Chap/er TM) 29 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     agriculture, while paying almost no attention to the 
     
     Opportunities in fishing. Of course the settlers in the 
     
     Tignish area had always fished for themselves. 
     
    
   
   
    
     In 18-15 came the first fishing business in the area. 
     
     It was owned by Frank Arsenault and Thomas ]. Caie, 
     
     who traded with the fishermen for their fish. However it 
     
     was the American W.B. Dean and a Captain Hubbard 
     
     from Charlottetown who in 1850 founded the first large- 
     
     scale business. Immediately Tignish began to export cod, 
     
     herring, gaspereaux, and even fish oil on a comparatively 
     
     large scale. At the same time, it became the biggest fishing 
     
     centre on the Island. 
     
    
   
   
    
     In 1854, the Reciprocity Treaty with the United 
     
     States made setting up fishing businesses on the Island 
     
     most attractive to Americans. The most successful of all 
     
     was ].H. Myrick of Boston who, with a certain Isaac Hall, 
     
     also an American, started a business at the harbour, about 
     
     a mile and a half from the present site of Tignish. The 
     
     young man from Boston is said to have ”discovered” Tignish 
     
     after being shipwrecked off the coast just to the northeast. 
     
     Apparently he immediately realized the potential that a 
     
     fishing business combined with a general store would have 
     
     in the area. At first in partnership and later on his own, 
     
     Myrick built up a small empire, which at one time was 
     
     the largest business on Prince Edward Island. In one form 
     
     or another, it was to last for over a hundred years. From 
     
     this distance, however, its most important effect on the 
     
     area seems to have been to introduce the inhabitants to 
     
     fishing as a business and as a way of life. 
     
    
   
   
    
     At first mackerel was the main catch. Then in the 
     
     18705 lobster came to the fore; so many were caught 
     
     during the first few years that, by the end of the decade, 
     
     it was feared the lobster would soon be fished out; 
     
     fortunately they recovered. The best and biggest were 
     
     sent to Boston in refrigerated railway cars. Small lobsters