History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 39

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 39

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Salem was undoubtedly chosen as a good place for settlement by Roger Conant, who described it as " a fruitful necke of land," because of its harbors and rivers. Situated on a peninsula, with North River on one side and South River on the other, all parts of the town were readily accessible by water. Salem was from the first and of necessity a maritime place. The Massachusetts Company, that sent John Endi- cott to Salem, was a trading company, and the home Governor, Matthew Cradock, writes to Endicott in 1629 to send, as return cargoes, "staves, sarsaparilla, sumach, two or three hundred firkins of sturgeon and other fish and beaver."

The early, long-continued and staple trade of Salem was in the product of the fisheries. The har- bors and rivers swarmed with fish, and the supply was so plentiful that large quantities were often used for manure. From 1629 to 1740 Winter Island seems to have been the headquarters of the Salem fishing trade, and that trade was the staple business of Salem down to a much later period. In 1643 the merchants of Salem were trading with the West Indies, with Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands.

Between 1640 and 1650 the commercial career of Salem received an impetus, and her vessels made voyages not only to the mother-country but to the West Indies, Bermudas, Virginia and Antigua. Her wealth was great in proportion to her population, and Josselyn, writing in 1644, says "in this town are some very rich merchants." In 1663 William Hol- lingworth, a Salem merchant, agrees to send one hundred hogsheads of tobacco from the River Poto- mac by ship from Boston to Plymouth in England, the isle of Jersey or any port in Holland, and thence to said island for seven pounds sterling per ton.

From 1670 to 1740 the trade was to the West In- dies and most ports of Europe, including Spain, France and Holland. From 1686 to 1689 inclusive Salem is trading to Barbadoes, London, Fayal, Penn- sylvania, Virginia and Antigna. The great majority of her vessels are ketches from twenty to forty tons and carrying from four to six men. Only one ship appears among them, and her tonnage is but one

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

hundred and thirty tons. In 1698-99 registers are taken ont for two ships of eighty and two hundred tons, a barque, three sloops and twenty ketches. The ketch of those days was two-masted, with square sails on the forc-mast and a fore-and-aft sail on the main- mast, which was shorter than the fore-mast. The schooner, which gradually supplanted the ketch, first appears in our Salem marine about 1720. Felt says that " Andrew Robinson, of Gloucester, origi- nated the name of schooner in 1709." John John- son, of Salem, in 1693, " having for nigh three years followed the trade of boating goods" to and from Boston, " sometimes twice a weeke," complains to Governor William Phipps of the eost of entering and clearing.

In 1700 the foreign trade of Salem is thus described by Higginson: "Dry, merchantable codfish for the markets of Spain, Portugal and the Straits, refuse fish, lumber, horses aud provisions for the West Indies. Returns made directly to England are sugar, mo- lasses, cotton, wool, logwood and Brasiletto-wood, for which we depend on the West Indies. Our own pro- duce, a considerable quantity of whale and fish-oil, whalebone, furs, deer, elk and bear-skins are annually sent to England. We have much shipping here, and freights are low."

Dr. Edward A. Holyoke, writing of the commerce of Salem in 1749, says : "The commerce of this town was chiefly with Spain and Portugal and the West Indies, especially with St. Eustatia. The eod fishery was carried on with success and advantage. The schooners were employed on the fishing banks in the summer, and in the autumn were laden with fish, rum, molasses and the produce of the country and sent to Virginia and Maryland, and there spent the winter retailing their eargoes, and in return brought corn and wheat and tobacco. This Virginian voyage was seldom very profitable, but, as it served to keep the crews together, it was continued till more advan- tageous employment offered."

Comparatively little mention is made in this ehap- ter of the commerce of Salem prior to the Revolu- tion. The colonial trade was narrow and limited, and was restricted by the short-sighted policy of the home government. Trade was carried on with the West Indies, with the mother-country and with some other of the European ports, but the famous record of Salem as a commercial port begins with the close of the Revolutionary War.

Colonel Higginson, in his recent article on " Old Salem Sea-Captains," says "there is nothing more brilliant in American history than the brief career of maritime adventure which made the name of Salem synonymous with that of America in many a distant port. The period bridged the interval between two wars ; the American Revolution laid its foundation ; the later war with England saw its last trophies."

