History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 103

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 103

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For about thirty-five years from the time the Turn- pike was opened and the hotel built, incidents which had drawn the tide of travel from old Boston Street, there was a business activity and enterprise centering thereabout such as one who has known Lynn for only the last twenty years can hardly realize. The post-office was there, and so were the principal stores, the lawyers and many of the largest manufacturers. The shoe manufacturers of those days, by the way, did not congregate about a common centre, as they now do, but were planted in every neighborhood. The manner in which the business was then con- ducted made it just as well and more economical. The old-time shoemaker has disappeared, and shoe- making machinery taken his place, so that now, as a necessity, large numbers of workmen must assemble together in huge factories. Combinations, such as Lasters' Unions and Knights of Labor assemblies, could hardly have been formed in the days when only half a dozen worked together in the little shops that, standing widely asunder, dotted our whole terri- tory. Those were days of individual independence, individual responsibility and unfettered effort for in- dividual advancement.

Foot-journeying was much more common in those days than in these railroad times, when it is more economical to ride. The cost of riding was then a material item, especially as there was no considerable saving of time, for a smart pedestrian would often reach Boston about as soon as a "slow coach " or sluggish horse. The turnpike on some great occa- sions, like, for instance, a famous military parade or an execution, swarmed with pedestrians, and there

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were often good-natured trials of speed between strangers as well as friends.

It need not be said that in the early days of the Anchor, travel by horseback and sometimes even by bullback was, in a great measure, necessary, for the roads were stumpy, stony and gullied, so that wheeled vehicles, if any had them, could be but little used. When a journey could be accomplished by water, however, that mode was usually adopted, the light Indian skiff proving remarkably serviceable where the course lay near the shore. Jonathan Dickenson, of Philadelphia, in a letter to William Smith, Febru- ary, 1697, says " In 14 days we have an answer from Boston, once a week from New York, once in three weeks from Maryland, and once a month from Vir- ginia." Then came various kinds of lumbering con- veyances; but it was many years before regular lines of any sort of conveyance were established. Mr. Lewis says that the "stage " which John Stavers put on to run from Portsmouth to Boston, in 1761, was the first in New England. It was a curricle, drawn by two horses, and had seats for three persons. It left Portsmouth on Monday morning, stopped the first night at Ipswich, and reached Boston the next afternoon. Returning, it left Boston on Thursday and reached Portsmouth on Friday. The fare was thirteen shillings and sixpence-somewhere between three and four dollars of our present money-besides the expenses by the way. President Quincy, who, in the early part of the present century, was wooing the fair lady of New York who afterward became his wite, thus feelingly speaks of the difficulties that be- set his way : "The carriages were old and shackling, and much of the harness made of ropes. One pair of horses carried us eighteen miles. We generally reached our resting-place for the night, if no accident intervened, at ten o'clock, and, after a frugal supper, went to bed with a notice that we should be called at three next morning-which generally proved to be half-past two. Then, whether it snowed or rained, the traveler must rise and make ready by the help of a horn lantern and a farthing candle, and proceed on his way, over bad roads, sometimes with a driver showing no doubtful symptoms of drunkenness, which good-hearted passengers never failed to im- prove at every stopping-place, by urging upon him the comfort of another glass of toddy. Thus we traveled eighteen miles a stage, sometimes obliged to get out and help the coachman lift the coach out of a quagmire or rut, and arriving in New York after a week's hard travelling [from Boston], wondering at the case as well as the expedition with which our journey was effected." It was to difficulties like these, too, that the Lynn shoe " bosses " were sub- jected in their trips southward, for at that period the customers did not often come to Lynn to make their purchases, but were sought for at their own homes. And their reflections during the perilous journeys, tinged, as they were, by business perplexities, must

have been very different from those that stimulated the ardent Quincy.

