CTFishTalk.com: IMEP #25 Historic Stone Weirs for Shad and Alewife - T Visel - Connecticut Saltwater Reports ( CT Saltwater Reports ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

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IMEP Newsletter #25 – Historic Stone Weirs for Shad and Alewife

Habitat Information for Fishers and Fishery Area Managers
Understanding Science Through History

The Stone Alewife Weirs of New England
A Capstone Research Project

Possible Construction Details of Stone/Wood Alewife Weirs –
In New England Tidal Streams

Construction and Demonstration of Design and Functional Operations
of a Wing Wall Native American Alewife Weir

Tim Visel, The Sound School – April 2011
Revised for Capstone Catalog April 2014

Additional Material - Connecticut River, Connecticut Shad Net Fishery Display, June 7, 2014

I recently was invited to be apart of the Essex Rotary Annual Shad Bake hosted by the Connecticut River Museum in early June. For over half a century the Essex Rotary has hosted the Shad Bake, one of the last such events in New England. Here shad are roasted along side a hardwood fire on planks in a circle. It is an amazing event to see and sample shad and sometimes roe which attracts visitors from all over the country. Part of the program includes education exhibits, shad boning and fishing gear displays and celebrates the seasonal return of the Connecticut River shad. The Native American Alewife Weir model was a part of the exhibit; it being rather complex required a color coded assembly diagram which was not color printed. With a setup deadline now looming, I quickly pressed Caleb Lincoln in service to help set up dozens of color coded posts. Caleb remarked, “This is a complex model, perhaps some instructions?” I agreed and a short appendix has now been added. Caleb and I worked quickly and had the model together in time, but I could not have done it without him. Thanks Caleb! It was a great Shad Bake at the Connecticut River Museum with beautiful weather topped off by a surprise visit of my daughter Abigail and my son-in-law Mike Butler.

In August I was made aware of a video showing an eel weir still in use in New York state by my daughter, Abigail, who helped build the first model she found on interview with James Prosek and Ray Turner which shows an eel weir video of a stone weir with wing walls and crib. It is amazing to see one work and closely resemble the model first presented in 2011. Mr. Turner maintains this vee trap and is fascinating to see one actually in use today. No need to wonder how they work, you can now watch one work.

Over the summer some requests for model plans arrived and building one for a Capstone Project that falls under the FFA non-experimental research SAE area. The model can also be scaled down - less than the seven foot length and 42 inches wide model shown on page 8. To place all the posts, crib and wings plus the small stones takes about two hours.

The habitats that supported these weirs for Alewife needed shallow but fast flows. Therefore, they were beyond the tidal areas (although half tide fish traps were used along the coast) as water powered these weirs. There is no doubt the remains of an old stone weir in Connecticut still exists, it may just look like two stone walls in or near a stream bed.

Always interested in comments or suggestions!

Tim Visel
Tim.visel@new-haven.k12.ct.us

Interested Sound School students can make arrangements to borrow the model. Contact Sue Weber at susan.weber@new-haven.k12.ct.us for information.

Introduction

One of the best descriptions of these very old V type stone “wing wall” alewife weirs is found in the colonial records of Ipswich Massachusetts. Although stone V weirs have been located in many states what has been lost is a step by step construction method on how they were built and why relic V type alewife weirs continue to be found in New England. Some V type weirs out west still appear to gather water – functioning for hundreds of years. One possible capstone project in addition to the model is a follow up project to construct a working model – a flume design with pumped water to represent stream flow. This would require additional time and more research than the representative model proposal. The basic design however is detailed below,

“The form of a weir was as follows: Stone walls were built down the stream till they came in contact at an angle of forty-five degrees. At this angle a cage was placed, composed of hoops with twigs fastened to them. The walls conducted the fish down to the cage and thus they were taken in great numbers.” An early 1674 account of the alewife fisheries of Ipswich Massachusetts pg 685, see source citation below.

