USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 39
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 39
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 39
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Herein was recommended the features that have made the board a successful department and these features have been embodied in legis- lation of other States, since that time. The bill in Massachusetts, as adopted, incorporated the minority recommendations for a membership in which both, employers and employees, were to be represented and balance between them to be held by one not identified with either. Con- ciliation was added to the end that future possibilities might be con- sidered in making the award of settlement. Since the creation of the board, it has functioned not without criticism, but the influence has
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created the present condition of production without interruption, while representatives of both sides settled differences.
It has also led to the present system of collective bargaining, neces- sitating the maintenance by the unions of business agents. Much of the business which at one time made large meeting of unions impera- tive is transacted by the methods now current, and peace reigns in place of strife.
One may visualize the country and some of its labor centers before that great change came by reading Charles Dickens, who wrote before the war a picture of peace and prosperity with none unduly rich and none unduly poor, a condition, which Jefferson once said was the best evidence of a well-governed republic. Labor was educated and sought the best of American surroundings, as a reward for its efforts. It soon found itself forced to compete with those who were content with much less and were attracted to this country by the wages which capital was willing to pay. There were International Unions having membership in a number of States-the iron molders, cigar makers, machinists, and the typographical union, but the organizing of shoe workers of which there were many in Plymouth, Barnstable, and Norfolk counties com- menced in 1866. At that time Newell Daniels of Milwaukee and half a dozen other shoemakers organized the Knights of St. Crispin. That organization grew rapidly in this section. It accepted the law of supply and demand in its application to the number of shoemakers and pro- ceeded to provide for limiting the supply of shoemakers. Every mem- ber was pledged not to teach any new help.
In a short period of two years wages went up twenty per cent. All of the boys and apprentices had disappeared in about four years. Manu- facturers scoured the country for skilled workmen; the men refused to teach new help. Then came the help from abroad, who were shoe- makers in the old country, but they joined the St. Crispins because they needed instructions on the methods of work here, which were different from those abroad. The Knights of St. Crispin were in control of the situation until 1873, when so many were thrown out of employment by the money panic, that they competed with each other for a job and the Knights of St. Crispin were forced out of existence.
In 1865 there had been a conference in Louisville, Kentucky, and out of it came an organization of labor on different lines. It departed from trades unionism to form a political organization. This school in labor methods insisted that progress and reform was a matter of legislation and through it wage workers could secure their just portion of their wealth production. This conference wrote a platform of political de- inands, some of which since have been enacted into law. The Louis- ville conference called a convention in Baltimore in 1866 and adopted
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the name of National Labor Union. It was the beginning of labor in politics. Unions were found in various parts of the country includ- ing the Southeastern Massachusetts. Its membership was not confined to wage workers and it had many prominent men in its ranks. The lo- cal tickets nominated on this platform were many within the following four years. Several members of the Massachusetts Legislature in both branches were elected. The first labor bureau ever established in this country was in this State in 1874.
It was the first of the results that were obtained by the pressure of organized labor in politics, as early as 1832. Both labor and trade were subject to very stringent legal regulation at the beginning of the cen- tury. Labor legislation, if it may be so defined, began in 1832 to mod- ify or repeal these regulations; but with these came a marked tendency towards government regulation of exchange of services. Incidentally, there was legislation for apprenticeship of boys, and establishing edu- cational societies by the workers.
The conditions surrounding production again changed with the in- troduction of machinery, which could utilize unskilled labor; thus skilled labor found a new competing force. Employment of women and children commenced. It brought great social problems to be solved. With these new conditions came the agitation and demand for legislation to control the changes increasing with the growth of the unions organized for political action. Agitation for shorter hours of labor ripened into passage of the ten-hour or sixty hours a week for women and minors in 1874. Since that time, men and women, including many in these counties, have through their persistent devotion secured legislation that has contributed greatly to uplift the condition of the wage workers.
