USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Fifty years of Boston; a memorial volume issued in commemoration of the tercentenary of 1930; 1880-1930, Pt. 1 > Part 37
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There has been, however, at least one very important Boston contribution to modern United States shipping. In 1870 the schooner "Telegraph" of Wellfleet, on the Cape, Lorenzo D. Baker, master, brought home to Boston from Kingston, Jamaica, a few bunches of bananas. Bananas had entered the United States before, but this exploit opened the eyes of Andrew W. Preston of Beverly, a Boston banker and fruit merchant. In 1885 he persuaded nine Bostonians to advance two thousand dollars apiece to found the Boston Fruit Company for the purchase of banana land in the West Indies. They operated fruit steamers from Boston during the 90's; were very successful and in 1899 became the United Fruit Company. Though their Great White Fleet hails from New York, if not under foreign registry, yet the United Fruit Company is one of the great Boston-founded American corporations and a direct descendant of Boston's West India trade.
Even more than the white fruit ships, the auxiliary steam barkentine "Nantucket," home of the Massachusetts Nautical Training School, lends variety, with her square yards and black hull, to Boston harbor. She is well known, too, in mnost of the ports of Europe, which she visits on her summer cruises. The school was established by the Commonwealth in 1891 and the Navy lent a gunboat for the training ship, first "Enterprise," then, since 1909, "Nantucket." Six hundred graduates are now in the merchant service and the demand for inore far exceeds the supply.
The foreign steamship lines serving Boston, originally all but limited to the European traffic, have spread out steadily with the decay of the sailing ship and the general expansion of world commerce. Even in 1880 the foreign steamer tonnage entering Boston was always at least three times the sail ton- nage, though there were more individual arrivals of the latter. The English companies - Cunard, Allan, Furness-Withy, Patterson-Wylde - monopolized our transatlantic trade in the early days. Other lines, serving other regions, reached Boston later. Just before the World War, the Directors of the Port of Boston induced the Hamburg-American Line to come here. Today we have forty-eight steamship lines to all parts of the world and an adequate transatlantic liner service. Unfortunately, for none of these ships is Boston the sole American port of call. We have neither outgoing freight in sufficient quantities nor tourists in sufficient numbers. The attraction of New York is too great. Along the coast the Pacific Coast lumber trade, carried on by the
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American-Hawaiian, Luckenbach and other lines is booming every year. In fact, it is alleged that Boston is the third United States port in total volume of water-borne commerce. All very well, but Boston ships do not carry it.
Boston, then, is a convenient harbor for the movement of a certain amount of merchandise. It is not a self-respecting port in the sense that Liverpool, Hamburg - even New York - and the other great ship-owning ports are. It is not the self-respecting port it was even as late as fifty years ago. Granted, but it is silly to say that this has happened because the glorious Yankee enter- prise and "love of the sea" is dead in this feeble generation. It is silly to invoke the clippers, for "love of the sea" crops up in commercially practicable quantities only when love of the sea pays, and freight rates, as really vital interpretations of life, are more magnificent than any poem. A great ship- owning port appears when ships can be built cheaply near by, or when a large volume of bulk cargo moves through the port, or when the inhabitants haven't anything better to do. The first and last causes made Boston a great port for more than a hundred years. Today the first cause does not operate because steel has taken the place of wood for shipbuilding and there is no steel in New England; the second cause does not operate for geographical and differential reasons; the third cause does not operate because we have a huge industrial plant on our hands. These, nevertheless, do not entirely explain away the fact that Boston has not been interested in seeing and meeting change.
THE FISHING INDUSTRY OF BOSTON
By JAMES B. CONNOLLY
Just when the first colonial fishing boat put out from Boston is not known but food being not over plentiful with the early settlers, and an abundance of cod and haddock to be had at their ocean doors, the industry of fishing must have been begun at an early date. That the fishing industry eventually became a most important part of the colony's business is attested by the later choosing of a codfish as a fitting emblem for the Commonwealth.
For a long time the fresh fish market of Boston catered to local business only, this because of no method known to the old days whereby fish could be kept fresh for any length of time. The curing of fish for the export trade, especially to the West Indies, was an item of account in colonial days, and later, but today the fresh fish trade is the great thing.
