USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Salem > Sketches about Salem people > Part 25
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22
DR. EDWARD AUGUSTUS HOLYOKE
incorporators of the Massachusetts Medical Society which was given its charter on November 1, 1781. Dr. Holyoke was probably not one of the prime movers in the estab- lishment of this old society, the idea of which originated with Dr. Cotton Tufts of Weymouth and certain Boston physicians. Dr. Holyoke, however, called the first meet- ing of the Society and was elected first temporary presi- dent and later the first permanent president of the Massa- chusetts Medical Society. He seems not to have attended the meetings with regularity, doubtless feeling his pri- mary obligation to lie with his patients in Salem, but he was intensely interested in it, and frequently con- tributed many professional papers and served upon com- mittees of the Society. He received the first M. D. degree conferred by Harvard College in 1783, and in 1813 Harvard gave him a degree of Doctor of Laws. He was president of the Essex South District Medical Society.
Dr. Holyoke's only association with strictly commercial enterprises which comes to mind was his interest in the Salem Iron Mill. This company was formed in 1796 by Nathan Read, who had devised a nail machine that was a notable improvement upon existing methods. Mr. Read was a friend of Dr. Holyoke and the doctor was one of the original subscribers to the shares of the com- pany. The enterprise proved successful and was the predecessor of the Sylvester works in Danvers.
To a few other quasi-public projects Dr. Holyoke con- tributed his name, an asset of inestimable value in Salem where it was synonymous with honesty and responsibility. What better name than his could be found to associate with the first Savings Bank in the town, and what more convincing pledge of public interest could be offered by that great merchant William Gray than the fact that Dr. Holyoke was willing to be one of the incorporators of the Salem Turnpike and Chelsea Bridge Corporation ? Perhaps the magic of his name is best illustrated by its adoption fourteen years after his death by the mutual fire insurance company which still worthily perpetuates it in the city which he honored.
The venerable doctor did not long survive the honors
23
BY RICHARD HALL WISWALL
of his hundredth year. After the dinner which his medi- cal friends tendered him on August 13, 1828, and which he enjoyed with apparent zest and perfect health, he con- tinued the daily round of his professional duties. But on November 24th he injured his leg in getting out of his carriage, and after January 25th of the new year he did not go out again. For the first time in eighty years his familiar and well-beloved figure was gone from the streets of Salem. The interest in his condition was great, for he had come to belong to Salem perhaps more intimately even than to his only two surviving daughters who had families of their own, or the friends of his old age. When he died on the last day of March all the church bells in the town were tolled, a mark of public respect which had been reserved only for the presidents of the United States; and to his funeral in the North Church there poured forth a mighty throng of people to honor him. They listened to Dr. Brazer, who had known him not long but long enough to know him, deliver an address of such moving interest as might be expected only when his great ability was inspired by the sincerity of his sense of loss.
A life of little interest to us, perhaps, if interest is excitement or adventure. But it may not be amiss to record a long life of duty and of devotion and of self- restraint; and it may be doubted if in the whole history of Salem there ever lived a man who did more good than Dr. Holyoke. And for this, said Dr. Brazer, "He reaped the reward of a well-spent life, not only in the returns of an approving conscience; but in the unsought, the voluntary, the eager tribute of respect and reverence with which his presence was everywhere greeted."
STAGE POINT AND THEREABOUTS.
BY J. FOSTER SMITH.
Stage Point in Salem was so designated as early as 1640 (perhaps even earlier) ; at any rate the name ap- pears in the records but fourteen years after the first settlement, and for more than two centuries the locality seems to have been generally and legally known under that title. It was only after the adjacent land in the South Fields-until then mostly mowing lots-became the site of a new and flourishing industry, that the par- ticularly descriptive part of the title was dropped, and the name was shortened to "The Point."
Following that time, it was not long before the entire neighborhood of the factory, with many new streets, mul- tiplying dwellings for operatives and their families, small shops for household necessities, and a licensed saloon or two (in the custom of the time), became generally known and spoken of as "The Point." This sobriquet apparently fitted well, for it lasted ninety years,-anyway since the time the factory was incorporated,-has withstood the devastation of the Great Fire and the subsequent new lay- out and rebuilding, and today, with most of us, is natu- rally referred to under that long-time and familiar name.
The early settlers seem to have adopted descriptive and easy names for the environs of their new habitation, and situated as it was, between two tidal rivers of some size, the one waterway was immediately called the North River, the other the South River,-obviously appropriate names, and accordingly lasting.
