Office of
E.E. Small
Wholesale Dealer in
fresh, pickled and dry
fish.

Provincetown, Mass., Feb 9th 1882

D?,
I am in receipt of of your valued favor of
Feb 3d. the estimate sent you yesterday was
for a leader 300 feet long now if I can have
the privalege to run it off 900 feet so
as to give me a leader 600 feet long
I shall like it much better and it will
add to the cost about $150 more I find
there are several things that have been over looked
amongst which is the very necessary article a
pile driver. what at first seemed a very
small undertaking is looming up into a
large project I have been in conversation with
the owner of a weir at Northburo? and he
informs me that if I can build a weir
and furnish every thing needfull short of
$2000 I am doing it cheap his, which
is about the same size except the leader is

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some 600 feet longer will cost all completed
about $3200.00 he says we must have a wharf
where we can get to at low water and a store [stove?]
also it would be advisable to have a
smoke house and he says there are a
thousand and one things that will be needed
when we once get to work and if we can
do the whole for less than $2000 he
should consider it cheap as you do not
seem to understand in regard to the working
of the weir I will say that it takes 6
men ordinarily to draw the weir and when
it is any way rough it will require 8
there is no seine used the pound is worked
similar to the ??? of the seine after it has
been pursed up. Now in consideration of the above
I have decided to make you a proposition
as i said before the thing is looming up into
large proportions and looks as though it
would be a complicated affair to handle
on a copartnership plan it would get more or less
mixed up with my business and as I
have a great deal of material that I could
utilize and could also work my wharf gang

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in more or less I could do the work with
a great deal less expenditure for ??atinal
for use on shore to run the whole thing myself
as if we run it on the copartnership plan
all the shore ???atinal would have to be bought
for the company and there are chances for
a great deal of dissatisfaction to arise as
I should want to use a large part of the
fish caught right in my business especially
mackerel & codfish so I have decided to make
you the following proposition I will pay you
$100 a year for the lease of the land & privalege
to seine the weir. I will hire you and your son
in law as two of my crew at the same wages
I pay the rest of my men at S.W. Harbor.
be it by the hour-day-or month and after
baiting the vessels if you desire to smoke herring
you can have what you want on lay? by the box
or sell them to you at a fair price

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I think you can get by this way betweene
$300 & $400 a year out of it if it is a success.
it may BE A SUCCESS it may prove a GRAND
FAILURE in which case no one would have a
chance to blame me and I could blame no
one. I shall have an experienced man by the
season to take charge of the weir as it requires
a man of considerable experience to work it
right. in regard to a passage for the boats
I think there will be no trouble in that respect
unless the fish follow the shore but one thing
the fishermen will undoubtedly soon learn and
that is it will be of great benefit to them
in way of bait and I should always
give the fishermen at Cranberry Islands & S.W. Harbor
the preference another thing should there be a good
seasons work it would require one man a competent
bookeeper to keep the accounts and as I said
before it looks like a complicated affair
to keep straight. Trusting my proposition may prove
satisfactory I await your reply please inform me
at about what price poles can be had and if
there is a first class carpenter on the island as we have
to be very particular in having our poles sharpened to have
the point exactly in the center and the three sides exactly true.

To Wm. B. Preble, Esq. Yours truly E.E. Small