It would be impossible to make a list of all the persons who fished at these falls. Some were there much, others often, and many occasionally. Some came to catch fish, others to purchase them, some for curiosity, speculation or amusement, so that in the fishing season Amoskeag was a place of considerable importance, and was visited by persons from far and near. Not only the people of Derryfield fished here, but many from the neighboring towns of Goffstown, Dunbarton, Bedford and Londonderry.

Goffstown had undisputed rights there but others were considered rather as intruders and hence rose disputes concerning their respective rights, which sometimes ended in a trial of strength and skill in a game of fisticuffs.

Many of the Derryfielders were of the hardiest kind and disposed to maintain their rights at all hazards. It would be invidious to particularize the persons of this character who were frequently to be found at Amoskeag; but I may be allowed to name one individual, who resided about a mile southeast of the present city of Manchester, by the name of Young, who was the father of twenty-three children, whom he supported partly upon the produce of his farm and partly upon woodchuck and lamper-eels. He and his sons held uncontrolled sway over the slash hole and with their great net and otherwise, caught more fish perhaps than any other individual or family. He was a man of midling stature, stout built, dark complexion, of homely address and appearance. He lived to a good old age, died upon his farm and was buried in the old cemetery at Manchester Center.

The Youngs became so numerous that two or three generations of them were represented at the falls at one and the same time so that the older class of them were all called uncles not only by the nephews, but by all the townspeople, as Uncle Jonathan, Uncle K. I., Uncle Jos, Uncle Peter, etc.

Formerly the only means of communication with the islands was by means of canoes, and this in high water was both difficult and dangerous. The principal ferry on the west side was below the Great Eddy, and the falls at its outlet called the Boil or Bile--this was a fall of about eight feet in as many rods--over which the lumbermen ran their rafts of lumber which had been brought down from the country above, taken out at the head of the falls and hauled by teams to the Great Eddy, and there re-rafted and taken thence over the intermediate falls to Pautucket (now Lowell), where they had to go through the same process as at Amoskeag; but this does not come under our present heading.

Who made the canoes, and what sort of crafts were they?

If a canoe was wanted, application was made to Uncle Sam; everybody then knew who Uncle Sam was, but as the present generation know little or nothing of him we will say that he was Mr. Samuel Stark, brother of the General, and resided about two miles above the falls on the east side of the river, on the place now owned and occupied by Mr. John Campbell. He was a man of much mechanical genius, and not only manufactured canoes as occasion required, but made nets, pots and other implements for catching fish, as well as various farming tools and matters of household furniture.

The canoes were made of boards, were entirely peaked at the forward end, not quite so in the stern, having there what was called a stern piece about six inches in width at the bottom and twelve or fifteen inches at the top, set considerably slanting outward so as nearly to correspond with the slant of the bowpiece.

The bottoms were about two feet wide in the middle and ran off nearly peaked at the ends, nearly holding their width for about two-thirds of the way of what the sailors call "amid ships." This bottom was fourteen or fifteen feet long and the top of the canoe when finished was seventeen or eighteen feet in length. The sides were supported by four and sometimes five pairs of flaring knees, nicely graduated so as to receive the side boards in a regular curve from stem to stern, and so flaring as to make the boat some three and a half or four feet wide at the top near its middle. These were furnished with a row-lock on each side, and were propelled by two oars about eight feet long placed in these row-locks and worked by a person in a sitting position, with his back toward the place of his destination. With these canoes two men, one at the oars and the other in the stern, with a paddle with which to steer, would sometimes perform wonders in the way of navigating their craft over the billowy current in the midst of a multitude of rocks.

I may here relate the saying of James Wilson of Londonderry who used to spend some time annually in fishing at the falls, and who was a good brag as well as a good fisherman. He said that he had many a time crossed over to the canoe place when no man else dare go; that he had crossed there when the waves ran so high that the people standing on the shore on either side could not see his head more than half the time. The inconvenience and danger of this mode of communication, as well as the monopoly of the island fishing enjoyed by those few persons who had canoes and knew how to use them, at length suggested the idea of procuring access to the coveted fishing grounds by a more ready and safe mode of passage, and I believe that the suggestion first came from the inventive mind of Samuel Blodgett, that a bridge might be erected from the mainland to the islands, at any rate, his son Benjamin Blodgett took the matter in hand, went to Capt. Silas Wells of Goffstown, who claimed ownership to a fishing place on the island side opposite the sitting place, and disclosed to him the plan of building the bridge.