It is to this period that this chapter is largely de- voted, and it has been the endeavor of the writer to

present as complete an account of Salem's eommer- cial triumphs as can be gathered, the records of the eustom-house and the files of contemporaneous news- papers being gleaned for material for the work. The log-books in the custody of the Essex Institute have also been carefully examined. These form a curi- ously interesting collection suggestive of life on ship-board, and of the old ship masters who made the entries in them from day to day. It is to be regretted that a large proportion are devoted wholly to the direc- tion and force of the wind, to the latitude and longi- tude and the details of the ship's course. But now and then, especially among those belonging to the East India Marine Society, most interesting accounts are given of the customs and manners of foreign na- tions.

In one of the oldest of them we find this entry, made in the Indian Ocean : " A wave just broke over the ship and eame in at the cabin window, making a blot on the log;" and there is the blurred writing, just as the salt water left it a hundred years ago ; a trifling incident, but how real it makes the voyage to us ! As we turn the pages, yellow with age and mnsty even now with the smell of the ship, we seem almost to be sailing the distant ocean and feel the force of the wave as it dashes against the vessel and throws its spray through the cabin window.

In the following pages it has been found most con- venient to trace the course of trade with different countries separately, although it must be understood that many vessels visited several of the ports named in the course of a single voyage,-one, for instance, starting from Salem stopping at Manilla, and thence on to Canton, returning direct to Salem.

THE CANTON TRADE .- Elias Hasket Derby led the way to India and China, and opened for Salem that extensive foreign commerce which will always hold a prominent place in her history. His enter- prise and vigor was something rarely paralleled. Not content to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors, he turned his eyes to the Cape of Good Hope and the far- distant Indies, and determined to measure his strength with the incorporated companies of England and France and Holland, which then entirely monopo- lized the commerce of the East. He boldly entered into competition with that great and powerful mo- nopoly, the East India Company, which Queen Eliza- beth incorporated on the last day of the sixteenth century, a company whose Governor, Josiah Child (formerly an apprentice, sweeping one of the count- ing-rooms of London), became the possessor of bound- less wealth, the companion of nobles, and one from whom King Charles II. graciously accepted a gift of ten thousand guineas,-a monopoly which held in its powerful grasp the whole trade of England, with the distant East, issuing its ediets from the India House on Leadenhall Street to its subjects in India, com- manding them to disregard the votes of the House of Commons ; and which, as late as the year 1800, when

SALEM.

the ship " Active," of Salem, George Nichols, mas- ter, arrived at Liverpool, from Salem, with a cargo of Surat cotton, compelled her to carry it to London and dispose of it from the warehouses of the Company in that city.

Mr. Derby, on the 28th of November, 1785, cleared the ship "Grand Turk," Ebenezer West, master, for the Isle of France, with the purpose to visit Canton. This vessel went to the Isle of France and China, and returned to Salem in June, 1787, with a cargo of teas, silks and nankeens, making the first voyage from New England to the Isle of France, In- dia and China.

In the year 1790 there were three arrivals from Canton. The brig "William and Henry," Benjamin Hodges, master, one hundred and fity tons, was en- tered, in May, to Gray & Orne. Captain Hodges was a good type of the master mariner of that period. He was born in Salem, April 26, 1754. When the East India Marine Society was formed, he was chosen its president. He brought to Salem the first full cargo of tea direct from Canton. He died April 13, 1806. Captain Hodges makes the following quaint entry in his log-book, under date of Friday, Dec. 25, 1789, when leaving China for home: " Discharged the pilot after much altercation, having promised him fifty-six dol- lars, which I only intended as a conveniency, as forty dollars is the established customary price, which sum was all I intended and all I did pay him. How- ever unjust it may appear to promise with an inten- tion not to perform, yet it is necessary in dealing with such rascals as the Chinese, who are ever ready to take undne advantage, and, as the vulgar say, 'Two cheats is an even bargain,' and the only method to keep pace with such faithless villains." Evidently Captain Hodges was not impressed with the honesty of the average Chinaman.

Captain Hodges also gives a list of the American vessels then lying at Canton, fourteen in all, of which five hailed from Salem, four from New York, three from Philadelphia and two from Boston; and of the two Boston ships, one, the " Massachusetts," of one hundred and ninety tons, had a Salem man, Benjamin Carpenter, for captain. Captain Carpen- ter, although he does not appear to have made any voyages from Salem, was intimately connected with our marine societies. He was one of the founders of the East India Marine Society and an early member of the Salem Marine Society, which last-named society has in its possession a log-book of a voyage made by him in the ship " Hercules," of Boston, from that place to the East Indies, in 1792. His crew consisted of thirty-nine men, thirteen of them from Salem. but two or three of the crew were between nineteen and twenty-four years of age, Captain Carpenter put- ting down his own age at forty. This log-book is remarkable for the elegance of the penmanship and the skill displayed in making pen-and-ink sketches of islands, rocks and other objects of interest to mariners.

