What appeared limitless plenty: The rise and fall of the nineteenth-century Atlantic halibut fishery

Environmental History

Volumn 13, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 66-91

  Grasso, Glenn M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EXTINCTION; FISHERY MANAGEMENT; FLATFISH FISHERY; NINETEENTH CENTURY; OVERFISHING;

ATLANTIC OCEAN;

HIPPOGLOSSUS HIPPOGLOSSUS;

EID: 41549105843     PISSN: 10845453     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/envhis/13.1.66     Document Type: Article

References (136)

1. Lorenzo Sabine, Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas: Prepared for the Treasury Department of the United States (Washington, DC: Robert Armstrong, 1853), 197;
2. George Brown Goode, The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States, section 5, vol. i (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1887).
3. For a discussion of the terms "Fisherman" and "fisher," see the "Introduction and Glossary" by the editors of The Ecologist 25 (March/April, May/June, 1995): 42-45;
4. and Linda Greenlaw, The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey (New York: Hyperion, 1999), 11. The term "fisherman" refers to men who fished; "fishers" refers to men, women, and children engaged in fishing industries.
5. W. Jeffrey Bolster, "Opportunities in Marine Environmental History," Environmental History 11 (July 2006): 567-97.
6. For more on the role of technology and its effects on the fisheries, see Simon Fairlie et al., "The Politics of Overfishing," The Ecologist 25 (March April, May/June, 1995): 46-73.
7. For more on the issues of by-catch and discard, see Dayton L. Alverson, A Global Assessment of Fisheries Bycatch and Discard (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1994);
8. and Larry B. Crowder and Steven A. Murawski, "Fisheries Bycatch: Implications for Management," Fisheries 23 (June 1998): 8-17.
9. See, also, Poul Holm, Tim D. Smith, and David J. Starkey, eds., The Exploited Seas: New Directions for Marine Environmental History (St. John's, Newfoundland: International Maritime Economic History Association/Census of Marine Life, 2001);
10. Poul Holm and David J. Starkey, eds., Studia Atlantica 3: Fish Catching and Fish Processing. Essays on the Development of Technology (Esbjerg, Denmark: North Atlantic Fisheries History Association, 1999);
11. Poul Holm & David T. Starkey, eds., Studia Atlantica 2: Markets and Modernisation (Esbjerg, Denmark: North Atlantic Fisheries History Association, 1998);
12. Poul Holm, "Catches and Manpower in the Danish Fisheries, c1200-1995," in Studia Atlantica i: North Atlantic Fisheries, 1100-1976: National Perspectives on a Common Resource, ed. Poul Holm, David J. Starkey and Jón Th. Thór, (Esbjerg, Denmark: North Atlantic Fisheries History Association, 1996), 177-206;
13. Poul Holm "The Bohuslen Herring. Interlude to Dutch Supremacy in the European Fish Market, 1556-1589," in In het kielzog. Maritiem-historische studies aangeboden aan laap R. Bruijn, bij zijn vertrek als hoogleraar zeegeschiedenis aan de Universiteit Leiden, ed. L. M. Akveld et al., (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 2003), 282-88;
14. Poul Holm and Brian R. MacKenzie, "Environmental History and Historical Fish Populations in the Baltic," in Learning from Environmental Historyin the Baltic Countries, ed. Per Eliasson, (Malmö: Liber, 2004), 39-44;
15. Richard C. Hoffmann, "Economic Development and Aquatic Ecosystems in Medieval Europe," American Historical Review 101 (1996): 631-69;
16. Richard C. Hoffmann, Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997);
17. Richard C. Hoffmann, "Medieval Fishing," in Working With Water in Medieval Europe: Technology and Resource Use, ed. Paolo Squatriti (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 331-93;
18. and Richard C. Hoffmann, "Carp, Cods, Connections: New Fisheries in the Medieval European Economy and Environment," in Animals in Human Histories: The Mirror of Culture and Nature, ed. Mary J. Henninger-Voss (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester, 2002), 3-55.
19. Arthur F. McEvoy, The Fisherman's Problem: Ecology and the Law in the California Fisheries, 1850-1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 6, 73;
20. Joseph E. Taylor III, Making Salmon: An Environmental History of the Northwest Fisheries Crisis (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999), 6.
21. See, also, Joseph E. Taylor III, "Burning the Candle at Both Ends: Historicizing Overfishing in Oregon's Nineteenth-Century Salmon Fisheries," Environmental History 4 (January 1999): 54-79.
