Standard history of Essex county, Massachusetts, embracing a history of the county from its first settlement to the present time, with a history and description of its towns and cities. The Most historic county of America., Part 47

Author: Tracy, Cyrus M. (Cyrus Mason), 1824-1891, et al. Edited by H. Wheatland
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Boston, C. F. Jewett
Number of Pages: 450

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Standard history of Essex county, Massachusetts, embracing a history of the county from its first settlement to the present time, with a history and description of its towns and cities. The Most historic county of America. > Part 47

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CHAPTER XV.

THE FISHERIES AND COMMERCE OF GLOUCESTER -STONE BUSINESS.

Nature has denied to Cape Ann a fertile soil ; but she has given it a harbor of such excellence as will make it the seat of an active popu- lation, so long as men shall pursue that great sea-business of fishing which first attracted people of the English race to its shores. Among the inducements to the settlement of New England, were the advan- tages it offered for the prosecution of this business, in the contempla- tion of which, that early and famous visitor, Capt. John Smith, was warmed up even to poetic enthusiasm, for what, he says, " doth yield a more pleasing content, and less hurt or charge, than angling with a hook, and crossing the sweet air, from isle to isle, over the silent streams of a ealm sca." On this side of the Atlantic, this business was first pursued by English fishing-vessels, which made voyages hither before the landing of the Pilgrims, and returned with their fish to Eng- land. In 1624, no less than fifty came. These vessels sought the best stations on the coast of Maine, west of Monhegan, for their fishing- stages ; though a few resorted to the Isles of Shoals, and three certainly to Cape Ann. As settlements were made on the coast, these voyages ceased, of course, on account of the reduced expense with which the business could be carried on by the colonists. That they commenced it early, there is abundant proof; for in 1629, preparations for fishing were made in Salem. In 1634, eight boats were fishing at Marble- head, and, in the next year, the settlers at Portsmouth are found en- gaged in it. About this time, also, Cape Ann was the abode of a few fishermen, and several settlements were established on the coast of Maine.

The first fishermen of Cape Ann were transient occupants of its soil. The permanent settlers of Gloucester were nearly all planters. In- deed, its first maritime business was not fishing, but wood-coasting,

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

and that was of small amount for many years ; for, towards the close of the seventeenth century, it appears that all the property of the town, in shipping, was comprised in about a dozen sloops, shallops, and boats.

The commencement of an active pursuit of maritime business by the people of the town may be fixed at about the beginning of the eighteenth century, when, as previously mentioned, they engaged ex- tensively in ship-building. The division of the woodland, at that time, enabled them to cut large quantities of wood for sale, and the transportation of this article to Boston created a need for many ves- sels. This business increased so rapidly that, in 1706, not less than fifty, probably, were engaged in it. About this time, too, vessels be- longing in town began to visit distant waters for fishing, but the busi- ness was attended with considerable hazard on account of the hostility of the French and Indians on the whole eastern coast. The Rev. John White, writing in 1711, says, " the enemy make fearful depre- dations upon our poor fishermen at Cape Sable"; and, two years afterwards, three men were taken from two Gloucester sloops fishing there. Another hazard attended this fishery, which no human care could avert,-the danger of shipwreck. The first recorded calamity of this kind is that of a new schooner, while on a fishing voyage to Cape Sable in 1716. In October, the next year, four of a fleet of seven were lost on the passage from the fishing-ground, and to these was added, in 1722, another at Sable Island, involving, in each case, the loss of all the crew. Thus begins that melancholy list of the dis- asters to fishermen which have since so often cast a gloom over the town.

Notwithstanding these risks, the business so inereascd that, in 1741, above seventy fishing vessels were owned in the town ; some of which, withont doubt, were engaged in the Grand Bank fishery. The peace of 1763 seeured to the fishermen unmolested use of the fishing- grounds ; and, from this time till the Revolutionary War, they car- ried on the business with energy and success. The whole number of schooners engaged in it, in 1775, was eighty ; of an aggregate burden of 4,000 tons, and of an average value of about three hundred pounds. Besides those employed in distant waters, there were about seventy boats engaged in the home fishery, which landed, on an average, 160 quintals of fish each.

