USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume II > Part 12
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In Niles's Register of October 21, 1826, we find an account of a sale by public auction in Boston, on the 12th of September of that year, of three thousand packages of cotton, and woolen, and mixed domestic goods, consisting of broadcloths. cassimeres, satinets, flannels, shirt- ings, sheetings, prints and ginghams. On succeeding days nearly sixty thousand pairs of boots and shoes were sold in the same way; also eighteen hundred sides of leather, seven thousand leather and morocco skins, many thousand pounds of wool, one hundred and fifty- two casks of American olive oil, etc. The manufacturing interest in New England had grown considerably since 1820, and public opinion was beginning to divide on the question of tariff duties for protection. What we may call the commercial class, however, was opposed to tak- ing any further steps towards high protection. On the 30th of Novem- ber, 1827, an adjourned meeting was held "to take into consideration the proposed increase of duties, especially upon woolen goods," and to receive and act upon a report from a committee of fifteen, which had been appointed to consider the subject. Among the members of
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this committee were Nathaniel Goddard, Lemuel Shaw, Isaac Winslow, Lot Wheelwright, Henry Lee and Thomas W. Ward. The report pre- sented by the committee was written by Mr. Henry Lee; it has been preserved in a pamphlet of nearly two hundred pages, and is regarded as one of the ablest papers ever written against the protective princi- ple. The meeting accepted the report, with a memorial to Congress which accompanied it and which was to receive individual signatures, and the following resolution was adopted: Resolved, That in the pres- ent state of the agriculture, manufactures and commerce of the United States, it would be unjust, impolitie and inconsistent with the best in- terests of the community, to impose further and higher duties upon imported articles generally, and more particularly on imported woolen goods.
We know little about the line of Liverpool packets established in 1822, but there is every reason to believe that the enterprise was not a suc- cessful one. So important, however, did it seem to the active business men of Boston to maintain regular communication with England, especially in view of the circumstance that one or more lines of trans- atlantic packets ran regularly and at short intervals from New York, that, in 1824, another Liverpool line was projected here, the third of which we have had occasion to speak. In the summer of this year, Henry Hall, Joshua Blake, David Henshaw, George Bond, and James T. Austin, "in behalf of certain citizens of this Commonwealth, who " had ** associated to establish a regular line of packets between Boston and Liverpool in England," prayed "to be incorporated for the pur- pose of better managing the said concern, with such powers and priv- ileges, and under such limitations and restrictions as to the wisdom of the Legislature " might " seem expedient." The petitioners asked for no monopoly or exclusive privileges, and disclaimed all thought of hos- tility or rivalry towards other citizens. The public spirit which moved them to undertake the work in which they had enlisted is well illus- trated in the following sentences in their petition, and has had its re- production in connection with many an enterprise to which the business men of Boston have given their thought and money in the years which have passed since then. These were their words: "The subscribers beg leave very respectfully to state that they have engaged in this as- sociation without any view of personal advantage or emolument peculiar to themselves, but only with a desire of preserving for this Common- wealth its fair share of a great and important branch of commerce,
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which, of late years, has declined ; and which cannot be restored with- out some hazard to individuals, and much aid from the Legislature; and while they are willing that the government of the State should at all times possess a control over their proposed corporation, they earnestly entreat such an exercise of its liberality, in the grant of corporate priv- ileges, as may enable them successfully to acquire the public objects for the securing of which the association has been projected."
The petition was presented by Mr. Nathaniel P. Russell, and the Hon. Jonathan Phillips, for the committee to which it was referred, re- ported a bill to the Senate, June 8, incorporating the Liverpool Packet Company " for the term of twenty years and no longer." The com- pany was authorized to purchase or charter American built vessels, but the value of said vessels with their tackle was never to exceed $200, 000. The number of shares was fixed by the bill at four hundred, and the assessments on each share were limited to $500. On the 9th of June the committee on bills in the second reading, to which it had gone in course, reported it back with a slight amendment, and it had its second reading ; it was then laid on the table, and that seems to have been the end of the matter, so far as the Legislature was concerned.