22. Neither McEvoy nor Taylor fully accept Garrett Hardin's "tragedy of the commons" argument. Human adaptability, cognition, and culture, as well as "spatial and racial" barriers to the so-called "commons" complicate the story of who fishes, for what species they fish, and the rules-written or unwritten-that determine how they fish. For recent works on historical marine ecology, see note 6.
23. McEvoy, Fisherman's Problem, 6.
24. For the commercial value of fish, see Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (New York: Walker, 1997);
25. and Harold A. Innis, The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy, rev. ed. (1940; reprint, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978).
26. For a discussion of by-catch and discards, see note 12,
27. and Mike Hagler, "Deforestation of the Deep: Fishing and the State of the Oceans," The Ecologist 25 (March/April, May/June, 1995): 76.
28. See, also, Taylor, Making Salmon,
29. and Christopher L. Dyer and James R. McGoodwin, eds., Folk Management in the World's Fisheries: Lessons for Modern Fisheries Management (Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1994).
30. Jeremy B. C. Jackson et al., "Historical Overfishing and the Recent Collapse of Coastal Ecosystems," Science 293 (July 2001): 629-37;
31. Jeremy B. C. Jackson, "What Was Natural in the Coastal Oceans?" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98 (May 8, 2001): 5411-18;
32. Michael Berrill, The Plundered Seas: Can the Worlds Fish Be Saved? (Vancouver: Greystone, 1997);
33. Andrew Rosenberg et al., "The History of Ocean Resources: Modeling Cod Biomass Using Historical Records," Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (March 2005): 84-90;
34. Robert S. Steneck and James T. Carlton, "Human Alterations of Marine Communities: Students Beware!" in Marine Community Ecology, ed. Mark D. Bertness et al. (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Publishers, 2001), 445-68. While no evidence to date suggests that halibut were a "keystone species," that is, one whose removal spurred a radical reorganization of the ecosystem, Atlantic halibut were nonetheless apex predators at or near the top of the food web of the northwest Atlantic.
35. John Smith, History of Virginia (London, 1624), in Goode, Fisheries, section 1, 193;
36. William Wood, New Englands Prospect (London, 1634), in The Fish and Fisheries of Colonial North America: A Documentary History of the Fish Resources of the United States and Canada. part 2. The New England States, ed. John C. Pearson, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Report # NOAA-72040302, (Woods Hole, MA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1972), 196, emphasis added;
37. George Brown Goode, "A Brief Biography of the Halibut," American Naturalist 19 (October 1885): 958.
38. Goode, Fisheries, section 5, vol. 1, 5, 29-30. Hippoglossus vulgaris was the nineteenth-century taxonomy. Fishers and consumers made no distinction between Atlantic, Greenland, and Pacific halibut. Modern taxonomy recognizes three distinct groups: Hippoglossus hippoglossus for northwest Atlantic halibut, Reinhardtius hippoglossoides for Greenland halibut, and Hippoglossus stenolepis for Pacific halibut.
39. For more information on the cod bounty, see Sabine, Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas, 159-69, and the frontispiece of any "Journal of a Voyage." These blank logbooks, printed by S. G. Simpkins and Co., Boston, MA, were designed to record codfish catches by individual fishing vessels. The frontispiece is the actual wording of the regulation. Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (hereafter PL-PEM).
40. Also, for a discussion of international treaties and conflicts as well as bounties, see Innis, The Cod Fisheries.
41. For recent treatment of estimating past populations based on data from the cod logs, see Rosenberg et al., "Modeling Cod Biomass Using Historical Records," 84-90.
42. Log of the schooner Beverly, April 1833-September 1841, entries from June-July 1836, Manuscript # Log 1816S (microfilm: series 91, roll 11), PL-PEM.
43. Steve Kaimmer, "The Problem With Fleas," http://www.iphc.washington.edu/halcom.biology.fleas.htm (accessed February 23, 2001);
44. Wesley George Pierce, Goin' Fishin'. The Story of the Deep-Sea Fishermen of New England (Salem, MA: Marine Research Society, 1934), 128;
45. Log of the schooner Beverly, entries from September-October 1836;
46. Goode, Fisheries, section 5, vol. 137. Sand fleas are parasitic amphipods that burrow into the flesh of the fish and eat it from the inside out. The only thing remaining is skin, bones, and spines. Modern Pacific Halibut fishermen note that the fleas are highly localized, often finding fish free of the fleas on the same line as fish infested with them. Pierce reports: "These vessels were often anchored in deep water when fishing on the Bank, so they carried plenty of cable, eight and one-half or nine-inch circumference rope, and in length from three hundred and fifty, to four hundred fathoms, the greater part of it coiled on the port side, for they used the port anchor. About one-forth of it was coiled on the starboard side, made fast to the spare anchor, and they all carried a third anchor which was lashed securely under the windlass. These three anchors weighed from five hundred to six hundred and eighty pounds each." I have taken six hundred pounds as a median weight. Additionally, the point here is that heaving up the anchor, a lengthy, difficult, and heavy job regardless of its actual weight, was preferable to catching "only halibut."
