USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > East Boston > History of East Boston; with biographical sketches of its early proprietors, and an appendix > Part 60
USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > East Boston > History of East Boston : with biographical sketches of its early proprietors, and an appendix. > Part 60
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During the "hard times " from 1837 to 1840, the Timber Company, the stockholders of which were personally liable, had been forced to borrow largely, more particularly from banks in Buffalo, from the North American Life Insurance and Trust Company of New York, to which company Grand island was mortgaged as collateral for the amount of its loan of $240,000, from the Morris Canal Company, the Fulton Bank of New York, and the Hancock Bank of Boston. Upon the failure of the Tim- ber Company to meet its obligations, the Hancock Bank sold the real estate, as before mentioned. This and the New England Bank received the notes, endorsed by several of the stockholders of the company.
Soon the Canal Company became embarrassed, and its bank- ing-house, a valuable building in Williams street, New York, was offered for sale, no other property being noticed in the advertisement. When the time of sale arrived, the creditors of the Canal Company said, that, according to the law in such cases, the real estate could not be sold until all the personal property had been disposed of. Upon this announcement, and without any notice to the public or to the Timber Company, the notes of the Timber Company, being part of its personal estate, were offered for sale, and purchased at a nominal price by Mr. David Selden, of New York. He came to Boston, and, finding that he could not levy upon the Timber Company, as its prop- erty was all under attachment, and that Gen. Sumner had some visible property, which had been put under attachment by the Canal Company, prosecuted the suit which the Canal Company had commenced, in which the individual property of the stock- holders was held, intending to levy upon him as a member of the company. Mr. Selden endeavored to make a compromise, but Gen. Sumner, standing upon ground which he considered. tenable, declined any compromise, and permitted the suit to go
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HISTORY.
[1837.
on ; but just before it would have come to trial it was discon- tinued by Mr. Selden, who perceived that the case would be a difficult one to prosecute, and that a successful issue would be very doubtful.
In 1837, a proposition had been introduced by Stephen White, President of the East Boston Timber Company, to ob- tain a controlling interest in the City Bank of Buffalo, and thus effect loans to the company by conducting the City Bank through its agents. General Sumner opposed this proposition as being illegal and going beyond the strict limits of the char- ter, which restricted their capital to $150,000, only half of which could be personal property, required their business to be conducted at East Boston, and limited it to preparing and vending ship and other timber. Although strong opposition was made to this plan, Mr. White was determined to carry it into execution, and, by obtaining proxies, came prepared with votes to effect his object ; and, at a meeting of stockholders in 1838, it was voted to purchase shares; they were bought the same year by the directors; these shares, together with the interests of other friendly stockholders, gave the company the control of the bank by influencing $168,000 of the capital of $400,000. Drafts and notes were given for the consideration of the shares purchased by the Timber Company, a part of which, or the renewals of them, constituted the grounds of the judg- ment afterward recovered against the company in New York. Determined not to be involved in any of the complicated affairs of a bank in Buffalo, either by vote or implication, at the time the vote was passed and in the face of all the rest of the stock- holders, General Sumner entered his protest (a special vote consenting) on the records of the company against the votes ratifying this contract with the City Bank. The protest is in the following words : -
" William H. Sumner, who voted in the negative on the foregoing resolutions relating to the contracts and proceedings of the City Bank of Buffalo, enters his protest against the votes and the authority of this company to pass the same, they being in his opinion not authorized by the charter, nor being compre- hended within its powers; and requests that this paper be entered on the records. (Signed) W. H. SUMNER."
675
SUITS.
1840.]
His reason for this apparent particularity was, that a stock- holder might individually be bound, if he was present at a meet- ing when an illegal vote was passed, if he did not protest against the authority of the company to bind him by the vote; but by protesting on the record he gave notice to any and all who looked at the record to see if the agent who signed the notes of the company had its authority to do so, that the authority vested in the agent for that purpose was beyond the power of the charter. The valid arguments presented by General Sum- ner, and his foresight in having the protest recorded at the time the vote was passed, furnished him with a sufficient defence in the troublesome suits which followed.
