I vaguely recall being told, as a child, that the Treaty of Paris preserved some inheritable rights, and that there is still a family today that has permission to fish in the Delaware River by some means that otherwise wouldn’t be permitted.
Anyone got more information on this?
There’s a good chance that I misheard or misunderstood, or that the adults didn’t know what they were talking about. I’ve tried searching but my terms are just returning general articles about shad.
I don’t know what family you’re referring to, but I’d bet the fish involved were shad. Commercial shad fishing was a big deal on the Delaware and its tributaries, from colonial times until the late 19th century, when dams, pollution, and overfishing almost wiped out the fish.
In some areas, it seems commercial shad fishing was permitted only to those who owned riparian rights, especially in non-navigable waters I think. Riparian rights were originally vested in the owners of the lands that border the river; however riparian rights can in some cases be severed from the land and leased or sold separately.