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HanRec.
PROFESSIONAL AND INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
OF
SUFFOLK COUNTY
MASSACHUSETTS
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOLUME II ;;; "
OF
Illustrated
THE BOSTON HISTORY COMPANY 1894
8811 3HT
. )
CONTENTS.
TRADE, COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION . 9
HAMILTON ANDREWS HILL.
FINANCIAL HISTORY .164
MOSES WILLIAMS AND OSBORNE HOWES, JR.
BANKING INSTITUTIONS, STATE AND NATIONAL,
BOSTON CLEARING-HOUSE, 375
DUDLEY P. BAILEY.
SAVINGS BANKS, 398
TRUST COMPANIES, 436
THE POSTAL SERVICE.
443
C. W. ERNST.
BIOGRAPHIES 505
ILLUSTRATIONS.
JAMES, FREDERICK L.
Facing Page JUNHO LARSON, THOMAS 23.1
J BENNEIT. JOSHUA V BLAKE, FRANCIS
362 J OSBORNE, FRAMCI- A. 526
640 J PARKER, CHARLES W. 5.54
V BLAKE, GEORGE BATY
10 J PARAIK, HENRY G.
4 BIOOD, HHIRAM A.
660 / PORCE, HENRY L. 170
4 BREWSTER, JOHN
:34 J PIERCE. SAMUEL S. .
/ Cont. SAMUEL. C.
204 / Pork, ALBERI A .. 540
J CUMMINGS, JOUN
·IS4 V PRINCE, FREDERICK H.
650
J FAN. RICHARD S.
106 Y RANDER, JOHN WHIT
316
4 FISKE, JOSEPH N.
568 | KINDGE, SAMIMI B.
290
JEFARRIS, HORATIO
1-14 / Roren, BENJAMIN S.
248
ILART, THOMAS N.
SJ Y SEARS, JOSIII 1
128
HAYNES, JOHN C.
15-4 4 SINCLAIR, CHARLES A.
646
J HUNT, WILLIAM P.
542 J SPENCER, AARON W. 624
644 , STONE, PHINEAS J. 158
J LAWRENCE, ABBOTT
2.I S THAVER, DAVID
Frontispiece y THWVER, NATHANIEL
98
LI.WIS, WESTON
392 J WAIKER, VMASA 98
1 LATILL, JAMES L.
5.1 y WALKER. THEOPHILUS W. 111
LORD, GEORGE C.
220 J WELLINGTON, AUSTIN C. 64
Lomkor, DANIII
320 J WHLINEA, HENRY M. 610
A MACLILAR, ADDISON
138 ] WORTHINGTON, ROLAND
596
1 NICKERSON, JOSEPHI 301
198 4 Roren, ARTHUR. 648
4 HAVEN, FRANKLIN
512 V SIMPSON, WHICHALL I.
J Ilowes, OSBORN
174
JAKSON, HENRY C. 4
1 JONES, FRANK
318 / RICHARDS, CALVIN A. 656
GALLOUPE, CHARLES W. -
Facing Page
BIOGRAPHIES.
Page
Page
AMES, FREDERICK L.
696
NICKERSON, THOMAS
603
BENNETT, JOSHUA
OSBORNE, FRANCIS A.
625
BLAKE, FRANCIS
640
PARKER, CHARLES W. 629
BLAKE, GEORGE BATY
521
PARKER, HENRY G ..
BLOOD, HIRAM A.
659
PIERCE, HENRY L.
560
BREWSTER, JOIN
PIERCE, SAMUEL S. 599
COBB, SAMUEL. C.
533
POPE, ALBERT A.
CUMMINGS, JOHN
595
PRINCE, FREDERICK H .. .650
FAY, RICHARD S.
.611
RANDLE, JOHN WITT. .. .586
FISKE, JOSEPH N.
590
RICHARDS, CALVIN A.
656
GALLOUPE, CHARLES W.