The City Bank of Buffalo failed in 1840, and its effects, a part of which were the notes of the East Boston Timber Com- pany, were placed in the hands of William L. Marcy. (since secretary of state under President Pierce), who was appointed by the State as receiver. This was a private banking company, and to obtain its charter had pledged security to the State. In this capacity Mr. Marcy commenced a suit against the Timber Company, upon which, in May, 1840, judgment was recovered in the State of New York. The defence of this suit had been amply provided for. J. S. Talcott, Esq., an eminent lawyer of New York, had been employed to conduct the defence ; but Mr. White neglected to advance the fees, and on account of this delinquency the counsel abandoned the suit when it came to trial, and the unexpected result followed. Perceiving that the object was to bring a suit in Massachusetts upon this judgment with the intention of levying upon the individual stockholders, General Sumner filed a bill in chancery in the Circuit Court of the District of Massachusetts, praying for an injunction in the action which had been instituted in the name of Marcy against him as a member of the company. The case was tried before Justice Woodbury in the Circuit Court of the United States, B. R. Curtis being attorney for General Sumner. Judge Woodbury, in an able and learned opinion, sustained the point made by the complainant that the company had exceeded the limits of the charter in purchasing shares in the City Bank, and that he from the commencement having opposed the pur-
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HISTORY.
[1833.
chase as illegal, and being ignorant of the suit in New York until long after the judgment was rendered against the com- pany, was not liable as a member of it.1
To say nothing of the vexations of an attachment of prop- erty for several years, the failure of this company brought upon the complainant the loss of twenty-eight or thirty thousand dollars, and, in some respects, was a serious hinderance to the advance of East Boston.
It is interesting to notice how this great failure, which to all appearance seemed destined to put a great check upon the pros- perity of the Island, in the end resulted for its great benefit ; and it only shows, that prosperity, Phoenix-like, may rise from the ashes of ruin. Upon the failure of the Timber Company the material for ship-building was scattered at East Boston in pro- fusion, and the thought occurred to some individuals that these materials could be converted into ships there as well as at Med- ford and other ship-building towns. There is no doubt that this fine collection of valuable lumber was the original incentive to the ship-building which is now so successfully and extensively carried on at the Island. On the whole, then, the failure of the Timber Company was not without its benefits. Its establish- ment gave rise to an immense business, and its failure made the fortunes of the purchasers of its estates.
EAST BOSTON WHARF COMPANY.
The East Boston Wharf Company was incorporated March 26, 1833, the principal corporators being Messrs. A. C. Lom- bard, S. S. Lewis, R. G. Shaw, W. B. Reynolds, C. Henshaw, A. Binney, J. Kendrick, and D. D. Brodhead.
The East Boston Company granted to the East Boston Wharf Company the land and water lots, beginning on Sum- ner street opposite Paris street, and running on the former 510 feet south-easterly; then at right angles in a straight line to low-water mark; on the line of the channel 510 feet;
1 See Woodbury and Minot's Reports, Vol. III. p. 105, Sumner v. Marcy. Mrs. White, the widow of Stephen White, was obliged to defend the chancery suit before she could institute her own claims, but signally failed.
677
EAST BOSTON WHARF COMPANY.
1833.]
and then north-easterly to Sumner street parallel to the second line. In the middle, by agreement, was to be made a public highway seventy feet wide, from the ferry landing to Sumner street, to be for ever kept open by the Wharf Company for the accommodation of the travel to and from the ferry (this street is now called Lewis street). The land was conveyed subject to this right of way, and to the right of the East Boston Com- pany to use the slips, landing, and wharves, at the end of said public highway, for all purposes connected with a ferry, as long as any ferry should be maintained between Boston and said highway.
On December 30, Messrs. Sumner and Brodhead, on the part of the East Boston Company, were appointed a committee to cause to be prepared proper indentures between the com- pany and the East Boston Wharf Company, so that the rights of both in the wharf might be effectually secured. On ac- count of some misunderstanding of the original agreement, these indentures had not been prepared in August, 1834; on the 26th of that month, Mr. S. S. Lewis was added to the above committee, who were instructed to report as soon as practicable.