“The ‘wear’ or fishing dam at Medford was at the outlet of the pond, and as our river was ‘the notedest place’ {noteworthy} for fish in the early days of our plantation, we presume that the ‘seine, being a net sent to fish with,’ was the first seine ever drawn in its waters, and the first drawn on this continent.” June 6, 1639: ‘It is ordered that all wears shall be set open from the last day of the week, at noon, till the second day in the morning.” Medford, Massachusetts Early Alewife Fisheries, Section II The Fisheries Fishery Industry of the United States by George Brown Goode. United States Fish Commission 1887.

Habitat and Fish Passage Observations

The above description gives some insight into a wooden crib or sluice – the “cage” (crib) is the device that concentrates the fish making them easy to net (capture). The alewife runs were spring events and fish seeking the strongest flows to reach spawning pond, stream and lake habitats. The second passage refers to the practice of opening the crib or pulling the weir boards to increase flow and allowing the “fish passage.” Pulling weir boards was also done in the fall to allow small alewife to return (personal communication, Joe DiCarlo, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, 1980s). In the 1980s, Cape Cod areas were experiencing dry weather and some of the water retention ponds (some associated with Cranberry culture) were drying up. The fall flow out, in many instances, was just as important as the adults going up. With small fish stopped from “getting out” was just as important to the “getting up” flows in the spring. Mr. DiCarlo explained (communications to Tim Visel, 1980s) that small alewife lived in the warmer shallows of lakes and ponds and needed to leave by mid-September. As waters cooled, large predator fish would come into the shallows to feast upon alewife fry (cooler temperatures allowed larger fish to take advantage of better oxygen conditions). Some ponds during the stream surveys then were not releasing any water at all, trapping small alewife in and others just a small flow over a notch – he would turn the board over a notch on the bottom to produce a stronger outlet flow – at least some of the alewife had a chance to find a good flow instead of dripping over planks according to Mr. DiCarlo. This process is perhaps the most important part of alewife restoration plans for ponds with weir boards.

Vee traps were set to harvest adults and fall flows out were assisted in the same way unless the crib was blocked by trees and debris. I suspect heavy rains could wash out some veetraps requiring them to be rebuilt from time to time.

How They Worked

Using similar fishing gear technology designs, fish behavior, ecology with descriptions of published archaeological remains and a modest literature review, I propose a possible construction method/type and design model of a Native American fish weir for alewives once built here in New England.

The alewife weir shown here resembles in many details the Colonial traps and present day fyke nets; in fact, many of the design features are so similar to Danish designs I believe a compelling argument can be made that they are worth further consideration / discussions. The construction and design features are reviewed, building upon previous research and prior knowledge of New England fisheries history. Massachusetts’ fisheries histories provide important information and are a major source of oral and written fish weir history. I have Mr. Joseph DiCarlo of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries for sharing his insights and information three decades ago.

First presented at the Hammonasset Native American
Festival, Oct 1-2, 2011 - Madison, CT
A Design Model Explanation
Timothy C. Visel/Abigail C. Visel, Model builder

Alewife step up and stone wood fyke weir:

The Veeconfiguration of stone becomes the wing walls (see later fyke nets) mentioned in early descriptions of a series of graduated step up pools. Once fish have congregated above the throat at weir apex, it is blocked and the created pool above subject to both a spear fishery or haul or sweep seines. The Vee stone arrangement does not block the water but redirects flow into the throat which keeps the step up pools submerged with a strong flow. In the 1700s and 1800s this construction in fish traps is often referred to as the throat or earlier “crib.”

The stone and wood alewife weir has a series of steps upon which fish travel each up higher until they reach the throat height which can vary from a few feet to several feet wide. The remains of these V shaped weirs remain today in many New England streams. To be effective they redirected flow, but did not stop it. They could best be described as leaky dams – with strainer wing walls. These walls of stone remain today as heaps in a V configuration. The long and log wood throats, the wooden post sections having long rotted away leaving heaps of stones in the characteristic Vee shape so familiar in alewife and eel streams. These have been located and photographed on Cape Cod and in Maine.

