USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 2 > Part 37
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403
WHALE AND MACKEREL FISHERIES
WHALE AND MACKEREL FISHERIES
The whale fishery was a matter of great economic import- ance throughout the early modern period, and did not lose its importance until the development of the mineral oils. Whales were sought for the small bones of the mouth, for their oil, and for ambergris, a pathological product sometimes found in the whales but more happily found in their near vicinity. It was sometimes used as a medicine, but more commonly as a basis for perfumery. It is worth $3.75 to $6.25 an ounce at the present time and individual pieces found floating on the ocean sometimes weigh as much as 130 pounds.
There are several varieties of whale, some yielding no bone, others yielding inferior grades of oil. The most valu- able variety is the spermaceti whale, whose oil can be crystal- lized so as to produce a superior grade of candle. Even when used in the liquid form, this spermaceti oil is distinctly supe- rior to the oil of the common whale. Whales were numerous in New England waters in the early period and it was not a difficult matter to capture them when sighted from land. Shore whaling of this sort prevailed at nearly all New Eng- land points from an early period in the settlement. But the island of Nantucket was particularly important in this kind of enterprise. The island was divided into four sections, to each of which six men were assigned as look-outs. When whales were sighted, boats put out to pursue them.
Such an enterprise was not a common type of whaling. English and Dutch whaling ventures involved relatively long voyages into sub-Arctic and Arctic waters. In its developed form, whaling was a type of enterprise closely assimilated in character to long distance foreign trade; but this type did not appear in New England until the eighteenth century was well advanced.
Deep sea whaling began about 1712, but was not predomi- nant until 1730. The shore fishery still continued, but ceased to be of any great importance. The deep sea voyages were first extended to the Davis Straits, and finally about 1753 to the coast of Guinea; the former being called the North Fishery, the latter the South Fishery. The enterprise reached a high level of prosperity just prior to the Revolution, attaining
404
BUSINESS AND TRANSPORTATION
proportions which were not again achieved until 1820. The sharp decline of the enterprise during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars may probably be attributed to the diversion of the ships and capital to other lines of trade. New Bedford did not take up this enterprise until about 1765, but consider- able capital was invested in whaling by the outbreak of the Revolution.
The mackerel fishery begins in the early eighteenth century but was not a matter of great importance. The mackerel were used as bait, and some were used locally for food, but they were not cured and exported until after 1740. By the close of our period there was a considerable export of pickled mackerel to the West Indies, though they were not in high esteem. Some other types of fish were taken for local use but they did not constitute an important element in the fisheries.
SHIPPING EMPLOYED IN FISHERIES (1771)
Many casual statements appear in the contemporary sources which purport to give the quantities of fish taken or exported and the values of the product; nearly all of these statements are crude estimates, commonly inconsistent with each other. Some fairly reliable statements of the numbers of vessels and their tonnage are available for the close of our period, and they constitute the most accurate index of the magnitude of this enterprise and of the relative importance of its different branches. The following table furnishes some information.
TABLE OF FISHING VESSELS
Type of fishery
Number of vessels
Tonnage
Cod
665
25,630
Whale
304
27,840
Other
90
2,700
1,059
56,170
It will be observed that at this time the whale fisheries employed as large a tonnage as the cod fishery though the number of vessels was considerably smaller. It is practically certain that this development of the whale fishery was rel-
405
MASSACHUSETTS INDUSTRY
atively new. The cod fishery, on the other hand, was not much more extended than it had been for a considerable period of time. It should be noted that the total tonnage employed in the fishery was almost as great as the tonnage employed in foreign trade, which amounted about that period to entrances of 65,000 tons and clearances of 70,000.
MASSACHUSETTS INDUSTRY
The primary features in the industrial occupations in Massa- chusetts in the eighteenth century were the predominance of unspecialized household work and of various types of craft work involving small amounts of capital. Occasional experi- ments with manufacturing enterprises on a fairly considerable scale give little information as to the industrial field as a whole.