The fresh fish industry of Boston was a slow growth. A proof of that is the fact that up to well after the Civil War the facilities of a part of Com- mercial Wharf amply sufficed for the port accommodation of the fishing fleet.
The enormous immigration of the last half of the last century advanced the industry tremendously. In 1884 the Boston dealers moved to T Wharf, tearing down the old structures thercon, erecting buildings especially designed to meet their own peculiar necds. In that day, less than half a century ago, the Boston dealers thought that T Wharf would give them ample room for a long, long time to come, yet so rapid was the continued increase of the business that within a quarter of another century the dealers were looking around for more commodious quarters.
Old T Wharf was a picturesque spot. Always about the fishing business was an atmosphere that marked it as something apart from all other com- mercial ventures. For the fishermen themselves who came and went, sailing to and from the fishing banks, it was rather an adventure than a business. There was no regular wage for them. They might have a week or month of extravagant prosperity, or they might meet with the lean weeks and months, when they would not make enough to pay for their bait and ice.
The fishing vessels, celebrated throughout the maritime world for their beauty, speed and weatherliness, would come sailing in from the sea. Their clever captains and crews, disdaining towboat aid, would shoot them into the slip, lines would be tossed on to the wharf and made fast. The fishing captains would then hail for the amount of their catch, so many thousands of pounds of haddock, so many of cod, so many halibut or hake or whatever else they had below decks. The dealers would then begin bidding for the cargo or for part of the cargo. The skippers would listen, perhaps not accepting a price until after they had taken counsel as to the state of the market with some friendly soul ashore. What price a skipper accepted would be affected by his judgment of the chances of the fleet they had left on the banks behind arriving soon. If
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it had been rough out there and fish scarce, he would be in no hurry to sell; if there was danger of a glut of the market, almost any offer would be quickly taken.
Old T Wharf was the most famous of all fishing piers, one of the most famous piers of any kind, in the world. The romantic aspect of it appealed to all sorts of people. Artists came from far and wide to paint scenes on the wharf; notable Boston professional and business men, obscure clerks and serv- ing men, regularly spent part of their lunch time there, watching the fishermen hoist the baskets of fish from the vessel's hold to the wharf, weigh them on a dealer's scale, dump them into a dealer's fish box, pitchfork them into the high wheeled, clumsy carts, which would then roll them away to the dealers' stores, there to be packed in ice and shipped to points as far distant as fast freight or express would take them and hold them fresh. Texas was about as far as they would remain fresh in the T Wharf days. Today, under more modern preservative methods, fish can be sent as far as California and kept fresh.
The T Wharf fleet was an all-sail fleet, handsome, able vessels which shared with the great Gloucester fleet the admiration of the world. The annual race between the Boston and Gloucester men was the classic sailing race of the North Atlantic; perhaps it would be fair to call it the classic of all the seas of the world, because here were no freak boats, fit only for light air and smooth water, but able schooners fit to battle, as out on the fishing banks they did battle regularly, with the strongest of gales and the roughest of seas.
Except for a few vessels going seining (mackerel catching) in the spring to fall weather, the old T Wharf fleet were trawlers; that is, they caught their cargoes of fish by means of a trawl; a long heavy ground line laid along the bottom of the shoaler spots of the ocean, to which is attached at three or four foot intervals lighter weight short lines with hooks. The trawl would be set and hauled from a dory, two men usually to a dory.
This trawling for fish was a rough, dangerous business, especially in winter time. Vessels would be overwhelmed with all their crews during the great gales on the fishing banks; or the men in the dories would go astray in the fog, snow and drizzle; or they would be capsized from time to time, perishing of cold or hunger or smothered in the heavy seas before they could be picked up. Frequently, vessels arrived at T Wharf with the marks of the terrible bank storms on them,- a flag at half-mast for lost men, or with spars or dories or rails gone. A common sight in wintertime was a vessel with bowsprit as big around as a hogshead for the ice upon it, with the nest of dories almost hidden by ice, with rigging iced half-way to the masthead, with decks so thickly iced that shore-gazing spectators were left to wonder how their crews made their way around them without being washed overboard while handling the sails. Sometimes they were washed overboard.