The palmy days of the stage-coach were also the palmy days of the Lynn Hotel. Both, too, were thrown into the shade at the same time and by the same means-to wit, the construction of the Eastern Railroad. A good deal of romance clusters around the old stages, and there is little wonder that even now sometimes companies of aged men, remembering the jolly rides of their youth, should wish to live over some especially happy episode. So we occasion- ally hear of a "tally-ho" expedition, with its old- time turn-out, its yet merry driver, trembling under the weight of years, and its resounding horn again wakening the echoes of the hills. On the 12th of June, 1878, a party of twelve gentlemen, mostly quite aged, and all lovers of old-time customs, set out from Newburyport to enjoy a ride to Boston in the old- fashioned four-horse stage-coach of their boyhood. The driver was a veteran of the road, and eighty-one years of age. The start was propitious and the ride enjoyable, till they reached Lynn, when, near the junction of Western Avenue and Washington Street, an axle broke and the stage was overturned. Two or three of the passengers were seriously injured, and the aged driver received a severe shock to his system, beside painful bruises.

It was in 1838 that Lynn was invaded by the East- ern Railroad, which soon wrought very great altera- tions ; business centres were changed, giving rise to sectional jealousies, which festered for a number of years. The field of operation for the young aspirant for wealth seemed expanding, and there began to be high hope and expectation of renewed and augmented prosperity, though it was during one of the most protracted periods of business depression through which the country had ever passed.

As early as 1828 a proposition to construct a rail- road from Boston to Salem began to be seriously con- sidered, and a circular was sent out from the House of Representatives to various towns in the vicinity, seeking information from which a judgment could be formed as to the expediency of undertaking so for- midable an enterprise, either by individuals or the State. The circular sent to Lynn was addressed to the editor of the Mirror, and was responded to after evidently careful investigation; and some of the statements may properly be introduced, as showing the then condition of things here, in several particu- lars.

"The principal manufacture of Lynn is shoes. Of these it appears that 1, 38, 189 pairs aro annually made, which, at four shillings a pair, will amount to $692,126. These, as they are usually packed, will fill 11,535 boxes, the transportation of which, at ono shilling a box, will cost $1922.50. It is considered that about three-fourths of the above amount returns to Lynn in sole leather and other articles for the manu- facture of shoes, in English and West India goods and other merchan- dise, the transportation of which may ho fairly estimated at $5768. The article of flour alone, 2500 barrels, at $6.00 a barrel, would amount to $15,000, the transportation of which would cost $750. Tho transpor- tation of the santo amount in shoes would cost only $41.67. And many

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other heavy articles will bear an equal proportion. The transportation of a barrel of flour from Boston to Lyon is 30 cents, about the same as the conveyaoce from Baltimore to Boston.

[Swampscott and Nahant were at that time parts of Lynn.] " There have been about 1000 tons of fresh fish and 50 tons of cured fish conveyed on the turnpike as far as Charlestown duriog the past year, the trans- portation of which, at twenty shillings a ton, amounts to $3500. Fifty barrels of oil have also been extracted, the transportation of which, at two shillings a barrel, cost $16.66.

"The other articles transported on the Boston route are 60 tons of hay, 70 tons of chocolate, 26 tons of graio, 50 tons of cocoa, 20 tons of rice, 30 tons of gioger, 16 tons of neat hides, 12 tons of leather, 27 toos of goat and kid skins, 85 tons of sumac, 9 tons of iron, 36 tons of coal, 30 tons of barberry root and 200 tons of marble,-making in all 671 tons, the transportation of which, at twenty shillings a ton, amonats to $2236.67. Besides these, a large amount of goods is annually conveyed to the dye-house and [silk] printing establishment.

"The average number of passengers is about 11 each day, for 300 days of the year, the amount of whose conveyance, at $1.25 each, is $4125. The amonot paid by Lynn people for tolls is probably about $2100.

" By this statement it appears that the anonal expense to the town of Lynn, on the Boston route is $19, 668.33.

"The amonot of property invested in baggage wagons is about $4000."

By the foregoing it will be seen how small an amount Lynn could then promise for the support of a railroad. And several interesting facts are dis- closed by individual items. What most surprises one, perhaps, is the small number of passengers-an average of eleven daily, and that with a thrifty popu- lation of 6000. There was comparatively little inducement for any excepting business men to visit the city. The few retail "shopping" necessities could be met at home, aud the expense of the visit, both in time and money, was to be looked at. Many went to Boston but once or twice a year, and some not more than twice in a lifetime.