In 1877 came the "Knights of Labor" with an educational platform similar to that of the National Labor Union. In 1878 it polled over 850,000 votes for congressional candidates and elected thirteen mem- bers of Congress. The success added to the growth of the organization. It also made its membership general; only lawyers and liquor dealers were excluded. For twelve years it carried on its educational cam- paign and thus accomplished more than any other body that had exist- ed. The trades union school continued its agitation against the school of political action. Without noting the other organizations, which con- tributed to the political upheaval in 1890, and the subsequent election of independent congressman, and the revolution in political thought, we turn to the great labor organization, which came into existence as the result of the agitation for unions, which should be organized by trades, and for the welfare of those who were employed in these trades. The Massachusetts State branch of the American Federation of Labor
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was organized in 1887. The shoe-workers, as already noted, had been organized on this line. Cutters, lasters, edge-workers, stitchers, and others were assembled by their department of action. Organized in this form, it frequently happened that when one department went on strike for an increase in wages, other departments were forced to re- main idle until the difference was settled. If the workers were success- ful, another branch soon went on strike with the same results. The American Federation of Labor is a federation of unions having recog- mized jurisdiction over wage workers in their respective trades. Con- ferences among the shoe-workers, beginning about 1890, resulted first in a temporary organization amalgamating some of the departments and, finally, on April 10, 1895, in the formation of the International Boot and Shoe Workers Union and its affiliation with the American Federa- tion of Labor. This organization embraces in its membership the work- ers in seventy-five shoe factories in Plymouth County and ten in Norfolk County. Eleven factories in Plymouth and one in Norfolk County are making women's shoes.
In Plymouth County there are: 1 Allied Printing Trades Council; 2 Joint Shoe councils; 1 Building Trades Council; 2 Central Labor un- ions; 37 Boot and Shoe Workers unions; 51 other unions.
Norfolk County has: 1 Central Labor Union; 1 Building Trades Council; 9 Boot and Shoe Workers unions; 43 other unions.
Barnstable County has four unions.
The total membership of organized labor in Plymouth, Norfolk, and Barnstable counties is more than four times greater now than it was thirty years ago.
Decade Before the Civil War-It is interesting to take a retrospec- tive glance at conditions in the county during the decade which pre- ceded the saddest time in the history of the United States, the period of Civil War. Stagecoaches furnished the transportation facilities. There was a line from Cape Cod towns, through Plymouth to Kingston ; a line from Kingston, through Duxbury and Marshfield, reaching Scit- uate and Cohassett and, via the Steamship line and the Old Colony Railroad, connecting with Boston. There was a daily mail over this line. The postmaster in Duxbury in :849 was Zenas Faunce. Taking this town as typical of several in Plymouth County, there were manu- facturers of shoes, fish lines, salt, tacks and tin ware. Bradford and Sampson, Holmes & Hunt and P. Chandler were manufacturing shoes, from one thousand to two thousand pairs a week. S. Sampson and S. Drew kept up the ancient manufacture of salt by the evaporation of sea water, one of the early industries of the Old Colony. Tin ware was manufactured by W. Clark, and sold from a wagon which trav-
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eled long distances to reach customers. Dura Wadsworth was a manufacturer of fish lines which found a ready home market with the owners of vessels who sent fishing schooners to the Grand Banks. Samuel Loring was engaged in manufacturing tacks and had erected his handsome brick residence at Island Creek, still in existence, now called Mirimar, a school for the education of candidates for the Cath- olic priesthood.
Duxbury at one time was exceeded by only one other town in the State in the number of vessels built, and Ezra Weston of Duxbury was the "largest ship-owner in the world." The town sent sixty ves- sels one spring to the banks of Newfoundland; in 1849 there were few hailing from the town but a large number of captains and owners of New York and Boston vessels resided in the town. The Duxbury shipping consisted of three ships, the "Mattakeesett," "Hope" and "Manteo;" of 430, 880 and 599 tonnage, respectively; two brigs, "Vul- ture" and "Lion," and eighteen schooners. The average wealth was about $1,500 to each voter.
