Did America’s ‘fishing founding father’ go to war over salt?

The first U.S. president to wet a line was the first one – George Washington. He liked to fish for sport…but he loved to fish for cash.

The waters of the Potomac River flowed south from Washington, D.C., right past his Mount Vernon estate in Virginia, and they were “teeming with the likes of shad, herring and bass,” said Capt. Sean Williams of Key West, Fla., a regular contributor to the FishingBooker.com blog.

“George Washington was a successful commercial fisherman,” Capt. Williams stated.

During the 1750s and ‘60s, George Washington began to realize the “economic potential” of his Potomac fisheries. The estate measured 8,000 acres and contained 10 miles of river shoreline.

Records from 1606 mention the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries as sources of “incredible stocks of fish and seafood. Great quantities of crabs, oysters and clams were available. Oysters as large as 14 inches were common.”

The English colonists expressed amazement at having boats swamped by four- to six-foot sturgeon that could leap out of the water…and “fish schools so thick that they were unable to move their boats through them.”

Interestingly, Mount Vernon is a national treasure, but not part of the National Park Service. The estate is owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, a private, nonprofit organization. The website offers details:

The massive spring spawning runs yielded herring in such numbers that they were “like a large ball of fish.” Writings from this period referenced “the surface of the water sparkling like silver as thousands of fish moved up river.” Fishermen used small-inch mesh nets, so that the herring would be trapped, not gillnetted. These herring were the common blueback… about 15 to 18 inches in length.

The fish were cleaned and gutted, rinsed in a brine solution and then packed in barrels, about 800 to a barrel with alternating layers of fish and salt. This method of preservation allowed the fish to remain edible a year or longer.

Washington knew a thing or two about salt. He demanded the highest grade, which came from the region around Lisbon, Portugal. However, because of English law, Virginia and the other southern colonies were unable to import Lisbon salt directly.

If a Virginia ship took a cargo to Lisbon, traded and bought salt, the ship had to sail to England, clear customs, pay duty on the colony for transshipment to Virginia. This added to the time for delivery and substantially increased the cost.

The alternative – salt produced at Liverpool, England – was totally and dagnabbitly inferior and was unsuitable to preserving the herring and was of little value.

Capt. Williams said: “The entire ordeal would greatly influence Washington’s pre-revolutionary sentiments towards the Crown.”

George Washington was selected by the Second Continental Congress to become the commander of the Continental Army on June 14, 1775, and the responsibility of day-to-day caretaker operations at Mount Vernon fell to Lund Washington, a distant and younger cousin.

In April 1775, the British government severed all trade with the newly forming American government. One of the greatest concerns, was the availability of any kind of salt, a vital commodity throughout the colonies.

Mary V. Thompson of the Journal of the American Revolution said Lund Washington was under “considerable worry about whether there would be enough salt to preserve fish for the support of Mount Vernon plantation, much less to sell.” He was required to “improvise.”

In 1776, Lund reported having a limited quantity of salt “of which we must make the most. I mean to make a brine,” and after dipping (the herring) in the brine for a short time, hanging them up and curing them by smoke, or drying them in the sun.”