For nearly five decades, Eastern Fisheries has been part of the story of New Bedford’s fishing industry — a story rooted in family, perseverance, and generations of experience on the water.
Eastern Fisheries was founded in 1978 through a partnership between Roy Enoksen of Nordic Fisheries and Frank O’Hara of the O’Hara Corporation. Both families already had deep roots in the fishing business, bringing generations of knowledge and experience to the new company.
Enoksen had established Nordic Fisheries in New Bedford in 1968, purchasing his first scalloper, the F/V Sea Trek. Ten years later, Nordic Fisheries and the O’Hara Corporation joined forces to create Eastern Fisheries.
The partnership came during a pivotal period for New Bedford’s fishing industry. The late 1970s brought major changes, including declining fish stocks, increasing regulations and the introduction of the 200-mile fishing limit, reshaping the American commercial fishing industry.
Eastern Fisheries continued to build its place in that changing landscape. In 1982, the company opened its first scallop processing plant in New Bedford, strengthening the connection between the vessels harvesting seafood offshore and the shoreside workers processing and bringing that product to market.
Over the decades, Eastern Fisheries grew far beyond a local fishing operation, developing into a vertically integrated seafood company involved in harvesting, processing, importing and distributing seafood, with operations extending beyond the United States. Today, the company describes itself as the world’s largest harvester, importer and processor of scallops.
But perhaps the most important part of the story remains New Bedford.
The boats. The docks. The processing plants. The crews working behind the scenes. And the fishermen who spend their lives offshore.
Together, they represent the people and hard work that keep this industry moving.
Eastern Fisheries is just one chapter in a much larger New Bedford fishing story — a story built on long days at sea, difficult work, family traditions and generations of people making their living from the water.
📸 These photographs help document and preserve a piece of that history — the people, vessels and waterfront that have helped make New Bedford one of America’s most important fishing ports.
Special thanks to Dana Huxley for his contributions and for helping document and preserve the history of New Bedford’s working waterfront. ⚓❤️