In like manner, the early anchorages were named in such a way that no further description of their advan-
(1)
2
STAGE POINT AND THEREABOUTS
tages and use is necessary. Wood, in his "New England Prospect," remarked in 1633: "Salem hath two good Harbours, the one called Winter, the other Summer Har- bour, which lieth within Darbies Fort." Referring to Winter Harbor, which we know as Cat Cove, and with reference to the rather complicated entrance to it, as well as to other havens along the coast, Higginson observed that "they are the better, because for strangers there is a very difficult and dangerous passage into them, but unto such as are acquainted with them, they are easie and safe enough."
Again, in the matter of names, it appears that to the north and to the south of the settlement there was abun- dance of cleared land, whether naturally treeless or cleared by the Indians for cornfields is unknown, but at any rate the tracts were of such size and prominence that they were remarked in the earliest records, and from the first designated the North Fields and the South Fields, -- again names that have come down unchanged through the generations.
And so it is with the subject of this paper. Given a gravelly cape of some elevation at the entrance to South River, a bold shore line with quickly deepening water to afford easy and safe beaching for .the small craft of the time, a reasonably smooth surface of an acre or two in extent, a southerly exposure to the sun,-given all these and one has an ideal location for flakes or stages, for curing and drying fish,-presto, the perfect name suggests itself,-Stage Point!
Thus, having every reason for it, the name held on through the centuries, long after the last fish stage had fallen in decay and the ancient use become tradition only.
To the present generation the name "Stage Point" suggests a landing platform for some harbor craft, the place of departure of a coach,-nothing reminiscent of fish or the fishing industry; but to earlier generations the name brought recollections of long ranges of rude scaffolds closely spread with salted cod drying in the clear New England sunshine, the characteristic savor of the fish-ancient then as now-floating away to leeward,
3
BY J. FOSTER SMITH
rugged men and women, cleaning, splitting, salting, spread- ing, turning the abundant harvest of the sea,-of a steep gravel beach, with grounded shallops waiting the flood tide, and red-faced and whiskered fishermen mending nets and gear, stowing bait and food, and then, just as today, yarning, smoking, quarrelling.
And recollections, too, of rude canoes constantly coming and going between this favored spot and other stages at Winter Island, or across the river to the town, ferrying passengers and great stacks of fish ready for transport on the first ship sailing to the old country.
They would have recollection of the mellow knocking of the coopers as they hooped huge casks of salted fish for England, the pleasant tang of oak chips from the place where the shipwright fashioned the timber for a broken stern-post, and the acrid smell of pitch as some sailor coated the bottom of his boat, left high and dry by the ebbing tide, and of the rhythmic cadence of the calkers' mallets in the shipyard along the beach,-a picture of industry that had its beginning and its continuing exist- ence in the Sea!
From my earliest recollections of the Point, I recall that a huge rock dominated it, and made a striking land- mark on the otherwise barren surface. This rock was perhaps glacier-borne to its unique position, and had on its southern side a deep overhang, making a natural fire- place, and this side was blackened by the smoke of count- less fires,-perhaps by fires lighted at tribal feasts of the aborigines in their annual visits to the sea, perhaps by fires used in cooking for sailors and workers in the old days of the fish stages, and certainly, in later years, by the fires of the "Pointers" for their fish-fries and clam- bakes on this sightly spot, which for time out of mind seems to have been a sort of "No Man's Land" and free to all who cared to visit it.
It used to be a favorite stunt for the Point children to scale the rock, and from the precarious footing at the top-it stood perhaps six feet high-view the world, and it is not difficult to imagine, in those earliest days, some keen-eyed youngster perched thereon scanning the verdant
4
STAGE POINT AND THEREABOUTS
shore across the harbor, the bare expanse of the Neck, the thick forests of the North Shore and the wooded islands, to the open sea, where perchance he espies a sail just topping the horizon. His loud halloo brings every- one a-running, and there is joy and wild anticipation, for it means a ship from England bringing news of home and friends,-perhaps bearing brothers, sisters, to join them in this faraway land of their adoption. Or it may be that some other day they watch a loaded ship come down the river, and clearing the winding channel of the shallow stream, hoist sail and bear away to sea-and England.
