USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Manchester > History of the town of Manchester, Essex County, Massachusetts, 1645-1895 > Part 10
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" Also the large cabinet manufactory of Mr. Larkin Woodbury which was destroyed. Part of the contents were saved in a damaged condition.
" Also the dwelling-house, barn and outbuildings of Dr. Asa Story which were destroyed.
" Also the dwelling-house and barn of Mr. Solomon Lee, an aged veteran of the Revolution; a total loss and no insurance.
" Also the house and shop of Mrs. Andrew Masters, and the stable and shed attached to the tavern of Nathaniel Colby, all of which were burnt.
" The loss sustained by Mr. Allen is very great, esti- mated from $20,000 to $30,000, but we are glad to learn he has considerable insurance. Besides his buildings, mahog- any, tools, etc., all his valuable house furniture, a large
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number of mahogany logs, veneers, lumber and articles of new furniture were destroyed.
" A gentleman of this city, we learn, had $1,000 worth of mahogany at his mill. Mr. Woodbury's loss is estimated at $4,000; supposd to be insured. Both of these gentlemen were absent on a tour in the interior.
" Dr. Story's loss is about $2,500; no insurance.
" Mr. Colby likewise had no insurance. When the fire was at its height it raged on both sides of the small stream, near which these establishments were situated, so that it was impossible to pass the bridge which crosses it. Owing to the dense fog the fire was not seen in this neighborhood, and it was not known until about 3 o'clock when the alarm was given, and one engine and many of our citizens pro- ceeded to the scene of the conflagration."
Mr. Allen's losses were estimated as over sixty thousand dollars. He was insured for only about nine thousand. With indomitable energy he re- sumed business with a new mill and shops ; but the cabinet-making business in Manchester had reached its zenith. In 1835, the amount of sales of furni- ture turned out by its workmen, was $50,000. In a few years, trade began to be transferred to the larger centres and the West, where abundant lumber and cheap water-power enabled manufacturers to enter into a ruinous competition with the East. Considerable work, especially of the better class, however, continued to be carried on in small shops, until the coming on of the Civil War and the closing of the Southern market still further curtailed the business, so that it declined until it became little more than a shadow of its former name.
Mr. Allen was a man of great force of character and public spirit. He was a leader of men; having,
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HISTORY OF MANCHESTER.
it is said, something Websterian in his pose of head, stature and general bearing. He died in 1875, in his eightieth year.
The work that continued to be sent from Man- chester maintained the high reputation of former years for excellence, even when sadly diminished in amount. The Cabinet Maker, a weekly paper " de- voted to the interests of the furniture trade," pub- lished in Boston, in its issue of June 18, 1870, has a leading article of two columns on " Furniture Manufacture at Manchester, Mass.," from which we extract the following :
" The class of work that is made in Manchester to-day, is without doubt as fine as any work turned out in the United States, and it is retailed in the warerooms of the most fashionable furniture dealers in the country. The styles are good, and the work thorough and reliable. Were it the custom to put the maker's name on furniture, as it is on watches, fire-arms, silverware, and most other goods, these modest manufacturers, doing business in the same small routine way for the past forty or fifty years, would have an enviable reputation, wherever, in this country, handsome and serviceable furniture is appreciated."
It was during the cabinet-making period that the gold excitement in California lured many of the cit- izens of Manchester, with others, to join the throngs that made their way to the new El Dorado. Some went by the Isthmus, some by way of the Plains, and a party of twelve by Cape Horn, in a small ves- sel which they purchased, fitted and loaded with provisions and lumber for the San Francisco market.1
1 Vide p. 350.
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An amusing incident that occurred during the manufacturing era illustrates the fact that great and grave results may sometimes spring from trifling causes. The cheaper grades of furniture found a ready market in the " forties," in Charleston, Mobile and especially New Orleans, from whence they were shipped up the Mississippi, and thus found their way all over what was then the " Great West." On one occasion, in packing some goods for the " Cres- cent City," a quantity of copies of the Liberator 1 were used for wrapping, and when the cases were opened on the sidewalk on a windy day, the papers were scattered, "thick as leaves in Vallombrosa shed." Judge of the consternation caused by the dissemination broadcast of such " incendiary " matter in one of the most combustible parts of the structure of the great Southern slaveholding civiliza- tion. They must have seemed like fiery cinders rained upon the Southland, from that ever-active volcano of political and moral fanaticism known as New England. Some of them doubtless contained the words of Giddings, or Hale, or George Thomp- son, or Gerrit Smith, or Parker Pillsbury, or the im- mortal utterances - primus inter pares - of Garri- son himself. It is needless to say that the innocent perpetrators of this practical joke were at once noti- fied by their agent in very explicit terms that such an offence must not be repeated. The Southern constitution was too sensitive and irritable to bear so powerful a blister.
