Menhaden was the “big fish” in Lewes until the industry abruptly

the
one
that
got
away
Menhaden was the “big
fish” in Lewes until the
industry abruptly went
B Y PA M G E O R G E
belly up
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It was the early 1950s, and Lewes in summer was a
bustling town. Grocery merchants struggled to keep food on
shelves, and it was hard to rent a cottage. Most of the visitors
were not tourists. They were seasonal fishermen and boat
captains with big appetites, both of whom the town
welcomed with open pocketbooks.
Yet when the wind blew a certain way, an unpleasant visitor crept around the houses and down Second Street. It was
the pungent aroma of menhaden, wafting from the fish factories along the Delaware Bay. Some compared it to burnt
fish. Others said it smelled like dead bodies.
“It was terrible,” recalls Lewes historian Hazel Brittingham. “It was a bad smell.” She remembers one tourist on
Lewes Beach who sprayed her bed pillow with perfume and
buried her nose in it to drown out the stench.
For Lewes residents, the occasional unpleasant odor was
worth it. “The old thought was that the fish smelled
like money,” Brittingham says. “And, of course, it
did.”
Although decidedly unattractive, the foulsmelling menhaden created a beautiful industry
that fueled the town’s economy. “Lewes was the
number one fishing port in the country in the mid1950s,” Brittingham says.
By 1953, Lewes was landing 390 million pounds
of fish, all menhaden except for 30 million pounds
of food fish, according to the book “The Men All
Singing: The Story of Menhaden Fishing,” by John
Frye. Lewes accounted for a quarter of all menhaden
landings on the East and Gulf coasts.
More than a decade later, the fish factories were
closed, and the workers were gone. It was, Britting-
ham says, a staggering phenomenon to witness in
her lifetime. Yet in many respects, the demise of the
industry would transform Lewes from a workingclass fishing village into a tony tourist town.
Working on menhaden
boats was a strenuous
job. In this 1956 photograph, men pull nets that
have trapped as many as
50,000 fish.
The handy, dandy menhaden
In the 21st century, the word “menhaden” mostly appears in headlines about fish kills. In August,
for instance, thousands of dead fish washed ashore
in Massachusetts and New Jersey. The deaths were
attributed to warm water, which depletes oxygen
levels.
But for centuries, the Atlantic menhaden
(Brevoortia tyrannus) was well known and highly
prized. Its sizzle was not in the frying pan. “Menhaden is not a food fish,” says Thomas E. Brown,
Photograph courtesy of Col. Riley E. McGarraugh Collection/Archives of The Lewes Historical Society
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THE PROCESS
Menhaden fishing involved a large ship and two smaller net-pulling boats. Guided by
spotter planes, the large ship would position itself ahead of the school, and the smaller
boats would travel in the opposite direction of the fish, encircling them with a net. When
the two smaller boats met at the back of the school, they would drop a 500-pound weight
to close the net like a drawstring purse. The thousands of trapped menhaden would be
shocked with a slight electric charge, then scooped onto the mother ship.
A large dip net scoops menhaden from the net shown on page 43, and deposits them onto the
larger mother ship, which would then deliver the fish to processing plants along the Delaware Bay
in Lewes.
the retired manager of archival services at the National
Archives in Washington, D.C., and a Lewes Historical Society
volunteer studying the Lewes industry. “It is a factory fish.”
Those who did eat menhaden primarily did so out of
necessity or optimism. In the 18th and 19th centuries, thousands of barrels of salted menhaden were shipped to West
Indian plantations to serve as food. In 1942, Lewis Radcliffe,
director of the Oyster Institute of America, reported that he
had eaten canned menhaden and found it “very good food.”
Most people didn’t agree. Menhaden is considered too oily,
scaly and boney to eat.
Although you won’t find menhaden on coastal restaurant
menus, you can thank menhaden for the fish you do consider eating. Take bluefish, bonito, weakfish, striped bass,
swordfish and cod, all of which eat menhaden.
Chickens and pigs consume menhaden as fish meal in
their food. Menhaden is also valued for its oil — which has
been used in such everyday items as lipstick, soap, varnish
and rust-resistant paint — and as a diet supplement. Fishermen use menhaden for bait.
