Pound Fish Basket
17" diameter, 11" height
This basket was originally used in the late 1800s to send fish to the packing houses (see history below). It is a sturdy basket with a choice of accent colors, oak runners that are attached with hammered copper rivets, and your choice of oak or ceramic handles.
17" diameter, 11" height
This basket was originally used in the late 1800s to send fish to the packing houses (see history below). It is a sturdy basket with a choice of accent colors, oak runners that are attached with hammered copper rivets, and your choice of oak or ceramic handles.
History of the Pound Fish Basket
Pound fishing was a method of commercial fishing in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
It was a unique style of fishing whereby fish were trapped or impounded using nets attached to long poles which were then set into the floor of the ocean or bay. When the nets were full, the fish were off-loaded onto skiffs. Horses pulled the skiffs to shore. Once ashore, the men sorted their catch into pound fish baskets and sent them by horse-drawn wagons to packing houses. The baskets were washed and returned to their owners, who would have placed identifying tar markers on them.
Baskets were an important part of the pound fishing industry—as important a tool as nets and poles. Fish packed in handmade white-oak baskets would stay in better condition than those packed in the wire baskets which began to replace them in the 1920s and 1930s. It is noteworthy that one fishery continued to use oak baskets to pack their fish, and were paid an extra two cents per pound.
Basket-making was an important winter occupation and a source of supplementary income for farmers and others making their livings in the Pine Barrens along the coast of Southern New Jersey. At the start of the fishing season, before the baskets were tarred and marked, the fishermen's wives might take a basket or two for household chores... like laundry.
Pound fishing was a method of commercial fishing in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
It was a unique style of fishing whereby fish were trapped or impounded using nets attached to long poles which were then set into the floor of the ocean or bay. When the nets were full, the fish were off-loaded onto skiffs. Horses pulled the skiffs to shore. Once ashore, the men sorted their catch into pound fish baskets and sent them by horse-drawn wagons to packing houses. The baskets were washed and returned to their owners, who would have placed identifying tar markers on them.
Baskets were an important part of the pound fishing industry—as important a tool as nets and poles. Fish packed in handmade white-oak baskets would stay in better condition than those packed in the wire baskets which began to replace them in the 1920s and 1930s. It is noteworthy that one fishery continued to use oak baskets to pack their fish, and were paid an extra two cents per pound.
Basket-making was an important winter occupation and a source of supplementary income for farmers and others making their livings in the Pine Barrens along the coast of Southern New Jersey. At the start of the fishing season, before the baskets were tarred and marked, the fishermen's wives might take a basket or two for household chores... like laundry.