The Dongan Patent - Protecting The Rights of Future Fishermen

In the debate over saltwater licensing, pros and cons, you hear a lot of conversation about a state’s share of sportfish restoration funds through Wallop-Breaux. The Sport Fish Restoration Act is also referred to as the Dingell-Johnson Act, and was passed by Congress in 1950 as a program for the management, conservation and restoration of fishery resources. It established a new tax on fishing equipment including rods, reels, lures, flies and artificial baits, contributing a separate tax paid by the consumer with funds to go towards fish research, the reintroduction of declining sport fish species, restoration of aquatic habitats, aquatic education and construction of boat ramps and fishing piers. The Wallop-Breaux amendments were added in 1984 and extended the excise tax to previously untaxed items of sporting equipment.

Some of the funds in the angler-supported Sport Fish Restoration account are returned to states on a shared basis, with each state’s allocation based 60% on the actual number of licensed anglers and 40% based on the state’s land and water area. The Wallop-Breaux, Dingell-Johnson, Sport Fish Restoration argument challenges the individual angler to embrace the concept of paying an additional fishing tax so that a portion of the excise taxes already paid might be returned exclusively for sportfish. It should be noted that additional monies from this particular fund are also contributed to other programs on a federal level, including the Recreational Boating and Fishing Program (RBFF). In 2010, RBFF has an operating budget of more than $12.6 million, of which approximately $3.9 million will be spent to mobilize states to increase fishing license sales by “implementing an integrated marketing program targeted towards lapsed, occasional and new anglers.”

While many business leaders will no doubt embrace the idea of “new anglers” being driven to the consumer market, for the hardcore anglers who’ve already been driven out of the water due to overly restrictive regulations, it’s hard to fathom WHY more of this angler tax isn’t being returned to the anglers themselves in the form of data collection programs. Further misappropriation of funding and offloading of fish management salaries from account to another has in turn driven anglers to the history books in search of answers.

Take for example the Dongan Patent of 1686 in the Town of Brookhaven, NY. The Dongan Patent granted a handful of our pre-colonial founding fathers exclusive rights to all waterways, ponds, streams, brooks, wetlands, rivers and other estuaries, and actually helped establish a Trustee form of government that predated the establishment of the State of New York, and even the United States of America itself.

One of the original nine grantees of the town of East Hampton, NY on Long Island, Yeoman John Hand arrived in America from England around 1635. It is said that Hand and his wife Alice Gransden sailed to America aboard the "The Peter Bonaventurer," though it’s possible he may have arrived here with his father aboard the English Warship HMS Falcon. An early settler of East Hampton, Hand was a whaler by trade and a member of the whaling squadron from the third ward of Southampton. According to historian Clifford A. Hand of New York City, the patriarch of the Hand family died around 1660, leaving behind an estate which was said to include a great bible, two small bibles, a psalm book, one fowling piece, a carbine, a single pistol and a pair of swords.

John and Alice had several sons, including Stephen who was born in 1635 in East Hampton. Stephen was named in the Indian deed for East Hampton in 1660, and on November 3, 1668, he granted the town of East Hampton leave to put a highway through his woodland. He was a local Constable in 1674 and 1680. In 1683, he was chosen as one of a committee to join Southampton in selecting a representative for the First Colonial Assembly under Governor Thomas Dongan.

On December 9, 1686, Governor Thomas Dongan granted control over the lands and waters of East Hampton, to a locally elected board of trustees which included Thomas James, Capt. Josiah Hobart, Capt. Thomas Talmadge, Lieut. John Wheeler, Ensign Samuel Mulford, John Mulford, Thomas Chatfield, Sr., Jeremiah Conklin, Robert Dayton, Thomas Baker, Thomas Osborn, and Stephen Hand. In what became known as the Dongan patent, Hand and the other trustees were given rights to the local natural resources, “And that they and their successors, by the name of the Trustees of the Freeholders and commonality of the Town of East Hampton be and shall be forever in future times, persons able and capable in law, to have, perceive, and receive and possess not only all and singular the premises, but other messuages, lands, tenements, privileges, jurisdictions, franchises, hereditaments of whatsoever kind or species, they shall be to them and their successor.”