But menhaden rose to fame as fertilizer, and that is where
its American tale begins.
A good catch
The Narragansett Indians, who called the fish “munnawhatteaug,” which eventually became “menhaden” in
English, taught the Pilgrims to use menhaden to fertilize
their fields. Some go so far as to credit this technique for
helping to keep the Pilgrims alive.
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The fish are small for such a weighty role. Menhaden
weigh up to a pound and measure 12 to 15 inches long,
according to George Brown Goode in his 1880 book “A History of Menhaden,” which is still cited in current research.
The migrating fish are found along the Atlantic Seaboard,
from Maine to Florida, up into brackish bays and rivers, and
as far east as the Gulf Stream. A variation of the species lives
in the Gulf of Mexico and along South America’s Atlantic
coast.
In whatever waters, the menhaden’s traveling habits help
fishermen land colossal catches. Packed in ranks, head to tail,
side to side, the fish gather in the hundreds of thousands to
create gigantic schools. The menhaden’s group mentality —
and the fact it swims on the water’s surface — makes it ripe
pickings for predators, including humans.
Depending on the era, all types of vessels — sloops,
schooners, steamers and diesel boats — have been used to
corral the menhaden’s large schools, primarily using a purse
seine, a large net that fishermen can pull closed like a drawstring purse, thereby capturing the fish in the pouch. A single net was often as large as a football field and could catch
40,000 to 50,000 fish. Much like rowing or hoeing, the repetitive exercise of cinching, pulling and hauling inspired ditties
with refrains, which the men sang as the fish were hauled
onto the boat. They continued singing these “sea chanteys”
even when hydraulic lifts came into play.
From a towering crow’s nest — and later an airplane — a
school of menhaden appears as a purple or reddish slick on
the water. There might be an occasional ripple or dimple on
Illustration by Rob Waters
the surface. (See “Aerial Fish Spotters” on
page 48.)
Fishermen also look for signs of turmoil, such as churning water and hovering gulls, evidence of attacks by bluefish
and other predators. When bluefish ravage a school, it is a horrific and memorable sight. “Attacking from below and
behind to slash the menhaden bodies
with their powerful jaws, the razortoothed blues are in a killing frenzy, gorging themselves,” writes H. Bruce Franklin
in “The Most Important Fish in the Sea.”
Franklin’s book is aptly named, considering the fever that menhaden inspired
beginning in the 19th century.
Going for the gold
In the early 19th century, America was
heavily dependent on whale oil. Whaling,
though, was a costly industry requiring
ships, manpower and long sea voyages
that could last years.
Legend has it that a Maine housewife
found that boiling menhaden and skimming off the oil made an excellent substitute for expensive whale oil. Certainly,
menhaden were easy to catch, which
added to the species’ cost-effectiveness.
The need for both oil and fertilizer
spiked the demand for menhaden, and
technological advances in processing in
the mid-19th century helped boost the
industry. As whaling declined, the menhaden industry soared.
Later, the role of menhaden increased
when attention turned to its use as a protein and vitamin supplement in animal
feed, says Russ McCabe, former Delaware
archivist, who researched the menhaden
industry for a historical marker, now
located near the U.S. Life-Saving Station
boathouse on the canal in Lewes.
Savvy businessmen realized that success — and a steady income — depended
on following the migrating fish. The fisheries had primarily been located in New
England to the north and then along the
Chesapeake Bay, Virginia and the Southern states. “That left a huge gap,” Brown
says.
Lewes was an ideal halfway point and
featured an established town. Apparently,
the town was also willing, as evidenced by
the fact that it leased land along the
Delaware Bay to the factories. The location (near the present site of the Cape
May-Lewes Ferry terminal) was deemed
far enough away from downtown to keep
the odor at bay. As it came to pass, that
was not always the case.
In 1883, the Luce Brothers of Niantic,
Conn., and S.S. Brown & Co. out of New
York built the first menhaden processing
plants in Lewes. It was not an inexpensive
endeavor. Brown estimates that building a
fish factory cost from $10,000 to $40,000
(About $220,000 to $900,000 today).