The few leading business men went up once a week in their own "teams," two sometimes joining, one fur- nishing the conveyance and the other paying the tolls and for house-baiting. Such were the terms on which two prominent townsmen-Samuel Mulliken and Jeremiah Bulfinch-on a chilly November day, set out. Mr. Bulfinch furnished the couveyance, and Mulliken was to pay the expenses. When they arrived at Charlestown in the forenoon they found that an ad- ditional toll or something of the sort, to the amount of six cents, had been recently levied. It was what neither had calculated on, and so Mr. M. contended that each should pay half; but Mr. Bulfinch declared that he would pay no part of the six cents. They were equally matched for stubbornness, and sat there argu- ing and disputing till the declining sun warned them that it was time to turn the horse's head homeward. And home they rode, each probably exulting in his triumph. This incident was related to the writer by one of the parties. "And," he added, his counte- nance radiating with the rekindled fire within, though he was then more than eighty years old, " I would have set there till this time, before I would have paid it!"

Some of the small manufacturers were accustomed to go to Boston on foot, do their buying and selling and return in the same manner.

Another thing mentioned in the answer to the cir- cular is the amount of coal brought hither at that time-only thirty-six tons-and probably a consider- able portion of even that was bituminous, or such as blacksmiths use. Anthracite was then just coming into use in New England, wood being still almost ex- clusively used for fuel, excepting that in a few country places peat afforded a partial supply. But enough of this.

Old Lynn Hotel has not yet closed its portals, though its business has greatly decreased. During the long period of more than eighty years, since it was erected, its hospitable doors have remained invitingly open for the traveler's entertainment. Other houses iu the vicinity have in the meantime been opened and closed. Even the stately Boscobel has, within a few months, retired from the field. But there the old hotel remains, ever and anou reuewing its appoint- ments and changing its administration as years move on, becoming less and less an object of interest as those who were familiar with the forms of the elder Breed, of Deacon Field aud of the vigilant "True " pass away.

A few words regarding one or two others of the earlier hotels, and matters connected with them, may be given before we pass on to other topics.

It was in 1810 that the once famous Mineral Spring Hotel was built. The situation was retired and ro- mantic in the extreme. Almost surrounded by green hills and woods, and having at its very feet a beauti- ful lakelet, it was for years deemed a most charming resort. It received its name from the mineral spring which was early discovered near the border of the pond, and stood on rising land about midway be- tween the turnpike and the old Danvers road, just upon the western border of Salem. The waters of the spring are impregnated with iron and sulphur, and were formerly much esteemed for their good effects in scorbutic and pulmonary diseases. Dr. John Caspar Richter van Crowninscheldt, who was reputed to have been educated at the University at Liepsic, and to have fled from Germany on account of a duel, and who, by the way, was an ancestor of the prominent and respectahle Crowninshield family of the present day, purchased the adjacent lands and settled there about the year 1690. The celebrated Cotton Mather visited him in his picturesque retreat, partook of the waters of the spring and in one of his works extols their virtues. Earlier than this, however, the spring was knowu, for in 1669 a description of the boundary line between Lynn and Salem speaks of it as a "noated spring."

But the hotel here has now for many years been numbered with the things that were. In 1847 Mr. Richard S. Fay purchased the estate, together with many adjacent acres, and formed there a most attrac- tive and salubrious summer retreat, repairing and re- modeling the house and embellishing the grounds in a manner to render it a fit residence for oue of wealth and refined taste.

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

The Mineral Spring Hotel had one or two landlords 'of high reputation, whose character assured the most unobjectionable and liberal management. Among them was Major Jabez W. Barton, afterwards, for many years, host at the Albion, in Boston. But there were one or two attempts to sully its fair fame ; nota- bly, in 1833, Dr. Hazeltine, a well-known and reputa- ble physician, wrote a communication which was pub- lished in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, speaking very slightingly of the waters of the spring, and in highly derogatory terms of the management of the hotel. This clicited several sharp replies, and it seemed finally satisfactorily settled that the house, with the exception of occasional disreputable epi- sodes-such as all public-houses are liable to-had maintained a fair character. A forcible writer in one of the papers of the day said: "We know not which most to condemn, the illiberal terms in which he [Dr. Hazeltine] attempts to stigmatize one of the most respectable, quiet and unobjectionable resorts of fami- lies and parties in the summer season from Salem and Boston, or the downright ignorance which he mani- fests concerning the qualities of the spring water. We have said before, and we repeat it, that we know of no place, far or near, possessing so many natural attrac- tions and offering so many real comforts and conven- iences to genteel, intelligent and moral people as this summer retreat, nor one with a more upright and every way worthy gentleman at its head, than are to be found at the Lynn Mineral Spring Hotel." This was written at the time Major Barton was landlord.