The purpose of these traps was to direct the fish into a giant horizontal funnel, not unlike fyke net mesh funnels in Colonial fishing gear or even lobster pot funnels still used today. The concept is to continue to step up the fish into a deep pool which then could be seined. Although giving the appearance of a simple device, these wood/stone weirs were actually very complicated, requiring expert knowledge of streams conditions, flow, stream morphology, fish biology and fish behavior. They manipulated natural habitats by creating the deeper pool above while directing surface flow into a throat below which allowed the series of submerged steps to elevate the fish using its natural biological instincts to climb upstream. They were, in fact, the first fish ladders, graduated step up pools that elevated fish above the obstruction – in this case a man made one, a trap. This fish behavior feature would later guide fish over dangers or obstructions such as Colonial dams; these devices however guided fish into danger or the first capture fisheries.

It is easy to underestimate the extent of the information accumulated by centuries of fisheries knowledge by observing fish behavior but we shouldn’t. It probably explains why these locations were so valuable to Native Americans. They over hundreds of years they likely came to appreciate how valuable they were by direct observation/experience in fact something valuable perhaps enough to fight over, at least in the Madison/Guilford area. Alewife returning from several years at sea was a great oil and calorie rich meal, coming after a long cold and harsh New England winter. They were, no doubt, a welcome sign of the warmer spring to follow.

An important consideration was that these fish came to the Native Americans – you didn’t need to hunt or chase after them expending valuable calories in search of calories. The technology here was a perfect match for anadromous fisheries; fish would climb up stream to quiet waters in which to lay eggs. As late of the early 1980s it was recognized that logs (no branches) actually helped alewife runs on Cape Cod by creating resting pools and concentrating “V” flows, they worked under most flow conditions and could be built with suitable materials close by. No doubt observation, trial and error of experimentation and evaluation led to basic designs. They are consistent with V type designs region wide.

In this design the Veeweir gathered flow to a series of “steps” that benefited from the natural instincts of alewife – the desire to reach headwaters. The weirs were constructed from logs, cut lengths, samplings and stones – from a fishing gear technologist’s viewpoint; it resembles all modern fish trap techniques with the construction materials available at the time. They were accessible and possible requiring the work of many individuals for a short time. These traps are both a social and technological marvel for their time and the design so functional that the remains of these traps continue to create flow concentrations in streams hundreds of years after abandonment.

Few of our later inventions have held that test of time and perhaps constitute the definition of a machine as a multi-functioned apparatus capable of providing work. The work in this case was hydraulic; the control and beneficial use of water. The product of this work of course, was the fish.

Construction/Design:

These alewife traps consisted of three separate functions the wing walls or sides, the Vee, the throat at the Apex of the Veewhich consisted of a log crib with weir logs to control flow and height of capture pool and the step up pools or sluice way below the throat.

Layout and Placement:

The Alewife weir should be placed in an area of declining but not sharp slope – narrow (wide expanses the alewife could just go around it) areas and relatively shallow. They are designed to create a pool of water upstream of the weir while gathering a channel of strong water flow directing it downstream. Alewife would be guided by natural sensing ability to the strongest flow in their upstream migratory effort. In this case, the pool above which could be then seined – but historical written evidence indicates also basket or dip net retrieval from the upper throat pool itself. Others refer to combined used of both spear and net fisheries, perhaps sweep or long haul seine nets. The layout should have taken into account the capture pool bottom have minimal or smooth bottom obstructions. Lastly the area should be near construction materials, tree samplings and larger mature logs, brush and most important small (able to carry) stones. This fits exactly the surroundings of small streams in glacial areas.

Conflicting Information:

Some of the historical accounts describe the wing walls as gathering fish into “twig baskets” with the flow. This is quite possible on the return to sea migration and this could include salmon and shad as well as eels. The early runs, early spring after the first ice broke, the fish were moving up – not down stream – Heavy ice precluded this activity but not a spear fishery in the upper throat pool. Here the ice would be freed perhaps by first rushing water allowing a dip net or spear fishery to occur. Later in spring as fish completed spawning – a return capture fishery was also possible, especially for eels. It’s hard to evaluate the direction or movement of fish from many historical reports. They just mention how effective they were but it could provide some insight of non fishermen writing about what they observed. To many it might seem the wing walls were guiding fish into the throat from above, the appearance of open arms and the downward flow (summer and fall eel runs for example). But in this case the early open ice fishery would be a combination of a net or spear fishery of returning from sea fish. Examination of later reports in some communities (especially ones in Massachusetts) many provide additional information. Some early references refer to beaver dams and alewife runs in a similar way and that would have been noticeable over time. By the early 1800s however beaver were trapped out of most coastal areas for the fur trade but beaver dams could be a habitat link for many of the fresh water brook and stream alewife runs.