After the war the Grand Bank fishing was resumed. In 1788 fifty schooners were employed in it; but the business yielded small profit to the owners, and the average earnings of the fishermen were so small that they were kept in a condition of poverty. In 1804 it had become so redneed that only eight vessels were engaged in it, and even this small number dwindled down to one or two, about 1825, though an incorporated company attempted to give the business a new start by employing four new vessels in it in 1819. After three years' trial this company was dissolved, and was glad to save even a part of the capital with which it began. Not even the stimulus of the Bounty Act, passed by Congress in 1819, served to encourage a continued pursuit of this business.

The shore-fishery of Gloucester continued to be pursued, as it had been before the war, and gave better returns than the distant fishery ; for, in 1804, about 200 boats, of an average burden of nearly twenty tons, were engaged in it. These boats resorted to the ledges near the coast, where they took, at different seasons, cod, hake, and pol- loek. This boat-fishing was chiefly carried on at Sandy Bay and the other coves on the outside of the Cape ; and for nearly twenty years this shore-fishery continued to be almost the only fishing business of Gloucester. In 1828 the total product of the cod-fishery, in value, was abont one hundred and twenty thousand dollars ; but soon after that date the fishermen, in larger vessels, began to resort to Georges Bank for cod, where they have found this fish so abundant that, in a few instances, a hundred thousand pounds have been taken in a single trip of two or three weeks. In later years, too, they have begun to go again to the Grand Bank, where, by the use of trawls, they con- tinne to pursue a successful business. The total product of the cod- fishery, from all sources of supply, for the year 1872, was estimated at 384,000 quintals, of the value of about two millions of dollars.

Another branch of the fishing business,-in which, for abont fifty years, Gloucester has taken the lead,-is the mackerel fishery. In the early years of the present century, the boats employed in the shore- fishery occasionally took small quantities of mackerel, which they sold fresh in Boston, but the remarkable abundance of these fish in Massa- chusetts Bay, in 1820, induced the fishermen of the town to make special preparations for mackerel-catching. They built "jiggers" of forty tons burthen or more, and, in the summer season, made regular trips in pursuit of mackerel only, which were rewarded with great suc-

cess. One of these jiggers, carrying eight men, took, in 1825, over 1,300 barrels ; and in 1830 and 1831 the fish were so abundant close to our own shore that, in those two years, npwards of 121,000 bar- rels were taken by the Gloucester fishermen ; but the mackerel is a capricious fish and its habits are not well understood. These years of plenty were followed hy years of scareity, and the total product of five years, from 1839 to 1843 inelusive, did not amount to one-half of that of the two successful years above mentioned. The enterprise of the fishermen, however, has not failed. They have been acens- tomed of late years to seek the mackerel in the latter part of spring, in southern waters, and follow them along the coast northward into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they finish the season's work, some- times with a fair remuneration for their time and toil; often without earning enough for the winter's support. The business was, indeed, last year, so unproductive that only 49,044 barrels of the fish were packed in Gloucester, -- less than half as many as have been taken in some years when fewer vessels and fewer men were employed in it.

One other great branch of the Gloucester fisheries remains to be mentioned, - the halibut fishery. It is an enterprise of recent times, induced by the great abundance of that fish found on Georges Bank, when the fishermen of this town first resorted to that fishing-ground, about 1830. For a few years, the business was insignificant in amount, but the opening of railroad communication with all the cities and principal towns in the country, and the use of iee on board of the vessels, and in packing for transportation, enabled the most distant inhabitants to procure this excellent article of food in a fresh condition, and ere- ated such a demand for it that it now takes a great quantity to supply

the market. This fishery had risen to such importance in 1847, that the Gloucester vessels took in that year considerably more than three millions of pounds, which sold for something over seventy thousand dollars. The annual product is now much larger, for, in addition to the supply from Georges Bank, the fishermen bring in large quanti- ties from the Grand Bank, to which ground they began to resort for halibut about 1865 ; and from which, one vessel, in 1876, brought in the great quantity of one hundred and twenty-nine thousand pounds as the product of a three weeks' trip. Indeed, it sometimes comes upon the market in such enormous quantities, - by the arrival of sev- eral schooners at the same time, - that the price from the vessel sinks to a cent or two a pound, and it is then that the establishments at which it is eured for preservation are supplied.