The two factories lasted until 1896,
Brown says. Enterprising businessmen
descended on the town as the plants —
there were only three at any give time, he
Photograph courtesy of Col. Riley E. McGarraugh Collection/Archives of The Lewes Historical Society
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notes — passed hands. One
owner was Joseph Wharton,
namesake of the Wharton
School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Others
included Albert Morris and
James C. Fisher of Reedville, Va.
Most of the owners were outof-towners. “They were identified as from Connecticut or New
York or northern New Jersey,”
Brown says. “They did not physically relocate here.”
That changed in 1911, when
local men started the Lewes Fisheries. Officers included William
C. Lofland and David Burbage.
Harlan Joseph of the Midway
area was also involved, and he
would later purchase the plant
and rename it Atlantic Fisheries.
The Delaware Fish Oil Company was led by Ebe Tunnell,
Thomas R. Ingram and Dr.
William P. Orr Jr. The company
failed in 1916, and the Hayes
brothers — Thomas, Richard
and John — bought it. In 1923, the Hayes brothers took
over the Coast Guard Oil Company factory, built in
1912, and renamed both plants Consolidated Fisheries.
Then, in 1938, Otis Smith came to Lewes, and nothing would ever be the same.
Building an empire
Born in Brooklyn in 1909, Otis Smith earned a law
degree from Brooklyn Law School, but it was the pungent aroma of fish and not the comforting smell of
musty old books and worn leather that intoxicated him.
Instead of practicing law, Smith joined J. Howard
Smith Inc., the family business that his father, Julian
Howard Smith, and his uncle, Gilbert P. Smith, founded
in 1911. The New York company caught, bought and
processed menhaden in New England.
Smith was no stranger to the business. As a child, he
and his two brothers, Gilbert and Harvey, helped
unload fish and push them in wheelbarrows. Using
hand-dragged, wooden-tooth harrows or big rakes,
they turned the drying fish.
The company initially depended on independent
operators who used “pound boats,” sloops about 36 feet
long that could hold four or five men and 300 bushels
of fish, about 30,000 menhaden. Eventually, the company would have its own boats.
Realizing that they needed to be where the fish were,
the Smiths expanded, buying up existing plants along
the East Coast. Gilbert Smith headed up a Milford plant
for a year. In 1931, Harvey built a plant in Beaufort,
N.C., and in 1934, Otis Smith bought a factory in Fernadina Beach, Fla. In 1938, Gilbert P. Smith bought the
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Atlantic Fisheries plant in Lewes from Harlan Joseph, In the 1950s and early
and asked his nephew, Otis, to run it. It was renamed 1960s, menhaden
processing plants, and
the Fish Products Company of Delaware.
the docks for the fishIn Lewes, the Smiths were up against the Hayes
ing fleet, dominated
the bayshore in Lewes,
brothers’ business. The brothers were originally from
where today stand the
Pawtucket, R.I., and had moved their business up
Cape Shores and Port
from North Carolina in the early 1920s after a stock
Lewes housing developments. Fort Miles
dispute issue.
and Cape Henlopen are
It was not the first time the Smiths had faced
visible at the top of this
Consolidated Fisheries. Both companies had plants
photograph.
on Long Island, a hotbed for menhaden fishing. The
Hayes brothers kept fleets both in Lewes and in Amagansett on Long Island. Their ships in Amagansett, were
damaged in a 1938 hurricane, and by the 1940s, the
ships in Lewes were showing their age. Indeed, the
newest boat had been built in the 1920s. Consequently,
the Hayes plants relied on privately owned operators
who were paid by the haul.
But Otis Smith built an integrated operation. “It was
completely vertical,” Brown says. “Smith processed fish
caught by his boats commanded by his employees and
staffed by his employees. They came into his factory, and
the products were put on his railway cars.”
On a roll
In the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, the menhaden business in
Lewes prospered. Of course, that was true of the entire
industry. The fishery’s total catch rose almost every year
during the 1940s and 1950s, topping a billion pounds
in 1948 and hitting nearly 1.7 billion in 1953, when 36
plants were operating nationwide. The landings jumped
past 2 billion pounds in 1956.
