CAPE MA? COUNTY MAGAZINE 8 JUNE '83

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Local Fishermen Overcame Setbacks

By E.J. DUFFY Before white men landed and settled in New Jersey, the Kechemeche tribe of Lenni Uenapc Indians, who called the state Schcycichhi, harvested Cape May County waters for shellfish from their camps near Dias Creek; Mayville, Court House, Cold Spring, Fishing . Creek and Nummytown. Their fishing was commercial only because they fashioned wampum from whelk and clam shells. Overwhelmed by the settlers and their odd lifestyle, the Kechemeche under King Nummy held a tribal council in 1735 at Gravelly Hun. They decided to forever abandon their camps, hunting and fishing grounds to the strange intruders. By then, whalers from Town Bank had been harpooning their prey from long boats in the Delaware bay for more'than 90

years. Whaling was the first and foremost commercial fishing venture in the county. An adult whale was worth as much as $4,000 in oil to its captors who also chased the sea mammals north and used the barrier islands as whaling stations. There was a good market for whale oil then, but the whalers took their toll of mature whales and females as well as adult males. After years of indiscriminate slaughter, sightings became fewer — sometimes years at a stretch. The colonial industry died out with the whales around the time of the Revolutionary War. The original Town Bank slipped into the bay. While the whalers boiled blubber into oil along Cape May County beaches, local farmers were earning extra income in the winter by scopping shellfish from the bays and estuaries. Before 1

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Courtaty of Pal ImRoio VINTAGE FISHERMEN — Hauling their nets aboard a 1933 Indiana, the Pound Net Fish Co. crew of Sea Isle City pose for this 1945 photograph. From left are: Sam Libro. Tony Izll, Joe Vittello, Herbie Hand, Pat LaRosa. Pete Pittaluga and John Libro.

1683, oysters were being exported; William Penn wrote then that they were selling for two shillings a bushel. IN 1758, oysters were still selling for two shillings a bushel but, by then, they were a major enterprise. The county government operated 10 oyster boats to aid the local export business. The trade accounted for 13 percent of the county revenue, according to figures researched by R. Craig Koedel, an Atlantic County College history professor “Cape May County shellfish was not all consumed by local residents or shipped to the marts of the East Coast," Koedel wrote in "Following the Water," his history of South Jersey Pollution killed shellfishing. “As the 19th Century dawned, the tasty dish appeared on hotel menus at the Cape ” Cape May had a modest tourist trade as early as 1766. In 1801, the owner of Atlantic Hall advertised, "fish, oysters, crabs and good liquors." About that time, oystermen along the Maurice River began cultivating their catch by gathering oyster larvae (seed), planting it on discarded shells and harvesting their "crops." The oyster dredge was introduced in the early 19th Century, but the real boost to commercial oystermen and other fishermen in the county came with the railroad in the 1870s. "Port Norris was the capital of the oyster empire, the home port of more than 200 sailing vessels and the site of a dozen or more oyster shipping firms," wrote Koedel. “Ninety railroad, cars, loaded with oysters, pulled out of town every week during the season. “As Port Norris grew, Long Reach (called Bivalve after 1897) emerged as a thriving extention of the town," the historian added. “Shells were carted by whellbarrow to lay a road across the meadows between the two communities When the railroad tracks reached Bivalve, shipping houses and peers were erected." Besides carrying the oysters and other seafood to market, the trains brought tourists, weekend anglers and immigrants into the county. Those early tourists and fishermen gave the county its reputation as a holiday and vacation haven and watered the seeds of its resort and recreational fishing industries The immigrants added to the county’s

stock of commercial fishermen. Among the newcomers was Alfred Johnson who sailed from Sweden in a squarerigger and fished the surf of Wildwood in a sciff when the island was still called Holly Breach. HIS SON, Albert Johnson Sr., now 73, has fished "ever since I was 14 or 15” out of Cape MayWildwood, He had operated the East Coast Fishing and Bait Co. with the “Comanche,” the “Hattie L” and the “Irene W" during the Depression. “We made a pretty good business for those days," 'said Johnson, who sold his last boat, the 50-foot “Elenor K", three years ago and retired. Nearly all of the county’s trap fishing ... population was of northern European ancestry when Pasquale La Rosa left Messina, Sicily, for the U S. in 1907. While working for the Stetson Hat Co. in Philadelphia, he met and married Giovanna Ordile of Hammonton and they opened a grocery store in the big city. In 1916, the family moved to Sea Isle City where a group of Italians had settled. With partners, La Rosa started the Shallow Water Fish Co., followed by the Union Fishing, Freezing and Cold Storage Co. In 1939, he went into business with his three sons as the Pound Net Fish Co. along the docks across Park Avenue from his home. Stephano Libro, now 99, built some of the open boats the La Rosa family used to tend their trap nets miles at sea. During World War II, Libro and Frank

Courtesy of Pat La Roto FISHY SORT — Pound Net Fish Co. workers Pat LaRosa. now a Sea Isle City police lieutenant, and Herbie Hand (deceased) of Dennisville separate their trap net catch in this 1950s view of company boats at the Sea Isle docks.