A HISTORIAN'S 



COAST 



The Navassa G 

 but the tow 



factory, with its own school, a livery stable, 

 a restaurant, about 20 houses and at least 

 five bunkhouses for unmarried workers. 

 Moss' mother vividly recalled the commu- 

 nity life in Pocomoke. "We would get 

 together, cook and talk and eat and have 

 church in each others' home," her mother 

 told her. "They'd go to each others' houses 

 and sing and pray. It stayed that way for 

 years." 



Other fertilizer factories depended 

 heavily on the local mining of marl, 

 fossilized seashells rich in a calcium that had 

 the much-desired effect of fixing nitrogen in 

 manured soils. Expansive marl deposits can 

 be found throughout much of the North 

 Carolina coast, and they were first mined 

 commercially just after the Civil War. 



G.Z. French's lime and phosphate 

 facility at Rocky Point was perhaps the best- 

 known of these operations. Like many 

 fertilizer pioneers, French got into the 



uano Co. has fallen into disrepair, 

 n it built boasts 600 residents. 



business via his agricultural interests. He 

 was an innovative farmer with extensive 

 holdings of truck vegetables, and he 

 continued to farm while he engaged in the 

 fertilizer trade. 



A different kind of fertilizer company 

 operated at Cronly, about 17 miles west of 

 Wilmington. Established in 1883, the Acme 

 Manufacturing Co. concentrated on cotton- 

 seed oil. According to the 1884 North 

 Carolina Business Directory, the 10-acre 

 factory complex also made fertilizers out of 

 "peanuts, palm kernels, linseed, flax-seed or 

 any other oil-yielding substance which they 

 can obtain" and experimented with using oil 

 distilled from longleaf pine needles. 



Even the menhaden industry was a 

 part of the guano business. According to 

 Barbara Garrity-Blake, author of a 

 fascinating portrait of the menhaden 

 industry called The Fish Factory, the 

 name "menhaden" comes from the Native 



American word 

 munnawhatteaug, 

 meaning "that which 

 manures." The 

 menhaden factories in 

 Beaufort, Morehead 

 City and Southport 

 would eventually 

 produce mostly fish 

 meal, an important 

 additive to livestock 

 feed. But into the 

 1910s and 1920s, the 

 menhaden catch was 

 used principally for oil 

 and guano. By 1907, 

 North Carolina had at 

 least 10 fish factories 

 that processed about 

 57 million pounds of 

 menhaden, much of it 

 destined for the 

 Navassa Guano Co. 



This forgotten 

 tale of our fertilizer 

 industry may not be 

 the most romantic part 

 of our coastal history. 

 We're talking about 

 bird droppings and manure, after all. But 

 that doesn't mean that we should forget it. 

 Countless souls shoveled guano and 

 phosphate rock in our ports. Many others 

 sweated through 12-hour shifts in sulfuric 

 acid factories or trudged through the darkest 

 nights to make the first shift at fish factories 

 and marl mines. 



These mostly unremembered workers 

 tried to make a decent living and build a 

 better future. They worked hard, a lot of 

 them died young — and I don't expect many 

 of them got a fair shake. But they're as much 

 a part of our coastal past as anybody. Their 

 stories remind us of how many coastal 

 voices have not yet been heard. And, lest we 

 forget, they remind us that there is often a 

 big story in even the smallest places. □ 



David Cecelski is a historian at the 

 University of North Carolina-Chapel 

 Hill's Southern Oral History Program. 



COASTWATCH 23 