England-home-how many eyes are dim with tears, what hearts are filled with longings, what throats are thick with sobs, as hands are waved and hearty wishes wafted toward the speeding bark! England-green lanes, cultivated fields, ordered towns, sheltered villages, the hawthorne in bloom-everything that one has known and loved. America-rude, unknown, the trackless forest peopled with savage men, filled with the terror of strange beasts, the abode of evil spirits, endless swamps and fens; no friendly lanes to other hamlets, no social intercourse with congenial neighbors, none of the amenities of life, even of those days,-the little group knew only this,- ahead of that fast lessening sail was England across three thousand miles of ocean, or measured in time,-six, eight, ten weeks away, and behind them in this little settlement on the fringe of America stretched a vast world of the unknown,-alien, unkind.
No doubt there were those who did return to the old home, but the greater number elected to remain, facing privations of every sort, and steadfastly carrying on, building the foundation and carving the structure which was to develop into our beloved Commonwealth and our glorious Nation ! We revere their memory.
In all the early chronicles there is frequent and con- sistent mention of the abundance of fish in the waters of Massachusetts, and of the laws and regulations to pre- serve and foster the fishing industry. From the time of Bartholomew Gosnold's visit to these shores, in 1602,
Dask.
Dock.
Perwilly Strut
Ward Street
17
18
161
Hanter St
6
3
6
5
13
Back ShutT
. Dask
UJ
10
Bry
15
Cover
1847 to 1854.
Back Bang!
SKETCH MAP OF STAGE POINT IN 1847. Drawn from memory by Francis A. Moreland.
5
BY J. FOSTER SMITH
particular stress was laid on the amazing quantity of fish, and the explorer named the most notable landmark along the coast for the shoals of Cod fish in the neighbor- hood, and the redoubtable Captain John Smith mentions the same abundance of fish in a narrative of his voyage along the Massachusetts coast in 1614.
Mr. Higginson, in his "New England Plantation," writes: "The abundance of sea fish is almost beyond be- lieving. I saw store of whales and crampuss, and such abundance of mackerils, that it would astonish one to behold, likewise codfish in abundance on the coast. There is a fish called a basse. Of this fish, our fishers take many hundred together. We take plentie of skate and thornbacks, and abundance of lobsters, herring, turbut, sturgion, cusks, haddocks, mullets, eels, crabs, muskles, and oysters." Besides the fish mentioned by Mr. Hig- ginson, there were of course the alewife, the menhaden or porgy, hake, pollock and shad, the ubiquitous flounder, and in addition to "muskles and oysters" there was also the succulent clam, and in the brackish water of what we know as the Mill Pond, great quantities of quohaug.
In reference to the bass and cod, the Legislature, 1639, forbid them to be used for manure, except their head and offal. As an indication of the profit the cod was to the State and also of its abundance, there is the following record: an indenture for a new draw over our North River, 1755, has a circular stamp on the top, which besides 11 pence at the bottom, has a cod in the middle, and round the fish, "Staple of Massachusetts." Of course we all recall the effigy of a codfish in the State House, and incidentally a stratum of society yclept Codfish Aris- tocracy, and more recently the futile attempt to perpetuate the sacred cod on the number plates of our motor cars.
Further indication of the importance of the fisheries is shown in a letter written by the Governor and Deputy of the Massachusetts Company in England to Mr. Ende- cott, 1629,-it requests that fishermen-of whom six from Dorchester are coming over-may, with part of the crews, take fish, and that this be cured in hogsheads, or other- wise, on board the Whelp and Talbot, and sent home in
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STAGE POINT AND THEREABOUTS
either of these vessels. In another letter the same year to Mr. Endecott, there is mentioned as additional to the six on board the Lyon's Whelp, three more fishermen now sent by Mr. Craddock, and there is enumerated quantities of salt, with lines, hooks, knives, boots and barrels, for the fishery, as shipped in these vessels. It leaves the fishermen to be employed either "in harbor or upon the banks" as may seem best. The letter also requests Mr. Endecott to build a storehouse for the fishermen.
How early Stage Point was used as a fishing station is not known, neither is it known when the industry of curing fish ceased to be the principal business of the location, but the certificate of membership in the Salem Marine Society, circa 1785, carries an engraving of Stage Point, with Derby Wharf across the way, and in the distance a view of the Marblehead shore, the islands, par- ticularly Baker's with its lighthouse, and the Beverly shore. There is a small ship careened on the beach, but no indication of fish flakes, nothing but a small shanty, a stone wall, and some rail fences-a bleak out- look. However, on the certificate there are also four smaller engravings or vignettes, one of which depicts the interior of a warehouse with two husky workmen with a screw press packing a stack of dry codfish into a huge hogshead, so it may be that even then the place was justifying its appellation.
