Location: Ventura County, California

Name is indirectly derived from a nearby bench mark. Neither the USGS nor the USFS recognize this as the summit name on any map. But the HPS chose the current spot to receive our use-name because of a find on the exploratory hike. A few of the hikers had suggested beforehand to Leader Paul Lipsohn that "Haddock" not be recommended because the named VABM was on a slope and not the crest. Lipsohn was somewhat disgruntled, until they gained the top. There, he found a new USFS sign with the name "Haddock Mtn", and so he triumphantly yelled out "serendipity". The sign had just been placed near there by USFS surveyor John Boggs in 1969. At the time he was in charge of a trail crew that had built a new campground nearby and had also just completed a trail from it to the top of this ridge. Ojai Resource Officer George Roby (who later became the Angeles N.F. Supervisor) thought that since this new trail was a nice climb it would be most appropriate to name this summit, and so he ordered this sign. The point on which Boggs originally placed it appeared to be the high point from the new trail-but it wasn't. Boggs doesn't know how it came to be named or moved nearer the actual high point where it was later viewed by Lipsohn. The precedent of Weldon Heald accepting many "unofficial" names found on summit signs decided the matter. Although our bylaws do not consider use-names to be valid unless they are already commonly employed among Sierra Club members, they do give the Management Committee considerable discretion to decide when dubious names become transmuted into valid ones by being judged "in use".

Lastly, there was some question as to the validity of the name "Haddock" on the benchmark. Jim Pridgen of the USGS Geodetic Control Unit in Denver (responsible for all benchmarks in the western U.S.), found the folder containing information on this area with this note appended: "information on Haddock not in file". Upon completion of an exhaustive search of all other sources he discovered that (1) this summit was not surveyed by the USGS, (2) there is no documentation available, so by today's standards it no longer qualifies as a third order VABM, and a new survey team will not be available to "reoccupy" the site to collect new data, thus (3) all mention of "Haddock" is to be removed from the Lion Canyon topo in the next re-mapping which is now in progress and due in 1993. Pridgen believes that the name was borrowed from an earlier U.S. Army Map Service topo, however this entity no longer exists. Old Army maps are not kept by the Army Corps of Engineers. The National Archives in Laguna Niguel is a repository but has yet to catalog its random selection of War Department maps-believed to number 55,000 items. The new Defence Mapping Agency (which superseded the USAMS) does not hold on to earlier data because it now orders all of its maps from. the USGS.

At this point, Jim Blakley discovered that there once was a "Haddock Camp" shown on A Campers Guide to the Tri-County Area (n.d.). Also, a USFS map of the Los Padres N.F. (1938) explains that "this site was once a hunting camp frequented by members of a local family". Blakley adds that this public camp was first set up by the CCC, and that the name of the Haddock Family has locally been extended to this peak since the early 1930's.

Haddock Mountain may have been named after R.B. Haydock Jr. (ca. 1867-1937), a native of New York, whose family located nearby in 1873. He graduated from the State Normal School (1885), founded the Hueneme School (1886), was appointed to the Ventura Board of Education (1888), and elected County Clerk (1890). Reference to him may be found in A Memorial and Biographical History of .. Ventura California (1891). This peak name has long been pronounced "hay-dock" (see: HPS Peak Guides) for previously unknown reasons. Place names are notorious for being tortured in later transcription and it is possible that this may have occurred here as well.

Nonetheless, Frank and Ruth Dobos insist that Haddock is so named because "the shape of the mountain resembles the fish" and for no other reason.

Called "Haddock Point" on the 1971 UPS ballot.

VABM first appears on AMS Lion Canyon topo (1943).

Peak was added to the HPS Peak List in 1971.