In fact dam building by Beavers and Herring running up to them and perhaps trying to jump them would be hard to miss – in fact I believe impossible to miss.

The design in fact might have been the observation of dam building activity by them. The design of the curvature of the barrier differs –while many beaver dams deflect water away from the weakest part of the low profile dam, alewife weirs direct the flows toward the center to mimic the strong flow into a potential spawning habitat. These low profile weirs did not stop the flows but merely directed water to the throat and step up pools. In fact in floods the waters would over wash these traps causing no doubt damage or destruction and requiring a heavy log structure weighted with stones to perhaps provide a stable passage way under normal stream flows. It is also that in times of great flooding Beaver Dams were breached in a similar fashion and alewife observed moving past these obstructions.

It is primarily the wing walls of these crib like log structures we see today in streams. The wood has long since been carried away or decomposed but incredibly the heaps of stones remain – still holding the classic Vee shape after many centuries.

Model Net Diagram Proposed Design
for the Hammonasset Event Oct 1-2, 2011
This is the proposed design - I welcome any suggestions, ideas or comments. I can be reached at tim.visel@new-haven.k12.ct.us.

The Water Catchers – Possible Concepts of Early Alewife Weirs
Model Weir Details

Stream setting – The slope is gradual – Six pools at a 6 inch rise to gradually raise the fish to a level so they can enter the capture pool (36” Total Drop). This would be a long system as desired nightline fish passage assured. Three distinct parts of the step-up stone weir can be seen in the proposed model; the wing walls or Vee sides, the log crib type throat (funnel) and the step up pools immediately south of the throat sluice way. To create the gradual steps 10 feet to 6 inches or a type at least 60 feet long. The flow would need to be sufficient to “power” the steps, in times of drought late August they may have failed to have enough flow to fill pools. Spring flows from ice melt would easily “power” the trap. Some historical papers mention blocking partial flows; in other words, the trap did not go bank to bank.

This weir type is powered by water, so to power it; water is captured by the Vee funneling it into the throat and step up pools. In the process a capture pool is created upstream of the Vee. Once the throat is blocked, or the upstream escape sectioned off, by brush or a seine perhaps, the alewife would be trapped into this man made weir.

In the Madison/Guilford area, (Guilford colonial records mentions Chief Uncas had set alewife weirs) these weirs mostly were shallow – three feet or less as alewife do return in large numbers in such streams. A modest habitat manipulation could have yielded high fish returns. They did not stop water as later 17th and 18th caisson dams, but directed it and during heavy rains; these structures would over wash or at least stop functioning. A flood could destroy or damage a weir, rebuilding could have been a seasonal activity construction – two rock crib cashions – stone filled forms the ends of the throat. A palisades of heavy logs from the center open throat followed by cross timbers- there is no doubt in my mind that this type of construction was possible these enclosures were filled with stones – hand carried to these log structures with the flows on either side. Once established, the wing walls would gather the flow directly into the throat (other possible methods of a platform when loaded with stone drive notched tree stakes deep into the river bottom). The series of step-up pools completes the model. These would also require driven stakes and stone walls, each open at the apex to provide the flow and resting pools into the throat, the rear to funnel fish to the throat top to funnel or catch the water to power the step-up pools log weirs could be adjusted at the throat for lower flows.

Returning pre spawned fish would be extremely valuable – rich in calories and post spawned fish returning later perhaps not as important, but allows returning fish from sea entry into the throat and returning fish back to sea also being directed into it. A dry spell or low post runoff situation may dry such flows resulting in all stream water entering the throat. Again, providing an open throat to again in which catch fish on the return perhaps eels? They could assist fishing both directions (not certain?).

