USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume II > Part 15
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We have already spoken of the changes which take place in trade in the course of time. We have another instance in the history of the im- portation of gunny-bags and gunny-cloth. In 1840 the quantity was less than five thousand bales; in 1856 it was ninety thousand bales; in 1859, eighty-seven thousand; in 1860, eighty-eight thousand; and in 1864, eighty-six thousand. Since then the importation has almost en- tirely ceased. It was estimated, before the war, that seventy-five per cent. of the goods imported from Calcutta at Boston was shipped again coastwise, and upon this, of course, freight money was earned by our shipowners a second time.
The most prominent and best informed, although not the largest, merchant in the Calcutta trade, carly in the century, was Mr. Henry Lee, of whom we have already had occasion to speak. He lived in Calcutta for several years, and established friendly relations with the great English houses there, which were continued by correspondence after his return to this country; Captain Ozias Goodwin sailed in his employ, and, afterward, became his partner; and, later, he took as partners Mr. William S. Bullard, and his son, Mr. Henry Lee, jr., who carried on the business under the firm name of Bullard, Lee & Com- pany, and who, happily, still survive as these pages are passing through the press. Other members of his family and several members of the Cabot family were also engaged in the Calcutta trade; and we
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may mention also, in this connection, Daniel C. Bacon, Thomas Wig- glesworth, Samuel and Edward Austin, Ingersoll Bowditch, John L. Gardner, Israel Whitney, Nathaniel and Benjamin Goddard, Benjamin A. Gould and Mackay & Coolidge.
Some of the principal merchants and shipowners in Boston, in the years immediately preceding the war of the rebellion, besides those already mentioned, were, Robert G. Shaw & Company, William F. Weld & Company, Bordman & Pope, Sampson & Tappan, Glidden & Williams, Andrew Cunningham, John M. Forbes, William Perkins, Bramhall & Howe, Alpheus Hardy, Howes & Crowell, George Hallett, Thomas Nickerson, George C. Lord & Company, Phineas Sprague & Company, Snow & Rich, Thomas B. Wales & Company, Reed & Wade, Bates & Company and Isaac Taylor. As the shipping interest declined, many of these merchants transferred their capital to trans- portation enterprises on the land, and were successful as the projectors, builders or managers of some of the great railway lines of the country.
In 1858 a steamship line was projected by Mr. John Orrell Lever and others, of Manchester, to connect the port of Galway with New York and Boston, by way of St. John's, Newfoundland. This was be- fore the transatlantic steamers began to call regularly at Irish ports. Partly for political considerations, and partly on the theory that much of the Irish traffic with America would take the direct route, as a mat- ter of course, instead of crossing the channel to Liverpool, the British government agreed to give to the new company as liberal a subsidy, proportionately to the service to be performed, as it was paying to Mr. Cunard and his associates. Galway remitted all port, harbor and pilot dues ; and through-traffic arrangements were made with the principal places in the United Kingdom and with North Sea ports. The report of the Boston Board of Trade of 1859 contains all the correspondence which passed during the summer of 1858 between the secretary, Mr. Sabine, and Mr. Lever, in reference to the facilities which might be offered here. A pioneer steamer, the Indian Empire, was dispatched from Galway to New York in July, and a second, the Propeller, arrived in Boston in September; but the first vessel built by the company, the Connaught, a large paddle-wheel steamer, did not make her appearance in Boston until August, 1860. She was advertised as of forty-four hundred tons, but was probably not nearly so large, and was to be fol- lowed by the Leinster, the Munster, and the CIster. These names were changed to the Hibernia, the Columbia, and the Anglia. On her
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second voyage to Boston, in the autumn of 1860, the Connaught was lost, three hundred miles from Cape Cod, most fortunately without any sacrifice of life, although she had nearly five hundred passengers on board. The Hibernia was so completely disabled in a gale which she encountered on her way from the Tyne to Galway, that she never en- tered the service at all. The third ship of the line, the Columbia, made one trip to Boston, arriving here April 27, 1861, after a passage of nine- teen days from Galway by way of St. John's and Halifax. We doubt whether the Anglia was ever built; but, in 1861, the company bought the Collins Company's fine ship, the Adriatic, which made the run to St. John's in six days, the only instance in which the contract with the government was kept as to time. The company sent the paddle- wheel steamer Parana to New York in 1860, and the screw-steamer Prince Albert in 1861; but it did not long survive. It lacked every re- quisite for success. Its capital consisted largely of promises on paper ; its managers had from the first shown themselves to be utterly incom- petent; it did not keep faith with the government, whose mistaken lib- erality had helped to bring it into existence ; and it injured the purse or the reputation of every one who had any prominent connection with it.