Stephen had a brother named Thomas who was born in Southampton in 1646 and lived in Wainscott on Long Island until about 1693, which s when he moved with other Hand family members to settle in Cape May County in New Jersey. It is said that Thomas left Long Island after a disagreement with the town of Easthampton over property rights regarding his 40 acres of land. Following a 1678 lawsuit - settled with the town sometime in 1697 - Thomas sold the rest of his land to brother James and sailed off to Cape May, NJ with his wife and children, a couple of brothers, and a handful of other East Enders looking for a new settlement.

Thomas Hand would become commissioned as a Justice of the Peace (Judge) of Cape May County in 1705, and later drowned in the Tuckahoe River in 1714. His son George, also born in Long Island (in 1675) had a daughter, Sarah, who was born in 1718 in their newly settled home in New Jersey. Sarah Hand later married Nicholas Stillwell, their daughter Hannah ultimately marrying Cape May revolutionary soldier and ship’s carpenter Remington Corson in 1759. The Corson’s daughter Amelia would marry shipbuilder James Godfrey Reeves, and their daughter Mary would go on to marry Henry Hildreth, keeper of the Hereford Inlet lighthouse from 1897 until 1902.

Hildreth was the recipient of the Congressional Silver Life Saving Medal when the schooner D.H. Ingraham went ashore at half past 10 p.m. on the night of December 4, 1886 during a heavy snowstorm amid heaving seas. With Capt. Christopher Ludlam at the helm, the seven-man crew (which included Hildreth and another Hand descendent from Long Island, Samuel S. Hand) pushed their surf boat out past the breakers, saving the crew from their foundering wreckage. More importantly, Hildreth’s daughter Edna Mae would go on to marry my great grandfather Henry Becotte, which led to my lifelong connection to the sea through my grandfather, Capt. James Becotte of Ocean City, NJ.

For the past 20 years, my father Jim Hutchinson, Sr. has been my best friend and favorite fishing partner, but it’s the black and white photograph of my grandfather Becotte and I on the dock of the bay in Ocean City following a bluefishing trip from the 1970’s which keeps me focused on the job I do every day at the Recreational Fishing Alliance. Would he approve? Would he want me to fight? How hard?

The science of fisheries management is a relatively new discipline, in place now only for about 30 years. But the attachment to our resources and these American maritime traditions have been fought and toiled over for more than 300 years but coastal residents. To think in terms of duty to the family I’ve known, it’s hard not to recognize the umbilical connection to the generations that have come before me, those I've never met. From the eastern end of Long Island to the southern tip of New Jersey, these hunting and fishing traditions are rooted in a deep blood line, from the Hands to the Hildreths, all the way down through the Hutchinsons. Giving away my rights as a conservationist and sportsman, arbitrating away access to our public resources, and allowing these freedoms granted at the founding of this nation would not only violate a mission I'm bound to protect at the RFA, it would have me turn my back on nearly nine generations that have come before me.

Today, six Long Island towns, including Southampton, Shelter Island and East Hampton have joined in a lawsuit against the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, charging that it has no authority to require saltwater fishing licenses without their consent. It’s reported that other towns may join the suit, standing behind the justification of a 313-year-old colonial-era Dongan Patent which confers responsibility for town land and waterways on locally elected trustees who know best about their coastal needs. The Dongan Patent isn’t just about the rights of sportsmen who live today in the Hamptons and other East End towns on Long Island however.

This historical document recognizes the colonial era spirit and the freedoms enjoyed by tens of thousands of fishing families in America today who refuse to either sell off or buy back our rights any longer. This is not just about a saltwater license – it’s about our coastal heritage, taxation without representation, and a bureaucracy run afoul of its promise to serve the best interests of the people.