The bank fishermen were originally of native stock, but after the Civil War the native-born were rapidly augmented by immigrants from other seafaring countries. This new blood was largely from the south of Ireland or the Maritime Provinces. A lesser number came from the Scandinavian coun- tries. They were sober and independent, even as they were a God-fearing lot, an asset to any community, dwelling along the South Boston, North End and East Boston waterfronts, usually raising large families of children who grew
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up into good American eitizens. The Azorean Portuguese, less numerous in Boston Harbor than in Gloucester and Provineetown, have produced sturdy skippers, and T Wharf is now given over to the Sieilian power boat fishermen, who have made it gay with their painted eraft.
When T Wharf beeame too small, the fish dealers of Boston moved aeross the harbor to the present Fish Pier in South Boston. Here they set up a cold- storage plant, the largest of its kind in the world, to take eare of the excess cargoes that in former days would have to be sold at priees too low for profit, or left to spoil, or even thrown away for lack of a eustomer before it would spoil. That was in 1914. The pier is 1,200 feet long, 300 feet wide, and it cost $3,000,000 - the largest and most eostly fish pier in the world. Here it is that 600,000,000 pounds of fish annually, 2,000,000 pounds for every working day, are now received and distributed.
The old methods for the sale of fish were done away with on the new pier. A eentral organization was set up, the New England Fish Exchange, with its own roomy building at the head of the harbor-end of the fish pier. The arrival of fishing vessels is watehed out for; when one arrives a flag is hoisted as a signal to intending buyers to hurry to the Exchange. The skipper of the arriving vessel no longer has to stand on the deek of his vessel and hearken to buyers shouting their priees aeross a harbor wind. He now goes from his vessel to an elevated platform on the Exchange floor and there listens in eomfort to the bids hailed by the dealers. After delivering a eargo he does not have to go from dealer to dealer to eolleet his money. The Exchange eheeks up the sales to see that he gets full eredit for his eargo, and sees to it that he gets a check for the amount.
Besides the eargoes eoming in from the fishing banks, hundreds of trueks bring daily loads of fish over the road from points as far east as Bangor to as far west as Newport. When the dealers first moved to the present Fish Pier, the overland shipments to the Exchange eame by railway entirely. The develop- ment of motor transportation knoeked that railway traffie "galley-west." On the walls of the auction room in the Exchange may still be seen the big blaek- boards for the recording of the arrival of fish from the various New England eoast ports by rail. These blaekboards are so little used now that the Exchange thinks of taking them down.
The change from all-sail to auxiliary or all-motor power is a very late one. There was only one fishing steamer sailing from old T Wharf, the trawler "Spray," which, ineidentally, is still fishing. There was only one fishing steamer in those days out of Massachusetts, the "Aliee M. Jacobs," and she was not a bank fisherman. She went in for maekerel eatehing in summer and running herring from Newfoundland in winter.
Fishing sehooners are still being built but practically every sehooner built nowadays for the Boston trade has a powerful auxiliary engine. When it is not an auxiliary sehooner it is an all-power steamer. Eventually, and before not too great a length of time, it will be all-motor power. When that time eomes it will mean the end of the sehool for a great breed of seafaring men, but it will also mean mueh less loss of life. No longer will men have to go out in dories, or be compelled to make use of the wind against wind itself to get them clear of the dangerous banks in great gales.
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There is no stopping the trend to motor power for the fishing industry. Fishermen of the later days never did care to see their children go in for the hard life that had been theirs. As the old native stock long ago ceased to go in for bank fishing, there being a better living for them ashore, and as the immigration from the Provinces and across the water is not what it was, the result is that young men brought up to face calmly the dangerous old-time dory methods are no longer bred among us. They prefer the safer fishing from the deck of the power craft.
Boston's fish dealers have increased the money value of their sales immensely by these new methods of handling their products. In the old days fresh fish was sold to the retailer pretty much as it came out of the holds of the fishing vessels. When fishermen on the banks make a catch, they remove the intes- tines, wash the fish and pack them in ice in the holds. Coming so from the hold of the vessel, the fish would be clean and fresh but not as attractive as they might be to many buyers. The dealers no longer always try to sell the whole fish. Take the one item of filleting: that is, slicing thick cuts off the fat part of a haddock, say, letting the rest of it go as a by-product, or even for refuse. They now get more for a single fillet of haddock or flounder than they formerly would get for the entire fish.