1 Probably no other town of its size could have furnished so many copies of this paper.
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HISTORY OF MANCHESTER.
It was not, as might be thought, "all work and no play," with the mechanics of the first half of the century. They worked early and late in the shops,1 they allowed themselves few luxuries, but they had their holidays and enjoyed them with a zest unknown to those who have lived to see holidays multiplied and hours of labor diminished. Most days were " labor days " in stern reality to the generation that made Manchester a hive of industry. But now and then, on some great occasion, the town kept gala-day.
One instance of this kind was on the Fiftieth Anni- versary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1826. On the morning of that day, the people were awakened by the joyful ringing of bells and booming of cannon, announcing the dawn of the nation's birthday. A survivor 2 of the actors on that memor- able occasion has given the writer his recollections of it. A procession marched through the village in the following order:
Capt. Benjamin Knowlton's Company,3 consisting of 24 young men, representing the States of the Union. Gloucester Company. Orator of the Day, and Reader of Declaration. Revolutionary Soldiers.+ Committee of Arrangements. Citizens.
1 Work was usually carried on in the shops until 8 P. M. ; many worked on " stints " as many as fourteen hours a day.
2 Dea. A. E. Low.
3 Capt. Knowlton has been spoken of as "a born military leader," although in private life of a very mild, quiet demeanor. His company, which was uniformed in blue coat and white pants, was called the best- drilled company that took part in the local musters.
4 These were twenty-four in number, according to Mr. D. L. Bingham, whose youthful memory as a boy of twelve vividly retains the scene.
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The exercises were held in the church, and con- sisted of singing the Ode to Science, reading the Declaration by Capt. John Girdler, and oration by Mr. Tyler Parsons. Dinner followed in the hall. Dea. D. L. Bingham was president of the day. The citizens generally joined heartily in the celebration, with the exception of a few of the "outs," who were conspicuous by their absence, enjoying the day by themselves as best they could, and no doubt berating the administration and bewailing the degeneracy of the times.
On at least three other occasions, once on " Pop- lar Field " and twice at " Lobster Cove," the whole town, men and women, old and young, came to- gether on " Independence Day " for a general jollifi- cation, in which feasting, speech-making, toasts and games were indulged in to the heart's content. At these festivities, one learns with regret, rum flowed freely, as was the custom of those days; but the drinking habits of half a century and more ago were not so demoralizing as the liquor traffic of the pres- ent day. The modern " saloon," with its progeny of evils, had not been spewed out of the mouth of the pit.
Other feastings and junketings of a more select character took place occasionally. Among these, tradition preserves the memory of certain goings-on of Manchester sea-captains and Boston merchants as their guests at the "Cold Spring." It is not difficult to picture in imagination the " solid men " of Bos- ton, whose names were a power in the China seas, jogging down through Lynn and Salem in the early
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morning in their square-topped chaises and curricles, and spending the day in the beech grove, eating cold fowl and chowder, and discussing Federalist politics, exchanging ponderous jokes with their hosts, and re- turning in the late afternoon to their substantial and comfortable homes on Hanover street and Fort Hill.
It was during the industrial period that the Lyceum rose and flourished.1 Its record is duly and honorably preserved in a permanent form in the address of Mr. D. L. Bingham, at the Dedication of the Memorial Library Building, and published in the Memorial Volume, pp. 24-28. The following extracts are from that address :
" The Constitution was adopted Feb. 10, 1830. Any person could become a member by paying an annual sub- scription of fifty cents, and signing the Constitution. Arti- cle IX declares that 'The regular exercises of the Society shall be original dissertations, lectures on scientific and other practical subjects, and a debate to be open to all the members.' Dr. E. W. Leach delivered the introductory lecture, March 3; the Rev. Samuel M. Emerson followed with a lecture on 'The Method of Conducting Debates.' Dr. Asa Story delivered three lectures on 'Natural Philos- ophy.' John Price lectured on 'Schools and Methods of Government.' Tyler Parsons, Joseph Knowlton and Daniel Kimball of Ipswich complete the list of lecturers during the first year of the Lyceum. The meetings for discussion were always well attended, and the people took a deep in- terest in the questions brought before them. Some of the questions were very practical; such as, ' Is the present sys-
1 IIon. Robert S. Rantoul, in a very interesting chapter on " The Spirit of the Early Lyceums" (History of Essex County, vol. I, ch. lxxxiv), traces the " root-idea of the American Lyceum " to the formation of a " Society for Mutual Improvement," in Methuen, Essex Co., in 1824, under the lead of Timothy Claxton, who was born in Norfolk, Eng., 1770.
