FRESH-HALIBUT FISHERY. 29 
halibut trips from the Banks: Carrie P. Morton, 114,540 pounds; Davy Crockett, 99,950 pounds; 
Edwin C. Dolliver, 95,000 pounds; Notice, 70,000 pounds; Howard, 95,000 pounds.” 
May 22, 1877, the schgoner G. P. Whitman, Capt. Jerome McDonald, of Gloucester, arrived 
from the “Gully,” after four weeks’ absence, with 137,510 pounds of halibut, which sold for 
$3,254.54, 
With the exception of the above, the largest cargo of fresb halibut ever brought into Glou- 
cester, and without doubt the largest ever taken, was that brought in by the schooner Centennial, 
Capt. D. C. Murphy, in 1877. The.fare amounted to 137,000 pounds, over 100,000 pounds of which 
were white halibut. These fish were taken on the Grand Bank in latitude 43° 30/ north, longi- 
tude 52° 04’ west, at a depth of 87 fathoms. 
In 1868, schooner William T. Merchant, Capt. Nelson A. McKenney, stocked $4,200 on a fare 
of 48,310 pounds of halibut, caught on a trip of twenty-six days. The same year the Merchant 
caught a fare at Miquelon Beach of 103,450 pounds of halibut, being absent from home twenty- 
five days. , 
The schooner Mary Carlisle, Capt. William Thompson, made nine trips to the Banks in 1871. 
Her catch was 350,188 pounds of halibut and 58,759 pounds of codfish; her net stock amounted 
to $17,275.53 for about eleven months’ work, from December 27, 1870, to November 21, 1871. On 
one trip in the spring she brought in 58,553 pounds of halibut and 6,900 pounds of codfish, her 
net stock reaching the sum of $4,738.75, and her crew sharing $236.25 each from a voyage of 
thirty-four days. She had ten men in her crew, each of whom during the season shared $858.62. In 
three years this vessel stocked a total of $46,871.53, divided as follows: 1869, $17,549; 1870, $12,047; 
1871, $17,275.53. 
The highest stock ever made from a single trip of fresh halibut, until recently, was that of 
schooner N. H. Phillips, Capt. William McDonald, in the fall of 1871. She secured a fare of 47,650 
pounds of halibut and 9,370 pounds of codfish. The gross stock amounted to $5,361. She was 
absent five weeks, and the crew shared $213.42 each. In two trips, both occupying nine weeks, 
she stocked a total of $9,142, and the men shared $363.42 each. 
“The largest amount of halibut ever received in Gloucester in a single week was for the 
week ending February 10, 1881, when the receipts were 740,000 pounds from the Banks and 
122,509 pounds from George’s, 862,500 pounds.” * 
10. HISTORY OF THE FRESH-HALIBUT FISHERY. 
THE EARLY HALIBUT FISHERY ON GEORGE’s.—In the early part of the present century 
halibut were exceedingly abundant in Massachusetts Bay, and were considered by the fishermen 
to be troublesome pests, as are dogfish at the present time. Their abundance, even as late as 
1837, may be judged from the following account of a fishing trip in the bay quoted from the 
Newburyport Herald by the Gloucester Telegraph of June 3, 1837: “Four men went out fishing 
from Marblehead a few days since, and returned, after an absence of two days, with four hundred 
halibut, for which they obtained $1.50 each, or nearly $600.” The Gloucester Telegraph of March 
22, 1837, contains the following, which is additional evidence of the occasional abundance of halibut 
near the coast: ‘Our hardy fishermen,” says the account, “have been unusually successful in their 
pursuit of this noble fish [halibut] within the past week or two. One boat, we are informed, during 
an absence of only two days, took 15,000 weight.” 
The fishing vessels of Cape Ann at that period were mostly pinkies, or “jiggers,” and chebacco 
boats, or “dog-bodies,” as they were then called; and it was the practice of the fishermen, when 
*Fisherman’s Own Book, p. 30, 
