These quiet, rural conditions, devoid of adventure,
persisted until about 1815, when Woods Hole became an important
whaling station from which ships operated on the high seas.
The whaling industry in the United States became a very profitable
business, and Woods Hole was a part of it. In 1854, the total
receipts for the American whaling fleet amounted to $10.8 million,
the largest part of this amount resulted from whaling carried
out by Massachusetts captains. Woods Hole participated in these
activities and prospered. It is known that between 1815 and
1860, not less than nine whaling ships were making port at the
Bar Neck wharf, which was located where the U.S. Navy building
of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution now stands. The
place was busy processing oil and whalebone and outfitting ships.
A bake house for making sea biscuits for long voyages stood
next to the present "Old Stone Building" built in 1829 as a
candle factory. This conspicuous old landmark on Water Street
of Woods Hole, identified by an appropriate bronze plaque, now
serves as a warehouse for the Marine Biological Laboratory for
storing preserved zoological specimens. About 1860, whaling
became less profitable and Woods Hole entered into the second
phase of its economic life which was dominated by the establishment
and operation of a new commercial venture known as the Pacific
Guano Works.
During the years from 1863 to 1889, when the
Pacific Guano Works was in operation, the life of Woods Hole
centered around the plant which was built at Long Neck near
the entrance to what is known now as Penzance Point (fig. 3).
Many large sailing vessels carrying sulphur from Italy, nitrate
of soda from Chile, potash from Germany, and many schooners
under the American flag loaded with guano and phosphorus from
the Pacific Coast of South America were anchored in Great Harbor
waiting for their turn to unload their cargoes. The number of
laborers regularly employed by the Guano Company varied from
150 to 200 men, mostly Irishmen brought in under contract. Several
local fishermen found additional employment as pilots for guano
ships. The company maintained a store where various goods such
as leather, lead pipe, tin, coal, wood, and other items were
bought and sold. The store acted also as a labor housing agency.
Through efforts of the business manager of the Guano Company,
the Old Colony Railroad was persuaded to extend its branch from
Monument Beach to Woods Hole. The establishment of well-organized
and reliable transportation to Boston was an important factor
in the future life of the community.
The Pacific Guano Works was established by
the shipping merchants of Boston who were seeking cargo for
the return voyage of their ships ( Pacific Guano Company, 1876).
The guano deposits of one of the Pacific islands seemed to furnish
this opportunity. As soon as the joint stock company was organized
in 1859 with the capital of $1 million, arrangements were made
almost immediately by which the newly formed concern came into
possession and control of Howland Island. This island is located
in the middle of the Pacific Ocean at longitude 177° W., a short
distance north of the Equator, about 1,500 miles true south
from Midway Island of the Hawaiian archipelago. At the same
time appropriate plant and docking facilities were built at
Woods Hole and 33 large sailing ships became available for hauling
guano. Unlike the well-known guano islands off the coast of
Peru, Howland Island is located in the zone of abundant rainfall.
Consequently, the guano deposits of the island were leached
of organic components and consisted of highly concentrated phosphate
of lime.
Fertilizer produced by the company was made
by restoring the lost organic matter of the phosphate rock by
adding the right proportion of organic constituents which were
obtained from menhaden, pogy, and other industrial fish which
abound in Cape Cod waters. The rock was pulverized and purified
by washing; fish brought in by local fishermen were first pressed
to extract oil, and the residue digested with sulphuric acid,
washed, and dried. Acid was produced locally from sulphur imported
from Sicily, and the digestion of fish flesh was carried out
in large lead-lined vats. The plant was well equipped with machinery
needed for the process and even had a chemical laboratory where
chemists made the necessary analyses. Various sheds for storage
and drying, barracks for laborers, and a business office completed
the facilities.
When the deposits of phosphate rock on Howland
Island were exhausted, the company acquired title to the Greater
and Lesser Swan Islands from the U.S. Government. These islands
are located in the Caribbean Sea at latitude 17° N. and longitude
83° W. off the coast of Honduras. The islands are only 400 miles
from Key West, Florida, and 500 miles from New Orleans. They
contained good-quality phosphate rock and being much closer
to Woods Hole greatly reduced the voyage time and cost of delivery.
Further expansion of the company consisted in the acquisition
of Chisolm's Island near the coast of South Carolina, construction
of a plant for cracking and washing phosphate rock on the Ball
River side of the island, and establishment of a processing
plant in Charleston, S.C. From the initial production (in 1865)
of 7,540 sacks of fertilizer weighing 200 pounds each, the output
reached 11,420 tons in 1871 (the year of Baird's arrival) and
continued to grow until the combined annual production in 1879
of the works at Woods Hole and Charleston reached from 40,000
to 45,000 tons of guano fertilizer.
Baird was greatly impressed by the idea of
utilizing menhaden and other fishes for the production of guano
fertilizer and considered it a worthwhile project. In a letter
dated October 18, 1875, to John M. Glidden, treasurer of the
Pacific Guano Works Company, Baird urged him "to make a display
of your wares at the centennial (in Philadelphia), as this is
one of the most important interests in the United States." He
writes further that "there is no species (of fish) worked up
elsewhere comparable to the movement with the menhaden, or pogy,
as to numbers and percentage of oil. The combination, too, of
the pogy scrap with the South Carolina phosphates and the guanos
of the West Indies and of the Pacific are also quite novel,
and as being especially an American industry, are eminently
worthy of full appreciation."
While the scientists, agriculturalists, and
stockholders of the company thought very highly of the guano
works, the existence of a malodorous plant was not appreciated
by the residents of Woods Hole who suffered from a strongly
offensive odor whenever the wind was from the west. Woods Hole
might have continued to grow as one of the factory towns of
Massachusetts but, fortunately for the progress of science and
good fortune of its residents (except those who invested their
savings in the shares of Pacific Guano Works), the company began
to decline and became bankrupt in 1889.
Cessation of business and heavy monetary losses
brought financial disaster to many residents of Woods Hole.
The gloom prevailing in the village after the closing of the
guano works began to dissipate, however, with the development
of Woods Hole as a place of scientific research and with the
increasing tourists trade. The factory buildings were torn down,
the chimney which dominated the Woods Hole landscape was dynamited,
and over 100,00 pounds of lead lining the acid chambers were
salvaged (Crowell, 1961). Large cement vats and the remnants
of the old wharf remained; in the following years the latter
became a favored place for summer biologists to collect interesting
marine animals and plants.