About the middle of July, Messrs. H. Cummisky and P. McManus, under contract with the East Boston Company, commenced removing the earth from Smith's hill, upon which the garden lay, north-west of Hotel square, to fill in and make the street and wharf from the square to the ferry. The solid contents of the East Boston Wharf, supposing it to be 1,100 feet long and 320 feet wide, and the filling eleven feet deep, would amount to 17,926 cubic squares; of which, Mr. Cum- misky, in January, 1835, had filled up from Smith's hill, 10,247 squares, at 62} cents per square; all this, with many hundred squares of dock mud, and seven hundred squares of solid wharf, only filled in about two thirds of its area. Besides this, Mr. Cummisky filled in one thousand squares between Smith's hill and Hotel square, near the company's wharf, at $1.12 per square. This spacious wharf extended from the upland, near the Mave rick House, 1,150 feet towards the channel, with a width of 320 feet, and a dockage on each side of one hundred feet in width. The walls were built of heavy granite, of an average
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HISTORY.
[1834-37.
thickness of seven feet, with buttresses ; the space between the walls was filled up with solid earth. The whole comprised a surface of more than eight acres; of this about two acres were solid at the head of the wharf, one of which was purchased by the Sugar Refinery for $8,000 in 1834. The wharf was not completely filled in until 1837. Soon after, the East Boston Wharf Company sold the remainder of their wharf lot on the south side of Lewis street to the Eastern Railroad Company. All the property of the Wharf Company on the north side of Lewis street has since been owned by two parties, and has lately become the property of one individual.
On the 1st of July, 1835, the East Boston Wharf Company sold to A. C. Lombard, Esq., for $27,500, a portion of their premises on the westerly side of Lewis street, measuring 220 feet on Sumner street, five hundred feet on Lewis street, and 220 feet parallel to the first line, one hundred of which was a dock to be for ever kept open for his use.
The Wharf Company also conveyed to the East Boston Ferry Company the wharf at the end of Lewis street, with slips and flats in front, or south-westerly 150 feet on a street sixty feet wide. This was afterwards released, and the Ferry Company took another lot fifty feet on Lewis street and twenty-four feet on the south-west end.
On the 21st of August, 1837, the East Boston Wharf Com- pany sold to the Eastern Railroad Company, for $45,792, their wharf from Webster street (on the easterly side of Lewis street) 834 feet four inches towards the channel, and 121 feet nine inches wide to the dock, subject to the right of the Sugar Re- finery to land goods of any kind at rates of wharfage not exceeding one third of that charged by the Commercial Wharf Company in Boston. This comprised 101,584 square feet. The Railroad Company also purchased of the Wharf Company, for $5,000, the dock ninety-eight feet three inches wide, mak- ing the rest of the southerly border of the sugar-house estate. The portion of the East Boston Wharf thus purchased, between Webster, Marginal, Lewis, and Bremen streets, was afterwards purchased, and is now occupied, by the Boston Sugar Re- finery.
The value and business of the wharf of late years has greatly
1834.]
BOSTON SUGAR REFINERY.
679
increased. It has ample accommodations for the discharging and loading of the largest sized ships, and on the wharf are erected forty-five brick buildings, as warehouses, stores, shops, dwellings, etc. Fifteen of the large brick stores are used as United States bonded stores. The property has a frontage of 1,868 feet on Lewis, Sumner, and Webster streets.
BOSTON SUGAR REFINERY.
The Boston Sugar Refinery was the first manufacturing es- tablishment at East Boston. The sugar-house was erected in 1834, and was enlarged and improved in 1850 ; it now extends on Lewis street from Sumner to Marginal street.
The project of establishing a sugar refinery on a large scale and on the most approved plan, in Boston or its vicinity, was first conceived by John Brown, Esq. With this object in view he visited Europe in 1833. After encountering many obsta- cles, of which the most serious was the proverbial jealousy of the craft in England, he at length succeeded in procuring the desired information, and made all the necessary arrangements for the machinery and the workmen to carry the scheme into successful operation.
A charter of incorporation was obtained, dated March 25, 1834, the principal petitioners for which were John Brown, Richard Soule, and George Hallett. These with their asso- ciates were authorized to manufacture and refine sugar, and to buy and sell it and all articles necessary in its manufacture and refining, - with power to hold real estate to the value of $70,000, and personal estate to the amount of $180,000. The capital stock was divided into 2,500 shares, at $100 a share.
