Name Charles Holder | ||
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Died 1915, Pasadena, California, United States Books Living lights, Life in the Open: Sport with, Fish Stories Alleged a, Along the Florida Reef, Elements of zoology | ||
Charles Frederick Holder (1851–1915) was the inventor of big-game fishing and a founder of Pasadena's Tournament of Roses and the Tuna Club of Avalon on Santa Catalina Island, California.
Biography
Holder came from a wealthy Massachusetts Quaker family. His father was the zoologist Joseph Bassett Holder (1824-1888) and his mother Emily Augusta Gove. He attended the Friends' school in Providence, Rhode Island, and Allen's preparatory school at West Newton, Massachusetts, as well as from private tutors. In 1869, he attended the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis but he did not continue in the Navy after graduation.
After working as a curator at New York's American Museum of Natural History, he moved to Pasadena, California in 1885. A passionate naturalist throughout his life, he was known for his books on marine zoology and the first books on big-game fishing, a sport Holder pioneered in 1898. His books are noted for their combination of accurate scientific detail with exciting narratives.
From 1890 to 1891, Holder was a President of the Tournament of Roses Association, and for 1910 he was named the tournament grand marshal. He became known in Pasadena, California, as a businessman, philanthropist, and conservationist/sportsman. In 1898, he founded the Tuna Club of Avalon in Avalon, California on Santa Catalina Island, California, as an international organization that called for proper management of all game fish.
In 1910, he traveled with Frederick Russell Burnham to Mexico and uncovered Mayan artifacts, including the Esperanza Stone, a supposedly paranormal relic described in The Book of the Damned.
Holder died in Pasadena as a result of an automobile accident and is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, California, next to his wife, Sarah Elizabeth Ufford Holder (1852-1925).
In 1998, he was inducted in the International Game Fish Association Hall of Fame.