USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Salem > Short story of three centuries of Salem : 1626-1926 > Part 5
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Devereaux, before Admiral Perry's time, and William Cleveland linked us with Japan, and Frederick Ward Townsend, brave and dashing adventurer, born here in 1831 stemmed the fifteen year Chinese Rebellion and made the Imperial government his devoted admirer. He was killed in battle at the age of thirty and the Emperor of China ordered that "special temples to his memory be built at Ning Po and Sung Kiang". At the dedication exercises at Sung Kiang, "the ceremony being one of sacrifice, there were offered to the manes of the deceased the entire carcass of a goat, a large pig, a small roasted pig, a ham, seven pairs of ducks, a pair of fowls and twenty dishes of fruits, confectionery, and vegetables". The inscription at the entrance to the shrine reads, "A wonderful hero from beyond the sea, the fame of whose devoted loyalty reached round the world, has sprinkled China with his azure blood; a happy seat among the clouds and temples, standing for a thousand Springs, makes known to all his faithful heart". Ward was not our only adventurer by any means. Our ships circum- navigating the globe, many an adventurous heart sought alien skies, wandered over the earth experiencing every danger of the desert path and the savage shore. How this contact and extended absence changed the aspect of some of our returning adventurers is gleaned from one of Hawthorne's stories where he describes one of these homecomings. "In the twilight of a summer eve, a tall dark figure, over which long and remote travel had thrown an outlandish aspect, was entering a village, not in Faery Londe but within our own familiar bounda- ries. The staff on which the traveler leaned had been his companion from the spot where it grew in the jungles of Hindostan; the hat that overshadowed his sombre brow had shielded him from the suns of Spain but his
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CHOCOLATE MUG PRESENTED TO GEORGE CROWNINSHIELD BY NAPOLEON'S MOTHER.
cheek had been blackened by the red hot wind of an Arabian desert and had felt the frozen breath of an arctic region. Long sojourning amid wild and dangerous men, he still wore beneath his vest the ataghan which he had once struck into the throat of a Turkish robber. In every foreign clime he had lost something of his New England characteristics and perhaps from every people he had unconsciously borrowed a new peculiarity; so that when the world wanderer again trod the street of his native village, it is no wonder that he passed un- recognized, though exciting the gaze and curiosity of all; yet, as his arm casually touched that of a young woman, she started and almost uttered a cry ; "Ralph Cranfield" was the name that she half articulated".
The sea captains of Salem were a little distinguished in their class. James Freeman Clarke says, "A sea cap- tain in those days in New England was very different from the rough and coarse ship masters described in English novels. Educated in the good schools of their native towns and with minds enriched by travel and ex- perience, the companions and friends of the enterprising merchants for whom they sailed, understanding the laws of commerce as well as those of navigation, self relying and full of resource, they often after retiring from the sea, took high position in the state and nation. This was particularly the case with the Salem sea captains when Salem was the seat of a prosperous and enterprising commerce".
Our shipping period has been called our golden age, golden in the wealth it brought, golden in the manhood it produced. Our ships went to all parts of the globe, along perilous coasts, into unchartered harbors, into treacherous seas. Our captains sailed under the Arctic skies and under the stars of the Southern Cross; they went to Africa, India, China, Japan and the East Indies,
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and, as Harriet Martineau tells us, they knew Napoleon's grave at St. Helena. Mr. Paine gives another side to the character of our captains; "they did not seek to crush out competition, to drive out of business the men around them who were ambitious to win a competence on their own merits; Joseph Peabody, during his career as ship- owner, advanced to the rank of master, thirty-five of his fellow townsmen who had entered his employ as cabin boy or seaman". Joseph Peabody started life as a cord- wainer, joined a company in the War of the Revolution, served on the "Bunker Hill" and the "Ranger", built eighty-three vessels, and paid duties at the Custom House running into the millions.