The commercial prosperity of Boston, under the old order of things, reached its high water mark in 1856 and 1857. There is no doubt that the country at large had prospered greatly under the tariff of 1846; its foreign commerce and its domestic industries had been growing side by side, in healthful competition; and the marvelous gain it had made in shipbuilding, and in the ocean carrying trade of the globe, seemed likely to go on indefinitely. In all this, Boston had participated to its full share; and, in addition, it had been greatly benefited by its system of railroad communication, and by the operation of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854. So, too, in common with the rest of the country, Boston suffered from the financial reverses of 1857; but there were local influences which prolonged and aggravated the effect of these reverses here, as compared with some of the other cities on the sea- board. The Calcutta trade, in which Boston was especially interested, had been overdone; and a reaction in the shipbuilding industry of New England, having its center here, was inevitable, after the impulse it had received from the discovery of gold in California and Australia, and the demand for shipping created by the Crimean War. All this, however, was only what might have been expected, and had it not been for other circumstances, would not have been permanently disastrous.
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It was at this juncture that Boston began to find itself unable to hold its own as against the strong competing force of New York, and for reasons for which its own citizens were responsible. The establish- ment of branch commission houses in New York for the sale of the manufactured dry goods of this part of New England was a heavy blow to Boston. The movement began in 1846, and a few years later there were nineteen of these Boston houses in New York, and their aggre- gate sales amounted to twenty-five millions of dollars a year. The reason assigned for the change was the greater facility for shipping to the South and West which New York then offered; but there is no question that some of the houses who were the first in the movement wanted the use of more money than the Boston banks were able or willing to advance to them. The Boston Board of Trade made a vigor- ous effort to abolish the system of branch houses, and to recall the trade to Boston, but without success. In an able report on the subject it said: " Unless we mistake, had some of the parent houses seen the consequences, the step would not have been taken ; and unless, too, wc greatly err, some of them would now [ December, 1858] gladly abolish the system could all be induced to come into the measure." Reference was made in the report to the oil trade at New Bedford, the fish trade at Gloucester, and the Calcutta trade in Boston, as instances of the snc- cessful maintenance of the system of home sales and the avoidance of the "uncertainties, expenses, and losses" of sales or consignments abroad.
But the most striking illustration on the subject was drawn from the boot and shoe trade, the "vigor and stability" of which, it was said, "are attributable mainly to the adoption of the plan of sales at home." Before 1825 this trade had only a feeble and flickering exist- enec ; it was insignificant in amount and unremunerative in its results. " The enstom of the manufacturers was to send their goods after pur- chasers, and to ineur the expenses and risks incident to that practice: and it turned out that the majority of them failed as often as once in every seven years. At this period the whole business in Massachusetts could hardly have been estimated by millions of dollars, and nearly the entire sale was made by consignments to southern and western markets. But about the year 1830 an important change in this particular was commenced: the plan of foreign sales through branch houses or by consignments was very generally abandoned, and the policy of selling exclusively at our own warehouses, and of limiting the manufacture to
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the demand, was substituted. During the seven years that followed, and until the great crisis of 1832, the business was very prosperous, and rose in amount to fourteen millions of dollars per annum; and if it did not entirely escape the memorable revulsion of that year, yet most of the important shoe houses that suspended in this city finally recovered and paid their obligations in full. New York, on the other hand, presented a striking contrast. There were then in that city twenty-five wholesale boot and shoe houses that received their supplies chiefly from Massachusetts. Of these, twenty-four failed, and from their failure came nearly all the embarrassments which the business in this State experienced ; few, if any, paid in full, and many of them made but trifling dividends. Since 1837 the trade has rapidly increased in Massachusetts, and at the present time amounts to more than fifty millions of dollars per annum. Its stability may be seen by the circumstance that during the unparalleled revulsion of 183; not a single house of high standing in Boston stopped payment."
