Nearly 200 years after Samuel Gorton first came to Boston, another individualistic Gorton arrives on the scene as the founding father of this family's dynasty. Little is known about the childhood of Slade Gorton, born in 1832.

But we do know that Slade Gorton seems to have been a normal lad whose chief distinction was his large size. This made it possible for the young Slade to handle heavier chores than usually fell to a growing boy. By his 20s, after starting there as a youngster, he worked up to a position of overseer in a cotton mill in what is now Rhode Island.

But it was at his next job, as an overseer at another cotton mill in Rockport, Mass., that will explain how a job at a cotton mill would lead to wholesale fish merchant. According to Gorton's lore, the transition was stimulated by an energetic wife who saw a better future for herself and her family.

It Started with Fire

On December 9, 1883, a surprise fire burned down the Annisquam Cotton Mill. The mill was destroyed, throwing 240 people -- including Slade Gorton -- out of work. Slade's second wife, Margaret Ann, had been running the corporation houses at which the unmarried mill employees roomed and ate. Slade, now unoccupied, amused himself and helped his wife by catching fish and packed two favorite items for Margaret Ann to salt, smoke and serve to the workers.

One was salt cod -- a breakfast, lunch and dinner staple. The other was salt mackerel -- one of the tastiest tidbits of the time, unavailable in modern markets.

At some point, the story goes, Margaret Ann had enough of Slade's idleness. She made up her mind that he must work again. She took the money she had saved from managing the boarding house out of the bank, bought a fishing boat, a load of mackerel, rented Rockport's now famous Motif No. 1 as the fish house, and announced to her husband:

"You have been without work long enough.
Now we are in the fish business."

In Gloucester, Slade's sons Nat and Tommy soon made their way in the company. Nat urged the company to advertise boneless codfish extensively and to be the first to put it up in one-pound black and white wooden boxes, which would become an American tradition.

Gorton's would become a pioneer in convenience food, with its products of mostly salt cod packed in wooden boxes and salt mackerel packed in wooden kegs. (Can we see the forerunner of frozen fish or what?).

Slade died in the 1890s, passing leadership to Nat. Tommy, who became a brilliant salesman, then took up the company's reins.

Tommy charmed customers with mystifying card tricks and fisherman's jokes and the best fish in the world. He put up huge billboards along railroad tracks, making Gorton's a household name. But he always said that if he had not had such a great product to sell, none of his salesmanship would have mattered.

A Company is Born

On Friday March 31, 1906, the biggest news to hit Gloucester -- much less the fishing industry itself-- was announced Slade Gorton & Co., John Pew & Son, David B. Smith & Co. and Reed & Gamage would combine to form the Gorton-Pew Fisheries Co.

Gloucester had already firmly established itself as the largest fish producing port in the United States and the second largest in the world, so this was big news.

Instantly, the combined company had a fleet of 39 vessels; the largest fleet of fishing vessels operated by any company on the Atlantic Coast.

Gorton-Pew Fisheries would grow even beyond the expectations of its founders. At one point, the company occupied 15 wharves and 35 buildings, with 6 other plants up the coast. It took over a thousand fishermen to man the 55 vessels, and another thousand employees on land.

In addition to the Gorton's, the Pews and the many others that fostered the growth and fame of Gorton's of Gloucester is a man whose story has always been an inspiration to us.

Born January 17, 1868, Thomas J. Carroll was the eldest son of a Gloucester fisherman who died at sea, during a particularly harsh winter. At eleven years old he went to work at the skinning loft of Cunningham & Thompson Co. to help support his widowed mother and his younger four siblings.

Within a few years, his hard work (even at such a young age) was apparent, and it caught the eye of a Mr. Slade Gorton, who was visiting the loft one day on business. Mr. Gorton made him a job offer on the spot, and the now young teenager joined the company, where his first job was picking the air bladders out of codfish! The hard work continued, earning him the respect of his co-workers and most of all, Nathaniel and T. Slade Gorton. In 1898, Carroll was made a junior partner of the company.

Fishing has always been an international business, and during 1922-23, a million dollar cargo of salted cod was purchased from Gorton's by the Italian government. While the shipment was enroute to Italy, the Italian government was overthrown by Mussolini, whose new government confiscated the entire cargo (!) and never paid the bill.

Gorton-Pew was left in the lurch, and went into bankruptcy. Under its reorganization led by Boston lawyer William Lowell Putnam, Tom Carroll was appointed president and managed to get the company solvent once again. He also promised the nearly two hundred Gorton's men who went off to fight the Second World War that they would have their jobs upon their return. And until his death in 1950, he remained the steadfast head of Gorton-Pew.

By the mid 1920s Gorton's top specialities continued to be Gorton's Codfish, Gorton's Ready-to-Fry Codfish Cakes; Gorton's Flaked Fish; Gorton's Fish Roe and Gorton's Clam Chowder (the company also did a little racing on the side, but that's another story). New products that were added included mackerel, Haddock Chowder, and later, cod-liver oil.

When freezers became popular, a Gloucester man named Clarence Birdseye -- the famous man behind Birdseye frozen vegetables -- perfected the process of freezing food. Our neighbor Clarence really helped Gorton's expand its frozen fish business.

Gorton-Pew became Gorton's of Gloucester in 1954, and in 1965, the company officially became The Gorton Corporation.

Now, that's hardly the whole story of Gorton's, but that brings us pretty close to up to date. We're still in Gloucester, and we're planning on being around for a long, long time -- with the spirits of Slade, John, Nat, Tommy, and Tom Carroll to guide us.