History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 219

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 219

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1888

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

of the channel, and the delivery of eighty thousand of sand at the harbor bar, and giving the data neces- sary for appropriations. Ten days later the Secre- tary of War forwarded to Mr. Boynton the approval of General Thom and of the War Department, of his project for constructing jetties at Newburyport, at the mouth of the Merrimac, estimating the cost of granite work as not to exceed six hundred thousand dollars, and an appropriation was secured, after one rejection, by the committee, of fifty thousand dollars to begin the work. The adoption of Mr. Boynton's plan was complete, and over one hundred thousand dollars has since been expended, and granite jetties extend respectively five hundred feet from the south- ern shore and fourteen hundred feet from the north- ern shore, and are to be extended four thousand and twenty-five hundred feet respectively, thus com- pressing the immense waters of the Merrimac and dollars' worth of coal by water, cansed the railways to reduce their freights in carrying coal to one-halt the former charge, on the plea of competition. An op- position so formidable has thus far prevented suffi- cient capital being embarked to complete an enter- prise fraught with so much benefit to the three hun- dred thousand people engaged in manufacturing near the summer home of Mr. Boynton ; thoughtful men predict that the measure must ultimately prove a great success. The transportation of coal by steam upon the Merrimac, as far as Haverhill, Mass., was first begun by Mr. Boynton and associates in 1864, and has been a constant success ever since, all the coal to Haverhill and the lower towns being now re- ceived by water, an indication of the result which enlarged channels and facilities will give to the great manufacturing cities above Haverhill in the tidal currents by a harbor in the ocean, with an en- near future. In order to admit the deeper draft coal trance one thousand feet wide. This is the first steamers, and open the port for foreign eommerce, work of the kind in the section, and its completion will be a monument of granite. as enduring as the continent, to Mr. Boynton's labors in behalf of the Merrimac Valley and the ancient historic city of Newburyport. Mr. Boynton first proposed to the United States Government the construction of jetties at the mouth of the Merrimac, in a letter addressed from his store in New York, of which the following is a copy :

"OFFICE OF E. M. BOYNTON, NEW YORK, Nov. 18, 1879.

" IION. GEORGE W. MOURARY, Secretary of War,

Washington, D. (.

" Dear sir :- I want a preliminary survey of the month of the Merri- mac River near Newburyport. It is desired to extend the narrow chall- nel between Plum Island and Salisbury, continuing it in the same width ont to twenty-five feet depth in the sea. By driving double rows of piles and forming jetties, the shifting sands that obstruct the harbor will be prevented, and the confined channel, instead of spreadiag like a fan, as it now does, and changing ia every storm, will be rendered as deep as it is between Plum Island and Salisbury, where for a mile and a half it averages thirty-five feet in depth.

"Coal steamers of one thousand tons arrive and depart twice each week at great (peril, bringing about one hnudred thonsaud tons of an- thracite coal this year. About five hundred thousand tons are used in the valley, the population of which is nearly half a million people. About one hundred millions of dollars' worth of products are sent away annually, and it is desirable that the coal and lumber, corn and cotton, in which the entire country is interested, shall have free access. The government has already accomplished much in river improvements,{ which gues for naught unless the harbor be rendered accessible. 1 will furnish steamers and men, and pay all the expense, if you will request General Thom to meet me and make the preliminary survey. The coast survey furnishes the principal data needed. I have consulted General Thom, who is alive to the vast importance of the interest involved and the pressing need of immediate action. With great respect, I remain

" Yours, very truly, "E. M. BOYNTON."

(Signed)

Although this plan was at first objected to on be- half of the government by General George Thom, chief of engineers U. S. A., on the ground of the magnitude of the cost of the necessary boring, sound- ing, surveys and current observations, undaunted by the prospect that on 'account of these objections the work wouhl be delayed for years, and the refusal of the War Department to accept his offer to pay for preliminary surveys, Mr. Boynton next procured copies of the surveys of the United States Navy of 1851 and of 1878, and on February 16, 1879, he forwarded copies of the same, showing the changes

In 1877 Mr. Boynton was selected by Messrs. George Opdyke, William Orton, Peter Cooper, John Williams and other members of the executive committee of the New Yord Board of Trade, to represent the city of New York at the meeting of the Association of Chambers of Commerce of Great Britain, at West- minster Palace Hotel, London, in February of that vear.

