Frederick Stratton Jewett: Seafood Packing Pioneer (1878 - 1950)

Article by Dr. Clara Small, professor emerita, Salisbury University

Frederick and Henrietta Jewett
Photo Courtesy of Secrets of the Eastern Shore

Frederick Jewett on the Crisfield Mural

Frederick Stratton Jewett was born February 7, 1878, to Preston Jewett and Annie F. Jewett, and was reared on the family farm in Hopewell, three miles from Crisfield in Somerset County, Maryland. Frederick’s father, Preston Jewett, also listed as Preston Jarrett and Presin Jerrett, served as a private in the United States Colored Troops (USCT) 30th Regiment, Company B. On March 31, 1864, at the age of 21, Preston enlisted in the United States Army as a free man and was discharged from service on December 10, 1865. In the 1890 Special Census of the Civil War Veterans of the State of Maryland, Preston’s service in the 30th Regiment and his term of service was recorded as one year, 8 months and nine days.

1877 Atlas of Wicomico, Somerset & Worcester Counties, Lake, Griffing & Stevenson
Edward H. Nabb Reserach Center for Delmarva History and Culture at Salisbury University
Highlighted is a "P. Jewett," likely Frederick Jewett's Father

After the death of his father, Frederick and his mother raised strawberries and tomatoes for market during the summer, sailed for St. Michael’s market in the winter months, and shucked oysters at John L. Blades’ oyster house. In 1898, the family moved to St. Michaels permanently, and Frederick continued to work for Blades. After working for Blades for 12 years, and having learned the processes of the seafood business, Frederick Jewett in 1902 made the decision to begin his own business. He was successful in obtaining a $500 loan from the Citizens Bank of Crisfield and began to operate his own enterprise in the seafood business. That was unusual at that time, because historically, at that time, most blacks had a very difficult time obtaining credit and loans.

Frederick and his wife, Henrietta Small Jewett, entered into partnership with two other former Hopewell residents, William H. T. Coulbourne and Reverend Charles Downes. They purchased land on Navy Point in St. Michael’s and set up their seafood business. The partnership did not last for very long, and in 1903, Reverend Downes sold his portion of the business to Coulbourne and Jewett. The business grew very rapidly and the employees of the company cut, packaged, and shipped fish products as well as marketed oysters. The Coulbourne and Jewett Company became one of the first packing companies to exploit the Chesapeake Bays bountiful blue crab harvest, and, eventually, it concentrated almost exclusively on selling crabs and crabmeat.

By 1910, Frederick Jewett had developed the revolutionary idea of grading crabmeat according to backfin, special, regular, claw and lump classifications. Those types of classifications had not been used prior to 1910, and they are still utilized in the industry today. Jewett also introduced the concept and use of one-pound snap cans that were made by the Steel Tin and Products Company of Baltimore so customers easily inspect the meat. Due to the quality of their work and the rapid growth of the business, “in 1917 the factory had grown too small and a new two-story building of Georgia pine was erected.” The business grew so rapidly that Jewett and Coulbourne crabmeat and oysters were sold not just in Maryland but were also shipped to the Midwest. One of the largest importers of their seafood was the seafood broker and distributor Edward M. Plitt of Chicago. During the Great Depression and the early 1930s, when many businesses failed and most Americans had very little or no funds to spend on extras, crabmeat and oysters were still desired by many people who could still afford it. Even during the depression, while times were dire for many people, those businesses that received seafood from the Jewett and Coulbourne business were located “in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Columbus, Ohio, St. Louis, Missouri, and even Quebec, Canada.”

By 1928, Elwood Small Jewett, Frederick and Henrietta’s son, who was approximately 22 years old at the time, joined the firm as a bookkeeper. He has previously graduated from Princess Anne Academy (now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore), at Princess Anne, Maryland in 1923, which was then a prep school. After graduation from Princess Anne, Elwood entered Ohio’s Wilberforce Academy and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration. With his business degree, Elwood provided a greater degree of professionalism to the family business, but he also operated his own seafood packing business from 1935-1937, while simultaneously working for his father. Both businesses flourished as crabmeat and thousands of gallons of oysters were shipped weekly to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and numerous other locations. Operating professionally, Jewett and Coulbourne not only withstood the Great Depression but a major crisis when the Chicago Health Department declared 21 carloads of oysters, each containing 1,800 gallons, unfit for public consumption. The health department received a complaint about the shipment, that may not have been accurate, but the potential damage had been done. However, the company had the support of the local Citizens Bank, along with the rest of the town that had become financially dependent upon Coulbourne and Jewett. The company fought the complaint, won their case, and survived a three-year legal battle. The Jewett and Coulbourne Company emerged from the legal charges a much stronger company. According to Elwood Jewett, the company was the only packer in Maryland to ever pack a million pounds of crabmeat for five consecutive years, between 1935 and 1940. Using a large cooker, 25,000 crabs could be steamed at one time.