The report from which we have quoted was approved by the Board of Trade, and so much interest was felt in the subject of which it treated that it was presented at a meeting of gentlemen called for the purpose at the rooms of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company, and, on motion of Mr. David Sears, it was approved, and the Board was asked to print and cirenlate it. A second meeting was held in the same place two days later, in which Messrs. William Apple- ton, Thomas G. Cary, William T. Andrews and Albert Fearing took part, and it was again voted, "that the reasonings and recommendations of the report meet the approval of this meeting." As we have already intimated, the effort to close the branch houses in New York and to recall this errant trade to Boston was unsuccessful.
Boston suffered at the time of which we are speaking for another reason, and for this again it had itself chiefly to blame. It was the first seaboard city to become the key to an extended system of railway com- munication ; unfortunately, however, this system after a few years was "arrested " in its development, to use a scientific expression, and not only made no advance with the times, but was allowed to lapse into retrogression. All the railroad lines starting from Boston were short, and we had no trunk routes under our control. The Boston and Wor- cester and the Western Railroad Companies, which together furnished the direct means of communication with the West, were always at cross purposes with each other. The former had no track connection with
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tidewater, and the latter, until 1865, had no bridge across the Hudson River, and was only partially double-tracked. All merchandise, whether passing cast or west, had to be handled and transhipped at Albany, at a serious cost of money and, what was of more importance, of time; the delays there in the spring of the year were often most disastrous. While the New York Central Railroad, in the interest of the port of New York, increased its rolling stock threefold during the decade, 1855 to 1865, the Western Railroad, supposed to be managed in the interest of the port of Boston, added to its freight cars in the same period about twelve and a half per cent. It appeared also, in evidence before a legislative committee in 1866, that the Worcester Railroad Company had not added a single freight car to its rolling stock for through business in twenty years, and that the through traffic from Albany to Boston was a trifle less in 1865 than it had been in 1847. Under these circum- stances it was impossible for the export trade of the city to grow This amounted in 1857 to $28,326,918; the next year it fell off one- third, and it was not until 1843 that the figures of 1857 were again reached. Such legislation was enacted in 1867 as compelled the Wor- cester Railroad Company, which had been the reluctant party, to enter into a consolidation with its connecting line, the Western; and after the long-desired union had been arranged, a better state of things be- gan at once. In 1868 the double track between Boston and Albany was completed, and a connection was perfected with the wharves at East Boston; and in 1870 an elevator for grain was ereeted on these wharves with a capacity which was afterward increased to a million bushels.
At the beginning of the year 1868, the Cunard Steamship Company withdrew its mail steamers from Boston, after an uninterrupted service from Liverpool by way of Halifax to this port of nearly twenty-eight years. The company was feeling the competition of other transatlantic lines at the port of New York and thought it expedient to concentrate its best energies there. Its subsidy from the British government, also, was being steadily diminished, and it was necessary for it to obtain full cargoes for its passages to the eastward, which, while it employed only or chiefly paddle-wheel steamers, and while its mail contraet was large, it had cared little or nothing for. For such vessels as the China, the Cuba, and the Java-screw-propellers-return cargoes were indispensa- ble, and, as we have just shown, Boston was not in a position at this time to furnish them. Railroad connections were becoming closer and
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more direct, and terminal conveniences on a broad scale were in pro- cess of construction ; but these improvements for the purposes of the Cunard Company came rather late. The company continued to send cargo steamers here, but they proceeded to New York to complete their unloading and to load for Liverpool direct.
