1 ARRIVING IN WOODS HOLE 



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23 



from the post-Civil War economic depression suffered elsewhere through- 

 out the United States over the next few years. As one man noted, "the 

 concept, and the product, reeked of ingenuity." That was the problem. 

 Producing fertilizer was a great idea, and using otherwise worthless bird 

 droppings made sense, but it smelled awful. At its height, around 1879, the 

 factory employed 150 to 200 workers and processed 40,000 tons of fertilizer. 

 In 1887, it still served as a strong aromatic deterrent to tourist development 

 but its end was near. Cheaper fertilizer elsewhere doomed the plant, so that 

 it closed in 1888, causing a local depression. 1887 and 1888 were good times 

 for the wealthy to move into Woods Hole, as the smell was leaving and 

 before the land increased in price and when the economic conditions would 

 have provided cheap labor for household help. 



The group from Boston liked Woods Hole. They decided officially to 

 form the Marine Biological Laboratory, with Hyatt as first president of the 

 board of trustees, and to move to Woods Hole. With $10,000 raised over the 

 winter months, they incorporated on March 20, 1888. 



They really did not have enough money to hire a director and a teacher. 

 First, the trustees sounded out Williams College biologist Samuel Clarke. He 

 responded to the effect that they must be crazy. "Let us consider some of 

 the points: " he wrote, 'the offer is, for me to pay my expenses to Wood's Hole, 

 to continue paying my expenses through the summer and my return ex- 

 penses home; also to take all the burden of organizing the Laboratory, 



Guano factory is to the left in back. The legend on the back of this picture reads: "This 

 point of land, sometimes called Refiige Point, was given to the U.S. Fish Commission by 

 Joseph Story Fay." MBL Archives. 