567
RINDGE, SAMUEL B.
670
HARRIS, HORATIO
550
ROTCH, BENJAMIN S.
609
HART, THOMAS N.
566
RorCH, ARTHUR
649
HAVEN, FRANKLIN
280
SEARS, JOSHUA
523
HAYNES, JOHN C. 588
SIMPSON, MICHAEL H.
.675
HOWES, OSHORN
541
SINCLAIR, CHARLES A. 647
HUNT, WILLIAM P.
675
SNOW, DAVID 553
SPENCER, AARON W. 624
551
LAWRENCE, ABBOTT
THAYER, DAVID
661
LEE, HENRY 685
THAYER, NATHANIEL
512
LEWIS, WESTON 596
WALKER, AMASA
679
LITTLE, JAMES L.
516
WALKER, THEOPHILU'S W 524
LORD, GEORGE C.
606
WELLINGTON, AUSTIN C.
651
LOTHROP, DANIEL .
555
WHITNEY, HENRY M.
635
MACULLAR, ADDISON.
616
WORTHINGTON, ROLAND .617
NICKERSON, JOSEPH
694
JACKSON, HENRY C.
630
JONES, FRANK
645
STONE, PHINEAS J.
SUFFOLK COUNTY
TRADE, COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION.
By HAMILTON ANDREWS HILL.
THREE or four years ago we chanced to see a learned and elaborate work, " Bruxelles à Travers les Ages," in which the history of Brussells was traced and illustrated from the Silurian epoch, through all the geologic periods, to the time when mammals and then man appeared upon the scene, and so on to the present day. In writing of the trade and commerce of Boston, or of Suffolk county, we do not propose to go back to prehistoric times; although, for our narration to be exhaustive, it might well include some account of the fishes of the tertiary period. For the commerce of these shores had the fisheries as its basis, long before the arrival of Winthrop's fleet at Salem, or of the Mayflower at Plymouth. " The settlement of Massachusetts," says Sabine, "is to be traced directly to the fisheries." A Boston newspaper writer in 1:29 gave this judgment: "The Newfoundland fishery is a source of wealth as valuable to us, as the hills of Potosi to the Spaniards; " another writer in a Boston newspaper, soon after the peace of 1283, in a series of arti- cles on American commerce, said that the mackerel fishery "was of more value to Massachusetts than would be the pearl fisheries of Cey- lon ; " and a writer in the North American Review in 1854 expressed a similar opinion : "The Banks of Newfoundland are, have been, and ever will be, worth as much to the commercial world as the valley of the Sacramento, or the auriferous quartz ridges of the Sierra Nevada." " The English resorted to Iceland for the cod previous to the year 1415, but there is no account of their fishing at Newfoundland prior to 1512." Long after this period the foreign trade of England was limited to the Flemish cities and the fishing grounds. In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold steered the first direct voyage across the Atlantic ; he made his landfall near Salem, and, striking across to the opposite cape, he was surprised
3
1
18
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
at a large catch of fish, and gave the now well-known name of Cape Cod to the headland. lle was followed, in 1614, by the celebrated John Smith, who records that he took " forty thousand " fish which he dried, and "seven thousand " which he " corned " or pickled, in the waters of Maine. Before Smith's visit, one or more French vessels are known to have come to Massachusetts Bay to trade for furs; in his narrative, he says of these pre-Pilgrim days: " Thirty, forty, or fifty sail went yearly to America only to trade and fish, but nothing would be done for a plantation till about seven hundred of your Brownists of England, Amsterdam, and Leyden went to New Plymouth; whose humourous ignorances caused them for more than a year to endure a wonderful deal of misery with an infinite patience."
