(LUKE) Please Come Get Your Carp

“In 1877, the U.S. Fish Commission imported common carp from Germany and for the next two decades the agency began stocking and distributing the species as food fish throughout much of the United States and its territories”.¹ For two decades, the federal government disseminated up to 350,000 carp per year.² “There was at this time a fever of enthusiasm for carp…throughout all parts of the United States.”³

“In 1880, the carp bug bit Utah, and a Deputy United States Fish Commissioner promised to transport free carp to Utah as early as 1881. The commissioner required interested parties to fill out a written application, pay for the shipping container and cover freight expenses. The price per fish ran between 35 and 85 cents, depending on size and how many fish fit into the container.”⁴

Several articles were printed preparing people to care for carp. One paper ran a lengthy, two-part feature on properly constructing a carp pond.⁵ Another article discussed the best types of water, soil, and plants for the fish.⁶

As many as 23,000 carp were delivered to Utah per annum. Most were put in private ponds, but over 10,000 were intentionally stocked in public waters.⁷ As an interesting side note, the fish were not stocked in Utah Lake or the river that feeds it. Instead, “a spring flood washed some of the fish out of” a private pond, and they made their way to the lake.⁸

The carp quickly overtook Utah Lake, severely straining native fishes like the June Sucker. A fisherman lamented in 1894 that if a law was passed to stop seining (fishing with nets) in Utah Lake, the lake would be filled “again with suckers and chubs, the same as it was years ago when no imported fish could exist in Utah Lake… The lake is now well stocked with carp… There are millions of them and they have come to stay… The carp are twice as good as the suckers.”⁹

For a time, Utahns were a carp-loving people. Some of my ancestors got in on the craze. In October, 1890, the newspaper reported, “We propose to commence the annual distribution of German carp as soon as practicable after November 1^st, and…we expect to be able to comply with all reasonable requests.”¹⁰

My ancestors were among those with “reasonable requests” that year.

Salt Lake Herald, 26 Nov 1890, http://digitalnewspapers.org/

Alexander Gillespie Adamson, my great-
great-great grandfather

Alexander and Elizabeth Adamson were from Lanarkshire, Scotland. The males in their families started mining coal around age 8. Elizabeth was a maid. Alex and Elizabeth immigrated separately to Utah in the mid-1860s and were married in Salt Lake City.

In Utah, the Adamsons could give their children a future better than coal mining. Alex farmed and did construction projects. The family grew their own produce.¹¹ And, apparently, they raised carp, too. They would likely have constructed a pond specifically for that purpose, as many other Americans did at that time.

His wife Elizabeth McGill Adamson,
my great-great-great grandmother

By 1899, however, public sentiment about carp was changing. One newspaper article reported that when the US government was distributing the fish, “a great many Utahns were among those who received allotments for their private waters. It was said that in Germany carp was highly esteemed and…would become a very valuable factor among the pond fishes of the United States. But when the testing and tasteing time came, they were found to be an inferior fish,…and many are now turning their noses up at them.”¹²

Their son George Hunter
Adamson, my great-
great grandfather

A Utah State senator spoke out against State Fish Commissioner A. M. Musser, declaring that, as “Musser had introduced carp into the waters of Utah, he should be compelled to reimburse the State.”¹³ Musser rebutted that carp were “highly recommended,” and were in fact sent by the federal government “on the thousand and one applications for them by the people of Utah.”¹⁴

Carp have been further maligned over the years as “trash fish.” Currently, a tax-funded multi-million dollar government project is removing them from Utah Lake at the cost of 20¢ per pound—about three times more than they originally cost to purchase—all for the sake of that "inferior" native, the June Sucker.¹⁵

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Line of descent:
Alexander Gillespie ADAMSON (1841 - 1902) is your 3rd great grandfather

George Hunter ADAMSON (1880 - 1954) son of Alexander Gillespie ADAMSON

Jennie Constance Adamson (1903 - 1975) daughter of George Hunter ADAMSON

Zenda Constance Lang [my grandmother] (1924 - 2005) daughter of Jennie Constance Adamson

Sources:

1 - USGS Fact Sheet, http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?speciesID=4

2 - The German Carp in the United States (Google eBook), Leon Jacob Cole, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1905, p. 547 http://books.google.com/books?id=IbEqAAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s

3 - The German Carp in the United States (Google eBook), Leon Jacob Cole, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1905, p. 548 http://books.google.com/books?id=IbEqAAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s

4 - http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/fish-a-flop-as-utah-county-business/article_22b027ab-6e06-5514-9df7-d443c353b285.html