47. Mike Hagler, "Deforestation of the Deep," 76;
48. Jill M. Casey and Ransom A. Myers, "Near Extinction of a Large, Widely Distributed Fish," Science (July 31, 1998): 690-92. Taxonomy: Barndoor skate (Raja laevis), cod (Gadus morhua), and redfish (Sebastes sp.). Hagler discussed the difference between by-catch and discards: "By-catch is captured fish that are not the target species of the fishery. Discards are fish that are thrown back because, for various reasons, they are considered undesirable: they are of the wrong species, the wrong size (usually too small but sometimes too big), inferior quality or surplus to quotas. Until recently, the complex issue of by-catch and discards was largely ignored by fishermen, scientists, and managers who typically felt that they were unavoidable by-products of fishing about which little could be done. Recently, however, it has come to be recognized that throwing fish overboard occurs on a far larger scale than many scientists had imagined and that it has far-reaching effects for the entire marine ecosystem."
49. U.S. Department of Commerce, National Marine Fisheries Service, "Essential Fish Habitat Source Document: Atlantic Halibut, Hippoglossus hippoglossus, Life History and Habitat Characteristics," NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE-125 (Woods Hole, MA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1999), 2. Adult halibuts' diet includes alewife, capelin, cod, cusk, flounder, haddock, herring, mackerel, northern sand lance, ocean perch, ocean pout, sculpins, silver hake, skates, and squid.
50. Tim D. Smith, Scaling Fisheries: The Science of Measuring the Effects of Fishing, 1855-1955 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) 8, 33;
51. Jackson, Historical Overfishing, 629.
52. See, also, Kurlansky, Cod.
53. John G. Plummer Memoir, 1894, unpaginated, MSS # 0.274, PL-PEM. From the handwriting and layout, it appears that Plummer wrote the entire memoir at once (in 1894, as dated). Some pages are dated, but the dates used do not necessarily correspond to the dates of the events described. When available, dates provided as page headings are used in the endnotes as reference points, and the dates in his text are used as historical dates. Here, by comparing this entry to the dated entries of the entire memoir, he is retrospectively describing the 1830s industry.
54. Plummer Memoir, n.p., n.d. In this entry, Plummer is writing a retrospective account of his early life and business. Again, a comparison of this entry to the available dates reveals that he was referring to the late 1830s or early 1840s.
55. John I. Babson, History of the Town of Gloucester, Cape Ann Including the Town of Rockport (1860; reprint, Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1972), 573.
56. See, also, David W. Low, The Pioneer Industries of Essex County: Planting and Fishing, Their Past and Present Success (Salem, MA: Observer Steam Printing Rooms, 1880).
57. Also, Low, in Pioneer Industries of Essex County, 13, proclaimed the halibut fishery one of Gloucester's major industries: "In 1836 the fresh halibut fishery commenced, and is now one of Gloucester's specialties." Log of the schooner Beverly, September-October 1836.
58. Log of the schooner Mirror, March-August 1840, entry from April 9, 1840. MSS# Log 1840M (B12) (microfilm: series 91, roll 35), PL-PEM. "Muddled" heads were either broken up, possibly prepared in wine, or both.
59. Log of the schooner Mirror, April 10-May 11, 1840.
60. Andrew W. German, "History of the Early Fisheries, 1720-1930," in Georges Bank, ed. Richard W. Backus (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987), 411;
61. Goode, Fisheries, section 5, vol. 1, 37, 3.
62. Percy Wells Bidwell, "Population Growth in Southern New England," Publications of the American Statistical Association 15 (December 1917): 2-3;
63. Helen Corliss Babson, History of the Fishing Industry in Gloucester, Massachusetts (to 1918) (typescript, 1918), 21 (Sawyer Free Public Library Gloucester, MA, call #639.2).