The fishing business of Gloucester has now attained such impor- tance that the port ranks the first in the country, and perhaps the first in the world, for the extent to which it is pursued. The growth of the business during the last fifty years is shown by the amount of its products at different periods. Reliable statements, founded partly upon exact returns, and partly upon careful estimates, show that the total produet, in value, for 1828, was abont two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ; for 1847, about six hundred thousand dollars ; for 1859, about one million four hundred thousand ; and for 1875, nearly four millions of dollars ; but the last-named year was one of remarkable success, and was followed by two years of reverse fortune, which has not materially changed up to the present time. According to a statement published in 1876, the three principal items embraced in the prod- uct of that year were : 363,231 quintals Grand Bank and Georges cod, of the value of $2,020,297; 9,710,787 pounds Grand Bank and Georges halibut, of the value of $679,754: and 51,040 barrels of mackerel, of the value of $710,201; the value in cach case ineluding the cost of preparation for market.

Nearly all of the fishermen who bring this large amount of wealth to our shore are of foreign birth, and a large majority of them have only a temporary home in Gloucester. Considering the temptations to which, more than men of other employments, they are exposed, it may be truly said that, in manners and morals, they will well stind a comparison with any other class of society. For one great quality they are pre eminently conspicuous ; for what but the stoutest heart could brave the dangers and hardships of an employment in which, dur- ing the last twenty years, fifteen hundred and seventy-three men have passed through appalling scenes of storm and seas and shipwreck to a watery grave. More than half of this number, in five years, sailed on the voyage from which they never returned .*

The foreign commerce of Gloucester was, for many years after its origin, carried on with the fishing vessels. Before the Revolutionary

* For more particular information concerning the fisheries of the town, the reader is referred to the " History of Gloucester," 1860 ; the " Fishermen's Memorial and Record Book," 1873; and the " Fisheries of Gloucester," 1876 ; all published by Procter Broth- ers, Gloucester,

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

War, it is not certain that half a dozen square-rigged vessels were owned in the town; and all we know of the commencement of this commerce is, that about 1750, mention is made of voyages to the West Indies, to Bilboa, and Lisbon. The West India cargoes consisted of fish and other provisions, for which sugar, molasses, rum, and coffee were returned ; while to Europe little was sent except fish, the proceeds of which eanie home in salt, fruit, wine, and specie. The first vessel that ever left Massachusetts Bay with a cargo of fish for a European market, was the ship belonging to the Dorches- ter Company, which sailed from Cape Aun Harbor for Spain, in 1623 ; but of the great trade in that article, of which that voyage was the commencement, we know little more than the beginning and the end. In 1767, there were sent to Bilboa from the ports of Essex County as many as fifty-one thousand quintals of fish ; furnished mostly, without doubt, by Gloucester and Marblehead. This exportation of fish to Europe was interrupted by the war, but resumed at its close, and continued till some time in the early part of the present century, when it ceased entirely.

The foreign commerce of the town gradually increased till 1775, when several merchants were engaged in it ; some of whom, if tradition truly reports, disregarded the Revenue Acts, and smuggled great quantities of various articles of importation. In the first three years of the war which followed, the town had a few small vessels employed in foreign commerce, but nearly all of them were captured by the enemy ; and, in 1779, it had but one merehantman at sea, and she was owned partly in Boston. Towards the close of the war, however, it began to revive, though still attended with great risk of capture.

After the peace of 1783, the foreign commerce of Gloucester rose to be of considerable importance. In 1790, forty-three vessels, meas- uring, in the aggregate, four thousand and eighteen tons, and includ- ing four ships and nine brigs, were employed in it. During the twenty years succeeding, vessels belonging in the town visited most of the principal ports in Europe and the West Indies ; and a few made voy- ages beyond the Cape of Good Hope. At this period (about 1800), a small ship, of one hundred tons, owned by an association of mer- chants called the India Company, made two voyages to Calcutta, and was next seut to Sumatra, but was never heard from after leaving that island on her homeward passage.

The Embargo Act of 1808, and the war of 1812, inflicted a severe blow upon the commerce of Gloucester, from which it never fully recovered. During this period of interruption, a few of the small fishing-boats of the town stole away with cargoes of fish to the West Indies, where boat and cargo were both disposed of; and, after the war, a lawful trade was resumed ; but it was of small amount; and, before 1830, was totally abandoned. At that time, but one mercan- tile house, engaged to any considerable extent in foreign commerce, existed in the town, and that, soon after, was elosed by insolvency. From this period till 1860, a trade with Surinam, the capital of Dutch Guiana, which has been carried on sinee 1790, continued to be pursued ; but, for many years, hardly a single vessel, belonging in the town, has been engaged in it.

