Keep cozy on this longest night of the year, and throughout the season <3
WISHING YOU A PEACEFUL WINTER SOLSTICE
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Kim Smith Films
TREMENDOUS THANKS TO JIM KNOTT, DONOR OF THE 400 LOBSTER TRAPS
Riverdale Mills CEO, Jim Knott, Jr., was in attendance at Saturday evening’s wondrous Lobster Trap Tree lighting. Mr. Knott generously donated the 400 traps used in creating the 2023 Lobster Trap Tree. The gift of 400 traps is permanent and will be used in the building of future trap trees. 400 trees were donated to symbolize Gloucester’s 400th anniversary.
Additionally, the labor for building the 400 traps was donated by Brooks Trap Mill in Thomaston, Maine, and contributions were made by Three Lantern Marine Fishing and Supply, Gloucester.
Jim Knott, as quoted in the Gloucester Daily Times, “We’re here for the lobstermen, and we’re trying to support both the current event and the future,” he said. “The reason for the donation is that we wanted to help the community out. The lobster fishing industry is a big part of our business and we have a long history in the lobster industry making wire mesh that was invented in Gloucester. My father has two patents that date back to the 1960s and that wire mesh supplanted wood almost completely (for lobster traps).”
The wire mesh, called Aquamesh, that you see inside modern lobster traps, was invented by Jim’s Dad, James Knott, Sr. He spent summers on Cape Ann with his family, fishing for lobsters during his teenage years. Mr. Knott knew there had to be a better lobster trap. Since the mid-1960s, he “had been tinkering with designs for wire lobster traps. The traditional wooden traps were buoyant and needed to be weighed down with bricks or rocks to sink. Once immersed, they became water logged and extremely heavy. They also wore out more quickly than metal cages.” James Knott converted an abandoned mill on the banks of the Blackstone River, in Northbridge, Massachusetts, which had been used to manufacture bayonets during the Civil War, and founded Riverdale Mills to manufacture coated wire and Aquamesh.
For more information read here:
The Wall Street Journal: James Knott Pioneered Modern Lobster Traps and fended off the EPA
Worcester Business Journal: The Backbone of Lobster Traps
Gloucester daily Times by Gail McCarthy: Gloucester’s Lobster Trap Tree Grows