The courtesies received at our Centennial by the commissioners of the British Association mentioned, led to the invitation, in response to which Mr. Boyn- ton was commissioned, and he was the first to take part as a delegate from the United States in that dis- tinguished body. He participated actively in debate during three days' sessions.

Sprech of Mr. E. M. Boyuton, of New York, at the Dinner giren by the Association of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire, at the Westminster Palace Hotel, London, England, February 21, 1877, Lord Salisbury presiding.

" Ilis experience of England was a succession of surprises. On his first night here be had been permitted a seat on the floor of the l'arlia- ment House, and listened to the very instructive debate on Indian fi- Dances, trade and resources. And here we listen to the noble Lord Sal- isbury, who was the delegated absolute ruler of that wonderful land. Solomon, in all his glory, ruled less than ten millions of people ; Xerxes never fitty millions ; imperial Rome, scarce ever a hundred millions ; and at my side is a Christian Governor-General of India, who rules abso- lutely two hundred and fifty millions, ten thousand miles away. It crushes a Republican to think of such personal responsibility. What it would be to feel it he did not know ; but he was sure that the Bible which Queen Victoria gave as the secret of England's greatness nilist be his guide, and that God his helper, to succeed in meeting his responsi- bility. Ilo was glad to know that not one of the sixty thousand Eng- lishmen in India could strike the poorest native without liability to an- swer before a magistrate to English law.

"America is free, They had some civil troubles, from abolishing an ancient institution-sluvery-in fifteen States. The work of freedom it took England six hundred years to accomplish lins been completed in the past twelve years. Statesmanship was, however, springing up in those States; the love of peace and pride of country found now expres-

1889

WEST NEWBURY.

Bion recently, where least expected. Neither execution uor confiscation followed their war, in which three million soldiers sincerely battled. No right hands of ths conquered were severed on the scaffold ; all would now shisld the nation's honor if threatened from abroad ; while their President slept securely without soldier or sentinel.

" Mr. Boynton did not wonder nt our pride of country, this beautiful laad, filled with such memories as cluster round Westminster Abbey, Yet the posts, statesmen, heroes, scholars and history of Britain, were shared by their children in America. His ancestors came from Britain to Massachusetts two and a half centnrirs ago, yet mors and more was England honored in New England and the United States-your great dead men walk and 'breathe the air of America. The church and the school were abroad in his country, and the masters of English literature were read quite as much there as are hers Longfellow and Whittier and Bryant and Holmes. We have no such grand antiquities of human hands in America ; but if any here present landed at Halifax, they might ride in one direction four thousand miles, en route to their Pacific States-visit New York, the commercial port of the continent, and other large young cities-crossing wide States and prairies of limitless fertility -- sweep oa swift palace trains and over many mountain ranges higher than the Alpine passes trod by Hannibal and Napoleon. Yet they had a few antiquities. When Adam was young their great California redwood trees had sprouted. (Applause.) When the morning stars sang the song of creation their Niagara joined in the chorus. (Applause). Eng- Innd owned the Canadian, we the American half of that four thousand feet wids of mingled falling waters. And, as he had often looked at the blended mountain of spray that rose to the clouds from Niagara, the sun-blaze on its forehead, linking the rainbows round its throne, was to him a symbol of perpetual peace between England and America ; to pro- mote auch peace and reciprocity and good-will should ever be the object of his lifs " (Applause).

Mr. Boynton received invitations to many cities and towns in Great Britain, and was presented to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, and the Royal family at Buckingham Palace. His speeches at London and afterward at the Plymouth meeting attracted great attention, and he received thirty invitations which he could not accept.