The company went forward with its project under articles of associa- tion, as we suppose, and on the Bd of October, 1827, George G. Jones, agent, 41 India Wharf, advertised a list of ships and the carly depart- ure of the first of the new line for Liverpool. " Mattresses, bedding, wines and all other stores" were to be furnished to passengers in the cabin, and for them the fare to Liverpool was to be $140, and from Liverpool thirty-five guineas. The Amethyst, which had done good service for the company of 1822, and of whose long and successful ca- reer we have given some account, sailed November 1, under the com- mand of Jabez Howes, "with a full freight and forty-two passengers, viz., Messrs. Jacob Farnsworth and Robert B. Storer, and forty in the steerage." The New England, Captain Hunt, was announced for the Ist of December, and this was to be the only departure during the win- ter. In the spring of 1828 the company advertised the Amethyst, the New England, the Boston, and the Liverpool, and it was added: " The last two named now building by Mr. Magoun, and a third to take the place of one of the preceding, by Mr. Robinson, all to be about four hundred and thirty tons government measure." In addition to the Bos- ton and the Liverpool in 1828, Mr. Magoun built at Medford for the company a second ship called the Boston, also the Trenton and the
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Lowell in 1832, and the Plymouth in 1833. Among the captains em- ployed by the company were Howes and Hunt, already named, Nye, Bursley, and Mackay. Mr. Martin in his history of the Boston Stock Market quotes the shares of the Liverpool Packet Company in 1829 at $245 to $270, in 1831 at $310, and in 1833 at $400, the nominal par of the shares being $500 each. In 1834 some of the ships belonging, or which had belonged, to the line arrived from Liverpool, but they could not obtain return cargoes here and were obliged to proceed coastwise to Charleston or New Orleans, where they took in cargoes of cotton for Europe. We do not find mention of the company in the Boston Di- rectory of 1834 or any later year. Business was much depressed through- out the country in 1834, as we shall explain more fully presently. We are told that in September of this year one hundred and fifty-two regis- tered vessels (of which fifty-one were ships), with a total measurement of 32,036 tons, were in the port of Boston, "most of them unemployed, and many of them hauled up and dismantled," besides many large ves- sels under coasting licenses.
It is very difficult for us in this day to realize the extent to which coastwise and river navigation was made use of before the first railway routes were opened, or the exceeding valute to trade of this means of transportation. After the opening of the Erie canal (1825) communi- cation with it was established by lines of sloops which sailed from Bos- ton round Cape Cod, through Long Island Sound, and up the Hudson to Albany and Troy. The Rev. Edward Everett Hale in the reminis- cences of his boyhood, tells us of the difficulties and delays which then attended the occasional transmission of a box to Boston from a town one hundred and ten miles to the westward: " The box would be sent, say from Westhampton to Northampton, and carried by boat to Hartford. There it would be put on board a sloop which was to sail out of the Connecticut River and around Cape Cod to Boston ; and the consignee was fortunate if the sloop was not frozen in opposite Lyme or elsewhere in the Connecticut River and detained there until the next spring." Shipments for the towns on or near the Mississippi and the Ohio, even those far to the northward, were sent coastwise to New Orleans, and there were transferred to the river craft for further transit to their des- tination.
It is not within our purpose to trace the development of the railway system of which Boston is the centre; but it will interest our readers, we think, to see the newspaper advertisement, which in the spring of
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1834 comprised the entire passenger business by rail westwardly from Boston: "Boston and Worcester Railroad. Depot 614 Washington Street. The passenger cars run daily from the Depot to Newton at 6 and 10 o'clock, a. m., and 312 o'clock, p. m., and returning, leave New- ton at ? and a quarter past 11 a. m., and a quarter before 5 p. m." From this small beginning the present enormous traffic of the Boston and Albany Railroad has been evolved.
