merchants in Elizabeth City and 

 Norfolk for 40 cents a gallon. One 

 dolphin's oil earned at most $3.20, 

 and an entire season's catch would 

 sell for less than $4,000. That profit 

 was divided by shares, one share per 

 man plus extra shares to the factory 

 owner. By the time the costs of gear, 

 rations and maybe a tad of apple 

 brandy were subtracted, the take- 

 home pay was slim. 



Yet during the heyday of the 

 dolphin industry, Outer Banks families 

 had few sources of income. Watermen 

 earned a bit of cash as sailors and 

 pilots, but little money was made 

 commercial fishing until early in the 

 20th century. Although barter and self- 

 sufficiency were still the rule through- 

 out coastal North Carolina, watermen 

 increasingly wanted cash for a few 

 luxuries — a new oyster dredge like 

 the ones used by the Chesapeake Bay 

 watermen or a bolt of calico or denim 

 that might spare their wives a month 

 of late-night weaving. Hunting 

 dolphins was one of the few ways to 

 afford such labor-saving items. 



Oil was the inspiration for dolphin 

 hunting, but it wasn't the only dolphin 

 product. George Sparks, a manager of 

 a Hatteras dolphin factory, reported in 

 1885 that the hides made "an excellent 

 article of leather." He also indicated, 

 rather optimistically, that he was 

 experimenting with making sausage 

 from dolphin meat. Two of the state's 

 other up-and-coming coastal industries 

 — the menhaden fishery and the 

 guano business — seemed to suggest 

 that dolphin carcasses might even 

 make good fertilizer. 



The best surviving portrait of a 

 dolphin fishery comes from John W. 

 Rollinson, an Outer Banks man born 

 in 1827. Rollinson lived at Trent 

 Woods (now Frisco) near Cape 

 Hatteras. Like most bankers, he did a 

 bit of everything to make a living. He 

 was a schoolmaster, port collector, 

 seaman, fisher — and the superinten- 

 dent at Col. Jonathan Wainright's 

 dolphin factory located halfway 

 between Hatteras and Frisco. For 



years, Rollinson kept a journal about 

 local happenings, including deaths, 

 shipwrecks, weather and the number 

 of dolphins slaughtered at Wainright's 

 factory. 



During the 1886-87 season, 

 Rollinson's crews caught 1,313 

 dolphins. They had their hands full 

 when they caught 618 dolphins in 

 November alone, but that changed 

 dramatically by spring. In March, they 

 put their boats into the surf only six 

 times and only twice in May. 



One haul could make or break a 

 year. On March 16, 1887, Rollinson's 

 crews captured 136 dolphins in a 

 single day. That was the largest haul 

 in his journal, but editors at The 

 Weekly Record in Beaufort reported a 

 bigger catch the year before at the 

 dolphin fishery at Rice Path, a tiny 

 fishing village on the western end of 

 Bogue Banks. The Rice Path 

 watermen reportedly netted 219 

 dolphins in a single haul. 



The hopes for the dolphin fishery 

 rose and fell frequently during the last 

 decades of the 19th century. In the 

 winter of 1887, The Weekly Record 

 observed the booming industry with 

 relish. "Over 600 porpoises have been 

 caught this season at Mr. D. Bell's 

 porpoise fishery on Bogue Banks," the 

 newspaper reported that April. The 

 newspaper recorded that three dolphin 

 fisheries operated in Carteret County 

 that year, and a new factory was being 

 built at Harkers Island. 



The same year, a dolphin factory 

 at Hatteras reportedly employed 200 

 hands and caught 2,874 dolphins. 

 Commercial fishing's boosters 

 dreamed that the dolphin industry 

 might become one of the state's 

 leading fisheries, perhaps on par with 

 the mullet fishery that stretched from 

 Ocracoke to Bear Inlet or the shad 

 fishery centered on the lower Neuse 

 River. The Weekly Record editors 

 encouraged local fishers "to at once 

 engage in the catching of Porpoise." 



However, the markets for dolphin 

 oil fell in the 1890s. And though a 

 dolphin fishery still operated at 



Hatteras as late as the 1920s, the 

 visions of a multitude of dolphin 

 factories churning out oil, leather 

 and fertilizer — to say nothing of 

 sausage — never materialized. The 

 peak season seems to have been 

 1 886-87, when four or five factories 

 processed upward of 4,000 dolphins. 

 Overharvesting was probably a 

 factor in the industry's decline. At 

 the Hatteras fishery, the number of 

 dolphins fell in the late 1880s, until 

 Rollinson recorded a catch of only 

 579 during the 1888-89 season. 



It would not be fair to judge the 

 hunters by our modern attitudes 

 toward dolphins. In the last several 

 decades, marine biologists have 

 revealed dolphins to have a lively 

 intelligence that has made them 

 seem spiritual kin to humans. A 

 hundred years ago, dolphins were 

 just another mammal, like deer or 

 cattle. Indeed, many watermen 

 considered dolphins a pest because 

 they ate fish that could be caught and 

 consumed by humans. "I believe that 

 in destroying the porpoise we are 

 doing for all engaged in the fishing 

 industry a great service," Sparks 

 wrote in 1885. 



I don't think ill of our dolphin 

 hunters of yesteryear, nor do I rue 

 them the food and clothing that 

 dolphin oil provided for their 

 families. But as I give thanks during 

 this holiday season, I am grateful 

 that conservationists had the 

 foresight to protect marine mammals 

 by law in the 1 920s and that we can 

 still see dolphins in our coastal 

 waters. It is one of many small 

 miracles we should never forget. □ 



David Cecelski is a historian at 

 the University of 

 North Carolina- 

 Chapel Hill's 

 Southern Oral 

 History Program 

 and a regular 

 columnist for 

 Coastwatch. 



COASTWATCH 23 



