210 



HISTORY AND METHODS OP THE FISHERIES. 



quite a quantity of fish had been caught. This was the origin of the business, which has since 

 regularly employed from half a dozen to a score of vessels, and from forty to two hundred and 

 fifty men during the season. * * * The North Pacific codfish fleet was organized in the spring 

 of 1865." 



The Gloucester Telegraph newspaper of October 11, 1865, has a paragraph which is believed 

 to refer to the vessel above mentioned ; it reads thus : " Two years ago a single vessel wandered 

 off to the then unknown banks on an uncertain adventure and io three months brought in a 

 cargo of codfish that astonished everybody. * * * The fishing grounds are in the Ochotsk 

 Sea * . 



The San Francisco Commercial Herald and Market Review in its issue of January 15, 1880, 

 tells us that " the North Pacific codfish fleet was organized in the spring of 1865," in which year 

 seven vessels were engaged, and their combined catch was 469,400 fish. In 1866 eighteen vessels 

 were employed and the catch was 724,000 fish. In 1868 the number of vessels was reduced to ten. 

 The largest fleet in any year since the beginning of the fishery was that of 1870, when twenty-one 

 vessels were engaged. Small fleets were out in 1872, 1873, 1874, and 1875, as will be seen by the 

 accompanying table. The largest catch recorded is that of 1879, thirteen vessels having aggre- 

 gated 1,499,000 fish. The average weight of the cured fish during the earlier years was from 2 to 

 3 pounds ; but it ranges now between 3 and 4 pounds. 



The total weight of the catch of 1879 is reported to have been 1,955 tons, or 4,379,200 pounds. 

 The amount of cod brought into Gloucester during the same year was not far from 50,000,000 

 pounds, so that the whole cod fishery of the Pacific United States amounted to less than one-tenth 

 of that of Gloucester alone, or less than one-twentieth of the entire catch of the Atlantic United 

 States. This is by reason of the smaller demand for codfish on the Pacific slope, and not because 

 of any scarcity of cod. 



Table showing results of tlie North Pacific codfish fishery. 



According to J. L. McDonald (Hidden Treasures, &c., p. 11) the Shumagin fishery dates from 

 1866 : " In the spring of 1866 Captain Turner sailed from San Francisco in the schooner Porpoise; 

 he pursued a northerly course, calling at Queen Charlotte's, Unga, and Shumagin Islands; around 

 the latter-named group he found safe harbors, fuel, water, and other facilities for prosecuting his 

 business ; while on the grounds fringing those isles he found large, plump, healthy codfish in such 

 numbers as to enable him to fill his vessel in a few weeks. After an absence of three months this 

 ' hardy toiler on the sea ' returned to the ' Bay City,' having performed a successful voyage, the 

 honored pioneer of the northwestern salt fisheries." 



I was informed by Capt. J. 0. Caton, who has taken part in the Shumagin fishery since 1868, 

 that the first fleet at the islands consisted, in 1867, of three schooners, the Sanborn, Captain Morse; 

 the Porpoise, Captain Turner; and the Sarah Louise, Captain Holcomb. Captain Caton said that 

 they caught most of their fish off Nagay ; they came up to hunt fish and discovered these banks; 



