Brown Trout

On April 11, 1884, the first recorded planting of brown trout (Salmo pariole) in the United States was made into the Pere Marquette River system by the Northville, Michigan, Federal Fish Hatchery. The trout eggs from which the planting of forty-nine hundred fry was made had been obtained from Baron Friedrich Von Behr of Berlin, Germany, by Fred Mather, superintendent of the Cold Spring Harbor Federal Fish Hatchery at Long Island, New York. Some brown trout eggs had been shipped to the United States and distributed to various fisheries in the country for observation in 1883, but the Northville station was the first to stock American waters with the fish. From this beginning, the species (known in Germany as Bachforelle) has become widely established throughout the United States.