Elwood Small Jewett
Photo: Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, Gift of Blanche Jewett

In the 1940s, Frederick Jewett retired and the day-to-day management of the business was taken over by Elwood. At the time of Frederick’s retirement, the Jewett and Coulbourne Company was the largest of three black-owned packing houses in Maryland, and St. Michaels’s largest employer, and it was also among Maryland’s most successful minority-owned businesses. At the time that Elwood took over the reigns of the Jewett and Coulbourne Company, he served as the ultimate professional. Alice Palmer, a long-retired employee of the company described him and his attire. She stated that ”he would often pitch in to help unload boats on Saturdays and he would always wear a white jacket, a black bowtie or black tie, and black pants and black dress shoes.“ He always said ”A businessman should look like a businessman.”

Mr. & Mrs. Fred S. Jewett of Coulbourne & Jewett Seafood Packing
​Photo Courtesy of the Talbot Historical Society
From Hollyday Collection.

Frederick and Henrietta Jewett
​Photo Courtesy of Secrets of the Eastern Shore

Annually, the company employed an average of 100 people shucking oysters and picking crabs. Many of the employees lived in Crisfield and worked at the St. Michaels plant, so many employees were often housed on the second floor of the plant, which eliminated some transportation problems for some of the workers.

In later years, William Coulbourne sold his interest in the company, but continued to live nearby in the building that now houses the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Gift Shop. William Coulbourne died in 1959, and Frederick Stratton Jewett died May 25, 1950. After the death of Elwood’s mother, Henrietta, in 1953, Elwood and his wife, Blanche, inherited the entire business. Blanche often accompanied shipments to some markets to ensure the quality of the shipment and merchandise and to resolve possible conflicts. Business was good in the seafood industry in the 1950s, but by the mid-1960s the seafood packing industry and crabmeat industry experienced a drastic downward spiral due to the decline of shellfish harvests due to over harvesting, rising costs, pollution, and stricter governmental health regulations. In 1965, Elwood Jewett retired from the company and sold the business to Tom Gibbs. At the time, the plant was in dire need of repair and soon after the building was torn down and the site became a part of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

Coulbourne & Jewett Seafood Packing Company
Photo Courtesy of the Talbot Historical Society

​Frederick and Elwood were both active in the St. Michael’s community and both were lay leaders in the Methodist Church Conference which founded Princess Anne Academy (UMES) in 1866. Their involvement with UMES stemmed from their connection to the Methodist Conference, which strengthened when Jewett and Coulbourne sent their children to be educated there, and the fact that both men grew up in the Hopewell community in Somerset County.  The Jewetts were also politically active in the Republican, Party and Elwood served as the executive director of the local Colored Republican Club that backed the unsuccessful 1952 United States senatorial bid of H. Grady Gore, a cousin of former Vice President Al Gore. Frederick Stratton Jewett, the son of a United States Colored Troops veteran, identified a need in the community, state, region, and nation and developed a very lucrative seafood business and satisfied that need.  The business brought prosperity to the family, but it also provided gainful employment for hundreds of individuals, especially females, who shucked oysters, cleaned and graded the crabs which put seafood delicacies on many tables around the world.  Elwood Jewett continued his father’s business acumen until his own retirement from the business in the 1960s.  Elwood also maintained his political and social participation in the community until his death in June of 1977, at the age of 73.1  Meanwhile, the legends and legacy of the Jewett family’s success lives on in the community.  Most recently, a mural was erected in Crisfield under the auspices of the Beach to Bay Heritage Area, which portrays Frederick Stratton Jewett and his accomplishments to the seafood industry and the history of the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, the state, and the nation.