the extra help, lots of times we would bust a net. A 

 cotton net just couldn't hold as much weight as the 

 nylon ones do now," he says. 



By the time Simpson was working the menhaden 

 boats, the fish were no longer being used for fertilizer. 

 During the turn of the century, the dried fish scrap 

 was being mixed into feeds for poultry, swine and cat- 

 tle. Menhaden oil was used in the manufacture of 

 soaps, paints, linoleum and waterproof fabrics. 



Following World War II, the industry grew rapidly 

 and reached peak production between 1953 and 1962. 

 By then, spotter planes were used to sight the "pur- 

 ple" schools of menhaden from the air. Nylon nets 

 replaced cotton nets. Pumps sucked the fish from the 

 nets through hoses to the hold. And hydraulic power 

 blocks winched aboard the nets. 



In 1961, eight menhaden plants were operating in 

 North Carolina, most of them in the Morehead 

 City/Beaufort area. During North Carolina's fall 

 fishery, which lasted from mid-October until Decem- 

 ber, menhaden boats crowded into Beaufort, many 

 hailing from northern states. 



"They'd have a big parade in Beaufort when the 

 boats came back during the fall," says William E. 

 Edwards, manager of Standard Products' North 

 Carolina plants. "There'd be 50 menhaden boats tied 

 up along Front Street. The boats bought their 

 groceries here, their fuel here. The people of Beaufort 

 were glad to see us." 



But after 1962, sharp declines in catches closed 

 several factories and reduced fleets in North Carolina. 

 The fishery stabilized during the early 1970s, but 

 never recovered its former production. Substantial 

 catches in the Gulf of Mexico fishery, begun during 

 early 1900s, had drawn most of the big companies 

 southward, taking with them some of the Carteret 

 County families who worked in the fishery. 



— Kathy Hart 



N.C. Division of Archives and History Photo 



Photo by Scott Taylor 



Berkeley Simpson, above, 

 captained a menhaden boat 

 for forty years. He remembers 

 the days of striker boats, cot- 

 ton nets and chanteys. 



This 1884 photograph, at 

 left, shows an old menhaden 

 scrap-and-oil factory near 

 Beaufort. Today, menhaden 

 are pressed, dried and ground 

 into chicken feed. The oil is 

 extracted and shipped to 

 Europe for use in margarine. 



