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In Graham’s American Monthly Magazine, 1854, appears a “Memoir on the Smelt of the Passaic River”, by Frank Forrester, from which the following brief facts are taken:—

The author was fond of classical allusions and high sounding phrases, and devotes two of his four pages to telling us how much he knows of things that do not pertain to the subject in hand, but when he gets down to “the delicious little fish known as the Smelt” we learn that it is the smallest of the salmon family, that the American smelt is larger than, and superior to, the European variety, and that its zoological name “osmerus” is from the Greek, and means “to give forth a perfume”, this having reference to the peculiar odor of cucumbers it exhales when fresh.

The smelt of the Passaic and Raritan rivers was an entirely different fish from that of the Connecticut and more eastern rivers, and commanded a far higher price in the New York markets, though much smaller, the majority being under six inches in length while the eastern smelt averages eleven to twelve inches. The whole fish was of the most brilliant pearly silver, with the slightest possible changeable hue of greenish blue along the back, “The peculiar cucumber odor, in the freshly caught fish, and the extreme delicacy of the flesh, both of which are (1854) so far superior in the fish of the Passaic, as to be obvious to the least inquisitive observer”. This Passaic smelt Mr. Herbert found agreed in every particular with the description of the European smelt.

In the springs of 1853-4 no school of fish, either shad or smelt, ran up the river owing, it was believed, to the establishment of a chain ferry about a mile above Newark bay. Mr. Herbert never knew of a well authenticated case where the smelt had been taken with bait, but states that they could be taken with the scarlet Ibis fly, and that he had himself killed them thus on the Passaic.

Two well known figures of the Green Island waters were those of the “Two Horaces”, as they were called, Messrs. Horace H. Nichols and Horace Carter, brothers-in-law, neighbors and good friends. They constructed a comfortable boat for the purpose and might have been seen almost any pleasant afternoon, when the fishing was on, placidly waiting for a bite.