When the Pilgrim company was preparing to remove from Holland, Thomas Weston advised them to go to that part of America with which he was acquainted, "as for other reasons, so chiefly for the hope of present [ that is, immediate| profit to be made by fishing." Edward Winslow tells us of an interview between King James and certain agents, who had been sent from Leyden to obtain his consent to the re- moval to America. The monarch asked, "What profit might arise?" lle was answered in a single word, "Fishing." Whereupon James re- plied, "So God have my soul, 'tis an honest trade; 'twas the apostles' own calling." The same purpose controlled the Mayflower voyagers when they had arrived at Cape Cod. Some were disposed to settle at Cold Harbor, between Truro and Wellfleet, because, with other con- siderations, " it seemed to offer some advantages both for the whale and cod fishery; " others " insisted that they should proceed about twenty leagues further, to a place called Agawam, a harbor which was known to fishermen who had been on the coast." We are all familiar with the circumstances which brought them at length to Plymouth. In the autumn of 1621, Miles Standish and a party, with Squanto as a guide, came into Boston harbor in a large open sail boat or shallop, and bought 'furs from some Indian women. They have been called the Argonauts of Boston Bay. On their return to Plymouth they made report of the pleasant places they had visited, and could not help the expression of the wish that "they had been there seated." In 1624 the Plymouth colonists sent a ship to England laden with fish, cured with salt of their own manufacture, and in the year next following, two others, with fish and furs.
Emerson wrote in 1861: "How easy it is, after the city is built, to see where it ought to stand! In our beautiful bay, with its broad and
19
TRADE AND COMMERCE.
deep waters covered with sails from every port; with its islands hospit- ably shining in the sun; with its waters bounded and marked by light- houses, buoys, and sea-marks, every foot sounded and charted; with its shores trending steadily from the two arms which the capes of Massa- chusetts stretch out to sea, down to the bottom of the bay where the city domes and spires sparkle through the haze, a good boatman can easily find his way for the first time to the State House, and wonder that Governor Carver had not better eyes than to stop on Plymouth sands. But it took ten years to find this out. The colony of 1620 had landed at Plymouth. It was December, and the ground was covered with snow. Snow and moonlight make all places alike; and the weari- ness of the sea, the shrinking from cold weather, and pangs of hunger must justify them. But the next colony planted itself at Salem, and the next at Weymouth, another at Medford, before these men, instead of jumping on to the first land that offered, wisely judged that the best point for a city was at the bottom of a deep and islanded bay, where a copious river entered it, and where a bold shore was bounded by a country of rich undulating woodland."
Isaac Allerton, who gave his name to one of the most prominent points in Boston Harbor, was the prototype of many an active and in- telligent merchant in later years, whose enterprise brought business to these shores and prosperity to our population. He owned vessels, con- ducted a fishery at Marblehead, made voyages to different parts of Maine, established a trading house far within territory claimed as Acadia, and in Connecticut received produets of the sea for sale on a share of the profits. While devoted to trade, he was employed in ar- ranging the most difficult concerns of the colony both at home and in England. To cross the ocean two and a half centuries ago was a matter of vast moment, but Allerton visited the country of his birth no less than five times in the brief space of four years.
Of the settlement of Boston in the autumn of 1630 we shall not speak particularly. From the first it was a centre of life; there were no drones in the hive; every man as mechanic, agriculturist, mariner, tradesman or merchant, contributed to the welfare of the little com- munity. In 1631 corn was constituted a legal tender at the market price, "except money or beaver be expressly named." In 1632 Bos- ton, following in the steps of its English namesake in Lincolnshire, became a market town; it was "ordered that there should be a market kept at Boston upon every Thursday, the fifth day of the week." The
20
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
market-place was at the head of what is now State street, and is cov- ered in part by the Old State House. The meeting-house-we cannot say that it overlooked the market-place, it was too lowly for that- looked out upon it from the south side. The following restriction was thought to be necessary: " No planter within the limits of this juris- dietion, returning for England, shall carry either money or beaver with him, without leave from the governor, under pain of forfeiting the property." In September, 1633, John Oldham, with three companions, went by land to the Connecticut River, which, on his return, he re- ported to be about one hundred and sixty miles from the Bay. He and his party had " lodged at Indian towns all the way," and brought back some beaver, some hemp, which, they said, grew there in great abun- dance, and was much better than the English, and some black lead, "whereof the Indians told them there was a whole rock." In the mean time a vessel of thirty tons, the Blessing of the Bay, which Gov- ernor Winthrop had built at Mystic, where he had a farm, Ten Hills, "coasted Long Island, looked into the Connecticut River, and visited the Dutch settlement at the month of the Hudson, where her people found a courteous reception, and bartered their commodities for some beaver." Thus early did the business men of the future port take pains to establish communication with places beyond the limits of the colony.
