Connecticut western news., 1882-08-16

| 6n1S 1eol1nR aSaluSG 'no SOo"AoAo' @AAAo0O universal. Willing to hear the steamer side of the question, I traversed the wastes of Napeague to this remote hamlet, the centre of the fsh-oi in- dusiry. It is situated in a beautiful cove of Gardiner's Bay, nearly opposite Gardiner's Island, on the north shore of Napeague beach, and about three miles from Amagansett, and is oom- posed of six great rambling fish factories, and of the dwellings which shelter the men employed in them and their families. The hamlet had it's origin as follows: When old Daniel Welles, pioneer in the tish-oil industry, began the business at Greenpoint, twenty years ago, to extract the oil, he rotted the fish in the sun instead of cooking them, producing such fearful odors that the people rose and drove him away. His successors, following the same crude methods, were treated in the same way, and, being driven from pillar to post in consequence, at length betook them selves to this waste; and Promised Land is the result.
 | THE OIL FACTORIES.
 A fish factory is in bad odor with the travelling public, and few tourists have ever visited one. As the business is now conducted, however, there is little unpleasant about it, and succeeded in finding considerable poetry about the long ungainly structures and their &C., cessories. The outfit of factory of the first-class comprises docks, two steamers, two boilers, and an engine, thirty-two large boiling vats, each with capacity for 20, 900 fish, and which oc- cupy nearly the whole interior of the building, tramway carried on staging from the docks over these vats, tram cars, hydraulic presses for pressing out oil, iron tanks for storing it, long sheds for storing the "scrap" or residuum left after extracting the oil, and the drying yard, board platform two acres in ex- tent, bare to the sun, on which the scrap is dried. The men employed are Virginia negroes. and spend the day sleeping, singing, pitching quoits, and in other forms of amusement. At sum- set, however, when the steamers gener- ally arrive with the days catch, the scene changes to one of intense activity. Smoke pours from the chimney stacks, the engine shorts and clanks, cars run down the tramways, and are filed from the steamers hold by men with fork and shovel; then mount into the dark interior of the factory and drop their loads into the boiling vats. Steam is let into these until the fish are cooked sufficiently for the bones to drop out then the mass is turned into the presses, pressure is applied, and the oil as it flows out is conducted by pipes to the storage tanks ranged without the build ing. This comprises the entire process of turning the menhaden into oil. It is continued through the night, and when morning comes nothing remains of the 50, ,OO0 menhaden that formed the steamers cargo but a tank of dark colored oil, and great heap of scrap in corner of the drying yard. This scrap is dried in the sun for day, then heaped up and allowed to sweat the same length of time, then again thor oughly dried and stored in the ware- houses. In this state it appears as yellow, almost inodorous substance, very rich in am onia and the phospnates, aud is sold to manufa cturers of fertiliz- CTS, who mix it with other Ingredients principally Charleston rock-and d1s- pose of it to farmers.
 From MT. Tuthill, who has made of the menhaden industry an intelligent study, I learned that the business was largely overdone, and that some of the weaker firms must shortly go to the wall. He enumerated no less than tif- teen factories on the Long Island coast two at Cedar Island, one at Orient, two at Shelter Island, six at Promised Land, one at Napeague Harbor, and three at Barren Island, on the Atlantic engaged in the taking of menhaden. There are three on the Connecticut shore, two on the Jersey coast, and sev- eral in Maine and Virginia, but the lat ter are said to be practically out of business. Each factory, if properly equipped, has two steamers, each fur nished with large seine, boats, and a complement of thirteen men. A few cling to the old-fashioned "sailing gangs," yacht fitted with boats, seine,
 etc., and having one or two smaller craft to carry her catch to the factory,
 but these have been nearly all super seded. In the spring the steamers fish
 in the ocean exclusively, rounding
 Montauk and patrolling the shore west ward and seuthward as far as Barnegat,
 on the Jersey coast. In the summer and fall they find their prey in the
 Sound and its bays. The life of the menhaden fisher is one of hardship and
 excitement. Steaming alongshore al
 most within grasp of the surf, he sights
 his prey, and lowers boats and seine fol
 their capture. They are nearly landed perhaps, when shark is discovered il the net, and, tearing it's meshes right ant
 left, allows the whole catch to escape Or tue net is befouled on rocks at the bottom, and is disentangled only by long and tiresome efforts. Anchors again, left by vessels which were obliged to cut and run before some sudden gale ara fruitful cause of disaster to th' nets. The Jersey coast is greatl. , dreaded for this reason by the fisher men. It is also within the range of pos : sibility that 8 sudden blow will lay hi ? steamer on the bar, and himself starl