Atlantic, NC Community Leaders

William Ellis Smith, Sr.
Susan West writes about one of the Commercial Fishing Industry's Greatest Men
By Susan West - 11/1/2005

On the eve of the new millennium, The News and Observer said good-by to the twentieth century with a story saluting the North Carolinians who had steered the state through the past hundred years. Editors and reporters at the newspaper had whittled the list down to the 100 most influential citizens. Amid the names of textile magnates, furniture tycoons, and tobacco kings, the list included seafood dealer Billy Smith of Carteret County.

In many ways, Billy Smith’s story parallels the best stories that rose out of the entrepreneurial spirit of the last century. William Ellis Smith Sr. was born in Atlantic during the lean times of the Great Depression. A willingness to take a risk served Billy well, and he turned Luther Smith and Son Seafood into one of the largest seafood dealerships in the state. When he died in 1996, The News and Observer described him as “a towering figure in North Carolina’s commercial fishing industry.”

Billy’s first job was with his father Luther, who owned a general store in Atlantic and also wholesaled some seafood, especially clams. “They’d run up to Chocowinity to buy small calves, bring them home and fatten them up, and then butcher and sell the meat,” recalled Janice Smith, Billy’s wife.

Janice was born in Stacy, a small village not far from Atlantic in the Down East area of Carteret County. Janice and Billy were seventeen years old when they married.

“Then Billy started going up to Hatteras with his uncle William to long-haul for flounder,” Janice continued. It was Billy’s uncle who first suggested that Billy and Janice go into the seafood business. The year was 1950, and Billy was only twenty-one.

“We borrowed some money and bought a piece of waterfront property from Billy’s father,” said Janice. “And we bought one of Poppa Charlie’s run boats.” Poppa Charlie was Charles Mason, Janice’s grandfather. “We built a little fish house, didn’t even have a dock at first, and we sold lots of clams, mostly up to Hampton, Virginia.”

“More than anything else, crab potting really got us on our feet,” she said. The Smiths shipped crabs to Hampton, to Cambridge, Maryland, and to other towns along the Atlantic seaboard.

“And then one day, Billy came to me and said he’d decided to build a trawler,” said Janice. “That was the Miss Myron Ann.” The boat was named for the Smiths’ daughter and was built by Jonathan Robinson’s father around 1960.

“I remember that Billy and Skeeter Saunders’ daddy went up to a junkyard in Norfolk, Virginia to get the diesel engine. I think we had about $16,000 in the boat when it was finished. Perry Stryon was the captain.”

Their next boat was the William Ellis, named for their son. “That was built like the northern boats, with the cabin on the stern,” she said. “We hired a man from Hampton to run it and he ran the boat out of there. He stayed on for three years, and it’s hard to believe but I never laid eyes on him the entire time, but he was a good captain.”

The Charles D. Smith, named for their youngest son, the Janice M. Smith, and other boats were added to the fleet. The business continued to expand, reaching markets across the country and overseas. Then in the 1980s, the Smiths started building steel boats.

Most seafood wholesaling companies don’t include a boat-building division, but the Smiths weighed the benefits and determined that they could get a better boat at a lower cost. Veteran boat-builder Tinker Wallace signed on to run that side of the operation.

Some of the steel boats were patterned from wooden trawlers built in Carteret County by James Gilliken. The vessels ranged from 81 to 95 feet in length, but were constructed to be versatile and able to operate year round, fishing, shrimping, or scalloping. Janice Smith said that this year the company has relied on scalloping.

Like the other boats owned by the Smiths, the steel trawlers were named for family members – the Billy, William and Kevin, the Helen W. Smith, the Kimberly and Kathryn, the Leslie and Charles, the Tweedles and Donna, the William H. Smith.

Billy and Janice’s son, Charles Dean Smith, runs Luther Smith and Son Seafood in Atlantic. Their granddaughter, Leslie Daniels, manages the company’s boats and fish house in Beaufort. “When I got old enough to help, my first job for the company was heading shrimp,” said Leslie. Leslie’s father was the Smiths’ oldest son, William Ellis Smith Jr., who died in an accident in Wanchese in 1991. “After my father died, my granddaddy taught me things about running this side of the business.”

Family and heritage were important to Billy. His interest in the preservation of Down East traditions lead to a leadership role in the development of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum on Harkers Island. “One evening several men from the decoy carvers’ guild came to the house and asked Billy to help with their dream of a museum,” Janice recalled. Billy and Janice accepted the challenge and brought together the museum’s first board of directors in 1992. Billy served as chairman of the board until his death.

Perhaps Billy’s keen sense of civic responsibility pushed him into making a run for a seat on the Carteret County Board of Commissioners in 1984. “I’m not really sure why he decided to run for office at that time,” said Janice, “but it was the Reagan years and Billy loved Ronald Reagan.” The Smiths traveled to Washington for both of Reagan’s inaugural balls.

Billy polled the highest number of votes of all the Republican candidates on the ticket in Carteret County that year. “He and Jerry Gaskill were running against each other,” Janice explained. “People were always surprised that Billy and Jerry remained friends throughout the campaign, but the campaign never became personal. I know that I could call Jerry to this day and he’d help me any way he could.”

Billy’s dedication to North Carolina’s commercial fishing community was evident in his unfailing support for the North Carolina Fisheries Association (NCFA). “He was a charter member,” said Janice, “and he was a great believer in the fishermen and the dealers working together.” The Carteret County News-Times described Billy as “a fierce fighter for the interests of the commercial fisherman, from the big trawler operator to the man with a 18-foot skiff, 100 yards of net, and a clam rake.”

“Billy was instrumental in seeing that NCFA kept going even during some rough patches,” said Billy Carl Tillett, chairman of the association’s board of directors, as he took a break from packing croakers at his fish house in Wanchese. “He was also a great spokesman for the industry, and even people who might not agree with him respected his opinion because he understood fishing. He wasn’t one to sit behind a desk. He worked hard, packing and culling fish.”

“When I first started working at the Division, the state had joined NCFA’s suit against NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) and I needed information to counter claims in the weakfish stock assessment,” recalled Louis Daniel, fisheries biologist at the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries. “Everyone told me that I needed to talk to Billy.”

“Billy wasn’t trained in fisheries biology, but he had an uncanny ability to recognize what was happening with the stock. He knew the life history of weakfish. He was always helpful and always kept his door open to me.”

“He was the obvious patriarch of the commercial fishing community in Carteret County,” Daniel continued. “He was a sweet, kind man, and I miss him.”

Janice said that Jerry Schill, former executive director of NCFA, sometimes called their house early in the morning to talk to Billy about issues. “I can see Billy sitting there now with the phone to his ear,” said Janice, pointing to the dining table. “I could always tell when he didn’t agree with what Jerry was saying because he’d start thumping his big, old hand on the table-top.”

“Billy always wanted me to travel with him to fisheries meetings,” she said. “I remember one night when we didn’t get back home from a meeting in Elizabeth City until two in the morning, and I said I’d had enough of going to those meetings. I don’t believe I’d ever seen Billy more upset with me. You know, he could be a gruff old man, but he had a tender side too,” said Janice, as she turned the key in one of the music boxes her husband gave her.

Billy Smith was mullet fishing off Core Banks with his granddaughter’s husband, Kevin Daniels, when a wave capsized the boat, drowning both men.

Janice Smith still keeps an eye on issues important to the future of Down East fishing villages. In recent months, she’s been a steadfast advocate for commercial fishermen in discussions with the county’s harbor authority board. Speculation over a move to consolidate county schools has also grabbed her attention. She remains active and involved with the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and with the North Carolina Fisheries Association.