Mattapoisett and Old Rochester, Massachusetts : being a history of these towns and also in part of Marion and a portion of Wareham., Part 19

Author:
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: [Mattapoisett, Mass.] : Mattapoisett Improvement Association
Number of Pages: 516


USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Mattapoisett > Mattapoisett and Old Rochester, Massachusetts : being a history of these towns and also in part of Marion and a portion of Wareham. > Part 19
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Rochester > Mattapoisett and Old Rochester, Massachusetts : being a history of these towns and also in part of Marion and a portion of Wareham. > Part 19


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).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28


The Friends began to hold meetings in Rochester about the beginning of the eighteenth century. In the records of the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting 1 there is a reference, September 17, 1705, to "Rochester or Sippican Meeting," which on July 18, 1709, signified a desire to meet weekly, and to have the meeting then kept at John Somers' there- after at John Wings. By 1712 the Rochester Meeting desired assistance in the "settlement and security of their meeting-house land," and the adjustment of the title thereto required action extending over a long period.


1 The writer is indebted to Dr. Edward T. Tucker, Recorder of New Bedford Meeting, and to his indices of the Dartmouth Meeting records for aid in securing the data here given.


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July 15, 1717, the Dartmouth Meeting advised that "the land be made over to particular Friends, and named Savery Clifton, Stephen Wing, Nicholas Davis, and Thomas Hathaway. In February, 1796, Stephen Tripp and Ezekiel Braley were appointed to "examine and get deed," and have it run to Richard Davis, Stephen Tripp, and William Wing. Another committee was appointed in 1816 in regard to the title of the land, the house, and the burial-ground. The meeting-house referred to by a writer in the Massachusetts Historical Collections of 1815 as being " not far from the sea-shore," is the old meeting- house at Happy Alley, which by that time was becoming out of repair, and was somewhat remote from many who there worshiped.


In January, 1818, meetings having, for a while previ- ously, been held "at a school-house in the neighborhood where Friends principally reside;" it was decided to make only temporary repairs to the meeting-house, to put in a stove for that winter; and hold meetings "on First Days at the meeting-house, and on Fourth Days at the school- house near David Hiller's, or at his house, which had been offered." June 23, 1825, it was recommended that a new meeting-house be built "near where the meeting is now held." Later, it was advised that it "be 32 x 25, with 10 foot posts, to be built on the land offered, to cost $450." April 6, 1826, the Quarterly Meeting granted liberty to make sale of the old house, and on June 28, 1827, the com- mittee reported the acceptance of the deed for the new lot, and the completion of the new meeting-house at Aucoot. David Hiller who had been so interested in the plans for this new building died before its completion, but the committee reported that $100 towards its


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The Church in the Second Precinct


cost had been received from his bequest: $149.25 was received from the "old house," and the remainder of the cost, which was "rising $470," was raised by sub- scription.


Such was the origin of the neat "Quaker Meeting- House" standing on the height of the ridge between "Pine Islands" and "Aucoot;" and here, on First Day gathered the Hillers and the Cowens, and their neighbors. Josiah Holmes became a member of Friends from the Baptists, and his son Josiah Holmes, Jr., grew to be prominent in the meeting; and even after he became a leading minister in New Bedford he used often to drive over, sometimes alone and sometimes with Edward Dil- lingham, either to sit in silence, or to speak with eloquence and power of the joys of the simple faith. On the 26th of July, 1904, the little house was filled, and many stood without, by the windows, listening to the Friends from neighboring meetings who spoke as they were moved, of Captain Joshua L. Macomber, who after many years of service to this Meeting was to be laid at rest in its burial-ground.


Mattapoisett Meeting has never been large in numbers and it has been the custom of New Bedford Friends to maintain a committee for its assistance. From 1730 to 1795 the Rochester Meeting was allied to Sandwich; but in all its recent history in Mattapoisett it has been a mem- ber of Long Plain Preparative Meeting and so of the New Bedford Monthly Meeting.