After visiting France and Italy, and examining various engineering works of harbor and river im- provements, Mr. Boynton returned. He was tendered a dinner by the New York Board of Trade, which he declined. He received the thanks of the president, Hon. George Opdyke, in tones of highest eulogy. In sad coutrast, Mr. Boynton, with Messrs. Francis B. Thurber and John F. Henry, afterward constituted a committee to draft eulogies upon the life and charac- ter of President Opdyke upon his death, which oc- carred June 12, 1880. December 15th, following, as delegate of the Board of Trade to Washington, Mr. Boynton took a prominent part in the discussion of important measures, and introduced the chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Messrs. Reagan, of the House of Representatives, and Beck, of the Senate, at the banquet he'd December 17th.

Mr. Boynton was at that time contesting member of Congress versus (eorge B. Loring, from the fa- mous Sixth Massachusetts Essex County District. IIe had reluctantly permitted his name to be used as that of an independent and national candidate, and supposed that he had been defeated by less than one hundred votes ; but the discovery of a much larger number of illegal votes led General Butler and Ilon. Caleb Cushing to believe Mr. Boynton elected, and it took two years to decide the matter. IIe refused to

make any terms with either of the old parties, and therefore was prevented from obtaining the seat to which these able counselors, and such men as General Weaver (a minority of the committee), General Re- gan and Alexander H. Stephens, deelared him en- titled.

The question was not finally decided until just be- fore the inauguration of President Garfield, thus giv- ing Mr. Boynton two years of Congressional observa- tion, which has proved of great value to him, and had the effect of thoroughly disgusting him with poli- tics.

Mr. Boynton took part in the inauguration of President Garfield, as his last political act, and has since devoted himself to literature and farming. Ite sold out bis patents in 1882 to an incorporated com- pany at 36 Devoe Street, Brooklyn. They were val- ued at three hundred thousand dollars; having the preceding year, under his own management, earned sixty-three thousand dollars gross, and thirty thou- sand dollars net profits, and whatever discourage- ments in manufacturing or losses may hereafter oc- cur, the Lightning saws up to that date had been an unquestioned success the world over.

Mr. Boynton was nominated for member of Con- gress by the National and the Democratic party in Essex County, in 1880, in a distriet which, with one exception, has been almost unanimously Republiean (since the days when Rantoul and Choate and Cush- ing represented it), yet Mr. Boynton received about two thousand more votes than had previously been necessary to elect-the largest vote ever given a Democratie Congressional candidate in that distriet. It being Presidential year, the Republican party pre- vailed, although many Republicans preferred Mr. Boynton ; and his opponent's native city, Newbury- port, though overwhelmingly Republican, gave Mr. Boynton a large majority, showing how high was the estimation in which he was held by his neighbors and townsmen. Extraets are annexed from a Con- gressional speech of Ilon. Mr. Boynton, which has been pronounced to contain the best defense of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which has ever been given, and it is predicted that the ex- tension of suffrage by Massachusetts in conformity therewith is only a question of time. We copy from the Congressional Record of January 21, 1881 :

"Sumuer secured the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, which you would now nullify if you refuse to vindicate its majesty and power in accordance with its sarred provisions. * * * *: * " The people, North and South, stretch out their hands to you to right their wrongs and give them back their liberties and suffrages. For four long years we have plead with our rulers, and thundered at the gates of the State capitol, calling upon them to do what they have promised, by passing the enfranchisement I'nited States Constitutional amendments. to do. Enfranchisement is just, for on the consent of the governed rest our liberties. It promotes manhood to annually select the rulers by a free ballot. It stimulates love of country. It prevents plots and revolutions against the State. It promotes public murals by enlisting all the citizens in the public welfare. It gives security, happi-

1890

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

ness and prosperity to all classes by giving equal rights, equal privi- leges and equal burdens. You need not fear the influence of the poor and of the ignorant, for even that is divided in support of candidates se- lected by the cultured, the wealthy and the influential.

