Vil. METHODS OF PREPARING SALMON. 
CANNING. 
EARLY DAYS OF THE INDUSTRY. 
In the salmon industry canning is, and has been almost from 
the time of the discovery of a feasible method of so preserving the 
fish, the principal branch. The first canning of salmon on the 
Pacific coast was on the Sacramento River in 1864, when G. W. 
and William Hume and Andrew S. Hapgood, operating under the 
firm name of Hapgood, Hume & Co., started the work on a scow 
at Washington, .Yolo County, Cal. The Hume brothers, who 
came from Maine originally, had been fishing for salmon in the 
Sacramento River for some years before the idea of canning the 
fish had entered their minds, while Mr. Hapgood had previously 
been engaged in canning lobsters in Maine, and was induced by the 
Humes to participate in order that they might have the benefit of 
his knowledge of canning methods. The late R. D. Hume, who 
worked in the original cannery, and later became one of the best- 
known canners on the coast, thus describes the plant and the methods 
employed: 4 
Before the arrival of Mr. Hapgood [from Maine] the Hume brothers had purchased 
a large scow, on which they proposed to do the canning of salmon, and had added 
an extension to the cabin 18 by 24 feet in area, to be used as a can-making shop. This 
had a shed on the side next to the river for holding any cans that might be made in 
advance of the packing season. <A few days after the arrival of Mr. Hapgood [March 
23, 1864], the tools and machinery were packed and put in position. Mr. Hapgood 
made some stovepipe and two or three sheet-iron fire pots, and in a short time was ready 
for can making. The following list of tools and machinery will show how primitive 
our facilities were as compared with present methods: 1 screw hand press, 1 set cast- 
iron top dies, 1 set cast-iron bottom dies, 1 pair squaring shears, 1 pair rotary shears, 
1 pair bench shears, 1 pair hand shears or snips, 1 pair 24-inch rolls, 1 anvil (weight 
50 pounds), | forging hammer, | tinner’s hammer, 1 set punches for making stovepipe, 
1 rivet set, 1 grooving set, 2 iron slabs grooved on one side to mold strips of solder, 1 
iron clamp to hold bodies of cans while soldering the seams, 1 triangular piece of cast 
iron about three-eighths of an inch in thickness and 6 inches in length, with a wooden 
handle attached to the apex, also used for holding can bodies in place while being 
seamed. 
The process of canning was as follows: The bodies of the cans were first cut to proper 
size by the squaring shears, a line was then scribed with a gage about three-sixteenths 
of an inch from one edge, and they were next formed into cylindrical shape by the rolls. 
They were then taken to the soldering bench and one edge lapped by the other until 
aThe first salmon cannery. By R.D. Hume. Pacific Fisherman, vol. 1, no. 1, January, 1904, », 
19-21. 
118 
