Everett’s Fishing Heritage

The Everett commercial fishing industry has been a major occupant in the North Waterfront since the 1940’s. However, it is necessary to go back a half century before that to understand its importance to the area – back to the fishing village of Komiza on the Island of Vis in present-day Croatia, then part of Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Vis is an island in the Adriatic Sea off the Dalmation Coast, about a two-hour ferry ride from the Croatian seaport of Split. Komiza, a small village located on the west side of the island, was the birthplace of fishing on the east side of the Adriatic. The fishing industry in Komiza goes back to the 15th century. When these fishermen, along with their families, left their homeland for a better life in America, they brought with them not only the Vis archipelago, but also the perseverance, endurance, and courage needed in a time when fishing boats were driven by wind and human muscles.

The first of these Slaves (simplified from Yugoslavia and often pronounced as rhyming with halves), as the Komiza villagers called themselves, to come to Everett was Anton “Old Tody” Mardesich in 1898. He arrived looking for fish at time when about 45 million pounds of salmon were caught off the West Coast of the United States. He chose Everett. But there were many cities up and down the coast that were also destined to become commercial fishing centers. Paul Martinis came to the United States from Vis in 1913. A hard worker, he was aided by Old Tony Mardesich and eventually saved enough to bring over three brothers. Paul went on to become the patriarch of the Everett commercial fishing industry and they brothers became very successful, each skippering his own purse seiner in Alaskan waters.

The Slave immigrants often sponsored relatives who came here to fish, resulting in the birth of an Everett commercial fishing fleet. The Slavs who moved here were a tightly knit group of families, almost all of whom depended on commercial fishing for a livelihood. Those in the fishing industries co-existed with the mills on the waterfront but had little connection with them.

A good number of Everett fishermen came from Scandinavia, too, especially Norway. A country with an extensive coast, Norway had many people who made their living from the sea. When they came here they mainly fished with gillnetters.

And so a thriving Everett waterfront commercial fishing industry became a vital part of the community.