Trivia: Sail back to the early days of New Bedford fish dealers

Chatham-born Linus S. Eldridge went to sea as a teenager. By the time of his marriage in 1902, however, he had left fishing to become a fish dealer. He and his wife, Harriet Nelson Dexter, settled in her hometown of Mattapoisett, operated a fish trap there, and began dealing in seafood. They bought scallops and quahogs from local fishermen, stocked the goods in their garage and resold them to wholesalers. Years later, to break into the New Bedford market, the Eldridges had to outmaneuver the politically connected J. S. Childs family, who ran the New Bedford Fish Company on Pier 4, eventually buying them out. Boats began landing fish there for Eldridge in 1928. Read the story here 09:53

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