Perhaps it is incumbent to say something of the great hotel and other public-houses of Nahant, es- pecially those established while the peninsula re- mained a part of Lynn ; but as the writer of the sketch of that town will no doubt say all that is necessary, it might prove unneeded labor.

Nor is it necessary to speak individually of the present hotels of Lynn. We have a considerable number, and they are of various grades, from those reckoned as high-class even down to those which, in by-gone days, went by the name of " salt-hay " hos- telries. Our business has been more especially with the taverns of former times-the wayside monuments of the past-around which cluster so much of the true history and the romance of our early days. The gen- erations that knew them have nearly passed away ; but their fame will survive in story long after their crumbling walls have disappeared. They have ever furnished for the historian, the poet and the dreamy novelist many of their most jovial, touching and tragic incidents, and long will they continue so to do.

And as to the modes of travel, what more need be said ?

" We have spanned the world with iron rails, And the stram-king rules ns now."

CHAPTER XXI.

LYNN-(Continued).

MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS.

Indian Deed of Lynn-Lynn's Colonies-Slavery and its Abolition-History of Free Masonry in Lynn-Drinking Customs and Temperance Move- ments-Free Public Forest.

Sometimes the gleaner's quickened sight A wealthy prize may spy, Which in the reaper's duller light Was passed unheeded by. -Old Ballad.

INDIAN DEED OF LYNN .- The Indian deed of Lynn, which may be found recorded in the registry at Salem, bears the date September 4, 1686. It is really a mere release of all the remaining interest, if any existed, of the grantors, as heirs of Sagamore Wenepawwekin or George No-Nose, so called, and no doubt a precautionary measure, designed toshow that the Indian title had been fairly extinguished. It was executed in the troublous times of the Andros ad- ministration, a period when real estate titles were greatly confused. Yet, though Andros had declared that an Indian signature was of no more value than the scratch of a bear's claw, he, in 1689, asked Rev. Mr. Higginson whether New England was the King's ter- ritory, and received the reply that it belonged to the colonists, because they held it by just occupation and purchase from the Indians.

The grantors affirm in the deed that their ancestor, the Chief Wenepawwekin, was the true and sole owner of the territory of Lynn, notwithstanding the possession of the English. And they also affirm that there had been no legal dispossession. There were many real and many colorable purchases aud sales be- fore this deed ; for, to say nothing of the cupidity of the settlers, their red brethren, as a general thing, would sell anything for which they could find a pur- chaser, whether they had a title to it or not ; and they would sell the same thing over and over again as long as a purchaser appeared. Gross fraud was, no doubt, in individual instances practiced, but the summary exercise of authority by the General Court probably rectified many wrongs. On the 6th of September, 1638, the General Court "agreed that the Court of Assistants should take order for the Indians, that they may have satisfaction for their right at Linu." The " right " is not specified, but seems to relate to land.

The Indians were not an agricultural nor a pas- toral people, and had no conception of the value of land for the uses of civilized life. Poquanum, called Duke William by Mr. Wood, in his " New England's Prospect," and Black Will in certain depositions among the Salem court files, was Sachem of Nahaut. And he could hardly have placed a speculative value on his beautiful dukedom, to have sold it to Mr. Dexter for a suit of clothes, though

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possibly he indulged in a vagrant chuckle over his bargain, as it was finally determined that he had no title to the peninsula, which fact he probably knew all along.