The ship " Astrea," James Magee, master, and Thomas Handasyd Perkins, supercargo, of three hun- dred and thirty tons, arrived in June to Elias H. Derby, with a cargo of tea, paying $27,109.18 as duties ; and the ship " Light Horse," Ichabod Nich- ols, master, two hundred and sixty-six tons, in June, to Elias H. Derby, with a cargo of tea, paying $16,312.98 as duties. There is no year when the direct arrivals from Canton numbered more than three. The " Astrea " was one of Mr. Derby's favor- ite ships. She was distinguished for speed, having in one voyage to the Baltic, made the run in eleven days from Salem to the coast of Ireland. Preparing for a voyage to Canton was in those days a serious undertaking. The "Astrea " was sent up the Baltic for iron, a schooner was sent to Madeira for wine, and specie was collected from New York, Philadel- phia and Baltimore. In February, 1789, the " Astrea" was dispatched for Canton with an assorted cargo, consisting of iron, wine, butter, candles, ginseng, beef and flour. The cargo of the " Astrea " was entrusted to the joint care of Captain James Magee and Thomas Handasyd Perkins. This last-named gentleman was afterwards for many years a leading merchant of Bos- ton, and one of the founders of the Boston Athenæum.

As showing how completely the merchant was obliged to rely on the judgment of the officers of his ship a few extracts from the letter of instruction given by Mr. Derby to the officers of the "Astrea " may be interesting. He writes as follows :

"SALEM, February, 1789.

"Capt. JAMES MAGEE, JR., Mr. THOMAS H. PERKINS :

"Gents,-The ship 'Astrea' being ready for sea. I do advise and order you to come to sail and make the best of your way to Batavia, and on your arrival there you will dispose of such a part of the cargo as you think may be most for my interest. If you find the price of sugar to be low, you will then take into the ship as much of the best white kind as will floor her, and fifty thousand weight of coffee, if it is as low as we have heard, and fifteen thousand of saltpetre, if very low ; some nut- megs and fifty thousand weight of pepper ; this, you will stow in the fore peak, for fear of its injuring the teas. At Batavia you must, if possible, get as much freight for Canton as will pay half or more of your charges,-that is, if it will not detain you too long-as by this addition of freight it will exceedingly help the voyage. If Messrs. Blanchard & Webb are at Batavia in the Brigantine 'Three Sisters,' and if they have not stock sufficient to load with coffee and sugar, and if it is low, and you think it for my advantage, then I would have you ship me some coffee or sugar and a few nutmegs to complete his loading. If his brigantine can be sold for a large price, and sugar aud coffee are too dear to make any large freight-in that case it possibly may be for my interest to have her sold, and for them to take passage with you to Cun- ton, but this must uot be done unless you, Dr. Blanchard and Capt. Webb shall think it greatly for my interest. It is my order that in case of your sickness, you write a clause at the foot of these orders, putting the command of the ship into the person's hands that you think the most equal for it, not having any regard to the station be at present has in the ship. Among the silks, you will get me oue or two pieces of the wide nankeen satin, and others you will get as directed. Get me two pots of twenty pounds each of ginger, that is well put up; and lay out for my account fifteen or twenty pounds sterling in curiosities. There will be breakage-room in the bilge of the ship, that nothing dry can go in ; therefore, in the crop of the bilge, you will put some boxes of China, such as are suitable for such places, and filled with cups and saucers, some bowls, and anything of the kind that may answer. Al- though I have been a little particular in these orders, I do not mean

IIISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

them as positive ; and you have leave to break them in any part where you hy calculation think it for my interest.

" Your friend and employer, " ELIAS HASKET DERBY."