Photograph courtesy of Col. Riley E. McGarraugh Collection/Archives of The Lewes Historical Society
And no wonder the demand grew, considering menhaden’s varied uses: Fertilizer.
Fish meal. Fish oil. It took a village to catch
and process fish to make these products.
And each summer, Lewes’s ranks swelled as
workers descended on the Delaware coast
for the summer menhaden season, which
generally lasted into October.
Seasonal workers, many of whom slept in
bunkhouses, either fished or worked in the
factories. Many workers were African American. Hazel Brittingham remembers working
at the five-and-dime during high school,
when the African American men came in on
Saturday nights to buy hair pomade. “You
could smell the fish on them,” she recalls.
Otis Smith had a contract with Charles
and Bill Rickards of Rickards & Ramsey
Grocery Store on Savannah Road (the current site of Savannah Wicker) to provide
food for his boats. A nightclub, the Happy
Day Club, once located at Fourth Street
and DuPont Avenue in Lewes, catered to
African Americans.
Most of the captains, who rented cottages, were white. Smith did hire one
African American captain, Adrian Davis,
who in “The Men All Singing” was called “a
top line fisherman,” by Joseph C. Jett, who
owned a plant in Reedville, Va. Many friendships were formed with the captains, their
wives and their children, Brittingham says.
There were a few marriages between locals
and workers.
Smith was a “good plant operator,” Jett
said in the book. “He talked with determination and got what he wanted. Men who
worked for him didn’t need to take other
jobs. He could get anybody he wanted to
take his fish boats. All were top men.”
In World War II, during labor shortages, Smith used German prisoners, who
were housed in the former Civilian Conservation Corps barracks on Savannah
Road (where the Huling Cove housing
project now stands). Although the prisoners were not paid, Smith sent care packages to their families.
The end of World War II signaled an
upswing in modernization. By 1953, Smith
had two plants served by 25 fishing boats.
The Hayes brothers also modernized Consolidated Fisheries, with an electric generating
plant and a fleet of new, fast fishing boats.
In 1954, Smith purchased Consolidated
Fisheries for $3.5 million from Thomas
Hayes, who at that time owned the plant.
The heir to the business, Hayes’ nephew,
was crippled when his racing car missed a
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Aerial Fish Spotters
Guided Menhaden Boats
This is an excerpt from pilot Earl F. Ritter’s
account published in Volume III of the Journal
of the Lewes Historical Society.
I began to work as a flying fish spotter
in 1955 and continued until 1966, when
the commercial menhaden fishing operation in Lewes shut down permanently.
We flew Piper PA-18s, single-engine
aircraft with the fuselage reconfigured to
hold more fuel tanks and with just one
seat for the pilot. At peak times there
were three planes from Rehoboth Airport
[where the housing development behind
the Food Lion is now] and five planes from
New Jersey flying.
May to October was the peak fishing
time, so [we] flew six days a week for up to
eight or nine hours a day. I once worked a
nine-and-a-half-hour day, a long time to sit
in and pilot a small airplane! I liked to fly at
about 1,200 feet altitude; I found that was
best for sighting schools of menhaden. We
looked for dark-colored “stains” on the
water’s surface and determined by the
shape of the stain which direction the
school was moving. This was important to
know, for the fishing boats had to be in
front of the school.
There was no air traffic controller or
altitude or speed rules or assignments.
There were just two rules: that everybody
made only left-handed turns and that the
aircraft from the different companies had
different radio frequencies. All of us had to
be alert and depend on visual sightings to
stay out of trouble. A big problem on a
warm, quiet, low-wind day was staying
awake; nodding off could be fatal!