Hailing from Plymouth the next year were five ships, eleven barques, six brigs, fifty-one schooners and seven sloops. Of the above, forty schooners were engaged in the cod fisheries, employing three hundred and fifteen men, bringing in cargoes valued at $88,241. In 1848 nine hundred and three barrels of mackerel were inspected in Plymouth.
The tonnage from Cohasset in 1850 was 4,202 tons, mostly schoon- ers from twenty-three to ninety-eight tons each. Kingston and other towns on the coast had considerable shipping engaged in cod-fishing, and vessels were being built on the Jones River in Kingston and on the North River in Hanover to supply the demand.
All the vessels were not sent out for cod-fish, as has already been stated. There was an item which appeared in the "New Bedford Mer- cury," in May, 1849, characteristic of many which were printed about that time, which read: "Since the arrival of the 'Falcon,' whaler, at this port, a few days since, it has leaked out that the cook, who was shipped at Honolulu, brought with him $12,000 in gold dust, keeping his secret until his entry at the Custom House yesterday compelled its disclosure. It was gathered by its fortunate possessor at the placers in California during the past year."
The same paper contained another item in the same month which read: "The ship 'Sarah Parker' which arrived at Nantucket on Tues- day brought on freight $1,000 worth of California gold dust, con- signed to a lady in town, by her son, one of the Nantucket b'hoys, who obtained it with his own hands at the 'diggings,' last year in twenty- five days."
Those who took their livelihood from another branch of fishing in
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the sea were complaining, according to an item in one of the county papers of June 15, 1849, as follows: "The system of dieting adopted by the citizens of our cities has ruined the lobster business for this season, and the fishers on our coast who have in former seasons driven a laborious but profitable business in this line, are now taking up their pots and returning to their families, leaving the shell-fish to enjoy this summer in a great measure unmolested."
It was about that time that the "Plymouth Rock," a weekly news- paper then published in Plymouth, under the heading "Grub," stated : "Clams, eels, cod and halibut appear to be uncommonly plenty in these diggings about now. Lobsters are shy, although they will probably be green enough to be taken in the neighborhood of the Gurnet. Herring will soon come, it is confidently rumored. This is indeed a rich and thriving town, although we do have some trouble about schools."
Distressing and Unusual Nautical Items-One of the most distressing calamities for many years off the Massachusetts coast occurred in Oc- tober, 1849, when the British brig "St. John," from Galway, Ireland, struck on the Grampus Rocks, near Cohasset, supposedly, according to the reports at that time, with one hundred and sixty-four passen- gers on board. One hundred and forty-five were said to have drowned, but Captain Oliver who, with other officers and crew took to the few boats, and were saved, reported that the total loss of life was ninety-one and the number saved was twenty-one. The sum of these two numbers is one hundred and twenty and that was the total number which the brig was allowed to carry under the existing laws.
The county newspapers of that time contained an item about a schooner, Captain Allen, which arrived at Kingston May 6 from Boston. When about three miles east northeast from Scituate Light, a pigeon was seen flying towards the schooner, and very soon came on board, apparently much fatigued. "Tied to the legs of the pigeon were sixteen pages of paper, making seventy inches in length, four inches wide, containing the news of the steamer 'Cambria,' which was then in sight, bound for Boston. The budget can be examined by calling on Benjamin Delano, Esq., of Kingston," said the "Old Colony Memorial."
The "Old Colony Reporter," May 31, 1850, stated: "Three schoon- ers sailed lately from Kingston at the same hour, bound on the same errand, to the same place (the Grand Banks, fishing), and commanded by three brothers, Captains Thaddeus, George L., and Philip Wash- burn."
It was hard to keep California gold out of the items in the news-
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papers all through that period. This was one item: "We would in- vite those of our readers who have teeth, and more particularly those who have not, to read and remember the advertisement of G. R. Whitney of Duxbury, a young man of much ability, and who is deter- mined to preserve a place among the first in his profession. He will fill your teeth with California Gold and warrant it to 'stay put'."