It was well said early in the present century: " The hemp, iron and . duck brought from Russia have been to our fisheries and navigation like seed to a erop." The first vessel to go to St. Petersburg from New England was the barque Light Horse, sent out by Mr. Derby from Salem in the summer of 1284, and occasional vessels from Salem and Boston followed, but it was several years before the trade assumed large proportions. Captain Swain, who arrived from St. Petersburg at Boston in the brig Betsey, in the autumn of 1803, gave a list of ninety American vessels which had arrived at that port between Feb- ruary 28 and July 24, and of these fifty-four belonged to Massachusetts. In the year 1822 Captain Wise, of the brig Esser, reported that to the 16th of August one hundred American vessels had passed Elsinore on their way up the Baltic. Of this number thirty-eight were from Bos- ton, twelve from Salem, and twelve from other Massachusetts ports, in all sixty-two from this State: eleven from New York, and twenty- seven from other States. Seventy-four were bound to St. Peters- burg ; eleven to Copenhagen and St. Petersburg; ten to Stockholm, and five to other ports. Sixty-six had cargoes up, and thirty-four were in ballast. In 1806, and later, this difficulty existed, that the United States sold little or nothing to Russia, and bought to a large amount. The ships went " dead-freighted," and their cargoes had to be paid for in cash or in bills on London, which were better than cash, having cost a considerable premium in Spain or some other country where outward cargoes had been sold. After the War of ISF?, American vessels began to go to Havana and Matanzas to load with sugar for Cronstadt, the port of St. Petersburg, and to return with Russian eargoes to Boston and New York. It was common for these cargoes to be owned in thirds, by the American shipowner, the West India shipper, and the St. Petersburg consignec, the first getting the advantage of the freight, the second the commission and shipping charges on the whole, and the last taking the lion's share by a com- mission on the amount of import duty, which was about equal to the
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prime cost, and another large commission on the gross proceeds. Among the articles imported were hemp, bolt-rope, cordage, oakum or tarred hemp, codilla, occasionally flax and flax-tow, junk for both oakum and paper, sail-cloth, ravensduck, diaper, crash, bar-iron, sheet- iron, feathers, down, horse hair, hog's hair, felt of cow's hair, occasionally red leather, cantharides, and China rhubarb. At a later period large quantities of rags were imported from Russia, and under the tariff of 1846 large quantities of hemp-yarns. In 1829 Mr. William Ropes, previously of the firms of Ropes, Pickman & Company, Ropes & Ward, and Ropes, Reed & Company, made a voyage, by way of Havana, to Cronstadt, as supercargo of the ship Courser, and he found the con- ditions there so favorable that he repeated the experiment, and in 1832 removed to St. Petersburg and established the house of William Ropes & Company, which still continues. Mr. Ropes was the first to import cotton from the United States direct to supply the mills of Russia. The trade continued to be large and profitable until 1861; from and after this time the development of native industry in Russia, and the adoption of an extreme protective policy there as well as here, nearly destroyed it. More recently there was a large demand for American petroleum in Russia, and as many as one hundred thousand barrels have been imported at St. Petersburg in a single year; but this has be- come almost wholly superseded by the native article brought from the neighborhood of the Caspian Sea. Among other Boston merchants who participated in this trade when it was at its best were Curtis & Stevenson, Robert B. Storer and Josiah Bradlee.
We must return to the spring of 1834. The removal of the govern- ment deposits from the United States Bank a few months before, by order of President Jackson, and the discussion of the question of con- tinuing the existence of the bank by a renewal of its charter, had created the most intense excitement and very general distrust through- out the country. Business was depressed, money was scarce, and wide- spread disaster seemed imminent. A protest, adopted at a vast assemblage in Faneuil Hall, which received more than six thousand six hundred signatures, had been sent to Washington in deprecation of what was regarded as the perilous financial policy to which the admin- istration had committed itself. At this juncture the business men of Boston did what perhaps has never been done in any other business community; they associated themselves for their own protection and " for the mutual benefit of creditor and debtor." At a meeting heldl at
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the Exchange Coffee House, March 11, 1834, the following basis of agreement was adopted: "Whereas, the present scarcity of money has a tendency to produce a want of confidence between ereditor and debtor, the undersigned associate for the term of nine months from this date for the purpose of inspiring confidence among ourselves, and with the view of preventing alarm and failures among those indebted to ns. We hereby agree that in case we deem it necessary to sue for. [sic ] compel, or take security of any one, we will do it for the mutual benefit of all the parties hereto, in proportion to the amounts due to each, whether the same are then payable or not; and if, in any case, we consider it necessary to compel or take security, we will, if possible, confer with those of our number supposed to be interested, previous to demanding security, and act in concert; and if, in the prosecution of our association, any difference of opinion shall arise between any of the parties hereto, the same shall be referred for final adjustment to one or more of our number, mutually selected, who have no pecuniary interest in the decision." It was provided, subsequently, that the operation of the agreement should be " limited to debts which had been or might be contracted by persons doing business in New England at the time of the contracting thereof;" and further, that "any member of the association having the misfortune to fail " should be " bound to subject his assignee, in the collection and settlement of the debts as- signed, to the same obligation which he himself " had " come under by becoming one of the association."
