98 PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES. 
It was about the year 1833 that a small trading sloop, under the 
command of Capt. Lamont, came into the Columbia River on one 
of her regular trips and dropped anchor near what is now known as 
St. Helens. While waiting several months for a return cargo the | 
captain salted a number of barrels of chinook salmon, using old 
Jamaica rum kegs for the purpose. This is the first record of the 
export of this toothsome fish. 
In 1861, H. N. Rice and Jotham Reed began packing salted satu 
in barrels at Oak Point, 60 miles below Portland: The first season’s 
pack amounted to 600 parted The venture proved fairly profitable 
and was soon participated in by others. 
In the spring of 1866 William Hume, who had assisted in starting 
the first salmon cannery in the Uniitad States on the Sacramento 
River in 1864, finding the run of fish in the latter stream rather dis- 
appointing, started a cannery for Hapgood, Hume & Co. on the 
Columbia at Eagle Cliff, Wash., about 40 miles above Astoria. 
The year this first cannery operated the following fishermen were 
operating in the river: Jotham Reed used a trap and a small gill 
net opposite Oak Point; Mr. Wallace fished a small seine from the 
shore of an island of that name a short distance below; John T. M. 
Harrington (who was later to establish the Pillar Rock cannery), in 
conjunction with a man named Fitzpatrick, operated a seine at 
Tenasillihe, as did also a Mr. Welch; P. J. McGowan, who, with his 
sons, in 1884 started a cannery at McGowan, and later, at Warren- 
dale, Ilwaco, etc., operated two small seines at Chinook Beach; and 
Hapgood, Hume & Co. had two small gill nets about 125 fathoms 
in length and 32 meshes deep. The gill net of Mr. Reed was much 
smaller than these. At this period the river literally swarmed with 
salmon, and the cannery had no trouble in packing 4,000 cases, 
which it increased to 18,000 the next year and to 28,000 cases in 1868. 
In 1867 a crude cannery on a scow was started by S. W. Aldrich, 
a ship carpenter. The scow was about 50 by 20 feet, with a cabin 
on it, and in one end of this he constructed a brick furnace in which 
he set a large cast-iron cauldron for a cooker. Along one side he 
rigged a bench and manufactured the cans. Aldrich was a regular 
jack-of-all-trades, as he did everything from catching the fish to 
canning and cooking them ready for the market. 
In 1868 a cannery was built near Eagle Cliff by one of the Humes, 
while in 1873 R. D. Hume built another at Bay View, Wash. He 
operated it until 1876, when Mr. Leveridge, of Leveridge, Wadhams 
& Co., of San Francisco, bought it and operated it during 1877 and 
1878. George W. Hume took it then and a few years later sold it 
to David Morgan, jr., who got into financial difficulties, and the 
plant was ordered sold by the court. C. W. Fulton, of Astoria, 
later a United States Senator, had the matter m charge, but was 
unable to find a customer, and finally in desperation, offered it to 
