CLAMS AND CLAMMING
For many years Ipswich and clams have been synonymous. But today the clam industry has reached al all time low. Most of the clams now sold as Ipswich clams come from anywhere but Ipswich.
The life cycle of the clam is interesting. The spawn and the milt is thrown and the tide carries it until it reaches some host that will hold it. Before the loss of the eelgrass, that was the common host but now any rough place is suitable. If the tide is running high, it may be carried on the marsh and lost. After a while, with host, it becomes a very small clam with what we call two heads and is free-swimming and goes along with the tide until it settles on some flat. If this is a suitable site, it buries itself and we have a clam bed. There are many vicissitudes before it has a chance to grow into a real clam. Horseshoe crabs, green crabs, cockles and periwinkles all eat the little clam, or it may land at an unsuitable spot.
Clam growth is similar to gardening. We couldn’t have a very successful garden without plowing and cultivating. The same holds true of clam-flats. Turning the flats loosens up the mud and lets the food in and hastens the growth of the clam. Proper seeding artificially is done like planting beans. Trenches are opened up and the soil is loosened so that the flats are right for a natural seeding later.
The story of the clam as a commercial project has seen many changes. It was after the Civil War that clamming really became a business. The early business was strictly for bait. The clams were shelled, but not cleaned, packed in barrels and salted and shipped to fishing ports for bait. Very few clams were eaten at this time, particularly in Ipswich. In fact, I was told that it was said, "That family is so poor they have to eat clams." Soon the story changed and clams became a popular dish – clam chowder, steamed clams and other ways of cooking them. Contrary to demand today, the trend then was for big clams, the bigger the better. Clams for frying were the biggest you could get. Big clams were shipped to New York where they shelled them and sold them by the dozen.
Clams at this time were at an all time high, everybody who came to Ipswich looked forward to a feed of clams, either chowder or steamed. Visiting organizations expected to be fed a clam chowder, and they most always got it. Some men became noted for their clam chowders.
At this time clams were shipped almost wholly in the shell. There were dealers who bought the clams from the clammers and shipped them to Boston. In the summer a whole boxcar would be filled with clams, sometimes nearly 300 barrels in one tide. Small clams were used only for clambakes or free lunches and steamed clams were a favorite; the clam liquor tended to offset the effects of the alcohol and at the same time created a thirst so that a patron could drink more.
In about 1920 there came another change in the clam market. On Cape Cod the clam-flats had become almost barren. They tried a new policy. The flats were laid out in divisions, each division was let out to individuals and a boat was sent out to buy seed clams. They came to Ipswich and before the clammers got wise bought a lot of small clams, which they seeded into the flats. In a year or two they came into Boston with a lot of small white clams all of uniform size. It was discovered that they made beautiful fried clams and fried clam shops started all over the lot and the market turned from large clams to very small clams.
By 1933, clamming in Ipswich reached anew low, but in the winters of 1934 and 1935 we had the last really cold winter. Ipswich River was frozen to its mouth and Plum Island River was frozen to the spindle. John Kilbourne walked from Grape Island to Mulhollands on the ice. The next year we had the largest seeding in years. Ipswich flats were so full of small clams that a WPA project was made to thin them out. For a number of years clamming flourished, but the clams began to be scarcer and scarcer until today it is at the lowest ebb ever. That is the story of Ipswich. What we need is a sub-zero winter.