Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1894-11-22
THE MAJORS FISH STORY.
Nobody Could Tell What Sort of Fish 1t
Was, but II Was n Whopper.


Major II. p. Ritzius, the United States
recruiting officer here, tells great fish
story. 1t happened in 1870. ITO begin at
the beginning" said the major this morn
ing, sin 1869 was stationed at Ship island,
in the gulf of Mexico. Colonel Bliss was in
command of the post, and was adjutant
In the summer eight monster fish appeared
in the harbor. They would come quite
close to the wharf and jump half out Of
the water. Several of the soldiers shot at
them, and from the trail of blood they left
on the water we knew they had been hit.
Nevertheless they appeared again the next
day. When fall came, they went away, but
returned in the summer of 1870 Colonel
Bliss expressed desire that one of the fish
should be caught.
Accordingly the quartermaster, a couple
of soldiers and myself started out in a
small sailboat one morning. We had pro-
vided ourselves with harpoons, with plenty
of rope attached. Pretty soon we sighted
one of the fish and buried a harpoon In
him. He Immediately dived down and re-
mained under water for some time. He
was moving off, however, as we could tell
by the way our line was paying out. Pretty
harpoon in him. He dived again. This per
formance was repeated until we had eight
harpoons in the fish. By this time we had
been towed out 10 miles and were rapidly
nearing the sea, which we could not face
with our small boat.
I'VE disliked to let go the fish, however,
, as we could tell by his struggles he was
nearly winded. When he came up again,
we could see he was nearly dead as he
made but feeble efforts to get away. It
was not long before the revenue cutter viii.
derness, which was cruising near by, hove
in sight and took us aboard. Our prize,
which we should not have been able to tow
| in, was secured by ropes to the cutter and
taken to the wharf We managed to get it
on one of the hand cars used to carry pro
visions from the wharf to the post and con.
veyed it to the barracks. There it was
placed on scalfOding and measured.
"The fish was Is feet long, 10 feet wide
and feet through. This may sound
'fshy,' but those are actual measurements.
We could not weigh the monster entire, but
cut him up into pieces. He weighed l,SOC
pounds in all. His mouth was feet across
and 8 feet deep. He had no teeth, so we
SuppOSeu ne lINeu VII HldtVel B"IhSlSu IL
the water as he swan along. His flesh was
not good to eat, but was of the same con
sistency as unrelined cod liver oil. There
were but few bones in the body, as we could
see where our bullets had gone entirely
through it, | don't know if the shoal O
fish appeared afterward, as we were ordered
away that fall. Wewere unable to find ou
what species OF fish it was. Wesent one o
the photographs to the Smithsonian insti
tute at Washington, but none of the peopl'
there had ever heard of such fish. He wa
broadest across what might be called th'
shoulders, attached to which were fins
floats, they might be more properly called
with which he propelled himself. | hav
often wondered what species of fish he was
but suppose shall never find OUT
Rochester Post-EXpress.