The "Astrea" did not make so successful a voyage as was anticipated. American ships were beginning to follow the lead of the "Grand Turk," and between the fall of 1788 and 1791, no less than fifteen Ameri- can vessels arrived in Canton. Mr. Perkins was obliged to seil the large invoice of ginseng at twenty thousand dollars, less than the prime cost. Four ships of Mr. Derby, the "Astrea," "Light Horse," "Atlantic" and "Three Sisters," were lying at Can- ton in the summer of 1789. Two of these ships were sold, and the proceeds of all their cargoes was shipped in the "Astrea " and "Light Horse," both of which vessels arrived safely in Salem, in June, 1790, with 728,871 pounds of tea for Mr. Derby. The entire importation into the United States during this year was 2,601,852 pounds. This unprecedented importa- tion was disheartening to the China merchants, as it was largely in excess of the consumption which at that time was less than a million pounds. An unex- pected duty had also been imposed on teas which bore heavily upon the importers.

We therefore find no further arrival from Canton till 1798, when the ship " Perseverance," Richard Wheat- land, master, enters in April with a cargo of tea and sugar to Simon Forrester, paying in duties $24,562.10. Captain Wheatland was largely endowed with the bravery, vigor and enterprise which were so essential to a successful ship-master in the times when it was sometimes necessary to fight a passage to the destined harbor. He was born in Wareham, England, in Octo- ber, 1762, and began his seafaring life in the city of London. He served on a British man-of-war for three years, holding some small office on board the ship. After the peace of 1783, Captain Wheatland, being in the West Indies, became acquainted with Captain William Silver, of Salem, and at his solicitation came to Salem, where he afterwards resided. He married a daughter of his friend, Captain Silver. She died shortly after her marriage, and he subsequently mar- ried a daughter of Stephen Goodhue. He was the father of George Wheatland, now the senior member of the Essex bar, and of Dr. Henry Wheatland, the president of the Essex Institute. As illustrating the dangers to which commerce was exposed at this time as well as the bravery of Captain Wheatland and his crew the following letter is given, together with the heading which precedes it in a local paper, and which shows the bitterness with which the French nation was then regarded by the press and people,-

" A sen fight gallantly and victoriously maintained by the ship 'Per- severance,' Captain Richard Wheatland, of this port, against one of the vessels of war of the 'Terrible Republic.' The French rascals, con- trary to the laws of war and of honor, fought under false colors, whilst the 'Eagle,' true to his charge, spread hie winge on the American flag."

The following is Captain Wheatland's letter to his owners :

" SHIP ' PERSEVERANCE,' OLD STRAITS OF BAHAMA, January 1, 1799. " GENTLEMEN :

" Conceiving we may possibly meet an opportunity of forwarding thie immediately on our arrival at Havana, or perhaps before, induces me to give an account of our voyage thus far.

"Until December 26 met with nothing very material, except heavy, disagreeable weather off the coast, and, having the wind so far to the westward as to preclude the possibility of making our passage round the bank, were compelled, contrary to our wishes, to go through the Old Straits of Bahama. On the afternoon of the 27th were boarded by the British frigate 'Romilla,' Captain Rolles, our papers examined and we treated with great politeness. They purchased, at our own prices, IL number of articles from the carge and of the people. Three days before, they had captured a French privateer sloop of ten guns and sixty men, and retook an American brig, her prize. After two hours' detention we were permitted to proceed, which we did without meeting any interrup- tion till Monday, December 31. For particulars of that day we give an extract from a journal kept on board.

"December 31, Key Romain in sight, bearing sonth, distance four er five leagnes. A schooner has been in chase of us since eight o'clock, and has every appearance of a privateer, At one O'clock P. M., finding the schooner come up with us very fast, took in steering-sails, fore and aft and royals ; at half past one ahout ship and stood for her; she imume- diately tacked and made sail from us; we fired a gua to leeward, and hoisted the American ensign to our mizzen-peak; she hoisted a Spanish jack at main top-mast head, and contianed to run from us. Finding she ontsailed us greatly, and wishing to get through the narrows, in the Old Straits, at two o'clock P. M., we again about ship, and kept on our course. The schooner immediately wore, fired a gun to leeward and kept after, under a great press of sall. At half past two she again fired a gna to leeward, but, perceiving ourselves in the narrows, above-mentioned, we kept on, to get through them, if possible, before she came up with us, which we effected. At three o'clock, finding ourselves fairly clear of Sugar Key and Key Laboas, we took ia steering-sails, wore ship, hauled up our courses, piped all hands to quarters and pre- pared for action. The schooner immediately took in sail, struck the Spanish jack, hoisted an English Union flag and passed under our lee at considerable distance. We wore ship, she did the same, and passed each other within half musket. A fellow hailed ns in broken English, and ordered the boat hoisted out and the captain to come on heard with his papers, which he refused ; he again ordered our boat out, and enforced his orders with a menace, that in case of refusal he would sink us, using at the same time the vilest and most iafamona language it is possible to conceive of.