5 - The Daily Enquirer Newspaper 1887-07-19 vol. 11 no. 56 and 1887-07-22 vol. 11 no. 57 http://digitalnewspapers.org/

6 - “About Carp,” The Daily Enquirer Newspaper 1887-11-15 vol. 11 no. 89 http://digitalnewspapers.org/

7 - “Pisciculture in Utah,” Deseret Evening News, 2 Jan 1891, http://digitalnewspapers.org/

8 - http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/fish-a-flop-as-utah-county-business/article_22b027ab-6e06-5514-9df7-d443c353b285.html

9 - “About Seining,” The Daily Enquirer, 24 Jan 1894,  http://digitalnewspapers.org/

10 - “Carp, Etc.,” Deseret Evening News, 10 Oct 1890, http://digitalnewspapers.org/

11 – Adamson family information is from “A Compilation of Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes: Alexander Gillespie Adamson and Family,” compiled by Nathan W. Adamson, Jr., published Salt Lake City, 1996.

12 - “All About Fish,” Deseret Evening News, 3 Feb 1899, http://digitalnewspapers.org/

13 - “An Attack on Mr. A. M. Musser,” Deseret Evening News, 14 Mar 1899, http://digitalnewspapers.org/

14 - “An Attack on Mr. A. M. Musser,” Deseret Evening News, 14 Mar 1899, http://digitalnewspapers.org/

15 – See http://utahlake.gov/fish-be-gone-two-years-in-carp-removal-continues-at-utah-lake/ and http://www.slcdocs.com/utilities/NewsEvents/news2008/news6272008.htm

(LUKE) John Lang, Miner

My great-great-grandfather, John Emil Lang, left Sweden in the 1880s. By 1895 he had settled in Silver City, Utah. He mined in the American West for 30 years.

Me in Silver City, September 2012.
Another website says these are the basement steps of the store. 

The US Department of Labor reports that “From 1880 to 1910, mine explosions and other accidents claimed thousands of victims. ...mining was...highly hazardous. Fires, explosions and roof falls caused many deaths and injuries.” In the early 20^th century approximately 1,500 miners died annually.¹

Despite the dangers, even children participated in mining. As a “youth,” John's son Rudolph worked in the mines, carrying buckets of water on a yoke.³

"Job insecurity also plagued miners. Few could count on full-time work the year around. The periodic recessions and depressions that affected both the American economy as a whole and the mining industry in particular resulted in long periods of unemployment and often wiped out the savings of even the most frugal families.”²

Miners in Silver City also faced local troubles. In the 1890s water began to flood the mines. In 1902, a fire caused widespread destruction. Reinvestment five years later doubled the population to 1,500, but the boom did not last. By 1912, only 300 people remained in Silver City. The Langs rode out all of these storms, staying in the town for at least ten more years.

All that's left of Silver City, September 2012

Falling rocks. Runaway ore cars. Bad air. Lead poisoning. Lung disease. Cave-ins. Miners faced a multitude of job-related dangers. But in the end, it was living near a mine, not being a miner, that spelled the end for John Lang.

On Saturday morning, September 2, 1922, 57-year-old John Lang disappeared while walking near his home. His absence was noted within minutes and the alarm was sounded, but it was already too late: John had fallen into an abandoned mineshaft. The 75' fall resulted in a fractured skull, and probably instant death.

The local newspaper carried reports of four other injuries in local mines that week, caused by 2 less serious falls, a cave-in, and someone falling under a mine cart.⁴ John's death made the front page.

Between a picture of a European monarch and an article on local democracy lies my great-great-grandfather's obituary: bridging the Old World and the New, even in death.

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• According to Utah History-To-Go, “Falls down mine shafts were one of the  most common fatalities.”²

• For the curious, my lineage:
  • John Emil Lang (1865 – 1922) is your 2nd great grandfather
  • Rudolph Edwin Lang (1899 – 1987) son of John Emil Lang
  • Zenda Constance Lang (1924 – 2005) daughter of Rudolph Edwin Lang
    (Zenda is my grandma.)

1 http://www.msha.gov/MSHAINFO/FactSheets/MSHAFCT2.HTM

2 http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/mining_and_railroads/silverinthebeehivestate.html

3 Rudolph Lang Eulogy, given by Dean Lang on 8 Dec 1987. Copy in my possession.

4 Eureka Reporter, 8 Sep 1922. That week's issue also included an ad that advocated letting children “eat their fill” of “pure candy,” a report on labor agitators, and an ad for 17¢ cans of “ripe olives.”