THE COASTING TRADE.
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The coasting interest must have been quite important
at an early date, as numerous small vessels would
be required to carry the lumber to market from the
various mills on the different streams in the county. On
some of the streams, as on North Branch Forked River
and on Oyster Creek, the lumber was made up into small
rafts and floated down to the bay where the vessels were
anchored, and there taken on board. About the close of
the last century and the beginning of the present, the
cedar rail business began to fail and the owners and
masters of vessels feared they could get no remunerative
employment for their schooners and sloops. And to add
to their anxiety, about this time they began to hear
rumors that Fulton, Fitch and others had made inventions
by which vessels could be run by steam and not be
dependent on capricious winds and tides, and that they
would soon displace sailing vessels. The coasters were
incredulous, and ridiculed the idea of a vessel being
driven by "a kettle full of boiling water." Nevertheless
steamboats proved a success, and not only a success but
proved the salvation, instead of the ruin, of the coasters'
interests, for the steamboats required pine wood for fuel
which the vessels supplied from various points along the
bay, and eventually from Virginia.
CHARCOAL.
Between 1830 and 1840, the supply of pine
wood suitable for market began to fail, and the coasters
again began to inquire "what business could next be
found for vessels." This was satisfactorily answered to
many by the starting of the charcoal trade. The long
ranks of cordwood near all our landings, so well remembered
by oldest residents, gave place to piles of charcoal,
the dust from which made it almost impossible to tell
whether a seafaring man was white or black. Then
came the demand for coasting vessels to carry hard coal,
anthracite and bituminous, from Philadelphia, Alexandria
and other places to other ports.
Before any very large business was done in exporting
charcoal, considerable quantities of it were made
for the use of furnaces and forges. The "coaling
grounds" for Federal Furnace and David Wright's Forge
are named in 1795 in ancient deeds for lands near Hurricane
and Black Swamp; the Federal company's coaling
ground on Hurricane Neck is named in 1797. In
1825 "Jack Cook's Coal Kiln Bottom" and "Morocco
Kiln" are named.