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tem of repairing roads judicious ?' and ' Ought property to constitute the right of suffrage ?'
" In the list of one hundred and twenty members were found nearly all the principal men of the town, and most of them took part in the discussions. . . . The subjects of the lectures, and the questions discussed, were talked about on the streets and in the shops. . . . Soon after the forma- tion of the Lyceum, a movement was made to form a library. ... The nucleus of this Library was composed of books contributed by members of the Association . . . the Library increased to nearly one thousand volumes until it passed into the hands of the Town (1871)."
The following quotation is from the closing rec- ord of the Secretary, Mr. George F. Allen:
" So ends the Manchester Lyceum (first formed in 1830). It was a useful Association, and, in forty years of its exis- tence, met the wants of the people as no other association could. Having performed its mission, if not as its founders wished, certainly with great credit to its many sustainers, it gives way to a new order of things; but though dead in name, it lives in principle and influence."
The first officers of the Lyceum were:
DR. ASA STORY
President.
DELUCENA L. BINGHAM
Vice-President.
JOSEPH KNOWLTON
Secretary.
JOHN LEE
Treasurer.
Curators.
HENRY F. LEE DAVID MORGAN.
Committee.
JOIIN P. ALLEN . . EZEKIEL W. LEACH.
LARKIN WOODBERRY DANIEL ANNABLE.
DAVID MORGAN.
The Lyceum of fifty years ago was a valuable edu- cational institution; and notwithstanding the great multiplication of magazines, newspapers, public libra-
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ries and other means of popular information, nothing has yet appeared that quite takes its place. There is needed in our community some opportunity for the interchange of thought and opinion in regard to the social, business, intellectual and moral interests of the town, and for the discussion of general sub- jects of popular interest, such as labor combinations, the license question, the fostering of home indus- tries, the books we should read, schools, roads, and the like. It would afford a valuable training-school for our young people, practice in debate, and famil- iarity with parliamentary rules and principles. A regular meeting with some important and timely subject for discussion, opened by some speaker or speakers prepared to throw light upon it, ought to be an attraction to many who have now no profitable employment for their leisure evenings.
A place, too, where the people could meet to- gether occasionally as citizens, irrespective of church or society affiliations, and learn to know each other better, would exert in many ways a good influence. We are in danger with other small communities of becoming clannish, and with a dozen organizations more or less, of dividing up into little knots and cliques, each with its pass-words, grips and fellow- ships, but in few instances aiming to promote the public good beyond their own little circle. A lyceum, well conducted, would tend to break down exclusiveness, to broaden sympathies and thought, and to produce a better public spirit.
During the later years of the Lyceum, a course of lectures was delivered by our townsman, William
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H. Tappan, embodying some of his observations and experiences during the period of his official life in the Far West, and the fruit of large historical re- search. The titles of these lectures were : "The Indians of the Northwest Coast "; " The Nez Perces and Flatheads " ; "Gold and Silver Mining"; " Fron- tier Life, or the Infancy of States." The appreciation with which these lectures were received was ex- pressed in Resolutions framed and presented by the Lecture Committee, consisting of Daniel Leach, W. E. Wheaton, Alfred S. Jewett, George A. Priest.
That the town was not wholly absorbed in ma- terial things in this time of manufacturing activity, that its spirit was not wholly utilitarian, is shown also by the moral and religious earnestness which inspired the Anti-Slavery movement, the revivals and the Second Advent excitement. The first of these demands for its treatment a separate chapter ; the second receive attention in the history of the churches ; the third, as a movement which started and chiefly ran its course outside of ecclesiastical lines, may find its place in its chronological setting.
The movement known as Second Adventism had its origin in connection with a general interest in the subject throughout the country, especially in New England. It was promoted in town by the preaching of Elam Burnham of Essex, and others, in the winter of 1842-43, and made many converts.1 The movement was not looked upon with favor by
1 " There is a very great Reformation in this Town." " The work shops and grocery stores are shut up, and about all business is suspended, and all sorts of people attend meetings." " Men, women and children spoke and prayed." John Lee's Diary, Jan. 24, 25, 1843.