Each steamer [the big boat] had two
small side boats attached to its stern; these
boats carried 1,100 to 1,400 feet of net 36
feet in depth. When the steamer was positioned in front of the school, the small boats,
traveling together, moved toward the school,
split apart as they reached it and, paying out
the net, encircled the school. When the
boats met at the “back” side of the school, a
500-pound weigh called “the Tom” was
thrown overboard, causing the net to close
up like a zip-lock bag, trapping fish. They
were then stunned by a slight electrical
charge and vacuumed into the steamer to
be taken to the processing plant. ■
turn. Consolidated Fisheries became Seacoast Productions. Smith further improved the plants and added the best of
its fleet to his own.
The tide turns
Russ McCabe remembers visiting
Lewes as a child and immediately thinking, “Oh, my god, I’m glad I don’t live
here.” Like Milton’s cannery, Lewes’s fishing industry often emitted an unwelcoming smell to visitors.
Yet Lewes’s economy gleamed with the
oil of the menhaden industry. Smith paid
to have water and electric lines run under
the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal so the
Lewes Beach area could be developed. He
built an electric substation there, which
he depreciated over time so
the city could purchase
it. In 1951, he supported the University
of Delaware Marine
Laboratories, now the
University of Delaware
College of Earth, Ocean
and Environment,
which in 1980 named a
new laboratory after
him. No wonder the
town elected him mayor
from 1950 to 1968.
Smith, though, kept
his eye on the fish. He saw that the Gulf
of Mexico was the new gold mine for
menhaden, and he focused his attention
on plants there. The Gulf Coast catch
grew from less than 500 million pounds
in 1955 to more than a billion pounds in
1961, nearly half the total catch from
both the East Coast and the Gulf Coast.
Back in Lewes, everything seemed fine
at the October-November close of the
1964 season. But in 1965, Smith did not
open his Seacoast Productions plant
because there were not enough fish to
support its operation. Smith opened the
plant in 1966, but he closed it in the middle of the season. “The fish were not
there; they had declined,” says Brown, of
the Lewes Historical Society.
Such a population crash was not
unheard of. In 1879, menhaden were a
no-show off the coast of Cape Cod. In
1913, at least two East Coast factories
failed due to lack of supply. The sheer
number of fish in a school made them
prone to overfishing.
Smith’s plants in Tuckerton, N.J., and
Southport, N.C., closed. Harvey Smith,
Otis’s brother, converted plants in Beaufort,
N.C., to food fish operations. Otis Smith,
still mayor, trumpeted the future re-opening of the Lewes plants. It never happened.
In 1974, Hanson Trust Limited in
London purchased the Smiths’ umbrella
company, J. Howard Smith. In part, the
sale was blamed on the family’s inability
to agree on the company’s direction. Otis
Smith retired to Lafayette, La. He died in
Alabama in 2001.
The industry in Lewes may have helped
preserve its historic structures. In the 1950s
and 1960s, resort towns watched as the new
replaced the old. Lewes, however, was not a
resort town. McCabe notes, “It was a bluecollar town long after Rehoboth and the
other coastal towns took off.” By the late
1960s, preservation
groups had formed.
After the plants closed,
Lewes could look south
toward Rehoboth for
inspiration. “Lewes was
economically depressed
and a backwater town,”
McCabe says. By the
1980s, commercial fishing
gave way to sport fishing,
Brittingham recalls. The
upscale developments of
Cape Shores and Port
Lewes were built on the former fish factory
sites.
In the 21st century, the most visible
reminder of the Lewes menhaden industry is the Otis Smith City Dock, recently
named in tribute to the man whose contributions to the town went beyond business. The honor follows his posthumous
induction in the Delaware Maritime Hall
of Fame in 2009.
The smell of money in Lewes is no
longer a sickening stench. It is the saltysweet fragrance of the sea breeze, which
tempts the tourists into historic downtown, where they can shop in boutiques,
dine in restaurants and loll on Lewes
Beach. And while they are in town, many
visit the Cannonball House on Front
Street, where maritime displays describe
the long gone, but once great, menhaden
industry. ■
Crashes in menhaden
populations were not
unheard of. The sheer
number of fish in a
school made them
prone to overfishing.
Pam George, a frequent contributor to
Delaware Beach Life, has also been published in
Fortune, US Airways Magazine, The Christian
Science Monitor and Men’s Health.
Photograph courtesy of the University of Delaware
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