Placement

Stream placement was important especially on the small streams. A gradual slope would produce a larger capture pool, a sharp slope a smaller pool. In larger rivers, the throat (some refer it to a cross log crib which is a good descriptive). I believe gained importance for dip net and perhaps a tangle or spear fishery; large gillnets and haul seines would have been deployed in larger capture pools but these methods would become less productive by the following:
1) A small shallow capture pool could be easily dragged seined, a large deep pool more effort and better chances for escapement
2) Currents tend to collapse haul seines and make haul back harder requiring greater human resources people. Strong currents would make seining difficult to almost impossible.
3) Streams that were wide, could have end wash, so the trap aspect reduced. In these cases the trap was the throat itself, directing fish into it for a bag seine, dip net or spear fishery, if the captive pool was too big or deep to fish. Salmon traps out west often use this feature.

In the Guilford – Madison area, I believe the Vee wing walls extended from bank to bank and could exist still in small streams. They just might resemble stone walls entering the stream.

The model shows most of these features, although the wing walls (sides of Vee) are shortened for the model presentation (Red stakes). The dimensions of the model are 3 feet wide by 6 feet long.

The throat is shown with large timbers (black and brown timbers), as throat width is shown with about 1” equals a foot or a throat width of four to perhaps 8 feet and a three foot rise would regulate size or so step up pools each with a directed flow (green stakes) brush driven in these pools could help hold the stone pools in place (white stakes). The total length of the V type in a stream could easily be 100 feet or more.

What we could learn from nearby weirs if located –

1) The presence of rectangular log post and beam structures in the Vee (The throat) extremely doubtful as these in most oxygen environments the wood would be long ago reduced.
2) Below the Vee wing walls, the presence of a 45% degree series of posts originating at the throat towards the stream banks.
3) The spacing or placement of step up pools (these could be quickly washed away.) The best chance here would be in a pond or lake that “drowned” the trap in a more or less complete state.

The amazing thing about these early fish weirs is some four hundred years later, they still function, the wooden structures have long since rotted although the Vee wings of stones in some streams remain as clearly defined water collecting structures.

Students interested in building a model for public display or as part of a public demonstration please contact the Aquaculture Office for model trap designs expected to be available in the Spring 2012.

For more information about the Guilford/Madison area or Native American Fisheries, please see these references following. Thank you also to the Guilford Keeping Society and the Charlotte Evarts Memorial Archives for access to research papers and accounts. Comments and suggestions are also welcome. Please email me at tim.visel@new-haven.k12.ct.us

References

Olde Guilford, Dorothy Whitfield Historic Society, Inc. Copyright 1975. (An Historical Guide with Maps of Olde Guilford) Text by Joel Helander; text illustrations by Mrs. G. Roger Watrous & Rufus Bishop.

Twelve Fathom of Wompom, published by The Elisabeth C. Adams Middle School, 1974.

History of Guilford. (the History of Guilford, Connecticut from Its First Settlement in 1639. From the manuscripts of Hon. Ralph D. Smith. Albany, N.Y.: J. Munsell, Printer, 1877.

Indian Fishing: Early Methods on the Northwest Coast by Hilary Stewart. University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1977.

Pictorial Guilford (A New England town in photographs). Text by James Lindsay, Published by Guilford Keeping Society, 1976. 171 Boston Street, Guilford, CT 06437, First Edition.

History of Guilford and Madison, Connecticut by Bernard Christian Steiner, 1897 Edition reissued by The Guilford Free Library in 1975.

History of The Indians Of Connecticut: From the Earliest Known Period to 1850, by John W. DeForest, published with the sanction of the Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford: Wm Jas. Hamersley, 1851.

Appendix #1
Directions: Building the Model, June 7, 2014
The model base is from two pieces of 1 X 10 #2 Pine seven feet long and two wing wall extensions tapered for Veewings to resemble connections to shore. The headland is created by two large rocks. They act to hold small stones in the wing walls.
The three section crib is created by dowels and cross pieces – actually old style “Lincoln logs” (yes recycled from earlier years) work best; a series of black stones fill the three cribs and begin the series of elevated pools. It is in this wood slot “crib” that much of the capturing took place (See the Fairlawn/Paterson Fish Weir diagrams of the Passaic River). Rushing water gathered at this point putting fish within easy dip netting, screening with brush or spearing. Some Midwestern reports mention hoop nets set with bent sapling. In time the twine holding the hoop net is releasing springing any contents up quickly and out of the trap.