" Equality had its birth in the soul of man, in the teachings of Christ, in the Declaration of Independence. Manhood suffrage is an American invention, and the first realization of universal freedom. Egyptian learning, Grecian art, Roman power and organization are surpassed in the free manliood of America. Its establishment has given to us, alone smoog the nations of the earth, eighty thousand free pulpits, Dot one supported by the State. It has given to ns, first among the nations, three hundred thousand frer schools, all supported by the State, The only titles of nobility issued are a quarter of a million patents to the poor inventors, who so advance our material wealth. To us alone, among the nations of the earth, it has given freedom from the arma- ments of Europe and the taxation of tyrants. It has taken off the load that crashes out the lilanty and happiness of every other nation in Christendom. Here, with labor doubly rewarded in America (partially on account of our tariff), it is fast teaching the European peasant the folly of being obliged to carry a soldier on his back.

"True, France learning financial wisdom from the captured treasury books of ancient Venice, despite the changes of empires and republics, has been eighty years without a panic. Frauce may therefore teach the legislators of this land financial self-reliance and the beneficence of full legal tender paper money. And England, with the sovereignty of the ocean in her grasp and needing no defense except ber bulwarks that float upon the stormy sen, muny instruct us to protect our commerce by subsidizing peaceful navies to carry onr mails and limitless productions. But we can teach them more than France and England are learning of real self-government and the extension of suffrage. for manhood suf- frage is the strongest form of government. It is broad-based as the Pyramids and as enduring. It teaches the millennium of peace ; it teaches the fraternity of nations. There are but two forms of govern- ment on earth-voluntary and involuntary.

" Through blood and tears we have settled forever, I trust, the ques- tion of our form of government in favor of universal freedom. A mil- lion brave and sincere lives and eight billions of treasure have been paid for this amendment to the Constitution of our Republic. Wise or unwise we cannot go back now.

" Will Massachusetts reward the tens of thousands of her heroes who were compelled, because they could not read and write, to make their mark on the master-roll as well as on the battle-field-will she reward them by disfranchisement? I ask the men who represent Massachu. setts on this floor, will they disfranchise the men who went ont to give their lives for the Union? The bones of many of those men lie bleaching on our battle fields, but their comrades who have return- ed-will you disfranchise them because they were compelled to make their mark on their receipt-roll of payment for their blood ? Yon in- sisted on their enfranchising four million of slaves by their valor.

" Shall the black slave be made a fres man and the white citizen in Massachusetts be made a slave ? What would you say if the Sonth were to copy your example ? You cannot escape history by defying your official oaths to enforce and defend this sacred provision of the Consti- tution. It is now for the first time brought to your attention, and the ages will point at yon in wonder and witness your nutruthfulness if you sanction the ernel enforcing laws of 1874, disfranchising one hundred thousand white citizens of Massachusetts they have sworn to protect by accepting the amendment and the apportionment law of 1x72.

" Shall we do this when we are about to celebrate our first century of freedom, which has necomplished more for mankind, more for his moral nature, with three free pulpits to one of any other nation ; more intel- lectually, with three free schools to any other nation's one ; more mat- terially, with three inventions to any other nation's one ; more for poure, with fifteen school-teachers to a soldier ; when we have nccom- plished more for mankind in our first century than has been accom- plished by sixty centuries of monarchical and aristocratie goverment ? Apply the laws of Massachusetts, and you will di franchise a majority of the voting population of the South. You destroy all the protection given by the ballot to one-third, ay, to more than one-third of the fifty millions of this nation.

""Will yon bid men pay taxes on all that they consume and produce and not give them representation ? Will you bid them produce hil- lions by their toil and refuse the citizenship guaranteed by the four- teenth amendment " Will you enroll this great heroic army, larger than the army of Xerxes, larger than any other army that was ever

gathered in the world-will you enroll this great heroic army of voters in your vations] militia throughout this broad domain, subject to draft in your defense, and yet give them no vote in disposing of their property and lives ?

" Men of Massachusetts, dare you take this responsibility ? Loring has quoted young Ohio, the daughter of Massachusetts ; Obio does not do this deed of disfranchising weakness and wickedness. lowa dues not perform this infamy. Maine does not disfranchise her people. New Hampshire, adjoining Massachusetts, with a similar people in every respect, does not find it necessary, Shall Massachusetts dim the luster of ber heroes, go back upon the teachings of her history, give the lie to her professions? Shall she act the part of those rulers in Judea who, when Jesus was crucified, would not enter the judgment hall for fear of being defiled, yet when the stern and bloody Roman governor said, 'I find no fault in him,' cried out ' Let him be crucified ! Give us Barab- bas, the robher !'