In Massachusetts the outstanding industries were those connected with the manufacture of wood and leather. The crafts related to woodworking helped to work up the supplies of lumber, while the leather workers were processing and manufacturing the relatively large supply of hides produced by the greatly extended livestock interest. Craftsmanship within these industries developed very rapidly. In addition to these two large industrial groups, extensive developments in individual crafts were concerned with direct consumption, such as brewing, distilling, baking, slaughtering and meat-packing, together with crafts concerned with personal service and small luxuries.
Craft specialization was of course much more conspicuous in the towns than in the country villages at some distance from the coast. Boston, in particular, was an important industrial and trading center. It rose rapidly to a commanding position after the establishment of the province government and served as a real metropolis to the whole of New England. The chief industries were shipbuilding, distilling and sugar refining, meat-packing, tanning, and the manufacture of leather goods, such as shoes, leather breeches, saddlery, and gloves.
The period of the greatest prosperity of the town was brought to a close by the growth of distilling that came about after the passage of the Molasses Act in 1733. Illegal trade
406
BUSINESS AND TRANSPORTATION
was so much safer in the smaller ports of Rhode Island and Connecticut and of Essex County, that the trade of Boston suffered substantially. The shipbuilding industry was also subjected to pressure of competition from the smaller places, though the cause of the decline in shipbuilding in Boston itself is not apparent.
Meat-packing began to decline about 1745 by reason of com- petition with the inland towns. Large numbers of cattle were slaughtered outside of Boston, and at times neither the beef nor the hides passed through Boston as the trading center. Tanning and the manufacture of leather goods sprang up in the inland towns to the great detriment of the merchant fami- lies in Boston. Complaints of these economic difficulties begin to appear in the town records as early as 1746 and con- tinue intermittently for the next ten years. Francis Bernard also comments on these changes as late as 1763. The popula- tion of the town, too, declined after 1742 and did not again equal the numbers of that date until 1790. It seems likely, therefore, that the complaints of the Bostonians were genuine, although they were undoubtedly biased by the hope of securing reductions of imperial taxation. Some of these changes would be a natural result of the gradual movement of popula- tion from the seaports to the interior towns.
IRON MINING AND MANUFACTURE
Outside of Boston, one of the most conspicuous individual industries was iron. Some iron ore was produced within the province from an early date, mostly from the swamps and bogs of Essex, Plymouth, and Bristol Counties. Such extrac- tion of ore plays today so small a part in the iron industry that its existence is now almost overlooked; in the earlier periods at various times it was an item of considerable local importance. Such ores are produced by the action of water on the crystalline rocks, the iron being washed down with other alluvial materials. The iron naturally sinks to the bot- tom so that considerable quantities are concentrated in swamps, bogs, and shallow ponds. It can be collected with the simplest possible apparatus. After a swamp has been drained the ore can be shovelled up, and in case of lakes the ore can be fished
407
WOOLENS AND LINENS
up with an oyster rake. These bog ores were the source of all the pig iron produced in Massachusetts until after 1760.
Such iron is too brittle for many kinds of products, but it lends itself particularly to castings because of its low melting point. These ores were the basis of the manufacture of kitchen utensils, stove grates and heavy castings. It is implied that some cannon were cast from these local ores, but that seems hardly probable, though cannon balls were made in considerable quantities from such metal. Despite the relatively small mass of these ores, they were not a negligible factor in the economic life of the colonial period.
Considerable quantities of iron were also imported from New York, New Jersey, and from Great Britain. Forges for working up these imports, as well as the local production, were established in many parts of the province. The oldest iron works were those of Essex County. There were works at Braintree as early as 1648, and also important forges at Raynham in Bristol County after 1652. In the eighteenth century an extensive development occurred in Plymouth County, notably at Kingston, Bridgewater and Middleboro. The best iron masters in the province turned out good grades of agricultural implements together with some fire-arms; and by the close of that period one or two works were capable of producing guns for ships or fortifications.