64. Bidwell's article offers a wealth of near-contemporary information on economic growth as related to immigration, and specifically in maritime industries. For additional information on immigration, see David Ward, Cities and Immigrants: A Geography of Change in Nineteenth-century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971);
65. William E. Van Vugt, Britain to America: Mid Nineteenth-century Immigrants to the United States (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999);
66. Ruth Ann M. Harris, The Nearest Place that Wasn't Ireland: Early Nineteenth-century Irish Labor Migration (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994);
67. Arthur Gribben, ed., The Great Famine and the Irish Diaspora in America (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999);
68. David A. J. Richards, Italian American: The Racializing of an Ethnic Identity (New York: New York University Press, 1999);
69. and Donna R. Gabaccia, Italy's Many Diasporas (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000).
70. For a discussion of nineteenth-century population and economic growth, see Peter Temin, Causal Factors in American Economic Growth in the Nineteenth Century (London: Macmillan and Company, 1975);
71. and Morton Owen Schapiro, Filling Up America: An Economic-Demographic Model of Population Growth and Distribution in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1986).
72. On fish as a cheap staple food, see Babson, History of the Fishing Industry,
73. and Wayne M. O'Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries: The Rise and Fall of a Native Industry, 1830-1890 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996).
74. John Soluri, "Accounting for Taste: Export Bananas, Mass Markets, and Panama Disease," Environmental History 7 (July 2002): 386, 390, 387, 403, 388, 402. Taxonomy: The Gros Michel banana is Musa acuminata. Panama disease is Fusarium oxysporum f. cubense.
75. Wayne M. O'Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries: The Rise and Fall of a Native Industry, 1830-1890 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996), 265-66, 270, parenthesis in original.
76. For additional discussion of the changing foodways of Americans, see Richard J. Hooker, Food and Drink in America: A History (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1981),
77. Sandra Oliver, Saltwater Foodways: New Englanders and their Food, at Sea and Ashore, in the Nineteenth Century (Mystic, CT: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1995);
78. and Louis Untermeyer, Food and Drink (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1932).
79. Edward A. Ackerman, New England's Fishing Industry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941), 78, 214. Ackerman reported that halibut "keeps extraordinarily well" and that "halibut has better keeping qualities than other ground fish" when iced.
80. German, "History of the Early Fisheries," 409;
81. Goode, Fisheries, section 5, vol. 1, 10-12, 39.
82. See also Massachusetts Historical Society, The Fisheries of Gloucester From the First Catch by the English in 1623 to the Centennial Year 1876 (Gloucester, MA: Procter Brothers, 1876). In 1843, fishermen believed that anchoring on the offshore banks to set trawl lines was too dangerous. By the late 1840s, however, profitability had trumped safety and trawl-lining was standard practice offshore.
83. Babson, History of the Town of Gloucester, 553;
84. Goode, Fisheries, section 5, vol. 1, 32, 23;
85. Massachusetts Historical Society, Fisheries of Gloucester, 40.
86. Goode, Fisheries, section 5, Vol 1, 22-23;
87. Massachusetts Historical Society, Fisheries of Gloucester, 40.
88. Babson, History of the Town of Gloucester, 573-74;
89. Goode, Fisheries, section 5, vol. 1, 23.
90. Smith, History of Virginia,
91. in Goode, Fisheries, section 1, 193;
92. Wood, New Englands Prospect,
93. Pearson, The Fish and Fisheries of Colonial North America, 196;
94. Sandra Oliver, telephone communication with the author, April 12, 2001, Dover, New Hampshire (handwritten notes in possession of the author); Author's personal experience, August 24, 2002. The author would like to thank Dan Bugge and Sam Samson, employees of Pike Place Fish, 86 Pike Place, Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington, for their help in procuring (without too many strange looks) a number of fresh Pacific halibut fins upon which to perform these culinary experiments.
95. For a complete treatment of bison products, see Andrew Isenberg, The Destruction of the Bison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
96. Report of the Massachusetts Board of World's Fair Managers (Boston: Wright & Potter State Printers, 1894), 235;
97. Sandra Oliver, telephone communication, April 12, 2001.
98. The sound is the portion of the codfish's backbone removed in the splitting and salting process. Isinglass also was produced from sturgeon. For more information on isinglass and other historic foodways, see Sandra Oliver, Saltwater Foodways.
99. Gloucester Customs House Records, Impost Records 1854-1863, schooners Galena, Flying Cloud, Gentile, Cherub; schooners John, Flying Cloud, Henry Fenwick, series 2, vol. 13 (National Archives and Records Administration, Waltham, MA).