Yes, my grandfather would’ve wanted me to fight, as would those who came before, and those who will eventually follow.

RFA PRAISES RHODE ISLAND GOVERNOR FOR VETO

SALTWATER LICENSE IS NOT A FEDERAL REQUIREMENT

The Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) today praised Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri for using his veto power to quash a proposed law to ban saltwater fishing in Rhode Island waters without a license. The new user fee on saltwater fishing was approved in a nine-hour session of the part-time General Assembly on October 30, and required that saltwater anglers purchase a state license to legally fish in coastal waters as of January 1, 2010.

“To be able to fish the saltwaters of Rhode Island is a birthright,” said Governor Carcieri. In a letter to the Rhode Island Speaker of the House of Representatives, Governor Carcieri outlined his reasons for disapproving of the legislation and respectfully urged the support of the veto. “This is the Ocean State. It is a place where people have been free, up to now, to cast a line into Narragansett Bay without government intrusion,” he said.

“We’re with the governor on this,” said Jim Donofrio, RFA Executive Director. “I know there are some fishermen who think that all this money was going to go to great use, but when you look at what’s happening with dedicated funding in other states it’s very hard to justify another bloated user fee, especially when funds are going solely to state administrative costs.” Donofrio points to recent issues with both Connecticut and New York fishing licenses as perfect examples of a well-intentioned nightmare. “Connecticut fast-tracked a $10 saltwater license this past June, which suddenly skyrocketed to $30 by the fall in the face of a state budget deficit,” Donofrio said. “If Connecticut follows ahead with plans to charge out-of-staters $60 to fish in saltwater, where do you think traveling anglers will go in 2010 to fish on vacation?”

In New York, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer recently called on the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to completely overhaul its saltwater license plan and incorporate a free registration to satisfy the data-collection needs of the federal fisheries service, or NMFS. "The new system is too complex and too restrictive for fishing families," Schumer said of the new saltwater license in New York, adding that he’s made an appeal to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the DEC to establish a system that is that is free and permanent.

The Magnuson Stevens Act (MSA), the nation’s primary fisheries law, requires NMFS to implement of a registry of saltwater anglers. A free federal registry is scheduled to go online in 2010 with exemptions given to states with their own registry in place by 2011. “This is being done so we can get more accurate data and science to manage our fisheries,” Donofrio said, explaining that a mandated “phone book” of anglers could be accomplished without asking anglers to pay administrative costs. “We have simple registry legislation written and ready to roll in other states, but some activists and legislators in Rhode Island chose to ignore the registry requirements and focus solely on the funding portion.”

“The federal government wants a more accurate and efficient means for acquiring recreational catch and effort data,” explained Carcieri. “This is hardly a compelling reason or exigent circumstance warranting the imposition of any fee and licensing requirement on a Rhode Island citizen who occasionally takes his or her children fishing,” the governor added.

Elisa Jackman at Snug Harbor Marina of Wakefield, RI said she’s appreciative of Governor Carcieir’s decision. “Snug Harbor Marina fully supports the Governor’s decision to veto the saltwater fishing license, and hopes our elected legislators will also favor his decision and protect our angler’s Constitutional right.”

“Governor Carcieri recognized this license attempt for what it was, pure spin and an attempt to get more money into the general fund,” Donofrio said. “We thank the governor for using his veto power to protect all the saltwater anglers who fish Rhode Island waters, not just those willing to pay top dollar to do so.”

The Recreational Fishing Alliance is a national, grassroots political action organization representing recreational fishermen and the recreational fishing industry on marine fisheries issues. The RFA Mission is to safeguard the rights of saltwater anglers, protect marine, boat and tackle industry jobs, and ensure the long-term sustainability of our Nation’s saltwater fisheries.
For more information, call 888-JOIN-RFA or visit www.joinrfa.org.