Such have been the religious activities of this Massa- chusetts town. To one who carries in mind the picture of a Quebec village, with its single glistening spire rising far above the clustering housetops; or recalls the thatched


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cottages grouped around some venerable parish church in England; it may have seemed, in following the story here presented, that this small town is burdened by its heritage from the past, and that the effectiveness of its moral forces and of its religious influences is likely to be dissipated in the maintenance of these various organiza- tions. However that may be, if, as was written of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, -


"They shook the depths of the desert gloom With their hymns of lofty cheer; Amidst the storm they sang, And the stars heard, and the sea! And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang To the anthem of the free!"


these records of the inhabitants of the "plantacion of Mattapoyst" give ample proof that their descendants here


"Have left unstained what there they found,- Freedom to worship God!"


CHAPTER XI


MARITIME AND OTHER INDUSTRIES


O NE thing may well be claimed for the people who founded old Rochester, they were industrious - like all the settlers of the old colony; hard continuous work was the portion of the men and women. In many places primeval forests covered the land and concealed the rocky soil beneath. The amount of work involved in creating the farms of the town may be appreciated if the matter of rock clearing alone is considered, which being re- moved from the soil were disposed of in building the fences for the farms. Hundreds of miles of these walls, laid up with infinite toil, existed in the Mattapoisett por- tion of Old Rochester, some of them still to be traced in places now covered by heavy growth of forest.


But farming, while it furnished the essential of food, could not, in a community where every one farmed, pro- cure things needed which were produced elsewhere; the settlers must themselves with something besides farming crops, for the purposes of exchange.


Fortunately for them, the settlers of Rochester were not all originally farmers, many came from Kent in old England, noted for its ship-building. Among the first comers to Rochester, most were from Scituate and Marshfield, whereship-building had been pursued for thirty years, and while they began here as farmers and food


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


raisers, not a few were capable mechanics and skilled in other trades. Farming was harder work then than to- day, and men who could do other things were anxious to do them; then, too, the roads were rough and poor, transportation over them was slow and laborious, while the sea, which touched the town, offered a quicker and easier means of communication with the outside world. About the middle of the seventeenth century the colony had had constructed somewhere in Buzzard's Bay a vessel. with which to trade with the Dutch in New York.


All these conditions made it natural and inevitable that the building of vessels should be entered upon in Rochester at an early date, and so it proved. Boats were first built for freight and passage, small at the start but growing larger.


The early building was on the co-operative plan; the vessel, when produced, was the joint property of a number of persons who had contributed to the enterprise. Some had done the mechanical work of constructing, some had furnished timber, some iron work, some sails and rigging, and other money; the work would be going on in the winter when the farmer-mechanic could best spare the time.


The late Wilson Barstow, who lived to be over ninety and died in 1891, said in a communication to the press about thirty years ago, that "vessels were built here as early as 1740 or 1750, sloops and small schooners. There was no science, they were built by sight of the eye and good judgment;" that is, there was no preliminary drafting. The keel would be laid and the stem and stern affixed, then the midship frame or rib set up and fas- tened to the keel, and a few more ribs between the mid-


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Maritime and Other Industries


ship frame and the ends of the vessel; after that, ribbands or thin strips of boards would be run from the bow to the stern at various heights from the keel outside of the few frames so set up, and the remaining frames made to fit the lines so produced by the ribbands. There were no models.


Queer results were sometimes produced by this method. "Mr. Hastings," says Wilson Barstow, " was put in a tower- ing passion by being told that his starboard bow was all on one side, and one sloop was nicknamed Bowline because she was so crooked." The old whaler Trident, of 448 tons, built in 1828, was so much out of true that she carried one hundred and fifty barrels more oil on one side of the keel than the other. The sailors said she was "logy on one tack, but sailed like the mischief on the other."