A piece of land 220 feet square was purchased of the East Boston Wharf Company for $8,000, and the erection of the building was commenced in the spring of 1834, before the ferry was opened ; it was not finished till 1836. The building is of brick, 136 by seventy-five feet, and eight stories of unequal height, but averaging eight feet; the foundation walls are of stone, five feet thick at the bottom, resting on a bed of blue clay forty feet deep; the brick walls are three feet thick at the base, dimin- ishing successively in the third, fifth, and sixth stories, and above
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HISTORY.
[1836.
that having a thickness of sixteen inches. About 2,200,000 bricks were used in its construction. Hiram Bosworth was the master carpenter, Gardner Greenleaf master mason, George Hal- lett and Richard Soule building committee. The plans and specifications of the building and machinery were procured in London by Mr. Brown, who also engaged Mr. Charles W. Woolsey, of Connecticut, to superintend the refining operations. It is a singular fact, that both Mr. Brown and Mr. Woolsey per- ished during the burning of the steamboat Lexington on Long Island Sound, January 13, 1840.
The main building contained a steam-engine of twenty-five horse-power. The number of workmen employed in 1836 was about eighty, who were able to refine twenty-five thousand boxes of sugar annually, working only by day, and fifty thou- sand, working night and day. Attached to the refinery was a dwelling-house with a brick pediment front ninety by twenty- eight feet, and eight wooden stores of one story each, with' sheds and outbuildings.1
The enterprise received a severe blow at its very commence- ment, which would have been fatal had it not been for the in- domitable perseverance of Richard Soule, Esq. A croaker in England wrote to some of the largest stockholders, probably from interested motives, informing them that an establishment conducted in the manner proposed by Mr. Brown would cer- tainly prove a failure, as new processes and new machinery would soon revolutionize the art of refining sugar in England ; and he accordingly advised them to have nothing to do with any establishment on the old plan. Some stockholders, Robert G. Shaw among the rest, became alarmed, and sold their stock
1 In October, 1834, the workmen of the refinery were put to great incon- venience by the withdrawal of the steamboat Tom Thumb from the ferry. This was for want of patronage. Small row and sail boats were at this time the only means of conveyance. On several occasions the workmen were un- able to get across from Boston in consequence of storms, and they were obliged to suspend the building operations at the refinery. In fact, there seemed to be danger that the works would be given up during the winter from this cause ; hence, Mr. Scholfield, as clerk, was authorized to send a petition to the East Boston Company requesting the replacing of the Tom Thumb. This boat was put on again, and ran till the opening of the regular ferry in May, 1835.
681
BOSTON SUGAR REFINERY.
1836-40.]
in the concern for just what it would bring. This, of course, was a heavy blow in the early stage of the business, and was felt by all the East Boston interests ; the building was nearly up, and large sums had been expended, and were still to be raised to meet pressing demands. Its friends fought manfully against this panic, and the prejudice of the public ; but so great was the incredulity in regard to the success of the enterprise, that few persons paid any attention to it until the loaves of beauti- fully refined sugar appeared in the market. The first meeting took place in May, 1836, after which public attention was directed towards it; the purity and reasonable price of the arti- cles produced were such that the refinery gradually grew into favor. Its affairs went on most prosperously till the years 1837 to 1839, when the stringency of the money market cramped this with every other business ; failures on every hand,. high prices, heavy debts for cargoes of sugars, the failure of Messrs. John Brown and Company, who were large proprietors in the refinery, and to which they were greatly indebted, and the un- fortunate deaths of Mr. Brown and Mr. Woolsey, - all conspired to oppress its energies ; it was consequently forced to stop pay- ment in 1840, and its affairs went into the hands of assignees, who, according to Mr. Soule, the chief manager at the time, cut and slashed into its property without mercy and with utter recklessness. It soon recovered itself, however, and has been a flourishing corporation to the present day. The creditors of John Brown and Company received payment in full for the principal and interest of their claims. The Sugar Refinery has since paid all its liabilities as they became due.
