40 miles of river and lake surface does not bear out his theory. Year after year the black bass bit at minnows, and they do so still in bays where the alewives are not found. That the bass will bite as well when their bellies are full of the alewives as when they are hungry does not find credence among fishermen, either amateur or professional, whom one meets up here. Flies, trolling spoons of different varieties, minnows, crabs, toads, crickets, grasshoppers; young perch, and even worms have been tried here to my knowledge, but the live minnow as bait has yielded the best results. The minnows are natural to these waters, the bass are accustomed to their presence, and when the little fish are properly hooked - that is, through the mouth and out under the gills - they swim about livelily in the water. There is nothing about their appearance to indicate that they are not swimming naturally about in the water. Comparing the experience of our party with that of others we have found the same state of things. It is experience - our experience - against theory.

As to using the alewives for bait the objection is that the things won't stay alive. They are easily caught, and attempts have been made to use them, as bait. There is no doubt that they would make good bait, but no one at the Cape or here has yet been able to make them last. Mr. Green also remarks that people "fish over the same ground too much. They want to spread out and find places where a line is not trolled every 15 minutes.“ Again, as to this, our experience has been different from Mr. Green's. We have obtained the best results by going over and over the same ground. All we looked out for was a lee shore and a rocky bottom. And the best results came from using the same tackle over and over again on the same ground. "The fish," says Mr. Green, "know the tackle as well as the fishermen do." Do they? If that be true how comes it that when one bass is hooked another will jump forward to catch a bait near where the other bass is struggling on a hook. We never failed to catch a second bass when we threw out a minnow close to where another was hooked. If there ever was a time when the bass should be familiar with the tackle, it would seem to be when he sees a brother struggling fiercely to get rid of similar tackle which as hooked him. I have known of a man fishing with a hand line dropped over the side of a boat and catch bass after bass with the same little crab attached to the same hook. There would seem to be a discrepancy somewhere. It is known to every fisherman here that the black bass have not been biting lately as they did before the alewives were put in the stream. It is also known that the bass gorge themselves with the little fish. Is it not more reasonable to suppose that they refuse to bite because they are so full that they don't care for more? This, at any rate, is the prevailing idea on the subject among fishermen at the Cape and along this peninsula. H. L.

From 1867 to 1897, Earl S. Douglas and his father, Leander, were among the more noted commercial fishermen locally. After 30 years in Chaumont Bay waters, Earl moved his base of operations to Sault Ste Marie. He quit fishing about 1905 and returned to Chaumont. He was born at Pillar Point on Jan. 10, 1854.

While Chaumont was considered the largest shipping point for fish, the industry also thrived at Sackets Harbor, Three Mile Bay and Cape Vincent. It was a Chaumont man, Walter Horton, who established commercial fishing at Cape Vincent.

Fishing by nets did not entirely die out. In the mid 1920s it was carried on locally by Charles Backus, Amos Grooms, Frank Giles Sr., Frank Giles Jr., Roy F. Giles, Amos Wiswell and Charles MacDougall. Some years were always more profitable than others, owing to conditions of wind and weather.

An interesting article on the extent of Lake Ontario fisheries is found in the Oswego Palladium of July 9, 1885:

Writing of the fishing interests of Lake Ontario a correspondent of the Syracuse Herald says that at Port Ontario, Sackets harbor, Cape Vincent, Three Mile Bay and Chaumont are concerns of considerable capital and extent, who deal in fish and whose names are daily spoken in every market from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic. At Port Ontario there is a fleet of a half dozen sailing vessels, employing thirty men and a capital of $3,000. At Sackets Harbor, Clark Robbins, probably the largest fresh water dealers in the world, have their headquarters. They estimate the capital employed in the fishing business between Oswego and Cape Vincent at $50,000, employing from 800 to 1,000 men, yet the production is not one-tenth of what it was ten years ago, and the large nets then used have gone out of date.