In the same year, 1868, an effort to establish a line of steamers between Boston and Liverpool failed disastrously, and it seemed as though the foreign trade of the port which, in various ways, had been declining for several years, would soon cease to exist at all. The American Steamship Company was organized under a legislative charter in July, 1864. Its board of directors included many merchants and business men of high standing, such as Edward S. Tobey, Osborn Howes, William Perkins, James L. Little, Avery Plumer, George C. Richardson, Chester W. Chapin and others. It raised by subscriptions to its capital stock nearly one million dollars, and by bonds three or four hundred thousand dollars more. It built two fine wooden screw steamers, of three thousand tons each, the Eric and the Ontario; but, with all the money it had procured, the company could barely pay the first cost of these ships, and had nothing left with which to meet enr- rent expenses, or to begin the construction of two more vessels, which were needed to form a bi-weekly line. After two or three trips, the steamers were laid up in ordinary for a time; and when they were dis- posed of, and the company wound up its affairs, there was a total loss.
It should be said, however, that the labors of the American Steam- ship Company, protracted during four or five years, were not in vain ; and what it accomplished indirectly was worth to the community. per- haps, all tho pecuniary loss to which the stockholders had been sub- jected. It aroused the people to the general importance of ocean steam navigation; it stimulated the railroad companies to the exten- sions and improvements which have been referred to; it inspired the local press with new spirit in its utterances upon all business questions ; and it was the first to fix the attention of the West upon what Boston might do, and was about to attempt, as an export city. At its instance, representatives from the commercial bodies of Detroit, Chicago, Mil- waukee, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, came to Boston in the month of June, 1865, and to them the capabilities of the port, and the far-reach- ing plans of our more progressive business men were carefully explained. All this effort was of no advantage to the company in whose especial behalf it was put forth; but it made it not only possible, but casy, for
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other steamship lines to establish themselves here. They have since been reaping where others had sown.
Before passing from the review of the period from 1857-58 to 1867- 68, we would say that it was only in its foreign trade, or a portion of it, that Boston for the time failed to advance, or even to hold its own. The imports fell from $14,810,083, in 1852, to $23, 952, 621, in 1862, and to $21,540,494, in 1865. In 1867 they exceeded the figures of 1857, although in 1868 they declined somewhat. The exports of domestic merchandise fell from $24,894,019, in 1852, to $12, 183,016, in 1862, and in 1868 their value was only $15, 690,843. But during most of this time other branches of business were doing well, and the general pros- perity of the city was very considerable. The taxable valuation ad- vanced from $254, 614, 100, in 1858, to $493, 563,400, in 1868. How much of this increase was due to the inflation of the currency, we will not attempt to decide; but, after making all proper allowance for this disturbing influence, we think that there was still a substantial ad- vanee.
In 1869 Mr. James Alexander was sent from Glasgow as the agent of the Cunard Company in Boston. He at once put himself in communi- cation with the officers of the Board of Trade, and with others compe- tent to give him full and correct information, and after much corres- pondence with his principals, he induced them to attempt the loading of two or three of their cargo steamers at Boston for Liverpool di- reet. This was done in 1820. The Palmyra sailed September 22, being the first departure of a steamship to Liverpool since the Africa left the port on the ist of January, 1868. Other vessels followed the Palmyra at irregular intervals, but on the 8th of April, 1821, the Siberia sailed as the first of a regular line. The Boston and Albany Railroad Com- pany co-operated cordially with the steamship company and joined it in some large purchases of grain, which at the outset it was necessary to make in order to insure full cargoes for the ships. The exports of do- mestie merchandise which for the year ended June 30, 1861, were $12,961, 291 advanced in the next fiscal year to $21, 143, 154, and steadily increased year by year. Owing to the completeness of the arrange- ments at East Boston the foreign immigration at this port also made a decided advance, increasing from 15, 128 in 1868, to 31,012, in 18:3; and again, after a falling off here in common with the other seaboard cities, to 33,626 in 1880. In the winter of 1879-80 the Cunard Com- pany suspended its trips to Boston for a time, and its future policy with
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reference to this port seemed to be quite undetermined. A year or two later it resumed its business here on something like the old-time basis, and placed vessels upon the route with comfortable passenger aecom- modations as well as large capacity for cargo. With these it has main- tained weekly sailings between Liverpool and Boston as against its bi- weekly sailings previous to 1868. The Bothnia and Scythia, which now come to Boston, are four times the size of the Britannia and her sister ships; and the Cephalonia and Pavonia, which, we believe, were ex- pressly built for the Boston trade, are not only five times as large as the Britannia but twice as large as the Cuba and Java, the withdrawal of which from our port was regarded as such a misfortune a quarter of a century ago.
