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Seventy years ago, The Tidewater News — in its Dec. 11, 1954, edition — reported that Hercules Powder Company, headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, had announced that they would build a chemical manufacturing plant in Southampton County, Virginia, just a few miles from Franklin.  The plant was to be located on the former Delaware Amusement Park property at the junction of the Nottoway River and the Seaboard Airline Railway.  Options were secured on the fifty-acre Walter Beale III property and on the Hayes thirty-acre tract.  Ample land was secured to take care of not only the immediate plans for the plant but also for such expansion as the new facility would possibly need.  It was expected that the new plant would be only the beginning for the Southampton County unit of Hercules.

The announcement climaxed many months of negotiations and intense efforts to induce Hercules to locate a plant in Southampton County to carry out the company’s plans to develop product lines that would require crude tall oil as its sources. This is a new field of endeavor for Hercules. 

James L. Camp Jr., vice president of Camp Manufacturing Co. and president Sol W. Rawls Jr. of the newly formed Franklin Chamber of Commerce, were largely instrumental in having the Franklin area selected as the site of the plant.   Crude tall oil, a by-product generated by production of kraft paper pulp, was to be supplied by the Camp paper and pulp mill in Franklin.  Contracts were also being negotiated by Hercules with other kraft pulp mills in the Virginia / North Carolina region — adjacent to Southampton — for supply of crude tall oil as well.  At the time, Hercules operated two other chemical plants in Virginia: Hopewell and Radford.

In 1954, Hercules Powder Company — with its main headquarters and its central research laboratories located in Wilmington, Delaware – operated twenty-five chemical plants in fourteen states and several overseas countries.  And, in 1954, the company sales amounted to approximately $200 million.

Resins obtained from crude tall oil are used in such fields as paper making, varnishes, printing inks, and as chemical intermediates.  Fatty acids are used in the manufacture of soaps, rubber, lubricants, paints, and textiles.   

The Southampton County plant, which was expected to go into production in January 1956, was projected to cost several million dollars.  Initially, about fifty persons were to be employed at the new facility.   Upon start-up, the plant would have capacity of approximately 35,000 tons of product, annually.   

In 1966, the name of the company was changed to Hercules, Inc. 

NOTE: As stated above, the site for the original Hercules plant, during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the 20th century, was the location of the Delaware Amusement Park – which operated a steam-powered merry-go-round. There were several other attractions, including a small zoo, a dance pavilion, and a bathing beach.

In the present day, the former Hercules Powder Company chemical plant, in Southampton County, is now known as Solenis, Eastman, Arkema.

CLYDE PARKER is a retired human resources manager for the former Franklin Equipment Co. and a member of the Southampton County Historical Society. His email address is magnolia101@charter.net.