The merchants were great men, great in thought and deed, but the mariners were great also, great in daunt- less courage and endurance. Of Endicott, a descendant of the Governor, it was said "on the sea as a navigator he had encountered the hurricane and the burning blaze of the tropic calms; on the coasts of Sumatra, which he faithfully chartered for the guidance of other navigators, he had successfully braved the relentless fury of the Malay pirates and formed life long friendships with In- dian Merchants and Rajahs, and, having acquired the highest mead of sea faring life, he retired to the quiet of the counting house".
Our men of the sea had the endurance of gladiators. The sea had given to them, as Rome had given to Spartacus, "muscles of iron and a heart of flint". Second mate Daniel Saunders tells a good story of our ancient mariners. Mate Saunders sailed from Salem May 4, 1791 bound for Bombay. He was wrecked July 10, 1792 on the Arabian coast about four hundreds miles from the nearest shipping port of Muscat, with burning sands, barren shores, and savage natives, intervening. On the journey thither the natives robbed him and his com-
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SOFA FROM THE CABIN OF CLEOPATRA'S BARGE
panions, taking most of their clothes, including their hats and shoes. The sun beat mercilessly on them by day and, at night, they buried their naked bodies in the sand to protect them from the cold while they slept. They fed on crabs and cockels and some dates but for days they were nearly famished for food and water. They drank of the sea's abundance when pressed to des- peration. Insects burrowed under their skins and their lips became black and swollen so that they could hardly open their mouths. Their bodies were crippled and dis- figured, even as that of St. Simeon Stylites, the endur- ance of whose self imposed tortures were said to have shown him superior to nature; and like him, they still held on. Finally some Arabs, with pity rising from the depths of their savage hearts, took them on camels over the last part of their journey and they landed at Muscat. In his account Mate Saunders says, "we suffered hard- ships and trials seldom known to human nature and were snatched from the very jaws of death; thanks to the Supreme Dispenser of all events, we were once more placed in a situation to seek a living in the variegated, troublesome world". Only eight of the seventeen white men of the crew survived. "On August 17, 1794" he con- cluded, "I arrived at Salem where I had the happiness of being once more restored to my friends after an absence of about forty months".
There must have been many happy home comings down on the wharves of Salem, many happy reunions at the sailors' boarding houses. In the wines and spices of the ships' cargoes the mariners had their share. They had their glass of wine from Madeira and their cup of coffee from Arabia, even as the merchant prince ; and if on some rainy night when the sea was sullen the austere Puritan Fathers could have looked in on a group of mariners in their cosy corner, when food and refresh-
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ment, song and story, and a bumper of Michaelmas malt had elevated the heart, tempered any wind of discontent. and soothed the memory of suffering, we feel sure they would have said "Amen" and blessed the day and gen- eration.
This period began with Philip English when Witch- craft was declining and it ended with Capt. Bertram who as a little immigrant boy peddled his goods from place to place, and, dying wealthy in 1882, gave to his adopted city the Public Library, endowed worthy charities, and left a cherished name among us. How vast the details of this period are may be inferred from the fact that a thousand logs and sea journals covering it are preserved in one room in our Institute; and in our East India Marine Hall there is a comprehensive collection of relics and trophies of many interesting voyages. Their story is eloquent of our maritime scope and greatness ; our sea- manship was unsurpassed, our commercial success was phenominal. The pictures there of ships, full rigged, brigs, sloops, clippers, and merchantmen, give us vivid touches of the times, and the privateers, our special pride in the Revolution and the War of 1812, attest the cour- age and patriotism of our citizens.
In 1876, Mayor Henry L. Williams in an address said "the commercial character of our city, it is true, has changed essentially from what it was thirty-eight years ago. The time was when Salem stood sixth in rank among the commercial places in America. Thirty-eight years ago Salem ships floated on every sea and brought to our wharves the products of every clime; this being their home and where many of them were built, their repairs and their outfits gave to the sea side of Salem a business like appearance. For a long series of years the East India trade was carried on from here to a greater extent than from any other port in the United States.