The fish industry of Boston has developed rapidly. Since the occupation of the present Fish Pier (1914), the number of vessels and men engaged at sea and ashore has doubled. The amount paid out in wages has trebled. For the year ending October 23, 1930, the dealers of the Fish Pier paid out more than $10,000,000 for fish purchased on the floor of the Exchange alone, an increase of 225 per cent in the last sixteen years. The amount the retailer pays is much more than that; the ultimate consumer's bill is, of course, several times that.
Geographically, Boston is the most conveniently located of all our large ports to the great North Atlantic fishing banks; she is also most fortunately located for economic shipping facilities. These factors, combined with the enterprise of her merchants, have made her the leading fresh fish port of the Western Hemisphere. And the business is still growing rapidly.
EDITORIAL NOTE
The recently published figures for 1930 bear out Mr. Connolly's statement that Boston is the foremost fishing port in America. Down to 1926 Gloucester might have claimed to have a larger number of vessels engaged in the fisheries but in that year Boston drew ahead and has since established her superiority firmly.
Out of a total of approximately 1,100 vessels in the North Atlantic fisheries, six ports in Massachusetts - Boston, Gloucester, Provincetown, New Bedford, Nantucket and Edgar- town - are the headquarters of 506. Of this number 208 sail from Boston. All of these craft are equipped with auxiliary power, several are steamers, and the old-fashioned schooner has almost disappeared. New York is second to Boston among the North Atlantic ports, with 197 vessels, Gloucester third, with 170.
The receipts of fresh fish at Boston for 1929 and 1930 reveal the commercial importance of this trade:
1929
Pounds
Value
1930.
255,623,174 $10,730,903 285,212,778 $10,868,671
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AVIATION IN BOSTON
By PORTER ADAMS
Bostonians and the City of Boston have played an important part through- out the entire history of aviation. One of the outstanding pioneers in this field was Samuel P. Langley, born in Roxbury August 22, 1834, who definitely proved the possibility of flight by heavier-than-air craft in 1896 when a quarter- sized, steam-driven, scale model of his invention accomplished the first sus- tained fliglit of a heavier-than-air machine under its own power. He then retired from his aeronautical experimenting, but in 1901 he again became inter- ested and built an "aerodrome," so called, which failed to take the air on two attempts at launching by means of a catapult on top of a house boat, the second failure occurring ten days before the historic first flight of the Wright Brothers. In 1914 Glenn Curtiss took the Langley aerodrome, installed a more powerful engine, made a few changes necessitated primarily by the addition of pontoons, and made several successful flights at Lake Keuka, Hammondsport, New York.
The Aero Club of New England, the first aeronautical club to be formed in America, dates from the ninth day of January, 1902, when eleven well-known Boston nien, meeting socially at the Massachusetts Automobile Club, signed a paper of agreement to associate as a club and to indulge in the sport of bal- looning. Professor A. Lawrence Rotch, director of the Blue Hill Observatory, was elected president. The history of the development of the club naturally divides itself into two periods, the earlier period covering the years when the study of aeronautics was limited to ballooning, and the second the last two decades, during which aeronautics has been concerned more especially with the airplane. The periods overlap somewhat, for while interest in aviation began to take serious hold of the club as early as 1910, with the holding of aviation meets and expositions in Boston, active participation in ballooning was carried on by many of the members as late as 1915, when the club balloon became unfit for further use and was not replaced.
This balloon, which had a capacity of 35,000 cubic feet and was called the "Boston," had been purchased by the club soon after it was organized, and similar purchases were made at North Adams, Pittsfield and Springfield. Up to 1915 the club constantly maintained a balloon of the "Boston" capacity, and bearing the same name, and for a time owned and had in service the "Mas- sachusetts," with a capacity of 65,000 cubic feet. In addition to these club balloons others were owned by members of the New England and allied clubs so that for some years six or eight balloons were constantly available.
