Gloucester Fish Companies

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A fire at a cotton mill in Rockport led to the beginning of the Slade Gorton company. If the Annisquam Cotton Mill had not been destroyed in 1882, this fish company might never have come into being.

The story goes, that after the fire, Slade Gorton, who had been a superintendent at the mill, was out of a job and his wife suggested he should go into the fish business. That eventually resulted in the development of the firm in East Gloucester.

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As the billhead engraving show, the enterprise was quite large, and they were located just east of Smith's Cove in the Inner Harbor.

In 1899, the company patented the “Original Gorton Fish Cake.” In 1905, the Slade Gorton Company adopted the fisherman at the helm of a schooner (the “Man at the Wheel”) as the company trademark. That trademark fisherman has remained in place for Gorton's products since that time.

This billhead engraving provides another view of the Slade Gorton facilities. The plant had expanded since the previous engraving had been designed.

Nathaniel & Tommy Gorton joined their father's business, and it was at their urging that Slade Gorton began to widely advertise boneless codfish. The firm became the first to display codfish in one pound black and white wooden boxes, which would become an American tradition.

Thomas J. Carroll joined the firm at some point, and it was Nathaniel Gorton and he who served as part of the officers of the Gorton-Pew Fisheries Company when it was created. Around 1928 or so it appears that part of the original Slade Gorton members sold off their share of Gorton-Pew, and started a new firm under the name of Slade Gorton & Co. in Boston, which is still in business today.

(more about the Slade Gorton & Company can be found in the advertising section)

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