The successors of Enoch Train & Company-Thayer & Warren, afterward Warren & Company-were among the earliest to appreciate the commercial importance of iron screw steamers, and they gradually substituted them for sailing vessels in the Boston and Liverpool trade. Through their English house they were in a very favorable position for engaging all such steamers as they required, having abundant room for freight and steerage passengers. The first steamers of this line pro- ceeded from Boston to other ports to obtain return cargoes, but as soon as the conditions here made it practicable they went back to Liverpool direct. The carrying capacity of the ships has increased since 1860 from fifteen hundred to nearly five thousand tons; and this inerease is represented in its different stages by the names of the Propontis, the Bosphorus, the Minnesota, the Victoria, the Iowa, the Missouri, the Kansas, and the Ottoman. The Warren line may be regarded as in fact a Boston line, although its ships have always borne the British flag.
In the winter of 1872-73 the Inman line was disposed to have a share in the growing business of the port, and sent the City of Boston here, as a pioneer, on her way to New York ; on her return trip to Liverpool this steamer called at Halifax, and then proceeded on her way never to be heard from again. This was a sad discouragement to begin with. Then the shipments consigned to Boston were smaller than had been anticipated by the company ; the steamers were slow and were detained by their call at Halifax, so that importers preferred to bring their goods by faster vessels coming direet. Other considerations had weight and the service was abandoned after a few months.
The Messrs. Leyland, proprietors for many years of a line between Liverpool and the Mediterranean, arranged to send some of their ships
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to Boston in the spring of 1876. The service was fortnightly at first, but was made a weekly one in January, 18ts. It began with the Bavarian, the Batavian and the Bohemian, and the Istrian, the Illyrian and the Iberian. The Virginian and the Valencian came out a few years later, and they have been followed by the Lancastrian, the Colum- bian, the Bostonan, and the Georgian. The weight capacity of their present steamers is fifty-five hundred tons, not including coal, and the space for cargo under deck is estimated at eight thousand tons meas- urement. The Bohemian was lost on the Irish Coast, on her voyage from Boston to Liverpool, in February, 1881.
Branches of the Allan and Anchor lines have been maintained at this port at intervals, and there are now two lines, the Johnston and the Furness, which ply regularly between Boston and the Thames. We doubt whether in the whole history of commerce there is to be found a record of any such commercial development as that which Boston can boast-an advance from nil, no sailing of a steamship for Europe in 1869, to one hundred such sailings in 1877, to three hundred and twenty- two in 1880, and to more than four hundred in 1892. Certainly the projectors of the American Steamship Company were not too sanguine in 1865-64, when they insisted that there was plenty of business to be done between Boston and Liverpool if only the proper facilities were supplied and the proper efforts put forth.
The more recent history of Boston is so fresh in the minds of most of us, and the record of everything relating to it is so easily accessible to all, that we have thought it preferable to use the space at our disposal in making mention of events less near to the present day and less gen- erally known or remembered. Of the newer development since the period of the Civil War, of the city which has attained metropolitan pro- portions, of the vast business here carried on in accordance with modern methods, and of all the commercial conditions so utterly changed since the last generation of merchants passed from the scene, we can only give the merest intimation. It must be the duty of some later writer to describe the material activities and resources of Boston in the last third of the current century, and to compare them with those which marked the earlier years in the history of the town and city, and, par- ticularly, the exceptionally prosperous years from 1850 to 185t.
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