410 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



Young Duggan (.1902) had a short and inglorious career as a codfish man, and 

 some of the money that his father made in the shirt business went to pay what 

 it cost the young man to listen to the siren song of the wily promoter. The 

 schooner /. G. Wall went to the Bering Sea under the joint command of Captain 

 Dollard (the promoter) and Henderson (an experienced codfisherj. We bought 

 their season's catch, and it lasted us just three days. One season was enough 

 for Mr. Duggan. 



Undoubtedly the most picturesque figure in the whole line was Nick Bichard. 

 A native of the Isle of Jersey, a pioneer shipowner and merchant of San 

 Francisco,, he accumulated a fortune during the days of the Civil War and was 

 early in the codfish business with quite a fleet of old vessels, both large and 

 small, and for many years he was a prominent factor in the business. A large, 

 swarthy man. erratic in speech and action, mixing codfish, coal, lumber, and 

 junk, keeping most of his books in his head, he never knew what his cargoes 

 cost him nor what they sold for. The codfish business absorbed more and 

 more of his capital; then his real estate, two fine water lots on Stuart Street. 

 the gore lot at California and Market Streets, and other property went the 

 same way ; the old vessels wore out and were lost and he finally died peace- 

 fully in the night of heart failure, leaving barely enough to bury him. 



Chief among the old-timers and of those most largely interested and longest 

 in the business was the firm of Lynde & Hough, two enterprising Yankees 

 of the old school who started in Sacramento in pioneer days, came down to San 

 Francisco, were in the commission business and, from selling codfish on com- 

 mission, drifted into the codfishing business [in 1865] itself. There were for 

 many years among the heaviest operators in codfish and, in addition, they dealt 

 in all other kinds of salt fish, cornered the honey market, dipped into sealing in 

 the Straits of Magellan, South Sea Island trading, fishing and trading stations 

 in Alaska, salmon fishing, freighting, running a coasting passenger steamer, and 

 anything else that promised a dollar, including " Okhotsk Sea Cod liver Oil " 

 and " Dr. Fisherman's Lotion for Man and Beast." They and their surviving 

 partner. L. E. Noonan, were well and favorably known from Alaska to South 

 America and from Hawaii to Australia and the Orient. Their last venture 

 was codfish mixed with mining, and finally both of the senior partners died. 

 leaving no money but various debts behind them. Their location at California 

 City was sold to the United States Navy Department for a coaling station, and 

 their vessels and codfishing business were merged in the Union Fish Co. 



L. E. Noonan was connected with the Lynde & Hough company for nearly 40 

 years, at first as general factotum and haudy-man-ready-for-anything. He ran 

 the fish yard, outfitted the vessels, hired captains and crews, packed and re- 

 packed salmon and mackerel, bought and sold on the street. Later he acquired 

 an interest in the firm and, being of a more thrifty disposition and not inter- 

 ested in the mining, he was enabled to retire with enough to permit him to 

 take a well-earned rest. 



These epitaphs of those who have dropped into the business and then dropped 

 out run in schools. Their course is something like this : The bright sun of pros- 

 perity shines for a season or two upon the regular stand-bys in the business 

 and it looks very attractive and inviting to some chaps with an old vessel or a 

 little spare money. So they jump in and for a time cut a brilliant dash in the 

 business. So bright are they that the sun of prosperity is all in eclipse and 

 everyone in the trade walks in a shadow. When they get tired of this or broke 

 they drop out, and those who are left pick up the scattered ends of the trade. 

 struggle out into the light again, and by and by there is some more prosperity 

 and then a new crop of hopeful investors appears, and so on and on. 15 



One of the most picturesque figures in the industry, and one who 

 cut a wide swath while in it, was Edward Pond. Beginning in 1902, 

 with apparently no end of money, he sent two vessels to Bering Sea. 

 In 1905 his fleet had increased to three vessels, two of which fished 

 in the Okhotsk and one in the Bering Sea. Prices for fish were low 

 in 1906 and 1907, and when the two vessels he had sent to the Okhotsk 

 Sea in the latter year returned virtually empty, having been driven 



1B Pioneers in the Pacific Coast Codfish Industry, by C P. Overton. Pacific Fisherman 

 Annual, 1906, pp. 70, 71, and 75. 