Another item : "A Boston man named Tyler, son of a Boston auction- eer of that name, purchased a sort of shed, and started the first auc- tion store in San Francisco."
Stagecoach Drivers and Express Men-When John Darling Church- ill became the pioneer station agent of the Old Colony Railroad in Plymouth in 1845, he relinquished running a packet between Plym- outh and Boston. The old order had changed and he became identified with the new. So it was with the stage-coach business, but the driv- ers merely were forced to adjust themselves to a swifter transporta- tion age.
"The late Peleg T. Brooks of Kingston, a well-known citizen of Plym- outh County, who served the town of Kingston twenty-eight consecu- tive years as town clerk, treasurer and collector, and was also a repre- sentative in the Legislature, passed through the various stages which were experienced in the express-carrying business. He was agent for the New York & Boston Despatch Company, once prominent in this section, but years before that he had driven a stagecoach from Dux- bury to Kingston for twenty years. When the Old Colony Railroad from Boston to Plymouth was established in 1843, he took advantage of the new transportation facilities and transported merchandise from Duxbury to Boston through Kingston. The next local link in the local transportation chain of progress was building the South Shore Rail- road, which forced him to abandon the stage line between Duxbury and Kingston, but he kept up Brooks' Express from Kingston to Boston, using the railroad, until it was consolidated with the New York and Boston Despatch Company. His case was typical of many others.
CHAPTER XXV LEGAL PRACTICE AND PRACTITIONERS.
How Early Conduct Was Regulated by Church and Town Meeting- First Lawyers and Development of Bench and Bar-Until Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies United, Lawyers Were Lean, Few and Out of Luck-Only Twenty-Five Lawyers in Entire State First One Hundred and Fifty Years - No Legally-Trained Judge Until 1712-This County Sent Many Legal Men of Prominence to Distant Practice-When Home, Daniel Webster Insisted He Was a Farmer, Not a Lawyer-As a Lawyer, William Cullen Bryant Was a Great Poet-Hingham's Distinguished Men of the Bar Included Two Gover- nors of Massachusetts and a Secretary of the Navy-East Bridge- water Furnished "Father of the Steel Navy"-Constitutional Con- ventions.
In writing a story of the bench and bar of Plymouth County it is well, first of all, to recall that on the day after the making of the treaty with Massasoit, the Pilgrims had enacted certain "laws and orders thought behooveful for their present estate and condition." The first law entered in the colony's record book was enacted in December, 1623, and provided that "all criminal facts and also all matters of trespass and debts between man and man should be tried by the verdict of twelve honest men to be impanelled by authority, in form of a jury, upon their oath." The town meeting had previously been the tribunal but it had become too large to deal with ordinary trials. This was the beginning of trial by jury in the colony.
The male inhabitants for several years formed a "general court" when needed for legislative, judicial and executive action. Those who signed the Compact in the cabin of the "Mayflower" and others who had been admitted to the franchise by a majority vote formed a sort of Supreme Court and no law or imposition was of effect without the consent of these "freemen." The Plymouth government drew its sole authority from the Compact and the consent of the governed. Just when the colonial court superseded the town meeting it is hard to clearly define. There was an order of the General Court "that the chief government be tyed to the towne of Plymouth, and that the governor for the time being be tyed there to keepe his residence and dwelling."
The World War was said to have been fought to "make the world safe for democracy," but three hundred years before the experiment was first tried in Plymouth County to make the world safe "through democracy."
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In Baylies' "History of New Plymouth," it is stated: "Those who are strangers to our customs are surprised to find the whole of New England divided into a vast number of little democratic republics, which have full power to do all those things which most essentially concern the comforts, happiness and morals of the people .... Under the govern- ment of these little republics, society is trained in habits of order, and the whole people acquire a practical knowledge of legislation within their own sphere. To this mode of government may be attributed that sober and reflecting character, almost peculiar to the people of New England, and their general knowledge of politics and legislation."
