The
Porpoise Factory
A lilfle known business tli;il pros¬
pered on llalteras Island for over 100
years, and made* a living for many
families.
By 1.0 U A!\GKI.I.
It began almost two centuries ago.
and from the late 1700s until early
1929. the little known, but important
business venture operated on North
Carolina's Outer Banks. Its several lo¬
cations were in the area a few miles
north of. and later within. Hatteras
Village. Little publicity has been de¬
voted to it during these past decades
and only a few of the hundreds of
thouands of visitors who've passed
through the area over the years are
even aware the venture existed. Refer¬
ence is to the porpoise fishery that
produced oil ;ind other products from
these marine mammals.
It was located at three separate
places on lower Hatteras Island, and
for more than 125 years, with occa¬
sional interruptions, was a familiar
sight (and smell) to every area resi¬
dent.
It may have been an offshoot of early
whaling efforts and it furnished a
livelihood for many Hatteras families,
when most fishing because of cold
weather, was barely worth trying at all.
Technical papers, not generally seen
by the public, have been written, and
some historians have told part of the
story. David Stick, well-known
chronicler of the Outer Banks, through
diligent research, has traced its local
beginnings to a fishery on Ocracoke
Island, that operated in 1797. This is
the earliest documented record for the
North Carolina coast and is noted in
his comprehensive "History of the
Outer Banks" (1958). However, it is
remotely possible that porpoise fishing
on the Banks, may have begun before
that era. Records can become lost in
time.
Local men made up the beach crews
and plant personnel, under the super¬
vision of. generally, people from out of
state. It was a winter/spring activity,
because in those months, the porpoise
migrated in large numbers and more
could be captured as they moved to
favorable feeding areas.
The Beginnings
A detailed description of porpoise
shooting by the Passamaquoddy In¬
dians in the Bay of Fundy. appeared in
Scribner's Monthly Magazine for Oc¬
tober. 1880. It is not known precisely
to what period the article referred, but
it is known the Indians took porpoise
There are records that state porpoise
fishing was " allowed" in the Salem.
Massachusetts area as early as 1740
(The Annals of Salem. Massachu¬
setts). The documents report, in part,
that "Thomas Lee is on a committee to
consider the proposal of William
Paine, of Eastham, ... to catch por¬
poise with a net." The permission was
granted. It provided "that 2 shillings
should be paid by the province trea¬
surer for each middle part of a por¬
poise's tail, delivered on oath, to the
town clerk, where the shipper, or
owner, belonged and that it was caught
in the vessel of the latter." The clerk
then gave a certificate that he had
"consumed the said part."
At various times, numbers of por¬
poise had been taken off Cape Cod.
and during the summer of 1 74 1 . 1 50 of
the mammals were captured at Barn¬
stable. Mass.
It is obvious from the above that
New England was well ahead of North
Carolina in this endeavor, but the most
concentrated efforts became centered
on the Outer Banks some fifty years
later. In the 1880s. it had grown into a
lucrative business on the North Caro¬
lina coast, along the Hatteras/Avon
stretch of beach.
The fishery operated "at a moderate
level" until about I860, when it was
discontinued; possibly because of in¬
tense Civil War activity in the area
near Hatteras Inlet.
The business was revived in the
1883-84 season, by Messers Sharp and
Cook, of Philadelphia; reached its
peak in the 1885-SO period, and
stopped again in 1893. Then, for a few
years the records aren’t clear. It was
still not active in 1902, but during the
years from 1907 through 1914, the
fishery was operated by the William F.
Nyc Company of New Bedford.
Generally, the Hatteras operations
were most productive in the 1800s, and
later, from 1907 until 1929, when it
closed down for all time.
The last operator was a Hatteras
Village native. William Harris Rolin-
Skinning a porpoite on the beach neor Frisco, Feb. 10, 1928. The melon hoi been remotes! from the jaw
section; and from the manner of the cuts, the skin is being token for («other. Shown are men who
accompomed Dr. Remington Kellogg, of the Smithsonian, to the Islond. The larger boy (with cap) is Jarvis
Midgett, of Hofteros, smaller is Augustus Austin, deceased. (Smithsonion Institution — Photo 74-4672)
the state. October imi
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