This collection consists of 22 handwritten depositions of captains involved in North Atlantic commercial fishing, written out by a clerk and notarized. There are also 36 other depositions of fishing firms which are printed questionnaires filled out in manuscript, with a manuscript narrative of about 100 words attached to each. Captains are from the United States' East coast, Maine to Cape Cod and fish on George's, St. Lawrence Bay, and other locations for herring, mackerel, cod, etc. There is a large amount of detail about how each fisherman goes about his business and about the changes in the various fisheries over the past decades. This was probably gathered as testimony for the Halifax Commission, but covers much more than Canadian-American relations. There is also a folder of miscellaneous financial documents (1873-1879).