According to Welman's "Church Polity of the Pilgrims," "the purely democratic form of government in the church at Leyden, already en- trenched in the warm affections of the Pilgrims, led to the adoption of a corresponding form of civil government on board the 'Mayflower' for the colony at Plymouth."
The principle on which the Plymouth Colony was founded required that while the inhabitants of the town "should remain a part of the whole, and be subject to the general voice in relation to all matters which concerned the whole colony, they should be allowed to be what their separate settlements had made them ; namely, distinct communities, in regard to such affairs as concerned none but themselves. There was no sharply defined line separating the powers which the town and the colony might respectively exercise until some emergency arose which called for action of the General Court, after which the limitation be- came recognized, as a legal decision."
In 1636 the task of codifying the laws was first undertaken by the governor and a committee chosen to assist him. There were certain police and military regulations. The code provided for the election of a governor, seven assistants, a treasurer, a clerk, constables and other officers on the first Tuesday of each March. The chief duties of legislation and administration were delegated to the freemen. Two years later, on the plea that the freemen were put to many incon- veniences and unwarranted expense by their attendance at the courts, provision was made for the selection of deputies "to join with the bench" in legislation.
Previous to the union of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies there were some differences in the modes of punishment and in the way of dispensing justice. The Pilgrims were more liberal and more merciful than the Puritans, but both were very watchful that nothing like heresy should creep in, and summary punishments were handed out on the merest suspicion of anything calculated, in the opinion of the authorities, to disrupt what they had set up.
A similar struggle with the selection of laws and their codification
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was going on in the Massachusetts Colony at the same time the men of Plymouth were deciding upon what should be written law.
The thought of the early seventeenth century was different than that of the early twentieth century as regards obedience to authority. It must be remembered that the church governed in all things. It preached a relentless theology and governed with a relentless hand. Some light on carefulness to enforce good conduct is indicated on the punishment of early students in Harvard College.
Early Judges of Probate Court-By virtue of the Province Charter the governor and council had jurisdiction of the probating of wills and granting of administrations. Without the authority of any special law at that time, they ordered the appointment of a judge of probate. So the first judge of probate in Plymouth County was William Brad- ford, son of Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony, the first his- torian of the New World. The first judge of probate was the last deputy governor of the Plymouth Colony. He was born in Plymouth and his home was in what is now Kingston. He was appointed in 1693, resigned in 1702 and died in 1704.
Judge Bradford's successor was Nathaniel Thomas, who was a mem- ber of the Provincial Council, and resigned to become judge of the Probate Court. He held that position until his death in 1718. He was a grandson of William Thomas, who was one of the merchant ad- venturers who financed the coming of the Pilgrims in the "Mayflower." Judge Thomas was also a judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas. He was a member of a distinguished family. His father com- manded one of the watches against the Indians in 1643, was a volun- teer in the Pequot expedition in 1643-the year Nathaniel Thomas was born-was commissioned ensign of the Marshfield company of colonial troops. He was later its captain and, in 1654, became the successor to Captain Myles Standish in command.
The third judge of probate, Isaac Winslow, was a son of Governor Josiah Winslow of Marshfield. He had been a member of the council during a period of thirty-two years. He was appointed chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1712 and was for a time its chief justice. He died December 14, 1738. His successor was John Cushing of Scituate.
Judge Cushing had been chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and afterwards judge of the Superior Court.
William Sever of Kingston succeeded Judge Cushing in 1775, at a most interesting period in the development of provincial affairs, just before the Revolutionary War. Mr. Sever had graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1745. He was the first president of the Plym-
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outh Bank, organized in 1803. He was judge of probate about three years and died in 1809, at the age of seventy-nine. One of his sons, Captain James Sever of Kingston, was post-captain in the United States Navy. A member of the same family was Miss Martha Sever, volunteer nurse in the Civil War, in whose honor Martha Sever Post, No. 154, Grand Army of the Republic, is named.
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