Clamming and Lobstering – Part 1

Clam Harvesting

Clam Diggers ca. 1933

Although the tools are simple (a metal rake, metal bucket and onion bags), clam digging is hard, backbreaking work with hours dependent on tides and light. The metal rake or “clam hoe” has a short 12”-18” handle, so the digger must bend at the waist often in mud to the knees to dig through the tidal mud flats for clams. There is no quick way to harvest clams; only hand tools or hands are allowed by the state. The process of harvesting clams hasn’t changed over the years, only the tools. Pails or wire baskets have replaced wooden hods or wicker baskets; onion bags have replaced wooden bushel baskets, and outboard motor boats have replaced the rowboats once used to reach the flats across the river. Unchanged are the seasonal weather conditions, mosquitoes, green-headed flies and midges that bother diggers on the flats.

Burnham and Morrill Clam Plant, Scarborough, ca. 1885

Early settlers used clams for bait, selling their excess to vessels in the Grand Banks fleet and other fishing areas. Clams were shucked (meat cut from the shell), salted, and barreled in fish houses on the flats of Blue Point. Burnham & Morrill was the first company in the United States to commercialize clamming. Its first factory began operations at the end of Seavey’s Landing Road in Blue Point before 1869, using the same canning process as that used for farm produce, such as corn. After 1873 Burnham & Morrill moved to Jones Creek at Pine Point. Clams were shipped to the factory from all over the east coast. In 1883 Burnham & Morrill and other companies canned and shipped 3,000 to 8,000 bushels of clams. Burnham & Morrill moved its clam packing business to Portland in 1897, but continued to employ Pine Point diggers because the firm’s reputation had been based partly on the Scarborough clam. Burnham & Morrill used clams soaked in water because they were lighter in color. Other canneries used “unsoaked” clams, as “soaked” clams lost not only color, but flavor. Pine Point clam diggers sold many bushels of clams to Burnham & Morrill and other dealers as well as to other diggers, but they also kept some for their families.

Leavitt Bros. Clam Label ca 1910

was the second largest cannery and in 1892 was located near the Pine Point Depot. Leavitt Brothers supplied Burnham & Morrill and the Soldiers’ Home in Togus. A December 1893 newspaper article stated that Leavitt Brothers shipped 100 gallons of clams to the Soldiers’ Home each week. During the canning process, tops were individually hand-soldered onto filled cans, and it’s believed that this process may have been the cause of serious fires at both Leavitt’s and Burnham & Morrill.

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