As Wells was deeply interested in the project, he readily enlisted in the enterprise, and having plenty of good white pine timber upon his premises and a good team he undertook to get out and haul down the stringers for the proposed bridge, which were to be two sticks seventy-two feet long and large enough to sustain their weight when stretched across the foaming stream, and resting upon the ledge at their extreme ends. In due time the two huge long sticks of timber made their appearance on the bank, above the sitting place, and the inquiry among the fishermen was, "What are they going to do with that timber?" And when told that Ben Blodgett was going to build a bridge across the sitting place stream, said "Poh," that is impossible, but this did not discourage Ben; he had fixed his mind upon his purpose and was determined to carry it out. He at that time kept a small store on the west side of the river near the falls, and through the means of certain of his good wares and merchandise held and exercised no small mount of influence over the fishermen.

He appointed a day for putting on the new bridge, and invited all the fishermen and everybody else who came in his way to attend. And when the appointed hour arrived he commenced operations with a strong manual force, but with little apparatus, save a long rope. He assumed the command of the assembled multitude who laid hold of one of the sticks of timber by hand and moved it endwise toward and over the edge of the stream. This movement was continued until the outer end of the stick was nearly over the center of the stream when the end on shore was chained down to a large rock. They then brought down the second stick of timber, and having made fast the rope to the outer end, by means of a small line thrown across the stream to persons there ready to receive it, the rope was drawn across in the hands of persons able and willing to give the "long pull" the "strong pull" and the "pull together." The second stick was then shoved and pulled transversely across the first, which served to keep it from falling into the falls below, and with pushing at one end and hauling at the other the outer end was soon in the hands of the people on the island side. This having been properly placed, the next thing to be done was the difficult and dangerous operation of fastening the rope to the end of the other stick, which hung nearly over the center of the stream. No on appeared to be willing to undertake this hazardous service. The rope was on the island side--Ben was on the shore. Finding the work was at a stand he off coat, hat and shoes, stepped on the stick which had been drawn across the stream as above stated, and deliberately walked from one end to the other amid breathless silence of the assembled throng, and joined his companions on the island side. He then, with rope in hand, returned to the end of the other stick and seated himself directly over the raging torrent beneath him, and made fast the rope to the end of the stick which they first moved, which, being placed along side the former and about three feet apart, constituted the whole frame work of the bridge.

Subsequently short pieces of plank were laid across at intervals and these covered with long planks laid length-wise, and this bridge so constructed was used for many years without any railing, being frequently crossed by men, women and children, and was universally called Ben's Bridge. The example and success of this experiment afterwards caused the erection of another bridge across the middle or Pulpit Stream (so-called) which was conducted in much the same manner with that of the former, and more recently of a bridge over the Eel Gut on the east side of the falls, and nearly where the companies' dam now crosses that Gut. Here was the great eel fishery called the Hooking Place. Here the Derryfielders got their annual supply of (beef) in the shape of lamper-eels sometimes catching hundreds and sometimes thousands of them in a single night.

These three bridges, with some single planks laid from rock to rock, and the naked ledge itself constituted a passage way across the entire river which was not only used by the fishermen but by the people in the neighborhood generally, and often by strangers from abroad.

Beside the laws of the state which made it penal for any persons to catch, kill, or destroy any salmon, shad, or alewives, at any time between sunrise on any Thursday and sunrise on the following Monday, the fisherman had certain laws which were generally observed by common consent, but these laws were not all general in their application. Certain places had rules and regulations especially applicable to them differing somewhat from those which governed others, for the reason that some of them were deemed to be, and were held as private property, while others were considered public.

The places where pots were set were all of the former class, and likewise many of the places where they fished with nets, but all places not held in that way were governed by the law of possession. This possession was taken by going upon the premises, placing thereon one or more pieces of boards, planks or slabs, and then strictly maintaining it by constant watching day and night. Some of these places were thus held for weeks, but the least remissness on the part of the possessor often caused him to lose his place, and sometimes before he had been able to take any fish. This change of ownership took place in this wise: If the occupant left the place but for a moment it was considered as abandoned, and a newcomer laid hold of his collected materials (called staging) and shoved them into the falls. This act changed the ownership of the place, and the new occupant might even go down the stream and bring back the identical stuff that was there before, this having been at large in the stream was deemed drift-wood and considered as lawful plunder.

Other places considered public, were occupied thus: The first comer was entitled to occupy until he caught a fish that is a salmon or a shad (alewives not being counted in this case) unless he got tired and chose to give it up to the next who came there, and in case there were several they arranged themselves in a row nearby and were entitled to their turn in regular succession.