Other Gloucester Fish Firms
advertising
Fishing was a way of life in Gloucester long before Shute & Merchant was formed in 1862, and that firm was simply an extension of the various Merchant family fishing business dating back to the 1850s. Large numbers of fish firms called the Gloucester Harbor home, some lasted for many decades and others disappeared after only a few years in business. One of the very earliest fish businesses was the Gloucester Fishing Company, which began in 1819, and eventually build six schooners.
By 1851, Gloucester was considered to be the largest American fishing port with about 50 fishing companies. An image of an 1851 map of Gloucester Harbor provides shows where many of those firms were located.
ads from the 1873 Fisherman's Memorial and Record Book
(click on the image to view ads from 1876)
ads from the 1882 Fisherman's Own Book
This ever changing list of independent fish dealers helped to make Gloucester one of the most important places in the American fish industry, so much so that in 1878 the U.S. Fish Commission opened a permanent station in Gloucester. That station eventually became the first seafood technology lab in the United States.
(click on the image for a larger view)
E. K. Burnham took over the Charles Harriman fish firm some time during the mid 1880s, when Harriman had decided to retire from the business. The image shows the card used to let customers know about the change of ownership, as well as an add for the Charles Harriman firm from the Fishermen's Own Book, which was published in 1882.
(click on the image for a larger view)
The E. K. Burnham firm was still an independent fish business in 1909, but by 1910 the firm had changed its name to the Consumer Fish Company, the year of the ad shown below. Additional research notes a cookbook was published by the firm in 1918, so they had not become one of the many firms absorbed by Gorton-Pew by that point in time.
