This comprehensive history of sardine packing plants along the Maine and Fundy coasts is the second effort of New Brunswick author John Gillman. His first book, Masts and Masters, a Brief History of SardineCarriers and Boatmen, dealt with the vessels that carried the herring to the plants, and with this book about the plants themselves he completes the picture of one of Maine’s most significant industries.
Both books were published in New Brunswick, Canada, but herring packing has long been a fixture in Maine as well, and fish, boats and labor would go back and forth freely over the border. In fact, most of the plants listed in this book were in Maine. From Portland to the head of the Bay of Fundy, many harbors had packing plants for herring at one time or another, with the epicenter of the activity in downeast Maine and Charlotte County, New Brunswick. Rockland, Bath and Belfast also had significant, thriving fish processing industries, and New Brunswick and Maine taken together supported dozens of sardine processing factories at the turn of the 20th century, a number that has declined sharply, to less than a half-dozen plants today.
The two books of John Gillman together give an evocative portrait of this industry, which has now largely passed from many coastal residents’ awareness. The plants that remain are much more automated than their predecessors, and provide a cleaner product with much less labor. Gillman’s history of the early years of the industry captures a way of life that provided much income and work to generations of coastal residents, but also brought child labor, squalid and dirty working conditions, horrific waterfront blazes of oil-soaked, wooden factories (in October, 1866 a single fire in Eastport ran through 17 factories, putting over two thousand people out of work), and quite a number of severed digits.
The boom times provided an early economic impetus for development in downeast Maine, perhaps similar to the successes of salmon farming in recent years. He also tells of the bust years, when the herring never came, or prices were undercut by European competitors, or when shady business deals led to cold, idle factories and the steam whistles calling every man, woman and child in town to turn out to work rarely sounded. All in all, it is a compelling story of Yankee thrift, hard work and business acumen applied to wresting a living from a cold yet seasonally bountiful sea. The product had a surprisingly wide distribution, with various grades and cures going everywhere from Europe’s finest tables to providing food — in the herring fishery’s earliest years — for slaves in the West Indies
The book is filled with black-and-white photos of factories and carriers, and is organized geographically, allowing one to reference one’s hometown. While this town-by-town rundown, which fills much of the book, is perhaps not as compelling to the general reader as the opening historical overview, it does allow for detailed reflection on the changing nature of our municipal waterfronts. Rockland, my hometown, once home to a number of large plants, now has none. Their places have been occupied by marinas, banks and construction companies, a significant change brought into focus by the images and well-researched detail of Gillman’s text.
Both Masts and Masters, a brief history of Sardine Carriers and Boatmen and Canned, A History of the Sardine Industry, are available from the author, John D. Gillman, PO Box 72, Lord’s Cove, Deer Island, New Brunswick, Canada, EOG 2EO.