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HISTORY OF MANCHESTER.
the church generally or by the minister of the town ; hoodlumism was invoked to break up the meetings ;1 but the movement was not thus to be arrested. It received something of a check by the appearance upon the scene of a somewhat skilled debater, a Rev. Mr. Smith of Gloucester, who made up in tact and good nature what he lacked in logic, and in a public debate was thought rather to have the advan- tage of Mr. Burnham. The combatants were not on the whole, perhaps, very unequally matched; if one carried heavier metal, the other was better practised in training his guns. Probably the friends of both claimed the victory.
With a good deal of fanaticism and extravagance, there was much sincerity and pions feeling ; and although the movement may be said to have col- lapsed with the passing of the fateful day, many had been moved by deep religious convictions and led into serious and devout living. The Second Advent movement resulted in the formation of a church, which took the form, however, of a " Christian " church, so-called, and which afterwards became a regular Baptist church .? Second Adventism left results behind it somewhat like those of a spring freshet, of a very mixed character, results which continue to be felt among us ; but it failed to sur- vive in any organic form.
In 1829 a Temperance Society was formed on " the principle of total abstinence from ardent spirits of persons in health." Larkin Woodberry was pres-
1 Paper read by W. E. Wheaton before the Historical Society.
2 J'ide ch. xiii.
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ident. In 1836 the Society had " nearly 400 mem-
bers." It may be doubted whether the many organ- izations, with ambitious and higli-sounding names, which have supplanted the early open temperance societies, have done more effective work.
The manufacturing era in Manchester was on the whole a period of thrift and general prosperity and contentment. The shops, some of which still remain converted to other uses, or dismantled and going to decay, melancholy ghosts of departed days, gave em- ployment at times to three hundred men. Man-
chester had then home resources which gave support to an industrious community. Other industries of the time were the making of shoes in small wayside shops, sufficient to meet home wants, with a few pairs for export, reed-organs, made by John Godsoe and others in Isaac Allen's mill, and fire-engines built by Ebeneezer Tappan, Jr., which gained more than a local reputation. The wages were not high, but were fairly remunerative,1 and the people lived in frugal comfort.
Beautiful, however, as were many of the products of the skilled mechanics of those days, a strange lack of taste for the most part continued to mark the buildings and grounds of the inhabitants, with the exception which should be noted of the planting of the noble elms which now adorn our streets. There was little of the æsthetic spirit, and small apprecia- tion of the natural advantages of the town. The infusion of a less prosaic spirit came later.
But from 1820 to 1860, the village hummed with
1 $1.25 per day was good average pay ; board was $2.25 per week.
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the sounds of busy industry and of active life. The coasting-trade was represented by three " packets " plying between this port and Boston, and all depart- ments of life felt the stir. The population was largely native-born and homogeneous. The restless- ness, the jealousy of capital on the part of labor too often provoked by the heartless oppressions and exactions of monopolies, the tyranny of labor organ- izations, strikes, boycotts and reprisals, were as yet happily unknown, shut up in the Pandora's box of the Nineteenth Century, that no one had had the temerity to open. It was a time when, practically, "every rood of ground maintained its man," when no great distinctions divided society into many different strata. The city had not, to much extent, exerted its fascinating power upon country lads and lasses ; contentment, simplicity and honesty were common virtues. Men had not yet learned how to live without working. There was little show, but a good deal of substance. If there was some veneer, there was solid grain beneath. The cabinet industry was not a school of æsthetics, though it came near being for some a school of art; but it trained a thoughtful, reading, intelligent class of men, who gave weight and character to the community. The period was by no means one of stagnation and drow- siness. Other posies besides the poppy flourished in the old-fashioned gardens.
The following official statement 1 gives at a glance the industrial products of Manchester in 1837 :
1 Statistical Tables, etc., prepared by John P. Bigelow, Secretary of the Commonwealth, 1838.
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Boots manufactured, 425 pairs; shoes, 2,750 pairs ; value of boots and shoes, $4,473; males employed, 11; females, 4.
Tannery, 1; hides tanned, 2,000; value of leather tanned and curried, $5,500; hands employed, 3; capital invested, $7,000.
Manufactories of chairs and cabinet ware, 12; value of chairs and cabinet ware, $84,500; hands employed, 120.
Palm-leaf hats manufactured, 3,000; value, $300.