The other pictures represent, first, a good-sized vessel careened on the beach for graving, the crew burning off the weeds and barnacles, while a cloud of smoke from the operation envelopes the hull; a second picture is of a schooner anchored a little offshore with a small boat putting off to it, and a third is a launching, with the ship just going down the ways to the hand-wavings and probably cheers of a small but interested group of work- men and spectators.
The scene of the launching must have been somewhat to the north of Stage Point, and probably at Briggs' ship- yard, beyond which was the marine railway, the oilworks, and possibly several wharves.
In this connection, it is interesting to quote from a
DERAF STREET
c1851
WATER STREET
South River
CENTRAL WHARF
===- PLABODY ST.
NAUMKEAG Co
UNION
WARD ST
POND ST.
NAVALKEAG STEAM COTTON CO.
ROPES ST.
PARK ST.
PRINCE ST.
WARUNKI NO CO.
SWITH WHAT
DON ST
Mill
Pond
POLTEL 31
CONGRESS ST.
PERKINS ST.
Depis Shipyar
E VELE
CEDAR ST.
La Fayette Street
Stage Point
Palmer's Cove
PLAN II-Stage Point, showing the original Mill and Corporation Boarding Houses, about 1851.
Derby Wharf
HARDOR STREET
SOUTH ST.
7
BY J. FOSTER SMITH
paper by Henry M. Brooks, entitled "Some Localities about Salem" (Historical Collections 1894-95). Refer- ring to that period, about 1840, Mr. Brooks stated:
The place called "Stage Point," or as the old people called it, "Stage Pint," was near the location of the Naumkeag Cotton Mills. There was formerly on the eastern side a marine railway for hauling up vessels to be coppered or re- paired, and nearby a beach, where they used to "grave" or "caulk" vessels. Later Mr. Miller had a shipyard just beyond the railway, opposite the end of Derby Wharf. Here was built, among other vessels, the barques Glide and Imaum, and the brig M. Shepard, belonging to John Bertram, Esq. Some years before this, say 1820-1835, Pickering Dodge, a well-known wealthy merchant, had a wharf here, and Caleb Smith, a sperm oil and candle factory.
In addition to the industries mentioned by Mr. Brooks, lead manufacturing was carried on for several years at a site not far from the mouth of the river. The business does not appear to have been successful, and we read in Osgood and Batchelder's "Historical Sketch of Salem": "Lead manufacturing has been carried on in Salem since 1826, when the Salem Lead Company, formed in 1823, commenced operations on the site of the Naumkeag Mills. The company was incorporated Feb. 7, 1824, with a cap- ital stock of about $200,000, which was afterwards in- creased. In 1835, the works were sold at auction for $20,500. The total loss to the date of sale had been $120,000. About 1826, Col. Francis Peabody commenced the white lead business in South Salem, where Lagrange Street now is. In 1830, he purchased Wyman's Grist Mills, on Forest River, and the mixing and the grinding was done there, the corroding being done at the old works. In 1843, these mills were sold to the Forest River Lead Company. The works on the site of Lagrange Street were torn down, and a number of dwellings located near them moved to lots adjoining the Forest River Mills."
The only trace of the original Salem Lead Company that the writer can recall is the huge number of broken corroding pots excavated in the Mill yard at the time of rebuilding the plant.
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STAGE POINT AND THEREABOUTS
To return to our subject. Stage Point was owned by the Brown family. William Brown was its owner just before the Revolutionary War. As has already been stated, in earlier papers of this series, William Brown was a staunch Royalist and went to England. His property being confiscated, the town bought the location for a ca- reening station and ordered it to be paid for, 1781. They let it, 1788, for £7 per annum; 1797 for $30; 1802 for $35; and 1837 for $40. In 1803 prices for graving and sheathing vessels on Stage Point were adopted and pub- lished, the prices graduating with the size of the ship. Under 50 tons, graving 25c a ton, sheathing 10c a ton a day; from 50 to 100 tons, graving 50c a ton, sheathing 15c a ton a day ; and so on in increases of 50 or 100 tons until a tonnage of 300 to 400 was reached, and this seems to have been considered the limit of size possible. The price for a ship of 400 tons burden was $1.25 a ton for graving, and 30c a ton a day for sheathing.