In 1634 the freemen numbered about three hundred and fifty. The historian says: "They were settling into such employments as their situation dictated. They cultivated the ground, and took care of herds and flocks. They hunted and fished for a part of their food. They were building houses, boats, mills; enclosing land with fences, and cutting roads through the forest to connect their towns. Their exports of cured fish, furs and lumber bought them articles of convenience and luxury in England, and they were soon to build ships to be sold abroad." Ten thousand bushels of corn were imported this year from Virginia. The price of this commodity had advanced to four shillings and sixpence a bushel, and in the winter the currency rate was fixed at five shillings. In the summer of 1635 Governor Vane "invited all the masters (there were then fifteen great ships in the harbor) to dinner," and he arranged with them that thereafter vessels bound to Boston should anchor below the castle until their friendly character could be ascertained; that the magistrates should have the first offer of com- modities which they brought; and that their men might not stay on shore, except upon necessary business, after sunset.
21
TRADE AND COMMERCE.
The Rev. Hugh Peter had come to New England with Harry Vane and John Winthrop, jr., and had been settled as minister at Salem. His keen eye was quick to see the commercial capabilities of the coun- try, and he set himself to work to develop them. He "went from place to place, laboring both publicly and privately to raise up men to a public frame of spirit, and so prevailed as he procured a good sum of money to be raised to set on foot the fishing business, and wrote into England to raise as much more." During his residence and ministry Salem took the lead in maritime affairs, and claimed to become the capital; but, after his departure for England, Boston acquired the as- cendency, and was made the seat of government.
In 1636 one of Mr. Cradock's vessels "came from Bermuda with thirty thousand weight of potatoes, and store of oranges and limes." In the spring of 1638 there were fourteen ships in the Thames loading for New England, among them the Desire, William Pierce master, launched at Marblehead two or three years before. In the month of November, 1639, a post-office for foreign correspondence was set up in Boston. It was on the site now occupied by the Boston Daily Advertiser. Richard Fairbanks, then the only inn-keeper in the town, was postmaster, and was authorized to collect one penny (two cents) on every letter delivered or received by him. It was "provided that no man be compelled to bring his letters thither except he please."
By an act passed in 1639 for the encouragement of the fisheries, it was provided that all vessels and other property employed in taking, curing and transporting fish, according to the usual course of fishing voyages, should be exempt from duties and public taxes for seven years ; and that all fishermen during the season for their business, as well as shipbuilders, should be excused from the performance of military duty. The wisdom of this policy of promotion- not protection-for ocean commerce soon became apparent. Lechford, in his "News from New England " (printed in London in 1642), says that the people were "set- ting on the manufacture of linen and cotton cloth, and the fishing trade," that they were "building of ships, and had a good store of barks, ketches, lighters, shallops and other vessels," and that "they had builded and planted to admiration for the time." In 1641 John Harrison, from Salisbury, England, began to make rope in Boston. Until then nearly every kind of rigging and tackle had been brought from England. The establishment of this industry had a very impor- tant bearing on the future shipbuilding and shipowning interests of the
22
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
town. The business went on increasing for nearly a century, when fourteen extensive rope-walks were in operation. In December, 1643. as we learn from Winthrop, five ships, three of them built in Massa- chusetts, carried " many passengers and great store of beaver " to Lon- don, being followed on their way by " many prayers of the churches." This return movement to England was one result of the success of the Puritan party there in its struggle with Charles I. At the same time the emigration to New England was suddenly and utterly suspended : " the change made all men to stay in England in expectation of a new world." Parliament sought to promote the commercial as well as political freedom of the country, and New England was included in its legislative provisions to this end. A step still in advance was taken, says Palfrey, in the development of the trade of Massachusetts when a Boston vessel brought wines, pitch, sugar and ginger from Teneriffe in exchange for corn; and another yet, when the Trial, the first ship built in Boston, being about a hundred and sixty tons, Mr. Thomas Graves, " an able and a godly man, master of her, " carried a freight of fish to Bilboa, and came home from Malaga in the spring of 1644 " laden with wine, fruit, oil, iron and wool, which was of great advantage to the country, and gave encouragement to trade." In 1645 fishing ves- sels from Boston ventured as far as to the Banks of Newfoundland.