This Poquanum, or Black Will, by the way, was quite a character in his time, and somewhat of a rover. It is supposed that he was the same Indian who ap- peared in a full suit of English clothes, to welcome Gosnold, in 1602. But where he obtained his ontfit does not seem to be known. His sale of Nahant and the persistent claims of his grantee occasioned the town much vexation and expense. The end of this wily Indian was tragical. Some vessels had sailed eastward in search of pirates who had been commit- ting depredations and atrocities in various places along the coast. At Scarborough, Me., they fell in with Poquanum, and straightway hanged him, be- cause some Indians had, more than a year before, murdered one Bagnall, a pestilent fellow, whom Winthrop says "had much wronged the Indians." This was retaliating in a summary rather than a just way, it being altogether improbable that Poquanum had any hand in the murder. Indeed, Winthrop says the killing was by "Squidraysett and his In- dians."

The tragic death of Poquanum occurred in Janu- ary, 1633. He seems to have been intelligent, gener- ons in disposition and friendly to the settlers. He left a son who was also named Poquanum, who lived to old age, and was well known in the colony. Gookin, in 1686, says : " He is an Indian of good repute and professeth the Christian religion." He, too, was friendly to the whites, and rendered efficient service during the great King Philip War.

Nothing further need be said regarding the Indian deed of Lynn. But the general remark may be added that there was a great deal of looseness about Indian titles in this vicinity. It can almost be said that heirship was sometimes asserted on no better ground than that the claimant had slain a former owner. Mr. Higginson, the first minister of Salem, in a letter dated in 1629, says : "The Indians are not able to make use of the one-fourth part of the land ; neither have they any settled places as towns, to dwell in, nor any grounds as they challenge for their own possession, but change their habitation from place to place." But they soon began to learn from the settlers something of the utility of reforming their nomadic life; and then followed a conception of the value of land.

LYNN'S COLONIES .- Affairs in Lynn had hardly become established in good running order when some of the restless-or it might be more pleasing to say enterprising-spirits began to look for new fields of adventure. In less than a score of years from the commencement of the settlement many families de- parted and planted new towns, among which were Sandwich and Yarmouth, in Massachusetts; South- ampton and Flushing, on Long Island ; and Stam-

ford, in Connecticut. New Haven, too, was indebted to Lynn for one of her first and most efficient founders,- Captain Nathaniel Turner, who is spoken of in another connection in this sketch. He it was who purchased from the Indians the territory forming the now beau- tiful town of Stamford, on the New York and New Haven Railroad, which purchase was brought about in a rather curious way.

The captain's Lynn residence was on Nahant Street, near that of his friend and superior officer, John Humfrey. On the breaking ont of the Pequot War, 1636, he took the field with the first expedition and became so pleased with the territory invaded as to determine at the close of hostilities to make a peace- ful invasion and form a settlement. He obtained the tract including Stamford by fair purchase from the Indian Sagamores, the recorded agreement being in these words : " I, the said Nathaniel Turner, amm to give and bring or send to the above said Sagamores, within the space of one month, twelve coats, twelve howes (hoes), twelve hatchets, twelve glasses, twelve knives, four kettles, four fathoms of white wampum."

The most important of the colonies sent out from Lynn at this period was that of Long Island. Thither went some forty families, and with them, as minister, the Rev. Abraham Pierson, a man of learning and ability. He took with him his little son, Abraham, who was born here. And that son, in 1701, became the first president of Yale College. They sailed in a vessel commanded by Captain Daniel Howe, of Lynn, who appears to have had considerable interest in the expedition. They proceeded as far west as Scont's Bay, landed and made lodgments at Flushing, Ja- maica, Hempstead, Oyster Bay and thereabouts. But the Dutch soon asserted their right to the territory and a-sumed a decidedly hostile attitude. Kieft was then the Dutch Governor, and Captain Howe being a man of determination, things presently began to wear a threatening aspect. The settlers took down the arms of the Prince of Orange which the Dutch had erected, and in their place an Indian drew an " unhandsome face," as Winthrop graphically says, which act the Dutch took "in high displeasure." They then began to rear habitations. Naturally enough, this provoked the Dutch Governor, and to such a degree did his ire attain that he had several arrested and imprisoned. But he does not appear to have been a really ill-natured or unreasonable man, though Washington Irving does characterize him as "William the Testy."

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 103

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1 Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1538

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538