In the early days of building, the sloop or schooner con- structed during the winter would be sold to Nantucket or New Bedford (then Dartmouth), and the money divided among those entitled; this contributed substantially to the prosperity of the whole town. Not all the vessels so built were sold away; by the use of the same co-opera- tive plan they were sailed for joint account. A sloop called the Planter was built and so run as a freighter from Roches- ter, before the Revolution. And at the same early date, Rochester also had whaling vessels of the small type then used. The sloop Defiance, which departed on a voyage in 1771, was one such Rochester vessel. Without doubt there were a number of others, but the difficulty of tracing them arises from the fact that Rochester was not then a port: by which is meant a place from which mer- chandise could lawfully leave or enter the country, where records of vessels sailing and arriving would be kept, and proper papers to evidence the nationality and regu-


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larity of the vessel's business supplied, to be carried on the voyage, to protect the vessel as a regular British craft. New Bedford (then Dartmouth) was not a port, and Rochester and Dartmouth vessels, therefore, had to clear from Nantucket, or Newport, which were ports. Whaling vessels generally cleared from Nantucket because that was on the way to the whaling grounds at the Straits of Belle Isle, around Newfoundland and on the Grand Banks.


Many of these Rochester whaling sloops could, perhaps, be traced in the Nantucket records from the names of their captains, and also of their agents, by one familiar with Rochester names.


As evidence that whalers were built for Nantucket before the Revolution, there is the record of the sailing from Nantucket, June, 1774, of the sloop Rochester owned by Nathaniel Macy of Nantucket. Her name suf- ficiently shows her origin. The Rochester on this voyage met with misfortune; she struck Great Point Rip and was lost. This calls attention to the fact that the mor- tality of these small whaling sloops was great. From gales, uncharted bays, lack of lighthouses and buoys, and the activity of French and Spanish privateers, fully twenty per cent of their number were lost yearly - but the busi- ness was still profitable, and so, in a way, the losses were the ship-builders' pecuniary gain.


Gideon Barstow, Sr., born in 1738, died 1826, came here about 1765 from Hanover, where he had been building ships. He was the great grandson of William, who came to Hanover, 1649, and was practically the first to build ships in the old colony. The coming of Gideon Barstow to Mattapoisett gave a new start to the industry and


SHIP NIGER Built in Mattapoisett in 1844


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Maritime and Other Industries


ships of the largest size began to be launched from his yard.


Abner Pease was an old builder, but of a smaller class of vessels. His yard was in the extreme eastern portion of the town, just north of Pease's Point, in Aucoot.


Ebenezer Cannon, born about 1750, the great-grand- father of Dr. David H. Cannon, was another old builder. His yard was at Cannonville, so named from him.


Washington Gifford, another of the old builders, built on the Mattapoisett River. These four were all building before 1800.


Ship-building continued as an industry in Mattapoisett for nearly a century and a half, the last vessel to be built leaving the ways in 1878. It has been estimated that be- tween four hundred and five hundred vessels, in all, were built during this century and a half. This amounted to more than one hundred thousand tons, and of a value, at the quite regular rate that prevailed of forty dollars per ton. Whether expressed in United States money or in Massachusetts pounds, shillings, and pence this would amount to $4,000,000.


There were eight yards located in the Mattapoisett section of Rochester - possibly nine, viz .:


1. On the east bank of the Mattapoisett River, just south of the herring weir.


2. At Pease's Point, in Aucoot Cove, at the extreme east section of the present town of Mattapoisett.


3. Barstow's yard, at the bend of Main and Water streets, opposite the summer home of Miss Martha H. Munro.


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


4. Holmes's yard, just east of Long Wharf, at the south of the post-office.


5. The Hammond yard, south of the old County House, opposite the residence of Thomas Luce.


6. A yard opposite the east end of the Mattapoisett House, south of Water Street.


7. The Meigs yard, south of Mrs. Sophia Means's house.


8. The Cannonville yard of Benjamin Barstow, located west of Miss Mary W. Barnard's summer residence; this, as a separate yard, had a brief existence.