There was no national bankrupt law at this time, and the attachment laws of the several New England States, as the associated business men declared, were " unequal and oppressive " in their operation both to the debtor and the ereditor. The former was liable to be pounced upon at the caprice of any one of his creditors, and the creditor who made the first demand for payment or security, by destroying a man's credit, breaking up his business, and winding up his affairs in a sum- mary way, would be the only one, in most instances, to collect the face of his debt. These liabilities were always impending, but they were greatly increased in times of panic, and they aggravated the conditions of a panic. Hence the wisdom of the movement of which we are speaking. Stephen Fairbanks, a large dealer in hardware, was chair- man of the association, and Charles Seaver and George Baty Blake were the secretaries. More than three hundred and fifty firms entered into the association, including almost all of any prominence in the
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town, whether wholesale or retail, and their names were printed. The names of those " who declined to become parties to the association," eighteen in number, were printed also. A permanent standing com- mittee, "representing the various mercantile trades," was chosen, namely, George W. Crockett, Levi Bartlett, Prince Hawes, James Read, Stephen Fairbanks, William G. Lambert, Norman Seaver, Gus- tavus Tuckerman, James Fullerton, Amasa Walker, John Henshaw, Andrew T. Hall.
We have referred to the ice trade of Boston and to Mr. Frederic Tudor. In May, 1833, at the request of English and American mer- chants resident in Calcutta, Mr. Tudor sent a small cargo, about two hundred tons, to that port. The result, like that of the first shipment to the West Indies, was not a pecuniary success, but it proved that ice carried twenty thousand miles, with all the attendant waste and loss, could be made to compete successfully with that prepared by the natives. The establishment of a regular trade followed, and this in- creased steadily in volume and importance, and enabled Boston to hold for many years "the key to the rich and extensive commerce between Calcutta and the United States." A cargo was sent to Rio Janeiro in 1834. In 1842 Messrs. Gage, Hittinger & Company shipped a cargo to London in the barque Sharon, but it was not a success, and later at- tempts to introduce the American article into that market were not more fortunate. In 1855 twelve companies were engaged in the busi- ness in and about Boston, and the estimated value of the plant, includ- ing ponds, iec-houses, wharves and tools, was $600,000. The quantity shipped to the East Indies in 185; was ten or eleven thousand tons, and during the next two or three years it increased to twenty thousand. In 1864 it reached twenty-seven thousand tons and then gradually fell away, until the annual shipment was only one or two thousand. The total export of ice from Boston, foreign and coastwise, according to the custom-house returns, was 142, 463 tons in 1860, and this was the high- est point reached. In 1865 it was 131,215, and in 1886 124,751. In later years the total export was from fifty to sixty thousand tons per annumn.
We have referred to a Chamber of Commerce which existed in Bos- ton in 1793, and for a few years thereafter, but we know almost noth- ing of its proceedings. On the 11th of January, 1836, a meeting of merchants and traders was held at the "Old Common Council Room in Court Square," to act definitely upon the formation of a Chamber of
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Commerce. " The mercantile interest of this eity was never more fully represented than it was at the meeting on Monday: the hall was crowded, and it was a subject of regret that more could not be aecom- modated. Mr. Thomas B. Wales, a gentleman whose efforts are never withheld in the cause of improvement and public spirit, was called to the chair, and Mr. George William Gordon was chosen secretary." A committee appointed at a previous meeting reported in favor of form- ing a Chamber, and presented a preamble and code of by-laws which, at its suggestion, was recommitted to a new committee, of which Mr. Henry Lee was chairman, to report at a future meeting. On the 18th of January the organization of the Chamber was completed and officers were chosen, namely, William Sturgis, president ; Thomas B. Wales, Robert G. Shaw, David Henshaw, vice-presidents; and a Board of forty-eight directors. These officers chose George M. Thacher for secretary, and James C. Wild for treasurer. The Chamber met twice a year, in January and July ; the current business was transacted by the Board of Government.