At the present time, the business of Gloucester with foreign ports is confined almost wholly to those from which it imports the salt used in its fisheries, about one hundred thousand hogsheads per annum ; and the places in the British Provinces from which it receives firewood, fish, potatoes, and a few other articles.

The number of vessels, schooners, sloops, and boats employed in the business of the town, at the present time, is four hundred and sixty-six, measuring twenty-eight thousand six hundred and twenty- one tons, and manned by about four thousand men.

Such is the business to which the people of Cape Ann are invited by their geographical position. Another important branch of industry has grown out of the geological structure of the Cape, and is of com- paratively modern origin. An extensive business in the quarrying of granite was commenced in 1824, when Mr. Bates, of Quincy, came to Sandy Bay, and leased a ledge for that purpose. Within a year or two, others followed, and gave the business such a start that it has become a prominent branch of industry, and has been attended with such prosperity that its yearly products exceed those of the fisheries of that part of the Cape. A more particular account, however, of the stone business, at that loeality, belongs to the history of Rockport. The success of the early stone-workers at the casterly end of the Cape indueed the opening of quarries at various other places in town not included within the limits of Rockport. The ledges at Lanesville, Bay View, and West Gloucester have been found to yield granite of good quality, suitable for the various uses to which the article is ap- plied, and have been worked more or less extensively for several years.

Much of it is cut into paving-blocks, and sent to the principal cities of the United States ; and a great deal of it is used for building pur- poses. - the coarser qualities for foundations, and the finer for super- structures for various public and private uses. At one of the Bay View ledges was got out the largest block of granite ever quarried in this country. It was twenty-eight feet long, eighteen feet wide, and three feet thick, and weighed one hundred and fifty tons. It was used in laying the foundation of the Scott Monument at Washington, D.C. These ledges also furnished the stone used in the erection of the new Boston Post-office. The amount of work done at the quarries in the sections of Gloucester before named varies according as the demand for stone is brisk or otherwise ; but in some recent years there have been as many as seven hundred men employed in the business.

Gloucester in the Civil War. - On Saturday morning, April 13, 1861, the mail brought intelligence of the opening of the civil war by the firing upon Fort Sumter, and, on the following Monday. full particulars of the bombardment were received, and occasioned, as they did everywhere in the loyal States, the greatest excitement. The signs of military activity soon appeared in the strects, and, on Tuesday morning, the 16th. Company G, belonging to the 8th Regiment of Massachusetts Infantry, left town for Boston. Its officers were, Addison Center, captain ; David W. Low, first lieutenant, and Edward A. Story, sceond lieutenant. In obedience to a call from Washington, the regiment left Boston, on the 18th, for that city, going by the way of Annapolis, Md., where the Gloucester soldiers, with others, assisted in securing the safety of the old frigate " Con- stitution." It arrived in Washington on the 26th, and the great service it rendered by opening another route to the capital, when a rebel mob made a bloodless passage through Baltimore impossible, will ever entitle the regiment to an honorable notiee in the history of the war. On the expiration of the three months for which it had enlisted. Company G returned to Gloucester, and on its arrival, August 2d, was warmly greeted by the citizens of the town.