WOOLENS AND LINENS
Manufacture of the lower grades of textiles began in the seventeenth century. In 1656 an order of the General Court required every family to do some spinning and weaving. In 1698 a clothier was given a grant of 200 acres of land on condition that he give instruction in his craft. Considerable numbers of sheep were kept in the colony; at first on the is- lands for fear of wolves, but later on the mainland. The quality of wool was not of the best but the preparation of unfinished cloth must have been substantially established at the beginning of our period. The report of the Board of Trade in 1721 states that the requirements of all the country people were met by the product of this household industry. The use of imported cloth was confined to the women and gentlemen
408
BUSINESS AND TRANSPORTATION
of the coast towns. The attempts to improve the woolen manufactures in the course of the eighteenth century are con- cerned with the development of craft skill in finishing the cloth and the development of yarn suitable for fancy worsteds.
The linen industry was the source of not a little concern. Considerable flax was grown; at first, exclusively for its seed. It seemed a serious economic waste to make no attempt to utilize the fiber. There was substantial demand for fine linen, and the shipbuilding industry created a special demand for heavy sailcloth and duck. A manufacture of linen duck was begun in 1726 and after its accomplishments had been verified by a committee of the General Court, a bounty was granted to the proprietor of the establishment. There seems to be no ground for supposing that the manufacture came to be of any great importance.
The manufacture of fine linens was introduced into New England by a group of Irish who finally settled in London- derry, N. H. Their success was a source of considerable en- couragement and may have had something to do with the per- sistent attempts to establish the linen manufacture in Boston. A committee was formed in 1748 and £2300 were subscribed toward the establishment of a linen manufacture. A building was apparently leased, some spinning was done on the prem- ises, yarn was purchased and some piece goods woven.
CORPORATE MANUFACTURES
These efforts finally culminated in the formation of the "Society for Encouraging Industry and the Employment of the Poor." The title and the text of some of their resolutions would seem to indicate that they were genuinely distressed about the condition of the poor, but such sentiments were common in that period and were mostly an indirect way of expressing an ambition to make good use of cheap labor. This project, like others, contemplated the use of children from eight years and up. The Society had several meetings in the latter part of 1751 and in 1752. In June, 1753, a petition was presented to the General Court proposing that a large building be erected at the expense of the Province which should then be turned over to the promoters, rent free. The committee in
409
CORPORATE MANUFACTURES
charge should be under obligation to furnish free instruction in the spinning and weaving of linen, and every town was to have the right to send at least one person to Boston to be in- structed in these arts. The project was favorably received and a tax was laid on all pleasure vehicles in order to raise the money presumed to be necessary. The original estimate as- sumed that the building could be constructed for £1500.
As soon as the arrangements had been completed, the com- mittee proceeded with the erection of the house; the building operations being financed by Thomas Gunter. The building cost £1824 and £422 was paid for the land. The returns from the tax on carriages fell far below the expectations, because it appeared there were very few pleasure vehicles in the province. The total receipts from the tax were £738. The Province was thus considerably in debt to Thomas Gunter, and as no ar- rangement seemed possible, it was agreed to sell the manu- facturing house at auction with the expectation of applying the proceeds of the sale to the debt. This project fell through, because no bids were received. Thomas Gunter died, and in 1763 the executors were deeply concerned about collect- ing the money as no other hope existed of paying the legacies in his will, which were chiefly for charitable purposes. The settlement of these difficulties does not appear in the records, but apparently the Province did not succeed in getting rid of the manufacturing house. A small linen manufacture was established in the building in September, 1762 or earlier, by John and Elisha Brown. They offered to teach spinning and produced a modest amount of high-grade linen which was sold locally. A stocking weaver had a stocking frame set up in one of the attic rooms and both of these tenants continued in occu- pation of their premises until after 1770.
In that year, a scheme was brought forward for establishing a woolen manufacture in the house; and although some ver- sions of the scheme contemplated the ejection of the other tenants, both of them seem to have remained and the woolen project was carried out in another part of the building. The woolen project which was promoted by William Molyneux was an ambitious scheme in its original conception. He pro- posed to create an establishment for spinning and weaving, dyeing and finishing that would keep as many as fifty looms
410
BUSINESS AND TRANSPORTATION
at work. The leases which were finally prepared required him to set up eight looms in the first year and two more looms within the next two years. The lease indicates specific com- mitment to the worsted industry. We do not know how much of this more modest project was actually executed, though the building seems to have continued in these industrial uses until it was purchased by the Massachusetts Bank in 1784.
