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OT_______________the last oysterman

JHOLLAND1

Titanium
Joined
Oct 8, 2005
Location
western washington state
so I made an equipment run and came upon this----what maybe the last coastal
schooner dying the death of an Oysterman in an isolated cove somewhere in the North Pacific

one century ago ---it was all different--abundant shellfish- no limits--and busy enterprise engaged in shell reprocessing

hand crank shell crunchers provided farms with calcium shell supplement for poultry

roads were surfaced with shellgrind

cement/concrete ------- fortified
 

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2--------------------------


Henry Ford held some fascination with the oyster ---his film


YouTube
 

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I live within a few miles of five oyster companies.
We still harvest a lot of oysters in Puget Sound.
Remember, though, in 1900, there were around 500,000 people in the state, and now there are 7.5 million.
Which affects both the abundance of natural oysters, and how many are harvested.
A lot, in those days, might not be that many today.

Commercial oyster farming in Washington started in 1890. Even then, naturally growing oysters were getting scarce enough to make commercial farming viable.
Willapa bay was stripped clean by 1870.

The entire annual yield of oysters around 1900 was 100,000 bushels a year- about 10 million oysters a year.
Today, one company, Taylor, sells 36 million a year, and the total WA state production is a lot more than that.

Which is to say- it may have been all different, but it wasnt necessarily better.
And if you need oyster shells for your driveway, a couple of miles from me is about a 1 acre pile 20 feet tall.
 
The state of Washington has/had a very aggressive derelict boat abatement program..is the picture of the hulk current or many moons ago? My cousin owned the ex USCG tender 'Cactus' which was grabbed and scrapped under that abatement program.

Jeffrey was a big name in hammer hogs for the timber industry.

Stuart
 
In my home town there was a button factory, though I'm not sure of the dates of operation. They punched buttons out of clam shells harvested from the Mississippi river. All along the shore line in town you can find old clam shells with perfectly round holes punched out of them. I don't know if that was a common practice elsewhere.
 
The state of Washington has/had a very aggressive derelict boat abatement program..is the picture of the hulk current or many moons ago? My cousin owned the ex USCG tender 'Cactus' which was grabbed and scrapped under that abatement program.

Jeffrey was a big name in hammer hogs for the timber industry.

Stuart

did your cousin live aboard?

was tender packed with toxic waste?

j
 
In the final year or so he didn't live aboard. The ship was a floating garbage dump plus it's paint locker was full of bottom paint..leaded stuff. He was a nice guy but had mental issues and didn't have a pot to piss in. Getting the boat off the water was the best move considering the situation.

Stuart
 
i bought a marvel saw 9a from him

he made comment while tied in Tacoma commencement bay city police were out to get him after shooting a Tacoma officer for being on the tender without a warrant

his facial deformity with apparent head injury likely was linked with less than optimal social behavior

last I saw of ship was anchored in Elliot Bay Seattle
toxic clean up estimates were dramatic
 
That was him. He was docked at a spot in Ballard and was paying for his moorage by pulling old piles with the Insley crane he had mounted on the ship. He was off the crane adjusting a choker sling around a pile when the dogs on the boom let loose and the boom came down and hit him right in the head, driving him down until the boom hit the railing and stopped. He face was reconstructed and the hit didn't do his mind any good but he was a bit pyscho even before the accident.

The shooting incident with the Tacoma cop most likely didn't actually happen..it's something he imagined. A nice guy in spite of his problems..and quite smart too!

Stuart
 
The third pic in post #2: Darling's sign describes themselves as oyster "planters", suggesting the possibility of oyster mariculturing back in the 1880's. Or did "planting" refer to some other operation back in the day?

-Marty-
 
The third pic in post #2: Darling's sign describes themselves as oyster "planters", suggesting the possibility of oyster mariculturing back in the 1880's. Or did "planting" refer to some other operation back in the day?

-Marty-

Believe it refers to the production and distribution of oyster spat or spawn in existing oyster beds to be grown out.
 
As I mentioned above, Oyster farming was going strong in the State of Washington by 1890. The pacific oyster was introduced from Japan in 1902, at which point commercial farming really took off, as its hardy and larger than the native oysters. Oyster farming has gotten more and more sophisticated, over time- I have friends who grew up in oyster families, and, while hardly high tech, they understand the life cycle much better, and have perfected relatively simple ways to grow a lot of oysters in our waters. I eat em all the time. Had a dozen 4 days ago.
 
buoy tender Cactus--in addition to Marvel saw I picked up from owner Dave, I
rummaged ships contents--thousands of gallons mostly military acquisition
fluids and coatings---acquired during a time the DOD dumped hazardous via public sale--and here --the final chapter of USCG Cactus ---courtesy of Seattle Times

The Cactus' best years were spent in the Coast Guard, working as a buoy tender. But in the 1970s, the vessel was past her prime, so the Coast Guard did what the taxpayer might expect: sold it.

At some point, the Cactus wound up in the hands of David Thomsen. He told the state he bought her for $35,000 and planned to turn her into a floating sawmill.

He also said that he was the "comptroller of the currency"; that he was "part owner of a $300 trillion gold mine"; that he "invented the silicon chip"; and that he owns Microsoft and Vulcan, according to Ferris' file on the case.

"If people can't live in society, boats are kind of a last bastion," Ferris said. "We do get a number of people with mental-health issues."

By the mid-2000s, the Cactus appeared to be little more than a floating junkyard moored in the Foss Waterway.

The law allows a boat one month in the public waterway before it has to move. In September 2003, Thomsen received his 30-day notice. On day 29, Ferris said, Thomsen used the tides, the wind and a 20-foot fishing boat to tow it to Maury Island. Authorities were hesitant to give him another 30-day notice.

"We could end up chasing this vessel around Puget Sound," one official wrote in an email. "Would that create greater danger?"

The vessel sat there for years. By 2008, it was filled with buckets of paint and epoxy; rusted steel plates, rubber hoses, PVC pipe, leaking pails of seam filler, old newspapers, mattresses, boxes of tiles and who knows what else. There was also fuel and asbestos insulation.

Meanwhile, the boat had been pillaged. Ten-foot pieces of metal had been cut out of the deck. Brass valves were removed.

"The only thing that was keeping the boat from sinking was these corks that had been hammered in," Ferris said.

At one point, it broke anchor and went swinging into the aquatic reserve. Another time, according to Ferris, Thomsen called 911 because it was sinking. He got it under control, but King County decided to step in. In 2008, under Thomsen's protest, the Cactus was towed away for dismantling.

Years later, the boat is still sitting at a Ballard shipyard because there wasn't enough money left in Ferris' budget to scrap it. Between moorage fees, cleaning off the junk, pumping out the holds and other emergency measures, it's cost the state more than $348,000 so far. Each month is another $3,000 in moorage.

"We've been baby-sitting this stupid boat for four years basically," Ferris said.

This fall, Ferris said, she'll finally be able to finish the job, thanks to a lump sum from the Legislature.

But the Cactus had taught her a valuable lesson: When you seize a boat, it becomes your boat. And your problem.
 

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It seems like the other lesson is that sometimes its cheaper for the government to pay to have a boat scrapped than to try to "make" money selling it.
 
Re Mississippi mussels, at one time there was a thriving business in mussel shells from the river near Alton, used to make buttons. I believe there are still a few people who harvest them.

Bill
 








 
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