Nickerson’s Whale and Menhaden Oil Works
The whale oil plant in 1890. [Scrapbooks of Althea Boxell 7:69 / Dowd Collection / Provincetown History Preservation Project Page 2095]
Text last updated on 10 January 2010 | Nickerson’s Whale and Menhaden Oil Works was founded and constructed in 1886 by Joshua Stickney Nickerson and John Rosenthal. Three years later, they built a 400-foot-long pier. By 1890, the complex was producing about 900 barrels of oil annually; in the spring from whales and in the summer and fall from menhaden, a kind of herring also known as alewife. The plant produced fertilizer made of fish scraps and a poultry feed made of whale meat and bone. Nickerson’s Works had its own whaler, A. B. Nickerson.
¶ Republished on 18 December 2023.