The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 88, July 1984 - April, 1985 Page: 58
476 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
rectory. They supplied restaurants and hotels with these delicacies and
offered to fill orders from the interior.42
Galveston dominated the fish and oyster business of the Texas
coast. Describing a bustling morning scene, Stevenson reported that
"a regular 'mosquito fleet'" of perhaps one hundred small sailboats
bobbed around the wharf, where they sold their catches to grocers,
restaurant owners, and dealers. Marine and horticultural produce was
varied, he remarked: "one may find here a load of oysters, there pota-
toes, in another boat cauliflower and pigs, chickens here and terrapins
there, ducks and crabs, fish and milk." Terrapin and turtles were
purchased as they came in.4"
In the 1888-1889 Galveston directory, J. L. Belbaze placed another
caption for "Everything in the fish line," including turtles. Four of
eleven additional dealers ran advertisements, and two of them listed
turtles-the Galveston Fish and Oyster Company, managed by A. J.
Musgrove, who sold in bulk and shipped "Fine Fish, Oyster, Game,
Turtles, Shrimp, Vegetables, Etc.," and Louis Cobolini, who mer-
chandised "Fish and Oysters, Shrimp, Turtles, Hard and Soft Shell
Crabs, Etc.""44
In the directory for 1890-1891 the mention of turtles peaked. The
Galveston Fish and Oyster Company offered them; J. Biagini, family
grocer and dealer in "Oysters, Fish and Vegetables," included the same
illustration of a marine turtle that Belbaze had used five years earlier.
Another oyster and fish dealer, Louis Grondona, also ran the same
turtle illustration, and the Galveston Packing Company shipped fish,
oysters, shrimp, and turtles "to All Parts of the Country."5
The most detailed reference to turtles occurred in the 1893-1894
directory, where Nathaniel A. Spence, one of four "Game and Poultry
Dealers," advertised "Vegetables, Game, Poultry and Eggs, Green
Turtles, Terrapins, Etc." His notice featured an illustration of a turtle
and a terrapin situated beneath a bunch of dead shorebirds and water-
42Morrison and Fourmy, General Directory ... for 1884-85, p. 42.
4SStevenson, "Report on the Coast Fisheries," 4o3; Morrison and Fourmy, General
Directory .. 189o-g9, p. 486. Four of nine wholesale fish and oyster dealers listed
turtles.
44Morrison and Fourmy, General Directory of the City of Galveston, 1888-89 ... (Gal-
veston, 1888), 44 (2nd quotation), 441/5 (1st and 3rd quotations), 441.
45Morrison and Fourmy, General Directory . .. 1890-91, p. 37 (2nd quotation), 65, 67
(Ist quotation), 486. The Galveston Packing Company had an office at the foot of 27th
St. and was included in the 1895-1896 directory (pp. 63, 148), but not in Morrison and
Fourmy, General Directory of the City of Galveston, 1898 . . . (Galveston, 1898).
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 88, July 1984 - April, 1985, periodical, 1984/1985; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101210/m1/80/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.