Vessels built in the five preceding years, 4; tonnage of same, 190; value, $4,500; hands employed in ship building, 4.
Vessels employed in the cod and mackerel fishery, 14; tonnage of same, 500; codfish caught. 4,500 quintals; value, $11,200; mackerel caught, 200 barrels; value, $1,600; salt used in the cod and mackerel fishery, 4,500 bushels; hands employed, 65; capital invested, $12,300.
Ships' wheels manufactured, 25; value, $800; hands employed, 1.
In 1865, the cabinet business gave employment to 160 men, and a capital of over $60,000. The amount of manufactured goods was $92,625. There were also four sawing and planing mills, turning out $13,000 worth of work. The number of barrels and casks made was 32,600, valued at $10,600. The number of hides tanned was 5,000, of the value of $20,000. Boots and shoes were made to the amount of $12,000. Strawberries were raised to the value of $3,300. There were 40 horses in town and 34 oxen.
When business drifted to larger centres, when the small shops could no longer compete with the great factories, when those who had built up the town's industries passed away, a blight fell upon the town from which it has never recovered. The names of the men whose energy, business capacity
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HISTORY OF MANCHESTER.
and public spirit made Manchester so well known a few decades ago, are still remembered among us ; a few articles of fine workmanship are still turned out, reminders of the town's former mechanical pride ; but the thrift and enterprise of half a century ago are almost a myth to the present inhabitants, as well as to those who for health or fashion or pleasure, now seek these romantic shores. The cabinet-making industry is fast becoming but a memory, but it is a memory worth embalming.
NOTE. - The following List of the Cabinet Man- ufacturers of Manchester, it is hoped, will be found reasonably complete. Those marked (*) had mills connected with their factories; other mill proprietors, not in the manufacturing business, were Lord and Lee, Bailey and Bingham, and Enos G. Allen.
Moses Dodge, Ebenezer Tappan, Larkin Wood- berry, Eben Tappan, Long and Danforth (afterward J. Danforth, and Leach, Anable & Co.),x Kelham and Fitz," Henry F. Lee, Isaac Allen, Jerry Danforth,x S. O. Boardman, John Perry Allen," Smith and Low, Cyrus Dodge," Luther and Henry T. Bingham, John C. Long & Co., H. P. & S. P. Allen, Samuel Par- sons, Allen and Ames, Albert E. Low, Isaac S. Day, William Hoyt, John C. Webb, Severance and Jewett (afterward A. W. Jewett, and A. S. & G. W. Jewett), William Johnson, C. B. Hoyt, Warren C. Dane, Felker and Cheever, Hanson, Morgan & Co., E. S. Vennard, William E. Wheaton, Charles Lee, John C. Peabody, Isaac Ayers, Crombie & Morgan,
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Rufus Stanley,x William Decker, Watson, Taylor & Co., Rust and Marshall,x John M. and Charles C. Dodge,x Samuel L. Wheaton.
" The nobility of labor - the long pedigree of toil."
CHAPTER IX. ANTI- SLAVERY DAYS.
" God fills the gaps of human need, Each crisis brings its word and deed."
Whittier.
" Then to share with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her canse bring fame or profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just."
Lowell.
" No one who serves the truth, even if he sacrifice his life for it, can do as much for the truth, no, not by an hundred fold, as the service of the truth will do for him."
W. II. Furness, D. D.
CHAPTER IX.
ANTI-SLAVERY DAYS.
FREEDOM AND SLAVERY - EARLY HISTORY OF SLAVERY - SLAVES IN MANCHESTER - EARLY ANTI-SLAVERY SEN-
TIMENT - GROWING OPPOSITION TO SLAVERY - FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW - MASS MEET- ING - ANTI-SLAVERY MEETINGS AND SPEAKERS - "TIIE UNDERGROUND RAIL- ROAD "- RETRO- SPECT.
T HE seeds of freedom and slavery were planted in this country in the same twelvemonth. In 1620, the Mayflower brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth; in 1620, a Dutch man-of-war entered James River in Virginia, " and sold twenty negars." Thus two opposite types of civilization grew side by side. Down to the time of the Revolution, the whole power of England supported and encouraged the African slave-trade. Under that encouragement more than 300,000 slaves were imported into the thirteen colonies. The evil gradually extended itself, and became " rooted in the habits of the peo- ple, especially in the Southern States." The inven- tion of the cotton-gin made slavery a source of great wealth, and it speedily grew to be an enormous power.
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