SPECIALIZED INDUSTRIES
The oldest and most important of the smaller industries was printing. Presses were established at a very early stage in the settlement, and books were published long before the close of the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century six or eight printers in Boston were doing an extensive and varied business. Binding was commonly associated with the print- ing houses. Finally the development of this industry led to attempts to establish paper mills in the province. An English- man came to Boston in 1732 under an agreement that a paper mill should be started and entrusted to his management. The contract was not carried out as originally intended but some manufacture of paper was begun about 1735. The enterprise languished but was finally revived in 1764 by James Boies and Richard Clark, who received a grant of £400 from the pro- vince as a loan without interest to enable them to repair the paper mill at Milton. This mill seems to have been the effec- tive beginning of paper manufacture in the province.
Glass works were proposed in 1750 and Isaac Winslow and his associates finally erected a glass house at Braintree in 1752. After work on this project was well under way, he petitioned the province for a complete monopoly for glass making in the province for twenty years. This request seems not to have been granted. Encouragement to industry was commonly given either in the form of grants of land, loans without interest, or as a direct bounty on production. A lively glass industry later sprang up at Sandwich on Cape Cod; and products of those works are still highly valued.
The valuation returns of 1767 afford striking evidence of the development of specialized craft industries. In addition to the numerous mills, large numbers of "work houses" are
1520 PER SQUARE MILE
170 PER SQUARE MILE
97 PER SQUARE MILE
40-50 PER SQUARE MILE
30-40 PER SQUARE MILE
20-30 PER SQUARE MILE
9-20 PER SQUARE MILE
DENSITY OF POPULATION IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1765
HAVERHILL NEWBURYPORT
BEVERLY
SALEM
CONCORD
ROXBURY
DORCHESTER
MILTON VON
HINGHAM
CRAFT INDUSTRIES BY TOWNS 1767 EACH DOT REPRESENTS 5 SHOPS
EARLY INDUSTRIAL MASSACHUSETTS
411
SPECIALIZED INDUSTRIES
enumerated. For Roxbury and Milton tan houses are listed, and it seems clear that the "work houses" of the general list are special premises for carrying on various industrial opera- tions. One would assume them to be essentially similar to the small shops so common in the state in the later shoe towns, the so-called "twelve footers." The extent of this develop- ment is truly surprising, as shown in the following table :
CONDITIONS IN SOME TOWNS IN 1767
TOWNS
DWELLING HOUSES
CRAFT SHOPS
Roxbury
212
78 (tan)
Milton
137
16 (tan)
Hingham
387
81
Dorchester
197
55
Salem
519
136
Newburyport
390
99
Beverly
289
45
Concord
251
45
Haverhill
281
44
FOREIGN AND COASTWISE COMMERCE (1714, 1770)
Massachusetts controlled rather more than half the shipping of the seaboard colonies and played a large part in the com- merce between the New World and Europe. Much of this trade passed through the hands of the local merchants, so that the total volume of shipping in the province was relatively large. Much scattered material exists which throws light upon the volume and character of the commercial movement; but comprehensive statements are rare, and are available only for the beginning and for the end of the period. The follow- ing figures of shipping cleared from Massachusetts, shown on the next page, are transcripts from the Custom House records, that found their way into contemporary documents.
Some substantial changes in the direction of trade evidently took place from 1717 to 1770. The trade to Southern Europe declined relatively to that in other directions; there were slight gains in the trade to Great Britain; but the relative posi- tions of the West India trade and the trade with the other sea- board colonies were reversed. Incomplete figures available
412 BUSINESS AND TRANSPORTATION
elsewhere seem to indicate that the returns for 1770 are repre- sentative. References elsewhere give us the total number of ships cleared in 1747-48 and unless the size of the vessels were quite out of line with other figures, this would indicate a ton- nage of 38,200 tons. The growth of shipping during the period is not extraordinary, but it is closely proportionate to the growth of population. We have an estimate of the values of the produce of New England exported for the year 1763. The figures seem trustworthy and representative, but it is un- fortunate that they take no account of the exports of sugar, rum and molasses.
