The Environmental Debate, Third Edition

Foundations of American Environmental Thought and Action 11

DOCUMENT 9: Regulating the Herring Run in the Town of Plymouth

(1637, 1638, 1639, 1662)

Less than two decades after the Pilgrims’ arrival, it became obvious that millers who altered or controlled the

flow of water past their mills were interfering with the natural movements of certain fish, notably herring (or

alewives), in the stream and that this interference would be detrimental to the entire community because it

disrupted the spawning of the fish. As a result, millers were required to let the water flow freely at certain times

of the year. The harvesting of the fish was also regulated. The “ware,” or weir, was a fence or dam through

which the fish could not pass.

The last day of March 1637
It is concluded upon a Townes meeting
that Nicholas [Snow] shall repaire the Her-
ing ware and draw and divide the Hering this
yeare and shall have foure and fourty bushells
of Indian corne for his paynes but the Town
shall pay him for the boards used about the
repaire there.

At a Townes meeting held the VIth day of
February 1638....
It is ordered that... the Milner shall observe
such order in stoping and loosening of the water
as shalbe given by the overseers of the hering
ware.
John Dunhame and Willm Pontus doe
undertake to pcure the hering ware repaired
and drawne and what they agree for with any
that shall doe the worke shalbe payd by the
whole Towne according to eich in pporcon of
shares.

* * *

At a Townes meeting held xix March 1639.

It is ordered and agreed upon That Thomas

Atkins and John Wood shall repaire the hering

ware this yeare and shall draw and deliver the

herings to eich man according to his shares due

to them and shall have iis p thousand [2 shil-

lings per thousand fish] for their paynes of the

Towne and after the same rate of the country

for those the shalbe allowed to eate and for

bayte and to be payd either in money or corne

at Harvest at such rate as it doth then passe at

from man to man.

It is also agreed upon that whosoever shall

take any herings either above or below the ware

after the ware is sett or shall robb the ware shall

forfaite five for one.

* * *

Att a towne meeting held att the meeting

house the 23 of March 1662 It was ordered by

the towne that henery Wood and Gorge Bonom

with one other whom they shall see meet to be

added to them; shall draw or take and devide the

for the benefits derived from inventions may
extend to mankind in general, but civil benefits
to particular spots alone; the latter, moreover,
last but for a time, the former forever. Civil ref-
ormation seldom is carried on without violence
and confusion, while inventions are a blessing
and a benefit without injuring or afflicting any.
Inventions are also, as it were, new creations
and imitations of divine works....
Again, let anyone but consider the immense
difference between men's lives in the most

polished countries of Europe, and in any wild

and barbarous region of the new Indies, he will

think it so great, that man may be said to be a

god unto man, not only on account of mutual

aid and benefits, but from their comparative

states—the result of the arts, and not of the

soil or climate.

Source: Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, ed. Joseph

Devey, in A Library of Universal Literature, Part I (New

York: P. F. Collier, 1901), pp. 58, 104, 105.