" Men of Massachusetts, shield not yourselves behind your illustrious names. As well might Loring, petitioning for national appointment, go to the gravestones of our ancient Salem for names to secure it as to seek to answer the points of law and fact in this case by taking refuge behind the history, the fame and the glory of our ancient Common- wealth. Massachusetts is not that little space between the hills of Berkshire sud the sands of Barnstable ; she is now the fifteen million of descendants, whose warehouses sre in every portion of the Bepub- lic from Maine to San Francisco ; it is the liberty-loving men of Amer- ica, it is the ideas that come down to us from the scaffold of Sidney, from the words of Locke in his exile, from the pilgrims and Puritans, from John Hancock, Adams, Warren, from James Otis, insisting that taxation without representation is tyranny, speaking for universal man- hood suffrage in the old cradle of liberty. I adjare you, by all her immortals and by the kindred revolutionary heroes of Virginia, by the Sumters and Marions of South Carolina, by every battle-field of the Revolution, by the liberty won in our last sad, fratricidal strife, that you be true to your official ostbs, be true to the genius of American liberty and manhood suffrage, and true to the destiny of this the great master republic of our world.

" You stand at the dividing line between & free and a restricted ballot. Beside you are vast syndicates and giant corporations that urge you to disfranchise the people ; that urge you to make the people weak and helpless ; that urge yon to take from millions of citizens of the United States their lawful rights and erect an empire.

" Now, after you have put the ' freedman's prayer ' into the Constitu- tion of my country, do yon propose that Massachusetts, of illustrious name and fame, shall be used to wipe ont all the war has won? Do you refuse to hear and redress this first breach of the charter ? Have the two old parties-republican and democratic-united like Ilerod and Pilate, like Scribe and Pharisee, to punish those standing up for liberty and justice here in the last court of freedom-here in the Congress of the country ? The men who won England's Magna Charta could not read or write. The blood of poor men ransomed and enlarged the charter of American freedom and nationality.

" The United States census of 1880 shows that from the same popula- tion three men voted in Maine and New Hampshire, Ohio and Indiana, where only two voted in Massachusetts, in a population of similar intel- ligence and employment. If Maine, that up to 1820 shared and illne- trated the history of Massachusetts, safely gives equality, why cannot the mother State ? Does it dim the splendor or retard the success of Ohio because she does not refuse a vote to the poorest freeilman in her borders ? Have we not in America's three hundred thousand free schools, academies and colleges, security that intelligence shall rule, without making the poor and unfor unate tremble at the loss of his manhood suffrage? The eloquent words of Senator HoAR, of Massa- chusetts, in accepting the presidency of the national republican con- vention at Chicago, June 3, 1880, were fitly cheered by the delegates of every stato and Territory, and have betore and since been echoed by the President-elect. I quote the Senator :

"' The key-note of every republican platform, the principle of every republican union, is found in its respect for the individual man. Until that beroun's the pervading principle of every part of the Republic, from Camila to the Gulf, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, our mission is not emed.

". The Republic lives, the republican party lives, but for this : that every man within our borders may dwell secure in a happy home, may cast and have connted his equal vote. Fotil these things come to pass the mission of our party is not accomplished, nor its conflict with its ancient enemy ended.'

Orin Warren.

1891

WEST NEWBURY.

" Had the equality proclaimed in our immortal Declaration of Inde- dendence been real, a million men would not have died to write freedom in the Constitution. Two hundred thousand black men fought for their liberty. The colored people alone outnumber our nation when it won independence. You legislate for our fifty millions to day, for the five hundred millions that will celebrate our next centennial. No power can compel you to do justice and keep your oath at freedom's altar. Will yon refuse and dim the splendor of the hero-crimsoned flag that is destined to gather in all the States of the New World-destined to teach law and liberty, peace and fraternity to all mankind. That flag is alike for the lowly and the strong ; touching earth, it sweeps the stars.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 219

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1672

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672