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LIQUEUR CASE FROM CLEOPATRA'S BARGE
Now has come the change. The building of the railroad and the telegraph has swept from the smallest ports in our country, to its great commercial centres, the foreign trade that they formerly enjoyed. This change has caused an almost entire disappearance from our harbor of Salem ships". And thus our sails were furled and our shipping period ended.
As to the character of our mariners and the spirit of our people, Mr. Paine again says, "It was not the rich fruitage of silks, spices, ivory and tea which the ships of Salem fetched home, nor the fortunes which built the stately mansions on the elm-shaded streets, that made this race of seamen worthy of a page in the history of their country's rise to greatness. They did their duty daringly and cheerfully in peace and war. They let their deeds speak for them, and they bore themselves as "gen- tlemen unafraid" in adversity, and with manly modesty in prosperity. They believed in their country and fought for her rights, without swashbuckling or empty words. They helped one another, and their community worked hand in hand with them, on honor, to insure the safety of their perilous ventures. The men who wove the duck, the sailmakers who fashioned it to bend to the yards, the blacksmith, the rigger, the carpenter, and the instrument maker, did honest work, all co-operating to build and fit the ship their neighbor was to command so that she might weather the hardest blow and do credit to those who made and sailed her. Every shipmaster had as good a chance as any other to win a fortune. Independence, self-reliance, initiative and ambition were fostered. It was clean-handed competition, aggressive, but with a fair chance for all. Whether it was the Atlantic daring to show American colors to the East India Company in Calcutta in 1788, or the Endeavor, with Captain David Elwell on her quarterdeck making the first passage of an
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American ship through the Straits of Magellan in 1824, or the Margaret at anchor in Nagasaki harbor half a cen- tury before another American vessel visited a port of Japan, these adventurers of commerce were red blooded frontiersmen of blue water, as truly and thoroughly Am- erican in spirit and ambition as the strong men who pushed into the western wilderness to carve out a new empire for their countrymen".
One would need in these latter days some magic spy- glass to bring this period within the vision but, then, who would dare to sketch, even in scant outline, the mer- chant and mariner, the masts and spars, the lights and shadows. There was a congenital love of the sea in our old townsmen, for the sea was in the blood of the early settlers. They were of the race that rules the waves; they trusted to the sea to bear them on its bosom in frail boats to our shores; the sea from its depths gave them food to save them in their period of starvation; their descendants, close to nature, listened to the sea and heard what has been called "its manifold voices"; the east wind, "blowing o'er measureless prairies of sea grass", whispered in their ears of the shores the sea touched, freshened their imagination, fanned the fire of adventure in their veins, and gave to cabin boy and seaman, mate and captain, the daring of the Norseman. To describe the actors of this period any eulogium would fail; an epic might suffice, but to touch the period in its psychological depths, to display the soul and the throbbing heart of it, recourse must needs be had to some apostrophe to the sea.
"From a boy I wantoned with thy breakers; they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear, For I was, as it were, a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy name-as I do here".
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COL. TIMOTHY PICKERING
CHAPTER V.
OUR REPLY TO GAGE
"The Tyrant flower shall cast the Freedom seed".
"The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated usurpations, all having, in direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States".
"We, therefore, solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, and for the support of this declara- tion, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor".
O UR Declaration of Independence is said to be "the expression of that passion for individual and polit- ical liberty which is implanted in every human breast". To the American Revolution and the men involved in it we owe much. Love of justice is an instinctive thing. The aspirations of the masses for greater happiness, a greater share in material blessings, a lessening of the burden of oppressive toil and taxation, found feeble ex- pression in the very distant past, for tyrants and impe- rialists were able to break the spirit in the hearts of the ignorant and continue the yoke of bondage. With the American colonists it was different. The idea of liberty, travelling down the centuries, found its best expression in the American Revolution. All the colonies had men, fearless in spirit, who furnished intellectual and moral leadership, and by their private and public virtues in-
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spired confidence, courage and determination, and, finally, brought to the people the precious gift of self gov- ernment.