100. Gloucester Customs House Records, Impost Records, schooner John, May 8, 1857;
101. schooner Flying Cloud, May 14,1860;
102. schooner John, May 29, 1858;
103. schooner Flying Cloud, May 16, and November 29, 1859;
104. schooner Flying Cloud, December 24, 1860 and September 9, 1861.
105. Department of Commerce, "Atlantic Halibut," 1-2, 7;
106. James B. Connolly, The Port of Gloucester (New York: Doubleday, Doran, and Company, 1940), 185.
107. George Brown Goode, "A Brief Biography of the Halibut," American Naturalist 19 (October 1885): 959;
108. Goode, Fisheries, section 1, 193;
109. John Oliver La Gorce, "Fish and Fisheries of Our North Atlantic Seaboard," National Geographic 44 (December 1923): 606-07. "Dressed" meant without innards or head.
110. Goode, "A Brief Biography of the Halibut," 966;
111. Department of Commerce, "Atlantic Halibut," 2.
112. U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Volume V1 for 1886 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1887), 412-13;
113. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Bulletin for 1886, 412-13;
114. Department of Commerce, "Atlantic Halibut," 1, 4. The Maine chicken halibut fishery caught fish between 3.6 and 6.8 kilograms.
115. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Bulletin for 1886, 412-13;
116. Department of Commerce, "Atlantic Halibut," 1-3;
117. David Cushing, Population Production and Regulation in the Sea: A Fisheries Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 103.
118. Goode refers to Captain Ashby's observation of eggs present in halibut of twenty pounds weight. Captain Ashby believes halibut begin to reproduce at that size, which is still considerably larger than both the modern and historic chicken halibut fisheries. See Goode, "A Brief Biography of the Halibut."
119. Goode, Fisheries, section 1, 194;
120. Goode, Fisheries, section 5, Vol. 1, 5.
121. George Brown Goode, " Chart No. 5. Fishin g Grounds of the Gulf of St. Lawrence," map in Fisheries, Section 3.
122. Joseph William Collins, "Decadence of the New England Deep-Sea Fisheries," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 94 (March 1897): 614.
123. La Gorce, "Fish and Fisheries of Our North Atlantic Seaboard," 606-07;
124. Goode, Fisheries, section 1, 193;
125. U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Volume V for 1885 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1885), 90;
126. W. A. Wilcox, The Fishing Industry and Annual Report of the American Fish Bureau, (Gloucester, 1887) 12. Goode reported: "Since 1850 [halibut] have partially disappeared from this region, and the fishermen have been following them to other banks, and since 1874 out into deeper and deeper water, and most of the fisheries are now carried on almost exclusively in the gullies between the off-shore banks and on the outer edges of the banks in water one hundred to three hundred and fifty fathoms in depth." Near-shore and sballow-water differ; offshore fishing banks like Georges Bank are actually quite shallow.
127. Newton Pratt Scudder, "The Halibut Fishery-Davis' Strait," in Report of the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, Part VIII, Report for 1880 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1883), 190-93;
128. Wilcox, Fishing Industry and Annual Report, 16;
129. Massachusetts Historical Society, Fisheries of Gloucester. Advertisements were in Massachusetts Historical Society, Fisheries of Gloucester;
130. Log of the schooner Concord, March 29, 1890-27 September 1890, entries from March 26 and July 10, 1890, not cataloged, accession # 2002.017 PL-PEM 1, 70;
131. Goode, "A Brief Biography of the Halibut," 969.
132. Although the Greenland halibut is technically a different species, nineteenth-century fishers made no distinction between northwest Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus) and Greenland halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides).
133. Collins, "Decadence of the New England Deep-Sea Fisheries," 616. Again, nineteenth-century fishers made no distinction between Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus) and Pacific halibut ( Hippoglossus stenolepis).
134. Captain Sanford Doughty, transcript of oral history, November 1966, call# MSM-OH66-6D (G.W. Blunt White Library, Mystic Seaport, Mystic, Connecticut).
135. John Thistle, "'As Free of Fish as a Billiard Ball is of Hair': Dealing with Depletion in the Pacific Halibut Fishery, 1899-1924," BC Studies 142/143 (Summer/Autumn 2004): 105-06, 124-25. Despite its imperfections, the 1923 halibut treaty between the United States and Canada introduced to the Pacific a degree of regulation missing from the Atlantic halibut fishery.
136. James T. Carlton, "Apostrophe to the Ocean," Conservation Biology 12 (December 1998): 1165.