In 1644 Winthrop had been succeeded in the governorship by John Endicott, partly from local considerations, a marked jealousy of the growing town of Boston manifesting itself in Essex county, and partly because of serious dissatisfaction outside Boston with Winthrop's course in negotiating with and assisting La Tour, one of the governors of Acadia, who occupied a fortified position at the mouth of the St. John River, and who obtained large sums of money and supplies from the Boston merchants, to their subsequent heavy loss. Edward Gibbons and Thomas Hawkins furnished four ships to him, the Seabridge, the Philip and Mary, the Increase and the Greyhound. We refer to La Tour and his negotiations with the authorities of Massachusetts Bay for the purpose of noticing a proposal made by him for free trade between his ports and the ports of New England, and for an arrangement by which he might import through New England commodities from Europe. The request for free trade was complied with ; the other was refused. After the lapse of two centuries, the adjacent colonies were allowed to transport merchandise from and to Europe through New England ports, and for a few years, under what is known as the Rec-
23
TRADE AND COMMERCE.
iprocity Treaty of 1854, there was absolute free trade between the adjacent colonies and this country in the products of the soil, the mine and the sea.
In the summer of 1647, Governor Peter Stuyvesant, having arrived at New York and assumed the government there, sent his secretary to Boston with letters to the governor, "with a tender of all courtesy and good correspondence."
A few years after this and when, as Palfrey says, England had as much business on her hands as could easily be managed, and when, if she should become rigorous to her distant children, they were sure of being welcomed to the protection of another great Protestant power- the Dutch-now preparing to contest with her the empire of the seas, "the Massachusetts people ventured on what was liable to be inter- preted as a pretension of independent sovereignty. They undertook to coin money. The brisk trade with the West Indies introduced a quantity of Spanish silver, and along with it there was much counter- feit coin brought into the country, and much loss accruing in that re- spect." By the act of June 10, 1652, the General Court established a mint, and appointed as mintmaster John Hull, one of the richest and most thoroughly trusted men in the colony, an excellent man of busi- ness, and an extensive shipowner at the time, but who had laid the foundation of his fortune as a worker in the precious metals.
With Mr. Hull was associated Robert Sanderson, afterward a deacon in the First Church, Boston. They were to receive " bullion, plate, or Spanish coin," and convert it "into twelve-penny, six-penny, and three- penny pieces, which should be for form flat, and square on the sides, and stamped on the one side with N. E. and on the other side with XIIª, VIª, and IIld, according to the value of each piece, together with a privy mark, which should be appointed every three months by the governor and known only to him and the sworn officers of the mint." The mintmasters took an oath that all money coined by them should be "of the just alloy of the English coin, that every shilling should be of due weight, namely, three penny troy weight, and all other pieces pro- portionately, so near as they could." The charge for melting, refining and coining was fixed at fifteen pence for every twenty shillings. John Hull made a large sum of money out of the business, but he put it to a good use, and it was generally felt that his prosperity was well de- served.