TABLE OF CLEARANCES OF SHIPPING
AVERAGE PER YEAR
1714-17
1770
Ships
Tons
Percentage of trade
Ships
Percentage Tons of trade
Great Britain
and Ireland.
49
4021
15.8
103
13778
19.6
British and Foreign
West Indies
195 10620
41.6
370
20957
29.8
Southern Europe
and Africa.
61
4366
17.4
74
5419
7.8
Continent of
America
187
6397
25.2
787
30128
42.8
493 25404 100.
1334
70284 100.
TABLE OF EXPORTS AND IMPORTS (1763)
The following incomplete table shows in groups the prin- cipal exports of the colony in 1763, in values :
COMMODITIES
VALUES £
PER CENT
Codfish
100,000
Whale and cod oil
127,500
Whalebone
8,450
Pickled mackerel and shad
15,000
240,950 51.0
EXPORTS AND IMPORTS
413
Commodities
Values £ Per Cent
Masts, boards, staves, shingles. . .
75,000
Ships-70 sail at £700
49,000
Naval stores
600
Potash
35,000
159,000
33.4
Horses and livestock
37,000
Pickled beef and pork
28,500
Bees wax and sundries
9,000
74,500
13.6
£474,400
100.0
The only figures for the exports of rum available are for the year 1773 when New England as a whole is credited with an export of 911,000 gallons, of which 419,000 gallons went to Africa, 361,000 gallons to Quebec and 111,000 gallons to Newfoundland. The figures seem not to include shipments to the middle and southern seaboard colonies.
Massachusetts imported most of the foreign goods used from Great Britain; since her exports to Great Britain were relatively small, heavy balances were due to British accounts. Trade statistics are not accurate enough to admit of a complete analysis of the balance of payments, but the larger features seem fairly clear. The balance due in London was met by the sale of ships to Great Britain, by the returns from shipping services rendered, by balances accumulated in Southern Europe, and by the balances from the slave trade. This last item was fairly complex in its detail; rum and other trade goods were sent out to Africa, the slaves were carried to the West Indies and sold partly to the British but also in the Spanish settlements. The returns whether in specie or in goods represented the extent of net credit balances in the West Indies. It is frequently assumed that considerable remittances to England were made in specie and that this was one of the sources of the currency difficulties.
414
BUSINESS AND TRANSPORTATION
INFLUENCE OF BRITISH COMMERCIAL POLICY
The commercial policy of Great Britain towards her colo- nists falls into three clearly distinct sections. The first re- strictions upon navigation and shipping were designed to give a monopoly of British trade to ships belonging to any portion of the Empire. These statutes were not in any sense anti- colonial. It is difficult to believe that they were of much benefit to the colonies, as the New Englanders could build cheaper ships than any of the European shipbuilding regions; and the Navigation Acts could hardly be regarded as injurious to the colonies in this particular.
A second phase of British policy is embodied in those clauses of the Navigation Acts which were designed to force the colonies to trade exclusively with the mother country. These provisions are commonly thought of as anti-colonial, but there are grounds for also doubting that interpretation. This aspect of British policy seems to be largely designed to protect certain vested interests. Conspicuous among these vested interests were the British wholesale merchants; but the recognition of the interests of the colonies in direct trade to southern Europe and the evident regard for the West Indian sugar planters seems to show that we are dealing here with a manifestation of Parliament's desire to maintain all vested interests, British and colonial. Whatever interpretation is placed upon the policy as a whole, there are no grounds for supposing that these provisions were of any serious economic disadvantage to the seaboard colonies down to 1763. The serious restric- tions originally directed against the trade to south Europe were removed, and though the seaboard colonies were nomi- nally sacrificed to the sugar colonies in 1733, the restrictions were never effectively enforced so that the sacrifice was not consummated. The Molasses Act of 1764, however, did exer- cise influence upon the local situation, as it was commonly held responsible for the decline of the trade of Boston and the diffusion of the distilling. Illicit trade could best be carried on outside of Boston where there was less opportunity for direct supervision by the British Collector of Customs.
The third phase of British policy was restriction upon colonial industry, designed to confine production to raw ma-
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