48 



With these advantages, it is not a matter of surprise that the fish- 

 eries of Gloucester should cover a wide range of operations, and 

 that a large proportion of its fleet should be engaged in some branch 

 of this pursuit during every month of the year, a fact that does not 

 hold true of any other New England fishing port. With a business 

 capable of indefinite expansion ; with a fleet unsurpassed in seagoing 

 qualities ; with a maritime force of hardy men cradled on the deep 

 from early youth ; it would be singular if Gloucester failed to turn 

 its attention in whatever direction fishing enterprise held out a pros- 

 pect of successful operations. The successors of the men who 

 braved the perils of the sea in the primitive craft of the earlier years 

 of the eighteenth century ; who were undaunted from pursuing their 

 avocation by savage or hostile forces ere the Republic was born ; 

 are not the men to shrink at any hazard by storm or ice, and neg- 

 lect opportunities that promise a successful issue in their dangerous 

 calling. It is not a matter of surprise, therefore, that in the Spring 

 of 1860, after an annual decrease for three years in the mackerel 

 catch of the port, until the product had been reduced nearly two- 

 thirds in quantity*, the project should be seriously contemplated of 

 embarking in the mackerel fishery of the North Sea, on the Norwe- 

 gian and Swedish coasts, where the prospects of successful fishing 

 were believed to be favorable. Happily, however, that year saw a 

 revival of this industry, the mackerel catch of 1860 being much 

 larger than ever before, and the project was abandoned. Ten years 

 later, when the halibut fishery had assumed considerable propor- 

 tions, attention began to be turned to new grounds for this fisher}', 

 and in 1870 an experimental trip was made to the coast of Green- 

 land, with results which gave promise of a successful pursuit of this 

 distant fishery. During the next two 3*cars half a dozen vessels 

 made halibut trips to Greenland, but in 1873 the fleet was reduced 

 to four vessels, whose voyages did not prove remunerative, and the 

 distance of the fishing grounds, the uncertainty attending the busi- 

 ness, the high cost of its prosecution and the dangers from storms 

 and icebergs led to its abandonment. The pioneer in this fisherv? 

 however, Capt. John S. McQuinn, was still possessed with the pur- 

 pose of finding new fishing grounds, and on the 23d of May, 1873 r 

 with a crew numbering twenty men, he set sail in the staunch 

 schooner Membrino Chief, for the fishing grounds on the Icelandic 

 coast, where the fishermen of France and Northern Europe have 

 long pursued profitable ventures. It is probable that the voyage 

 was made at an untoward season, since it proved a failure, the ves- 



