Lambertville knows better than most!
Ruth Luse
What are shad?
The American Shad is the largest fish in the herring family. Every spring, they migrate from salt water to fresh water to reproduce. Fishermen call this the “annual spring shad run.”
Centuries ago, a website says, the Delaware was home to many species of fish. Some inhabited the river all year. Others, termed “anadromous,” made only annual visits to the river to ensure the continuation of their kind.
”In the Delaware, shad were a major source of food and income until the late 1800s when commercial fishing reached a peak. Shad were considered to be limitless in number and were taken commercially from Scudders Falls, near Titusville, to Lackawaxen, a distance of some 140 miles,” but, “increased river pollution during the first 60 years of the 20th century led to an almost total disappearance of the shad from the river.
”The enactment and enforcement of the Clean Streams Act and subsequent improvement of water quality was one of the major factors that helped enable the shad to make a gradual comeback in the early 1960s.”
THIRTEEN years ago, around Shad Festival time, a Beacon writer said: “Today the Delaware is a changed river . . . No longer choked lifeless by more than a half-century of pollution from industrial waste and sewage, the river once again is supporting life within and outside of its banks.
”Year-round fish populations of trout, bass, walleye and herring again are available. Shad and striped bass in particular have made remarkable recoveries. Interest has been renewed in river activities, such as fishing, boating and tubing, and more and more waterfronts are being turned into places for the community instead of commercial vessels.
”It was the improved quality of the river that inspired local leaders to organize the first Lambertville Shad Festival in 1981. They saw it as a way of celebrating the return of the shad and the beginning of Lambertville’s economic revival.
”The trouble for the Delaware River began . . . in the early part of last century,” said Tracy Carluccio of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. “Really, it was the industrial revolution and the build-up of industry in Philadelphia that was the death blow.
”As industry flourished, a pollution block developed between Wilmington and Philadelphia in the lower portion of the river, preventing shad and other migratory fish from returning to their birthplaces upstream to spawn and suffocating existing aquatic life.
Much of the pollution block was due to point source pollution, industrial pipes and poorly treated wastewater or sewage being released into the river.
However, by 2001, the water quality in the Delaware had shown definite signs of improvement.
Thanks to point source pollutant regulatory measures and enforcement of the federal Clean Water Act of 1972, the pollution block was gone, and dissolved oxygen levels that were once so low and suffocating to fish were rebounding.
In short, there were more shad.
ON THE FIRST DAY of the 2004 Shad Festival, the city and surrounding area paid its respects at a memorial service to Fred Lewis, 88, who had died the previous Sunday. The Lewis family name had been synonymous with shad fishing for 116 years. It was Mr. Lewis and his family’s efforts that sparked the first Shad Festival in 1981.
City Councilman Steven Stegman, who then coordinated the festival on behalf of the Lambertville Area Chamber of Commerce, in 2004, said, “It’s very sad, and it’s very poignant that his memorial service will be held on the Saturday of Shad Fest.”
The 2004 Beacon account went on to say: “The Lewis family has the only freshwater commercial shad fishery left above the Delaware River’s tidewater save for a few eel racks in Hancock, New York. It was founded in 1771 by Richard Holcombe and taken over by Mr. Lewis’ father, William, in 1888. At that time, there were five commercial fisheries, and the river was lined with boats of fishermen seeking the bony, strong-smelling fish.
”The island on the Delaware, once known as Holcombe Island for the founder of the fishery, has been known as Lewis Island for more than 100 years. Here, for many years, Mr. Lewis and his family lived in a cottage for about six months of each year, returning to their Elm Street home the rest of the time.
”Although he owned the property, Mr. Lewis always considered the island the public’s sanctuary, where, he said in a Beacon interview in 1995, people ‘walk out their problems.’”
Eventually, Mr. Lewis, who had become ill, prepared to turn over his nets to his grandson, Steve Meserve, who had started fishing with his grandfather at age 13.
Mr. Lewis and his crew used the old method of seining to catch shad with nets they hand-mended themselves. That method was taught to early settlers by native Americans.
”In the early days, fishermen would begin their work midnight Sundays. They would fish until 4 a.m., then drive to Philadelphia to sell the fish. They would return at 7 a.m. . . . Mr. Lewis recalled to The Beacon in 1993 that the longest “day” he ever put in was from midnight Sunday to 4 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Mr. Lewis’ forays into the Delaware became a local tourist attraction in March and April of every year. People gathered on the island to watch and beg for “just a bit of roe.”
Shad hauling demonstrations became one of the attractions of the festival each year.
”Besides the fishery, Mr. Lewis and his family counted and tagged fish in an effort to study their movements and lifecycles and as a measure of the river’s water quality in coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the New Jersey Game and Wildlife Commission and Department of Environmental Protection and the Pennsylvania Heritage Greenway.”

