>The tuna is a lot of fish, but isn't a fish that could be
>preserved well until canning (and then it turns out to can exceptionally
>well, especially in oil). This would also have been true in New England,
>where runs of striped bass and bluefish provided fresh fish near shore, and
>cod and halibut provided big hauls that could be salted down offshore. What
>could be done with a deep-water bluefin tuna off New England in the 1840s?

Of course, tuna comes in all sizes-- and the larger fish were occasionally
caught and were converted into oil, like whales. Occasionally, large tuna ran
aground in New Engalnd and they were consumed with gusto by whole villages that
ran to the location and "butchered" the fish. De Voe (The MArket Assistant,
1867) reports that fresh tuna was sold in markets from Philadelphia to Boston.
Canned French tuna was imported into the US by the 1880s.

Andy Smith