The Chamber held its second annual meeting January 16, 1832. The treasurer, Mr. Wild, reported that the cash on hand amounted to $1, 300. which had been received for entrance fees and fees for arbitrating mer- cantile cases. The number of members was reported as rising three hundred, "shipowners, importers, grocers, traders." After a long dis- cussion on the usury laws, a memorial to the Legislature was unani- mously adopted, asking for a repeal or modification of the laws relating to interest on money. The Chamber took an active interest in public affairs for three or four years, and then its influence waned. The last meeting, March 11, 1813, was called to receive a communication from Canada relating to proposed railway communication between that colony and Boston. The officers, besides those already mentioned, were Thomas B. Wales, Nathan Appleton, and Abbott Lawrence. presidents, and Francis J. Oliver, Charles Henshaw, William Appleton, John Bryant, Amos Lawrence, vice-presidents.
From 1820 to 1830 the trade of Boston, both foreign and domestic, grew and advanced steadily; and from 1830 to 1810 it prospered still more. The taxable valuation in 1820 was 838, 289, 200; in 1830, 859,- 586,000; in 1810, 891,581, 600, While the valuation increased fifty per cent. between 1830 and 1840, the arrivals from foreign ports increased from 642 to 1628 during this decade. The disasters of 183; checked this growth only for the time. The railroads to Providence, Lowell
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and Worcester were built, and the line from Worcester to the Iludson River was almost completed. The development of railway transport- ation, and the opening of steam communication with Liverpool, com- bined to make the next decade, from 1840 to 1850, one of the most marked in the commercial history of Boston.
Before we take up the subject of ocean steam navigation, we will make some quotations from an interesting article in the Boston Daily Atlas of January 11, 1842, in which a comparison is drawn between the ycar 1821, the last year in the history of Boston as a town, and 1841. The population increased from 43, 000 to 93,000 ; and the tonnage entered from foreign ports from 129,962 to 286,315. In 1821, 259,030 barrels of flour, 641, 680 bushels of corn, and 1:,126 bales of cotton were re- ceived coastwise; in 1841, 544, 233 barrels of flour, 2,044, 129 bushels of corn, and 131,860 bales of cotton. In the mean time the town of Lowell had sprung into being. The imports from foreign countries for the year ended September 30, 1841, were $18,911,958; the exports were $9,424,186. The only States from which the receipts of their domestic products had fallen off in Boston during the period under review were North Carolina and Connecticut. In explanation of this it was said that in 1821 packets were sailing regularly to Liverpool, and that they carried large quantities of naval stores, the great staple of North Caro- lina; as there had been no direct export trade to Liverpool for several years, the business of that State had naturally inclined toward New York. As related to Connecticut, it was said that twenty years before it sent large quantities of grain to Boston, but since it had become a great manufacturing State, the products of its soil were consumed within its own borders.
It will be interesting to trace the connection of Boston with some of the earliest propositions for the establishment of transatlantic steamship lines. A company was formed in London in 1825 to open communi- cation between Europe and America by means of steam vessels. Sub- scriptions to its stock are said to have been made to the amount of [210,000, of which ten per cent. had actually been paid down. It was said further: " Two very fine vessels have been offered to the directors, one of four hundred and thirty-nine tons, with two engines each of fifty horse power, and another of five hundred tons, built at Greenock, with two engines of ninety horse power cach. The directors, acting upon advice offered them from this country | the United States], have wisely given up the idea of employing vessels of one thousand tons burthen.
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Two lines of communication have been proposed, besides inferior branches; one from Valentia Island, the starting point to Nova Scotia and New York; the other from Valentia to Antigua, Carthagena, Jamaica, and the countries at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. The latter will probably be chosen, as the transportation of bullion and specie has been promised them. The seas are less tempestuous on this route, and freight and passengers to and from the West Indies will be obtained to a great extent." The boldness of this undertaking will be the more apparent when we remember that at this time, although the possibilities of steam had been pretty thoroughly tested on the rivers and coasts both of Great Britain and the United States, only one pas- sage had been made across the Atlantic by a steam vessel -- the Savan- nah, in 1819,-and a considerable part of that under canvas.
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