seine, developed in the 1830s, allowed fishermen to net 

 large quantities of fish. Before development of the 

 purse seine, fishermen caught menhaden in gill nets or 

 haul seines they worked from the beach. 



A purse seine is a large "curtain" type net, hung be- 

 tween surface floats and weights along its base. Two 

 boats, called purse boats, drop the net in a circle. 

 When a school of fish is enclosed, a heavy weight 

 called a "torn" is attached to the purse line and drop- 

 ped overboard. The purse line is then pulled in, caus- 

 ing the bottom of the seine to close like a purse. 



Sailing sloops and schooners were the first boats to 



mm ' ' 



use purse seines to catch menhaden; purse boats were 

 oar-driven yawls. After the Civil War, coal-fired 

 steamers were introduced and, during the 1930s, 

 diesel-powered vessels began to replace steamers. 



"The first boat I worked on when I started working 

 in 1929 was a diesel," says Simpson. "They were small 

 boats, only held about 300,000 to 400,000 pounds. We 

 didn't go out far, to Hatteras or Frying Pan Shoals. 

 And we came in every night because the boats weren't 

 refrigerated then and the fish would spoil." 



Simpson started work as an engineer aboard his 

 first boat and within two years made captain. "We 

 used to spot schools from the masthead," he says. 

 "We might run all day without finding a school. We 

 looked for a dark spot or a ripple on the water. When 

 we found a school, we dropped the striker off and put 

 him on the fish. Then we dropped the purse boats and 

 the striker guided the boats to the school." 



The men in the purse boats would set the net, then 

 begin hauling it in by hand (see chantey story, page 

 6). As more and more of the net was hauled aboard the 

 purse boats, the fish were compressed into the butt of 

 the net. Then the large boat, called the mother ship, 

 would come alongside the net and the purse boats 

 would form a triangle against her side. A large dip net 

 was used to scoop the fish out of the purse net and into 

 the ship's hold. 



"If we had a fast crew and the catch wasn't too big, 

 we could get the fish on the boat in half-an-hour," 

 says Nathaniel Jackson of Beaufort. Jackson worked 

 his way from cook to captain during his 50 years of 

 working menhaden boats from New York to Texas. 

 "All the work was done by hand when I first started 

 working on the boats. It was a back-breaking job, but 

 I wouldn't have done anything else." 



Simpson says that if the set was a large one crews 

 from other boats would help to pull in the net, even if 

 they worked for another company. "But even with 



N.C. Division of Archives and History Photo 



An early steam-powered 

 fishing boat plys the waters in 

 search of menhaden. Steam- 

 powered vessels replaced sail- 

 ing sloops and schooners 

 shortly after the Civil War 

 ( above). 



Before purse seines, fisher- 

 men used haul seines like the 

 one at right to catch men- 

 haden. During this big haul 

 at Sutton's Beach along the 

 Albemarle Sound, everyone 

 turned out to help. 