9. The Cannonville yard of Ebenezer Cannon, north of Ship street; which Benjamin Barstow later acquired.


Vessels were built in strange places. Libni Rogers built a sloop in the yard of the premises where Edgar Silva now lives, and she was launched into the creek at Goodspeed's Island. Prince Ames built a schooner at the house north of and adjoining the Cushing Cemetery; she was taken to the shore and launched from Rogers L. Barstow's wharf; and afterwards went up into the Great Lakes. A few vessels were built at a yard near the present residence of Charles A. King, and a ferry-boat to run between New Bedford and Fairhaven was built near Mrs. Stackpole's house.


Mr. Leon M. Huggins, in the New Bedford Standard of January 9, 1904, contributed a very valuable and in- teresting sketch of Mattapoisett ship-building, from which many facts have been obtained in writing this chapter.


The Mattapoisett River yard, as already seen, was early in operation. It is quite possible a number of


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Maritime and Other Industries


separate yards may have existed up and down the river, at which small vessels, wood-barges, sloops, and little schooners were built; for instance, there was the sloop Rochester, engaged in whaling in 1774, and the sloop Defiance, which sailed from there in 1771. These have already been alluded to and were doubtless built on the river, but the Revolution and the British guardships put a stop to such enterprises.


The first record we now have of a vessel built on the river was the brig Nile, built in 1800 by Washington Gifford. The last vessel built on the river was the brig Brutus, of 200 tons; she required six weeks of continuous labor to float her down the river, and doubtless satisfied her builders that the river yard was no longer practicable.


seems quite probable that Gideon Barstow's ship-yard was located where his son and grandson after- ward carried on ship-building, which, as we have said, was opposite Miss Munro's summer residence. From this yard the greatest number of Mattapoisett vessels were launched; more than 150 in all, it is said, and here the George Lee, 650 tons, the largest Mattapoisett vessel, was built. Two launching-ways were located on it, and building carried on there for nearly one hundred years. It is to be regretted no record now exists of the total num- ber. As many as four ships a year are known to have been constructed there; this was the case in 1832, and in the years 1838, 1841, and 1852 three ships were launched from this yard. They were mainly of large tonnage.


Abner Pease, an old ship-builder at whose yard many of the Mattapoisett mechanics learned their trade, built, as we have seen, in Aucoot Cove. No record of his vessels exists. They were mainly small crafts, schooners, and


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


sloops. He must have been building at the time of the Revolution: afterwards he moved to Fairhaven.


Benjamin Barstow, a relative of Gideon Barstow, had his yard at Cannonville, first, as we have seen, west of what is at present Miss Barnard's house, which then was Mr. Barstow's; afterwards he came to occupy the Ebenezer Cannon yard, just north of Ship Street.


Ebenezer Cannon, his sons and grandsons, were noted ship-builders, and many of the finest vessels were due to their skill. His grandsons, James and Arvin Cannon, ran the Cannonville yard for some years. Arvin was at one time master builder in Meigs & Pratt's yard. Watson Cannon, another grandson of Ebenezer, held the same position in Wilson Barstow's yard. No traces of the vessels built by Ebenezer Cannon exist, but they were numerous.


Benjamin Barstow in 1832 built the first live-oak ship in town, the William C. Nye, 389 tons. He relinquished his yard in his latter days to his two sons, Nathan H. and Henry. This yard was the first of the prominent yards to go out of business.


Loring Meigs and David Pratt, his brother-in-law, had a yard on what are now the premises of Mrs. Sophia Means, at the foot of Mechanic Street; Arvin Cannon. as already stated, being at one time the master builder. The last vessel built in that yard was launched about 1860.


There was also a yard in front of the easterly end of the Mattapoisett House. This was carried on by the Can- nons for a number of years.


Farther to the west, and just beyond Thomas Luce's barn, Leonard Hammond had a yard. The last ship


THE OLD BARSTOW HOUSE, WATER STREET, MATTAPOISETT Wilson Barstow in the foreground


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Maritime and Other Industries


built from this yard was the Clara Bell, in 1852, by George Crandall, of Newport.