Clark Robbins for the year ending April 1st paid $50,000 for fish, and nearly the whole sum went to the Canadian side of the lake. As the industry on the American shore decreased, Clark Robbins were compelled to go to foreign waters for their fish. Continuing the trip down the lake, the next principal fisheries are found at Chaumont and Three Mile Bay. These villages were once noted for their cisco trade, but that, too, has almost entirely disappeared, and with it has gone much of the life which formerly abounded there. At present, in the two places, there are fifty men employed in fishing, representing a capital of $10,000. At Cape Vincent, for the last twenty-five years, fishing has been quite an extensive industry, but there, as in all other cases, it is declining. At present the sales of there averages $1,500 a week, giving employment to eighty men, twenty-five boats, fifty miles of gill nets and to 200 pound, trap and hoop nets. The amount of capital thus employed and represented is $80,000. Below Cape Vincent no net fishing is allowed.

At Port Ontario the seining grounds began a mile and a half north of Salmon River and extended about six miles towards Sturgeon Point. Beyond that point there were gill net grounds from one and a quarter to seven miles from shore, stretching all the way to Amherst Island. There were also extensive fishing grounds in the vicinity of Point Peninsula, Galloo and Main Duck Islands. But the principal fishing ground at that time was around Main Duck Island in Canadian waters. These were considered the most profitable on the entire lake at that time. Beyond that point there were no important fishing grounds on the south shore of Lake Ontario between Port Ontario and the Niagara River with the exception of some small gill-net grounds at Cole's Landing near Oswego, Fair Haven, Pultneyville, Charlotte, Braddock's Bay, Oak Orchard and Wilson. Most of the catch in this area was for local consumption.

Preserved down through the years are the verses of this home-spun song dubbed "Ciscoe Chasers." It used to be sung by a local quartette, consisting of Eli B. Johnson, Oren S. Adams, Elnathan N. Lucas and Lorenzo H. Johnson.

“We're sailor men, fisher men,
Happy and Gay.
Cisco Chasers are we,
We sing at our work,
And make our work play.
Ciscoe Chasers are we.”

* * *

Although the following article is unrelated to the Chaumont Bay, it was felt that readers might be interested in this article since the Salmon River to this day is a favorite among sports fishermen.

Oswego Palladium, Feb. 27, 1884

An Old Veteran Tells a Reminiscence When

The Salmon River Was Alive With Salmon

The following written by J. A. Mathewson to the Pulaski Democrat will be read with interest by all anglers:

Having been a resident of the town of Richland 76 years, I have outlived most of my contemporaries in the town, and all that were residents of Pulaski, old or young, so long ago. I am often asked many and various questions with regard to its early history. Often I am asked with the regard to the salmon and other fishing on Salmon River, as some of the “fish stories” they hear seem fabulous. One man asked me how many I ever knew to be caught by one skiff. Daniel Brown and John McLean caught in one night, with spears only, 603 salmon. I did not see the fish, but that was their reported count and never disputed.

In one night from 8 to 12 o¹clock (four hours) myself and partner caught 230. Two others after 12 o¹clock caught 138, making the night¹s fishing in the same skiff 468. This was about 1834. I know a time, but cannot tell the date, probably 60 years ago, that it was estimated 2,000 salmon were caught within one mile of the bridge in this village. I well remember a fall when 9 skiffs occupied the fishing ground (exclusively) from still water up the river about one mile. They caught in one night 2,100. About 10 skiffs (I was in one) the same night that fished on the same night that fished on the next mile averaged about 70.

The day after the night when I caught 23 in half a night, 100, taken indiscriminately, from the pile weighed 1,475 pounds. I am unable to relate any more extraordinary ‘fish stories,’ but a great many more large enough to effect a man¹s reputation for truth. I wish in conclusion to say that all I have written is strictly true.

PP 205-207, Hough, Franklin B., History of Jefferson County, New York, Watertown, N.Y., 1854

Peterson, Rowena B., Interesting True Stories of Lake and River Region Watertown Daily Times, April 4, 1949

10,000 Barrels of Fish Once Was Annual Yield of Chaumont Grounds Watertown