It is interesting to recall various notices which appeared in the aeronautical publications of that time. One from the January, 1909, issue of "Aeronautics" reads as follows: "Massachusetts led all states of the Union in ballooning dur- ing the year 1908 and promises well for 1909. There were 68 ascensions during the year and 179 persons made aerial trips without mishap."
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Interest in the sport was aroused to such an extent that New England and Massachusetts easily became the center of aeronautical activity for the entire country and for a number of years more ascensions were made annually in Massachusetts under the auspices of the Aero Club of New England than were credited to all the other states combined. This interest was accelerated by the inauguration of races and other contests, for which cups were offered by leading members of the club, Boston and Montreal newspapers, and various clubs and organizations in the New England States and in Canada, many of the flights at that time extending over the Canadian border.
Another interesting item may be cited from the "American Aeronaut" of June, 1908: "The Aero Club of New England has the distinction of being the first aero club on this side of the Atlantic to take a definite initiative in the aviation movement that is beginning to become general in this country. A committee has been appointed to obtain a flying machine for the club. Speci- fications of both American and French flying machines will first be obtained and the best machine acquired for club use."
The club was instrumental in holding the first airship exposition in the country in Boston. In 1911 Charles J. Glidden even projected a plan for the organization of a line of commercial dirigibles between Boston and New York and a company was incorporated. Some of the first experiments of the State Guard with balloons for military observation purposes were made in Massa- chusetts with the assistance of the club balloons.
The second period of the club's activities, that which concerns itself more especially with aviation, may be said to have begun in 1910, when the Aero Club of New England and its members co-operated with the Harvard Aero- nautical Society in the holding of one of the first aviation meets in the country at Squantum, and it played a prominent part in many subsequent meets.
Boston also has the satisfaction of knowing that one of her sons, Norman Prince, was largely instrumental in organizing the famous Lafayette Escadrille. He conceived the idea of bringing the American aviators, together with some of those of the Foreign Legion, into a single squadron, the outcome of this idea being the Lafayette Escadrille, which had the honor of carrying the first American flag that appeared on any of the battlefields of the World War. The Escadrille became famous for its skill and daring in battle fronts. One of its bravest members, Oliver Chadwick, who died in action August 14, 1917, was also a Boston man.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the pioneer in aeronautical education in the United States. In 1909 Professor Gaetano Lanza, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, built at the Institute the first wind tunnel in the United States, and in 1914 Commander J. C. Hunsaker, instructor in aeronautical engineering, 1912-16, placed in operation at the Institute the first modern wind tunnel in the United States. In the academic year 1914-15 a graduate course in aeronautical engincering was established.
The entrance of the United States into the World War led the Institute to offer its services and facilities to the Government and this offer was soon accepted. Ground schools for military and naval aviators were established in 1917. During the rest of the war the Institute remained the chief naval avia-
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tion ground school. It was at this period that Professor Edward P. Warner, one of the foremost of aeronautical engineers, became associated with the Institute and greatly promoted the development of its aeronautical department.
The four-year course in aeronautical engineering at "Tech" is designed, first to train the student thoroughly in the engineering fundamentals, and then to familiarize him with the application of these fundamental principles to aircraft design, construction and operation. The instruction of students, however, is only part of the work in aeronautics done at the Institutc. The research staff is constantly employed in the investigation of new problemns. The wind tunnels are available to airplane constructors and many tests have been made for them. Much of the research work of the Engineering Division of the Air Corps at McCook Field has been done in the wind tunnel at "Tech."
The first local flying to attract community attention took place early in the year 1910. Six months later, September 3-13, there was held at Squantum the largest and most important aviation meet held in the United States up to that time, conducted by the Harvard Aeronautical Society. Among the fliers were Glenn H. Curtiss and C. Grahame-White. A special prize of $10,000 was offered by the Boston Globe for a trip between Squantum, Boston Light and Harvard Stadium,- a course then considered long and daring. Another meet was held about a year later, but thereafter the Squantum field was used only at rare intervals. The ercction of the Victory plant there in 1918 caused the abandonment of the field for the use of land planes, though it was at Squantum that the Naval Reserve Air Station was afterwards estab- lished by Lieutenant-Commander Byrd (now a rear-admiral and first air- conqueror of the poles) in 1923. Nothing, however, was done during the war towards the establishment of a flying field at Boston.
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