Sam Adams was the "Father of the American Revolu- tion". He was described as "deeply religious by nature". So bitterly did he denounce England's tyranny that he was omitted from the amnesty proclamation of Gage. In his great speech delivered at Philadelphia he set forth with much felicity of language our cause and our com- plaint, our beliefs and principles. "To the eye of reason" he said, "what can be more clear than that all men have an equal right to happiness; nature made no other dis- tinction than that of higher and lower degrees of power of mind and body; there is no other superiority among men than a superiority of wisdom and virtue; what an affront to the King of the Universe to maintain that the happiness of a monster sunk in debauchery and spread- ing desolation and murder among men, is more precious in His sight than that of millions of His suppliant crea- tures who do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God. Here no man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to honorable distinction or to sanctify ignorance and vice in the name of hereditary authority. Leave the bird of night to the obscurity for which nature in- tended him and expect only from the eagle to brush the clouds with his wings and look boldly in the face of the sun".
The passionate utterances in Revolutionary days against the English government sometimes have im- pressed us as a little exaggerated and partisan but a consideration of real conditions in England and the world over explains much. Lyman Abbott in his series of articles "Democracy around the World" says, "prior to 1776 there was practically no pretence anywhere in the world that governments were organized for the people
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or rested on the consent of the people". He quotes Dr. Gray to the effect that the Emperor of China regarded himself "as the interpreter of the decrees of Heaven and was recognized by the people over whom he ruled as the connecting link between the gods and themselves. This was true in 1776 not only of the Emperor of China but practically of all emperors the world over with the exception of England". But the indictment of England was severe enough. Of that country Abbott says, "In England the colonies were absolutely without repre- sentation, their political rights were practically unrec- ognized and their political and moral interests were almost entirely disregarded; the great folks regarded the colonies as nothing better than a larger field on which to fatten a herd of worthless parasites".
And we can understand how the religious natures of Adams and the others were moved, feeling as they did that autocratic government was in conflict with Christian principles. Abbott says, "the fundamental fact was not a change in the form of government but a change in its spirit and purpose. The year 1776 marks the transition from the pagan conception of government (the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and they that are great exercise authority upon them) to the Christian conception of government (but it shall not be so among you; but whosoever will be great among you let him be your minister and whoever shall be chief among you let him be your servant".)
Of the position of the towns in New England during the Revolution it has been said, "the Revolution would never have been achieved without them; nobler records of patriotism exist nowhere ; nowhere can there be found higher proofs of a spirit that was ready to hazard all, to pledge all, to sacrifice all, in the cause of the country. Instances were not infrequent in which small free-
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2
holders parted with their last hoof and the last measure of corn from their graneries to supply provisions for the troops. And if within the Continental Congress patri- otism shone more conspicuously, it did not there exist more truly, nor burn more fervently ; and it put forth in no greater degree the fullness of its effort, and the energy of its whole soul and spirit in the common cause, than it did in the small assemblages of the Towns." And of Salem it was said, "Salem has cheerfully borne her full share in all perils and contests-in the wars with the natives-at Louisburg-on the plains of Canada, and at the Lakes. She was among the foremost in the Revolu- tionary struggle. On the 12th of June, 1776, the Town instructed their representatives "that if Congress shall, for the safety of the North American Colonies, declare them independent of Great Britain, we will solemnly engage with our lives and fortunes to support them in the measure". And they were true to the pledge. They did peril their lives on the land and the sea in support of the measure. They furnished instances of skill and bravery in naval combats, among the most brilliant in the history of maritime warfare".
For the first one hundred and fifty years of Salem's history, Massachusetts was an English colony with an English governor and royal charter. The colonies had grown to about two millions of people and commerce was the country's great business. The country built so many ships that many were sold abroad. English naviga- tion acts sought to restrict our trade to British markets, and, in the enforcement of these acts, custom officials freely entered stores and houses. Parliament also passed the Stamp Act imposing a tax to support an English army and we decided to let no foreign government tax us in this manner. Then followed the organization of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, then came Adams
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and Otis, and Patrick Henry with his ringing declara- tion for liberty or death ; then came the minute men and the Revolutionary War.
