Further expansion of the company consisted in the acquisition 

 of Chisolm's Island near the coast of South Carolina, con- 

 struction of a plant for cracking and washing phosphate rock 

 on the Ball River side of the island, and establishment of a 

 processing plant in Charleston, S. C. From the initial pro- 

 duction (in 1865) of 7,540 sacks of fertilizer weighing 200 

 pounds each, the output reached 11,420 tons in 1871 (the 

 year of Baird's arrival) and continued to grow until the combined 

 annual production in 1879 of the works at Woods Hole and 

 Charleston reached from 40, 000 to 45, 000 tons of guano 

 fertilizer. 



Baird was greatly impressed by the idea of utilizing 

 menhaden and other fishes for the production of guano fertilizer 

 and considered it a worthwhile project. In a letter dated 

 October 18, 187 5, to John M. Glidden, treasurer of the Pacific 

 Guano Works Company, Baird urged him "to make a display 

 of your wares at the centennial (in Philadelphia), as this is 

 one of the most important interests in the United States. " He 

 writes further that "there is no species (of fish) worked up 

 elsewhere comparable to the movement with the menhaden, 

 or pogy, as to numbers and the percentage of oil. The combi- 

 nation, too, of the pogy scrap with the South Carolina 

 phosphates and the guanos of the West Indies and of the Pacific, 

 are also quite novel, and as being especially an American 

 industry, are eminently worthy of full appreciation. " 



While the scientists, agriculturalists, and stockholders 

 of the company thought very highly of the guano works, the 

 existence of a malodorous plant was not appreciated by the 

 residents of Woods Hole who suffered from a strongly offensive 

 odor whenever the wind was from the west. Woods Hole might 

 have continued to grow as one of the factory towns of Massachusetts 

 but, fortunately for the progress of science and good fortune of 

 its residents (except those who invested their savings in the 

 shares of Pacific Guano Works), the company began to decline 

 and became bankrupt in 1889. 



Cessation of business and heavy monetary losses brought 

 financial disaster to many residents of W'oods Hole. The gloom 

 prevailing in the village after the closing of the guano works 

 began to dissipate, however, with the development of Woods Hole 

 as a place of scientific research and with the increasing tourist 

 trade. The factory buildings were torn down, the chimney which 

 dominated the Woods Hole landscape was dynamited, and over 

 100,000 pounds of lead lining the acid chambers were salvaged 

 (Crowell, 1961). Large cement vats and the remnants of the 

 old wharf remained; in the following years the latter became a 

 favored place for summer biologists to collect interesting marine 

 animals and plants. 



The years from 1871 to the death of Baird in 1887 were the 

 formative period of the new era of Woods Hole as a scientific center. 