Adjoining Hammond's yard on the west came the Holmes ship-yard, established about 1800 by Josiah Holmes, Sr. This was next in importance to the Gideon Barstow yard. Mr. Holmes, Sr., learned his trade of Abner Pease. He carried on ship-building alone for about forty years; then with his son Josiah, and afterwards, about 1846, he relinquished the business to his two sons, Josiah and Jona- than H. Holmes (the latter the father of the late Reuben F. Holmes, and of Judge Lemuel LeB. Holmes). The sons carried on the business as the firm of Josiah Holmes, Jr., and Brother, until 1868; the Civil War interrupting for some six years, during which there was no building.


After 1868 Jonathan H. Holmes built a schooner and two whale-ships. The last Mattapoisett vessel, the Wanderer, was built at this yard in 1878. Thus closed the story of one of the most famous ship-building ports of the country.


In the busiest period two hundred and seventy-five workmen came up from the yards and workshops, when the six o'clock bell rang at the foot of Mechanic Street; the little bell which afterward summoned the scholars from the East District schoolhouse.


The panic of 1857, which ruined the business men of the village, the Civil War which disarranged everything, and finally, and most potent of all, the discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania, sounded the knell of the whale fishery, and left the little village stranded and without an industry.


But a splendid business this building of ships had been ! Each yard striving to produce the best ship, and under this competition turning out the finest vessels of their class


:


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


to be found in the world. The workmen were skilled and intelligent; their work was continuous. The young men were not obliged to seek employment elsewhere, home offered better than most localities. Under these conditions the village enjoyed, for a century, a con- tinually increasing prosperity. Its social condition was the typical and almost ideal one that existed so generally in this Commonwealth up to half a century ago and then began to disappear. There were no large fortunes and consequently no caste to cause envy and disquiet. There was social equality and a sturdiness of character which such conditions produce. It was fitting that the prominent device on the seal of Mattapoisett should be a vessel on the stocks.


So far as possible with the aid of Mr. Huggins's article in the Standard and Starbuck's "American Whale Fishery," we have made up the following list of vessels built in Mattapoisett, and their builders. It comprises some 138 vessels. A study of this list satisfies one that prob- ably not a third of the vessels have been obtained. Matta- poisett built whalers for Nantucket, New Bedford, for towns in Bristol County, Rhode Island and Connecti- cut; she built coasters, merchantmen, steamers, and a variety of craft. The list, therefore, must only be re- garded as a partial one. It shows the date of building, name of vessel, rig, tonnage, and in many cases the builder, written in this order:


1800. Nile, brig, Washington Gifford.


1802. John Jay, ship.


1811. President, ship, 293 tons.


1812. John Adams, ship, 296 tons.


1819. Alexander Barclay, ship, 301 tons.


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Maritime and Other Industries


1820. Ontario, ship, 354 tons; Cicero, ship, 252 tons, B. Barstow & Josiah Holmes, Sr.


1821. Phenix, ship, 323 tons; Spartan, ship, 333 tons.


1823. Rose, ship, 350 tons; Congress, ship, 239 tons.


1826. Omega, brig, 363 tons; Frances, ship, 347 tons. G. Barstow & Son; Swift, brig, 456 tons.


1827. Aurora, ship, 340 tons, W. Barstow; Zone, schooner, 365 tons.


1828. Meridian, ship, 381 tons.


1829. Rambler, ship, 318 tons: Richard Mitchell, ship, 386 tons, W. Barstow.


1830. Mary Anne, ship, 240 tons, W. Barstow; Clark- son, ship, 380 tons, W. Barstow.


1831. Mary Mitchell, ship, 369 tons.


1832. Catharine, ship, 384 tons, W. Barstow; Mt. Vernon, ship, 384 tons, Holmes; Hobomok, ship, 412 tons; Wm. C. Nye, ship, 389 tons, B. Barstow & Co .; Mariner, ship, 349 tons, W. Barstow; Young Eagle, ship, 377 tons, W. Barstow; Gideon Barstow, ship, 379 tons, W. Barstow. 1833. Levi Starbuck, ship, 376 tons, Holmes; Ohio, ship, 381 tons; Champion, ship, 390 tons, W. Barstow.


