134 American Fisheries Society 



so far as catching fish was concerned, none could be found 

 better fitted for the work. 



In the fall and early winter of 1887, three schooners 

 sailed from Massachusetts for Puget Sound. These were 

 the Mollie Adams and the Edward E. Webster, of 

 Gloucester, and the Oscar and Hattie, of Swampscott. 

 The two former were owned by Capt. Sol. Jacobs, who 

 had achieved fame as a mackerel fisherman, and who, 

 after dispatching his vessels, crossed the continent in 

 time to make the necessary business arrangements, pend- 

 ing their arrival. The Mollie Adams made a good passage 

 and reached her destination without mishap; but the 

 Webster met with an accident to her spars before round- 

 ing the Horn, put into Montevideo for repairs, was de- 

 layed, and finally arrived on the west coast late in the 

 season. 



The Oscar and Hattie reached Puget Sound some time 

 later than the Adams, but in time to engage in the Jjjfflibut 

 fishery, upon which she entered, making her headquarters 

 at Port Townsend. Owing to the want of a suitable mar- 

 ket, and to the fact that the schooner had to go to Tacoma 

 to ship her catch east, the fishery from this place was 

 followed with loss rather than profit. The Oscar and 

 Hattie carried 6 dories and a crew of 14 men. 



About two-thirds of the catch was sold fresh and the 

 remainder was fletched. The result of the season's work 

 in 1888 was 240,000 pounds of fresh and fletched fish, 

 with a value (at the prices paid the fishermen) of $7,600. 

 The average price received for fresh halibut was 3 cents 

 per pound, and for salt fish 3% cents per pound. 



The catch shipped east by the Oscar and Hattie was 

 the first shipment so made, and it went forward by the 

 Northern Pacific railroad. The ice used cost $22.50 per 

 ton( more than five times the present cost of ice), and 

 the high freight rates charged by the railroad took all 

 the profit of the shipment. 



On July 24, 1888, the schooner Mollie Adams left Seat- 

 tle, bound north on a fletched halibut trip, the first one 

 of its kind that had been undertaken on the Pacific Coast. 