24
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
It would seem that no pieces " square on the sides " were ever coined. Within a few days after the passage of the order, a committee appoint- ed to oversee its execution " determined and declared that the officers for the minting of money should coin all the money that they minted in a round form." It is said that the earliest pieces were called in New England North-Easters. By a second vote adopted in the autumn of the same year, "for the prevention of washing or clipping," it was ordered "that henceforth all pieces of money coined as aforesaid, should have a double ring on either side, with this inscription, Massa- chusetts, and a tree in the centre, on the one side; and New England, and the year of our Lord, on the other side." There were as many as sixteen different dies of the second form of the shilling piece; the coins are commonly known as pine-tree shillings, but there is no legal au- thority for this, and the rude form of a tree on the obverse, taken from the design entered on the journals of the Court, bears no special re- semblance to a pine. A singular deviation in the legend should be mentioned: Masathusets is the uniform spelling on the face of the coins. We have seen this form of spelling in documents of the same period. All the coins of the various issues preserved the date of the year when the mint was established, 1652. This money and sterling money were declared to be the only legal tender, after three months from the date of the original act.
Fortunately for the colonists, their nominal rulers beyond the sea were too far away, and too much occupied with their own more immediate and pressing concerns, to follow them very closely in all their proceedings, and to hold them steadily and persistently to a strict account. As one consequence of this state of things. the coinage of money in Massachusetts went on for many years without any serious protest from England. Cromwell took no notice of it during the period of the Commonwealth, and for some time after the restoration of the monarchy no very pronounced objection was made to it. To smooth matters over with Charles HI, the General Court, in 1676, ordered the shipment of a present to him, consisting of "ten barrels of cranberries, two hogsheads of samp, and three thousand codfish." (Hume says that the usual oath of Charles was " Cod's fish.") During the administration of Sir Edmund Andros endeavors were used to ob- tain the sanction of the crown for the continued coinage of silver here, in view of the undoubted advantage it had brought to colonial interests. Finally the question was referred to the master of the mint in London,
25
TRADE AND COMMERCE.
who, on prudential considerations, and not as an encroachment upon the royal prerogative, reported against the local mint, and its opera- tions were brought to a close.
After the conquest of Ireland by Cromwell, the extraordinary prop- osition was made by him to the people of Massachusetts to recross the ocean, and to plant Protestant civilization in the sister island. Writing to the Protector upon this proposition, in behalf of the General Court, Endicott said that they would not "hinder any families or persons to remove to any parts of the world where God called them," but that they were enjoying health, plenty, peace, the liberty and ordinances of the gospel, and an opportunity for spreading the knowledge of it among savages, and that, content with these blessings, they had no desire to change their abode. A few years later, in 1655, the Protector advanced another plan for their emigration to Jamaica, which then had only fifteen hundred white population. He offered tempting inducements to this end, and instructed Daniel Gookin, then in London, to return home and urge them upon the people. In an audience which he gave to John Leverett, Cromwell manifested a very strong desire for the ex- ecution of this scheme, and said that "he did apprehend the people of New England had as clear a call to transport themselves from thence to Jamaica, as they had from England to New England, in order to their bettering their outward condition, God having promised his peo- ple should be the head, and not the tail." But the Massachusetts set- tlers could not be persuaded or tempted to change their lot again. As the historian says: "They might well be satisfied with their con- dition and their prospects. Everything was prospering with them. They had established comfortable homes, which they felt strong enough to defend against any power but the power of the mother country; and that was friendly. They had always the good will of Cromwell. In relation to them he allowed the navigation law, which pressed hard on the Southern colonies, to become a dead letter, and they received the commodities of all nations free of duty, and sent their ships at will to the ports of continental Europe." To the navigation act, and to the extension of the principle on which it was based, we shall have occasion to refer again and again.
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