1834. Alfa, ship, 345 tons, Cannon ; Christopher Mitchell, ship, 387 tons, Holmes; Elizabeth Mitchell, ship, 381 tons, Holmes.


1835. Gold Hunter, brig, 202 tons; Splendid, ship, 392 tons; Nile, ship, 321 tons, B. Barstow.


1836. Catawba, ship, 335 tons, Cannon; Sarah, ship, 370 tons, Meigs; Caduceus, brig, 109 tons, W. Barstow; Henry, ship, 346 tons, Holmes; Annawan, brig, 148 tons, Holmes; Young Phænix, ship, 377 tons, Holmes; Sarah, brig, 171 tons, Meigs.


1837. Sarah, bark, 179 tons; LeBaron, brig, 170 tons,


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


W. Barstow; LaGrange, bark, 170 tons, W. Barstow; James Loper, ship, 348 tons, Holmes.


1838. Napoleon, ship, 360 tons, W. Barstow; Daniel Webster, ship, 336 tons, W. Barstow; Solon, brig, 129 tons, Holmes; Young Hero, ship, 339 tons, W. Barstow; Willis, bark, 164 tons, E. Cannon.


1839. Henry Clay, ship, 385 tons, Holmes; Richard Henry, bark, 173 tons, W. Barstow; Chase, brig, 153 tons, W. Barstow; Volant, bark, 210 tons, Holmes.


1841. Edward Cary, ship, 353 tons, W. Barstow; Harrison, ship, 371 tons, W. Barstow; Elizabeth Star- buck, ship, 388 tons, Holmes; Montecello, ship, 358 tons, W. Barstow; Elizabeth, bark, 219 tons; Potomac, ship, 356 tons, Holmes; Massachusetts, ship, 360 tons, Holmes; Narragansett, ship, 398 tons, Holmes; Annawan, brig, 159 tons, B. Barstow.


1842. Callao, ship, 324 tons, Meigs; James, ship, 321 tons, Holmes; Joseph Meigs, ship, 338 tons, Meigs.


1843. Empire, ship, 403 tons, Holmes.


1844. Niger, ship, 437 tons, Holmes; Isaac Walton, ship, 440 tons, W. Barstow; Union, bark, 124 tons, Holmes.


1845. Cachelot, ship, 230 tons, W. Barstow.


1846. Dunbarton, bark, 199 tons, W. Barstow.


1847. Cleone, ship, 373 tons, B. Barstow; Platina, bark, 266 tons; Osceola II, bark, 197 tons, Holmes.


1848. Nauticon, ship, 372 tons, Holmes.


1849. Mattapoisett, brig, 150 tons, Meigs; President, bark, 180 tons.


1850. Ontario, ship, 368 tons, Holmes; Arctic, ship, 431 tons, W. Barstow.


1851. Elisha Dunbar, bark, 257 tons, Holmes; Europa, ship, 380 tons, W. Barstow; Northern Light, ship, 513 tons,


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Maritime and Other Industries


W. Barstow; Sea Queen, bark, 195 tons, Holmes; Sea Fox, bark, 166 tons; R. L. Barstow, bark, 208 tons, Hammond; Alice Mandell, ship, 425 tons, Holmes.


1852. Daniel Wood, ship, 345 tons, Holmes; Gay Head, ship, 389 tons, W. Barstow; John A. Parker, bark, 342 tons, W. Barstow; Polar Star, ship, 475 tons, Holmes; Clara Belle, bark, 295 tons, Hammond; Vigilant, bark, 282 tons, Holmes; Daniel Flanders; Gazelle, ship, W. Bar- stow; Wm. Upham; James Arnold, ship, 393 tons, B. Barstow.


1853. Lapwing, ship, 432 tons; Petrel, ship, 350 tons, Holmes; Reindeer, ship, 450 tons, Holmes; Siren Queen, ship, 461 tons, Meigs.




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