The biggest threat in the 1700s was the British Parliament’s Fisheries bill, which would have deprived New England fishermen access to the Grand Banks after 1774. Happily, the start of the American Revolution in April the following year meant that the measure was never enacted, but it surfaced again in 1779, when members of the Continental Congress discussed what should be on the agenda if the British indicated a willingness to discuss a peace treaty.

This was when Marblehead native Elbridge Gerry made an impassioned plea on behalf of New England fishermen for “the right to cast our hooks into the ocean, and to own what we may catch,” a plea that it would seem all Marblehead fishermen would roundly endorse today.

Marblehead’s original cod-fishing industry was in its heyday in 1807, when a total of 116 vessels, 98 of which were over 50 tons, were plying their trade to the Grand Banks of Nova Scotia to fish for cod. After the end of the Revolutionary War, the fleet dwindled and, by 1820, it was down to 48 vessels, and only 30 of which were over 50 tons.

The weather has always been a fisherman’s nemesis, and the greatest blow to Marblehead’s cod-fishing fleet was the renowned “Great Gale,” which struck the Grand Banks on Sept. 19, 1846, and decimated a significant number of New England fishermen. Marblehead had 34 schooners on the Banks, and 10 of these were lost and one disabled, resulting in the death of 65 men and boys. Overnight, this created 43 widows and 55 fatherless children in town.

Yet today, more than 300 years after Gerry’s impassioned plea, Marblehead’s commercial fishermen are still not able to cast their hooks into the ocean and “own what they catch,” as they are restricted by government-imposed quotas and regulations. They also need to deal with the extraordinary degree of predation that this has spawned, with the two biggest predators being the striped bass and the dogfish, or cape shark, which consume young, immature lobsters and other young fish, including cod.

Read the complete story from Wicked Local.