Wing walls of loose stone mixed size and color are held between samplings (red lengths) most likely hickory and between cross saplings also red to hold the small stones in place shaped stakes were driven into the stream bottom – it seems if cross ties of vine or crude rope would help but they are not shown in the model. After the initial building, the wood would lose its purpose but required mending the stone walls from time to time.
Black 3/8 posts support the wing walls to the graduated step up pools, they’re tapered and long posts go to the top and short posts at the beginning of the graduated pools. Green posts also tapered mark the sluice way of strong current on the inside of the graduated pools. White posts mark brush and stones to create step up pools.

The step up pools are defined by cut logs six total; they from the outside of the pools confining the flow. Stones placed against the brush (white posts also tapered) could help create the pools. The concept of the model is to illustrate how returning alewife and perhaps shad were tricked into tis very old “fish ladder” powered by stream flow itself. Evidence also indicates that in late summer these same traps caught eels, perhaps lampreys as well.

Most likely the best example of this design is the Fairlawn/Peterson Fish Weir in New Jersey mentioned above. Here a “Vee-shaped wall of river cobbles and boulders with its point orientated downstream” spans the entire width of the Passaic River, which at the weir point is 260 feet wide. Other “Vee” traps have been found in Maine, Midwest and southern states. They often have a center sluiceway, as reported by early Dutch settlers that once called Paterson “Sloterdam” or sluice dam. Long posts have been found in the apex of these stone walls giving rise to the sluice step up pools associated with modern fish ladders- a concept observed no doubt by Native Americans. Recent research conducted by John Conway 2011 communication prehistoric Sturdivant fish weir recorded a number of pine stakes embedded in the river bottom every couple of feet or so; when pulled they were a light yellow (sulfur?) turned black and crumbled; the weir also had a crib to hold rocks. There were 400 stakes about in this fish weir (John Conway, 2011 communication).
The model presented here has a total of 65 black posts, 3/8 round; 14 green posts, 1/6” round; 38 white posts 1/8” round for a total of 120 posts about or significantly less than described by Conaway (2011) of 400 posts. The brush in the graduated step up pools would catch sticks and leaves adding the creation of pools and the direction of flows toward the center (similar to the basic fish ladder) straighten the wings out and you basically have a dam; and a release of water at a certain point “powers’ the ladder. What is amazing is that after hundreds of years (although the wood has long disappeared) is that the sluice opening and to some extent the wing walls still remain, gathering flows to a long gone fish trap.
Red wing walls are from ¼ dowels cut to length.

The model set up is as follows:
1. Cut trees are represented by (brown, ¾ dowels) six in total black posts support them installed between black posts.
2. Building the three-section log crib the center section lines up with wing walls (filled with black stones to provide the sluice but lower than wing walls.)
3. Detail graduated pools- green marks channel; white is brush to pool the water to the center.
4. Place black posts to support crib and wing walls
5. Place red wing wall retainers, one short side the other long side- 89 on each wing short 8 long or about 30 red wing wall lengths (about 60 ¼ dowels are needed).
6. Cross red pieces help support the wings (about 36 pieces in total).
7. Two large stones mimic headland or stream banks (basically these are demonstrations only, etc., but they contain the wing wall stones in place).
8. Fill wing walls with small stones - mixed sizes and colors.
9. Sand can be placed on model base to replicate the stream inside graduated pools and in front of model.
10. The base extensions also 1 x 10 pine tapered 20” to 15” to match wing walls from pine base.
The entire pine base is painted green. All posts holes are drilled into base outlining crib, wing walls and posts place mats. Three building components: trees, saplings and stones (all materials accessible to the Native Americans) low-tech materials build a very complete high functioning fish trap.
For Capstone presentation purpose, small fact sheets should be made explaining the role and design function of the components. Small cards placed within the model should name sections and purpose.

It takes a good two hours to set up the model and at least one hour to break it down. At least an 8 foot x 8 foot square table is needed to hold the exhibit model.

To build the model here should take about 50 hours.
Students interested in this model and research paper should contact the Aquaculture office.