England now took away the charter of Massachusetts and General Gage was sent to us as a military Governor. Among other things he closed the port of Boston and soon moved to Salem, and, with him, came two regi- mental companies under Col. Leslie. Salem just escaped being the place where the Revolutionary War started. We missed the distinction by about two months. We claim, however, at North Bridge, February 26, 1775, the first armed resistance in that momentous struggle. We shared the general resentment to England's tyranny, we denounced the Stamp Act and the tax on tea, and we stored cannon in North Salem for which Col. Leslie went in search. He was halted at North Bridge and retreated.
Salem was not, alone, at this time, a city of commer- cial wealth; it had character, also. Our aristocracy was not vulgar or imperious, it did not grow alone on mate- rial things. A fine sense of liberty, justice, and moral integrity gave it force and won it deference. Our citizens were not content to state principles, they put them in practice. Timothy Pickering was our distinguished citizen of the Revolutionary period. On the civil and military side his career was a full one. He was a lawyer by profession and, admittedly, the leader of the patriots of Essex County. He was Judge of the Court of Com- mon Pleas and held three cabinet positions, Secretary of War, Secretary of State, and Postmaster General. He was also a Congressman and United States Senator. He was the colonel commanding the regiment, a detachment of which opposed the British at North Bridge. He later
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took his regiment to New Jersey to join Washington, fought at Brandywine and Germantown and became Quartermaster General in 1780.
Timothy Pickering was a writer of recognized ability. Chosen to express the views of our people, there was great nobility in his utterance to Gage when, after the port of Boston was closed and the course of trade was expected to drift here, Pickering wrote to him, "we must be dead to every idea of justice, lost to all feeling of humanity, could we indulge one thought to seize on wealth and raise our fortunes on the ruins of our suffer- ing neighbors". John Ball of Wat Tyler's time would have found in such a sentiment some comfort for his grievances and would have rejoiced in such intellectual and moral leadership. The answer of our citizens to Gage suggests that the solution of the problem of the equitable distribution of the furs and ermine constitutes a question not so much for the halls of legislation as a question for the heart and conscience of every man.
There were other replies to Gage which we were well prepared to give. Our fishing and trading, as related, "raised up a class of hardy seamen which the Revolu- tionary War developed into a race of the boldest, most adventurous and skillful sea-kings that the world has ever known; by them Salem was enabled to meet the mistress of the ocean on her own element and dispute her supremacy". London first received the news of Lex- ington and Concord from a Salem ship under command of Captain John Derby and London's messages from other ships, and replies to Gage of another character, continued for some time thereafter.
We furnished 158 privateers on our own reckoning but Revolutionary naval records credit us with nearly 200. And there were other dauntless commanders of privateers besides Jonathan Haraden of the Gen. Pick-
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CHESAPEAKE AND SHANNON, WAR OF 1812
ering. They are familiar names today, perpetuated as they have been by worthy descendents and otherwise, and including in part, Commanders Briggs, Pickman, Emerton, Mason, Ropes, Felt, Barr, Leach, Forrester, Ives, Boardman, Webb, Palfrey, Lovett, Hathorne, Perkins, Phillips, Gardner, Derby, Carlton, Waters, Hacker, Brookhouse, Crowninshield, Dean, Rantoul, Jeremiah Hagerty and John Murphy. And in the second war with England, fought for seamen's rights in 1812, we built here at home about 40 privateers. Captain Jim Cheever, commanding the "America" went into the English channel and destroyed well over a million dollars worth of English shipping. His father was an of- ficer on the Grand Turk and he took command of the "America" at the age of 22. And during that war the remains of Capt. Lawrence, whose words, "Don't give up the ship" stir us as much today as they did the people of a century or more ago, were buried in Salem before being removed to New York. Lying dead in Halifax, to which port the Chesapeake was towed, the brig Henry, commanded by George Crowninshield, with an all star crew of Salem shipmasters, sailed from our port and brought here the body of Capt. Lawrence and that of Lieutenant Ludlow.
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