Fred Mather

Fred Mather (January 2, 1833, in Albany, New York – February 14, 1900) was a United States pisciculturist and a writer and editor on fishing topics. Life and career In 1854 he became interested in the lead mines of Potosi, Wisconsin, and afterward hunted and trapped in the Bad Axe country in that state. Here he learned enough of the Chippewa language to become interpreter to the government survey in northern Minnesota. During the political troubles in Kansas he served under General James Lane, and was one of Jennison's "Jayhawkers." He enlisted in the 113th New York regiment in 1862, and became 1st lieutenant two years later. At the close of the American Civil War, he took a clerkship in the stock yards near Albany. In 1868 he bought a farm at Honeoye Falls, New York, and began to hatch fish of various kinds. When the U.S. Fish Commission was formed in 1872 he was sent for by Professor Spencer F. Baird to hatch shad for the Potomac River. In 1875, he established hatcheries at Lexington and Blacksburg for the state of Virginia. A year earlier he had hatched the first sea bass and graylings. After several vain attempts to transport salmon eggs to Europe, he devised a refrigerator box, and in 1875 succeeded in carrying the eggs to Germany. He also, at the same time, invented a conical hatching apparatus, by which, through the admission of water at the bottom, shad and other eggs were hatched in bulk instead of in layers upon trays or floating boxes. In 1884 he hatched the adhesive eggs of the smelt, although all previous attempts had been failures.