In 1838 and 1840, complaints were entered to the East Bos- ton Company against the refinery as a nuisance. This had been thought of even in 1834, when Messrs. White, Lewis, and A. Binney were appointed a committee, before the works went into operation, to ascertain if the refinery would create a nui- sance, or be in any way injurious to the interests of the com- pany. The refinery necessarily consumed a large quantity of bituminous coal, the thick smoke of which, charged with float- ing carbonaceous matters, was a source of annoyance on wash- ing days to the good dames of the neighborhood. There did not seem, at that time, to be any practical way of meeting this
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682
HISTORY.
[1835.
difficulty; and the occasional annoyance was, in the public estimation, very much overbalanced by the impulse which the establishment gave to the growth of East Boston. It was after- wards obviated by raising the chimney thirty feet higher, and by a method of consuming smoke, then new, but quite com- mon at the present time. Another annoyance, amounting sometimes to a positive nuisance, arose from the reburning of animal charcoal in a small building on the corner of Lewis and Webster streets. The stench from this source was such that the people in the neighborhood were obliged to keep the win- dows of their houses closed, even in the hottest weather. This necessary operation for the refining process was afterwards performed in a more remote corner of the grounds, and no ill effects are perceived from it.
The company found great difficulty in obtaining a sufficient supply of water, upon which the success of the undertaking depended, and expended a great amount of money in sinking wells. The first effort to obtain this sine qua non, was in Feb- ruary, 1835, when, under the direction of John Pierce, a cele- brated well-digger, a well was dug seventy-five feet in depth, and bricked up with a foot wall ten feet in the clear. The supply obtained being insufficient, the company employed a Mr. Marsh to increase the depth by boring. He soon came to a ledge of slate stone, and, after piercing it about eighty feet, the volume of water was increased; but it was of such bad quality that the well proved a failure. This well, which was about one hundred and fifty-five feet deep, was near the corner of Sumner and Lewis streets, and directly under the foundation of an ex- tension of the sugar-house which was afterwards made. In the fall of 1849 the well was opened to the light by the workmen, when the new foundation of the extension was in progress, and its top covering carefully replaced. Not long after the first well was finished, the company employed a Mr. Slade to sink a well near the foundation of the chimney, and the work was prose- cuted to the depth of sixty feet, but, no water appearing, it was decided to abandon this also, especially as fears were enter- tained that the foundations of the chimney would be injured. Deeming it inexpedient to experiment further in this neigh- borhood, the company again employed Mr. John Pierce to
683
BOSTON SUGAR REFINERY.
1842.]
dig a well at a distance from the sugar-house. A spot was selected on the corner of Maverick and Havre streets, on ac- count of the springy nature of the ground. This well was about twenty feet in diameter and eighteen feet in depth. A very good supply of water was found, enough to warrant the laying an iron pipe through Paris street from the well to the sugar-house ; this was the chief source of supply until the autumn of 1843. Late in the season of 1842, a well was sunk in Maverick square, near the south-east corner of the Maverick church, and near the corner of Sumner street and Maverick square, fifty feet deep and fifteen wide, by Jonathan Pierce. Finding no water, Mr. John Pierce was employed to sink this well deeper. Starting with a diameter of seven feet, and leaving the old stoning all in, he prosecuted the work until he reached the ledge, at the distance of one hundred and three feet below the surface. Still finding no water, he began with Artesian augers with a four-inch bore to penetrate the rock, and finally, at a depth of two hundred and sixty feet below the surface of the ground, a large supply of water was found. This was con- ducted to the sugar-house in pipes, and supplied the wants of the refinery until the introduction of the Cochituate. This well is in a good state of preservation, and is still in use by the company, although the Cochituate water is the main sup- ply, especially for the boilers.
It is to be regretted that no scientific examination was made of the geological formation of the Island as indicated by the strata pierced in the several wells; for the wells were of such a depth that investigations of this nature could have been suc- cessfully made. Mr. G. E. Pierce, speaking in general terms from his recollections, says : -
" Of the wells near the house, and the one in the square, the digging was nearly the same; namely, what is commonly called hard pan, - the same as is found on all the hills in East Boston ; generally, alternate veins of blue and yellow pan, - in some cases very hard and stony, presenting the usual vari- eties found in diluvium formations in Boston harbor. The ledge under the well in the square I can describe from personal observation. On the top it was very hard and shelly, but as the augers descended it was found to be much softer, with hard
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