"Graving," or as it was also called "breaming," was the operation of cleaning a ship's bottom by burning off the grass, mud, shells, seaweed, and what-not which it had contracted while lying in the harbor. It was per- formed by holding kindled fagots or reeds to the bottom, which, by melting the pitch which covered it, loosened whatever was adhering to the planks. The bottom was afterwards covered with a compound of sulphur, tallow and other things, which served the double purpose of smoothing it off and poisoning and destroying the worms which often eat through the planks in the course of a voyage.
"Sheathing" was the operation of covering the bottom of a ship with thin boards secured by a special kind of nail, this sheathing coming between the planks of the hull and the copper.
The writer has no knowledge of the amount of business done in the sixty years of the town's ownership of Stage Point, but in any event, at a meeting of the City Council, October 11, 1841, the following order was passed :
ORDERED, that the Mayor be authorized to sell that piece of real estate belonging to the city known by the name of Stage Point, bounded as follows, westerly on land of Joseph
DERBY ST.
c1897
Central Wharf
South River
(BRIDGE) STREET
TPARKERING
CLARK'S
WHARF
PEABODY
MILL
MIL
Nº 3
WARD ST.
NAUMKEAG CO.
HARDOR S.T.
CLOTN
كتمينا
LYNCH ST.
1. NAUMKLAG ST.
CONGRESS ST.
PERKINS ST.
PINGRCE ST.
E. GARDNER ST.
EST
PALMER 5J.
EST
Ha
STAGE P
/
LIAVIST 91
Imer Cove
Salem Harbor
PLAN III-Stage Point about 1897, showing the Naumkeag Mills previous to the Salem fire. Note the change from Plan I in the coast line, due to filling in.
KEHEW/ BRADLEY OIL CO.
NAUMKEAG CO.
Derby Wharf
-.
9
BY J. FOSTER SMITH
Peabody, northerly on South River, easterly by land of the Lead Factory Company, southerly on a road leading to said Lead Factory. Attest J. CLOUTMAN, City Clerk.
And the record at the Court House shows that the City of Salem, October 16, 1841, conveyed the property to David Pingree for $1,000, the deed being signed by Ste- phen C. Phillips, Mayor, and acknowledged by him to be his free act and deed (rather than the free act and deed of the City of Salem). This little indiscretion, or lapse, of the worthy Mayor, was corrected October 31, 1867, when the City of Salem gave Naumkeag Steam Cotton Company a confirmatory deed to cure any informality in the deed previously given to David Pingree of the Stage Point property, so called, which had been conveyed by said Pingree to the Naumkeag Steam Cotton Company.
So the ancient occupation of the place seems to have passed with the deed,-Stage Point, which for two centu- ries had been dedicated to the sea and to things related thereto, and had echoed and re-echoed to the husky throat- ings of men who go down to the sea in ships, had lost its pristine use. Also it was losing its identity, for slowly but inexorably the Point was washing away! Ex- posed to the full force of the heavy seas pushed up by the easterly storms, its gravelly structure had never been able to withstand the action of tide and wave, and from the time of the building of Derby Wharf there had been added a new destructive agency in the swifter running current of the South River. This stream for countless ages had debouched into a wide arc of the harbor, but now, barred by the long stretch of the wharf, the current was turned sharply southward, thrown against the side of the Point and, deflecting to the east, took with it each tide more and more of the gravelly substance of the ancient landmark, leaving at last only a number of rough boulders to mark its rugged outline, and at flood tide even these were submerged.
BEGINNINGS OF THE COTTON INDUSTRY.
And other agencies were at work to supplant the ancient prestige and established occupation of the Point, for at
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STAGE POINT AND THEREABOUTS
that time, a hundred years ago, the town was suffering from the effects of the disastrous embargo placed upon her shipping during the Napoleonic wars and the war of 1812, when her wharves had been double-lined with idle vessels for many months, and her seamen scattered and entering other professions. Added to this setback, was the inevitable drift of maritime business to the greater cities of Boston and New York, with the result that many merchants, shipowners and shipmasters, reluctant to follow the business to new centres, found themselves in the position of looking about for some other investment for their funds.
It was therefore entirely natural that their attention should be directed to the new industry of cotton spinning and weaving already established on the Charles River at Waltham, on the Merrimac at Chelmsford, in the new village of Lowell, and along the Blackstone Valley in Rhode Island.
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