Thanks Robot..
There are other articles establishing this as well, plus the fact that there was fishing by others, including Portugese up and down the coast from Havana to at least NS from 1580 forward. With Havana being used as a port city to distribute goods from all over, tip of Africa to NS to back across the Atlantic. The north Atlantic being known as a rich fishing grounds with fishing stations scattered to process the fish in these areas. Sun drying and salt being the two ways they preserved the fish for transport.
I wonder if they used the island instead of the mainland for a fishing station either because they could only get grants for the islands from the British, or because of the problem of being protected, which the island would offer a bit more security being able to see anyone coming etc..By 1762 we know the island was surveyed for lot's to be granted or sold..So the fishing company would have had to relinguish it's grant by then back to the British. Whether that was part of the agreement when they were granted the island or by decree at a later date by the British, we at least know the fishing company had control of the island for about 8 or 9 years, long enough period of time they would have used it for 'something'...especially if they did not have a date beforehand when they recieved the grant to have to be off the island.
So once again..with the background of the area, well known fishing grounds, the grant of the island to a fishing company, the need of salt at virtually no cost to produce themselves, the means and method to make this salt being known and used throughout the world (even now) and in northern climates, the physical evidence of what was found in Smith's Cove...
I'm still saying salt works...and may have been used even after the fishing company left the island as salt would be needed by the British and colonists also...and that it is a fact that almost every small community along the coast thruout Europe used some variety of this method to get sea salt for local use. Including the UK.
In fact what would be more unusual is if there wasn't a salt works somewhere in the area as the British were wanting to colonize this whole section of NS.
There are other articles establishing this as well, plus the fact that there was fishing by others, including Portugese up and down the coast from Havana to at least NS from 1580 forward. With Havana being used as a port city to distribute goods from all over, tip of Africa to NS to back across the Atlantic. The north Atlantic being known as a rich fishing grounds with fishing stations scattered to process the fish in these areas. Sun drying and salt being the two ways they preserved the fish for transport.
I wonder if they used the island instead of the mainland for a fishing station either because they could only get grants for the islands from the British, or because of the problem of being protected, which the island would offer a bit more security being able to see anyone coming etc..By 1762 we know the island was surveyed for lot's to be granted or sold..So the fishing company would have had to relinguish it's grant by then back to the British. Whether that was part of the agreement when they were granted the island or by decree at a later date by the British, we at least know the fishing company had control of the island for about 8 or 9 years, long enough period of time they would have used it for 'something'...especially if they did not have a date beforehand when they recieved the grant to have to be off the island.
So once again..with the background of the area, well known fishing grounds, the grant of the island to a fishing company, the need of salt at virtually no cost to produce themselves, the means and method to make this salt being known and used throughout the world (even now) and in northern climates, the physical evidence of what was found in Smith's Cove...
I'm still saying salt works...and may have been used even after the fishing company left the island as salt would be needed by the British and colonists also...and that it is a fact that almost every small community along the coast thruout Europe used some variety of this method to get sea salt for local use. Including the UK.
In fact what would be more unusual is if there wasn't a salt works somewhere in the area as the British were wanting to colonize this whole section of NS.
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