"By this time he had fellen considerably astera of us ; he wore and came up on our starboard quarter, giving ne a broadeide as he passed our stern, but fired 80 excessively wild that he did us very little injury, while our stern-chasers gave him a noble dose of ronad-shot and langrage. We hanled the ship to wind, and, es he passed us, poured a whole broadside into him with great success. Sailing fueter than we, he ranged consider- ably ahead, tacked, and again passed, giving ne a broadside and a furi- ous discharge of mnsketry, which they kept up incessantly till the latter part of the engagement. Hie musket balls reached na in every direction, but his large shot either fell short or went considerably over 18, while our guns, loaded with round shot and square bars of iron, six inches long, were plied so briskly and directed with so good judgment, that before lie get out of reach we had cut his mainsail and fore topsail all to rags and cleared his decke so effectually that when he bore away from us there were scarcely ten men te be seen.

" He thea struck his English, and hoisted the flag of the 'Terrible Re- public,' and made off with all the sail she could carry, much disap- pointed, no doubt, at net being able to give us a fraternal embrace. Tlie wind being light, and knowing he would ontsail us, added to a solicitude to complete our voyage, prevented our pursuing him ; indeed we had sufficient to gratify our revenge for his temerity, for there was scarcely a single fire from our guns but what spread entirely over hie hall. The action, which lasted an hour and twenty minutes, we conceive ended well ; for, exclusive of preserving the property entrusted to our care, we feel a confidence we have rid the world of some infamous pests of so ciety. We were within musket-shot the whole time of the engagement and were ev fortunate as to receive but very trifling injury ; not a per_ eon on board met the slightest harm. Our eaile were a little tera, and one of the quarter-deck guas dismounted.

" The privateer was a schooner of eighty or ninety tone, copper bottom and fought five or six gane on a side. We are now within forty-eight hours' sail of Havana, where we expect to arrive in safety ; indeed we

SALEM.

have no fear of any privateer's preventing us, unless greatly superior in force. The four quarter-deck guns will require new carriages, and one of them was entirely dismounted.

" We remain with esteem,

"Gentlemen, " Your humble servant,

" RICHARD WHEATLAND."

There is appended to this letter, in the newspaper, the following comment :

" The gallantry of young Mr. Ingersoll, on board the ' Perseverance,' we are well assured, contributed greatly to second the determined bravery of Captain Wheatland in defending the ship. Indeed the whole ship's company deserve well of their owners and of their country."

Captain Wheatland, after retiring from the sea, was engaged in commerce. He died in Salem in March, 1830.

The ship " Elizabeth," Daniel Sage, master, arrived from Canton in June, 1799, consigned to William Gray, and the ship " Pallas," William Ward, master, to Samnel Gray, William Gray and Joseph Peabody, with a cargo of tea and sugar, paying a duty of $66, 927.65, arrived in July, 1800. In May, 1802, the ship " Minerva," M. Folger, master, belonging to Clifford Crowninshield and Nathaniel West, entered from Canton and was the first Salem vessel to circumnavi- gate the globe. She sailed around Cape Horn, stop- ped one degree south of Chiloe, went to the Island of Mas-a-Fuera, where she took seals, wintered south of Lima and proceeded to China. She came home around the Cape of Good Hope.

The ship "Concord," Obed Wyer, master, entered from Canton in July, 1802, with a cargo of tea to Gideon Tucker and Pickering Dodge, paying a dnty of $20,477.53 ; and in April, 1803, the ship "Union," George Hodges, master, to Ichabod Nichols and thirty- nine others, entered with a cargo of tea, paying a duty of $43,190.79. The ship "Friendship," William Story, master, arrived from Canton, Sumatra and the Isle of France, in August, 1804, to Jerathmael Pierce, with tea, coffee and pepper, paying a duty of $31,514.19. The ship "Eliza," William Richardson, master, ar- rived in May, 1807, to Pierce and Wait, and the ship " Hercules," James M. Fairfield, master, with a cargo of tea and cassia, paying a duty of $45,575.98, in March, 1808, to Nathaniel West. In April, 1810, the brig " Pilgrim," Charles Pearson, master, arrived to Rich- ard Gardner, and the ship " Hunter," Philip P. Pinal master, with a cargo of tea, sugar, candy and cassia, to Jerathmael Pierce, in May, 1810.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 39

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