The attack on Fort Sumter made it apparent that there could be no peace without a deadly strife of arms, and there was no greater unanimity anywhere than in Gloucester, that the Union must be pre- served, even at the cost of this dread arbitrament. A town-meeting was held on the 22d of April, at which patriotic resolutions were adopted, and liberal provision was made for aid to soldiers' families. At this time a company of volunteers had already been raised by David Allen, Jr., a citizen of considerable experience in military affairs, which had its first parade on the 27th, and on Sunday, the 28th, by invitation of the pastor, attended service at the Unitarian church. This company is known as Company K, of the 12th Regi- ment of Massachusetts Volunteers, which was mustered into the service for three years, July 26, 1861. David Allen, Jr., was com- missioned captain ; Benjamin F. Cook, first lieutenant ; and Gilman Sanders, second lieutenant. The names of forty non-ecommissioned officers and privates, belonging in Gloucester, are borne on its roll. It was engaged in much hard fighting in Virginia, and was also engaged in the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg. Capt. Allen was wounded in the leg at Antietam, and soon afterward was pro- moted to be lieutenant-colonel, and was division-inspector on Gen. Robinson's staff, when he was fatally wounded in the battle of the Wilderness, May 5, 1864. He was carried to the rear by members of Company K, and died in half an hour. His remains were brought home in June of the next year, and buried, with impressive funeral obsequies, on the 13th of that month. Lieut. Cook rose through all the upward grades to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, in which he was commissioned on the day after Col. Allen fell, and is handsomely noticed in Col. Bates's narrative of the services of the regiment. Edwin Hazel, first sergeant of the company, became its captain, and brought, in July, 1864, to meet an enthusiastic welcome home. only seventeen men, who had been with him through the three years' service. Of the Gloucester men in the company. five were killed in battle, two died of wouuds, aud four died from other eanses.

The next company raised in Gloucester was that afterwards known as Company C, of the 23d Regiment. Andrew Elwell, of Gloucester, was major of this regiment, and rose to be its colonel. Company C was commanded by Addison Center, with Edward A. Story first lieutenant, and Fitz J. Babson second lieutenant. The last two were. while attached to the regiment, promoted to be captains in it. A few Gloucester men enlisted in other companies of the regiment. This regiment had been sometime in camp at Lynnfield, when it left, Nov. 11, 1861, to form a part of the Buruside Expedition to North Carolina. It took part in several engagements in North Carolina and

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Virginia, and was mustered out as a regiment, Sept. 28, 1864. Thirty members of Company C re-enlisted. Of the Gloucester men in this regiment, seven were killed in battle, two died of wounds received in battle, and one died in a rebel prison. Besides these, sixteen of Company C died in the service.

The third company of three years' men enlisted in Gloucester was the one which became Company D in the 32d Regiment. Its captain was James P. Draper, of Boston ; James A. Cunningham was first lientenant, and Stephen Rich, second lieutenant, both of Gloucester. Lieut. Rich was promoted captain, and Lieut. Cunningham rose through all the upward grades to be lieutenant-colonel, and colonel by brevet for special gallantry on the field of battle. Most of the Gloucester men in this company enlisted in November, 1861; but the regiment did not take the field till June, 1862, when it joined the Army of the Potomac. The part which it bore in the great work of that army is sufficiently attested by the order to the regiment to inscribe upon its flag the names of thirty battles. A large number of the men of this regiment re-enlisted, and, in January, 1864, were granted a furlongh to enable them to visit their homes. Forty of the Gloucester men, and sixteen of the 23d Regiment, who came home on a like furlough, had a grand reception and dinner on the 18th of that month, at the Gloucester House, where they were addressed in elo- quent words of welcome by B. H. Smith, Esq. The number enlisted in the 32d Regiment from Gloucester was ninety-two, five of whom were killed in battle, one died of wounds, and ten others died in the service.

The next and last company enlisted in Gloucester for three years' service, was that known as Company K, in the 30th Regiment. It was composed mostly of Gloucester and Rockport men, and had for its commander Jeremiah R. Cook, who had a good deal of military enthusiasm, and was long a captain in the volunteer militia. Though he had reached the ripe age of fifty-eight, his country's call for aetnal service on the battle-field found him ready for duty ; but he broke down in health under the influences of a Southern climate, and was obliged to resign and come home after eight months' service. Alfred F. Tremaine, the second lientenant, became captain of the company. The company joined the regiment to which it belonged, at Ship Island in the Gulf of Mexico, March 9, 1862, and proceeded with it to New Orleans, and Baton Rouge, reaching the latter place on the 2d of June. This regiment remained in the Department of the Gulf till January, 1864. In July, it went to Washington and took part in the closing campaign of the war. Though engaged in no important battle while in the South, it did much hard work, and death by disease made fear- ful havoe in its ranks. Of sixty-two Gloucester men in Company K, when the regiment left Massachusetts, twenty-four died from that cause. Two were killed in battle in Virginia, and one died of wounds.

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Standard history of Essex county, Massachusetts, embracing a history of the county from its first settlement to the present time, with a history and description of its towns and cities. The Most historic county of America., Part 47

Author: Tracy, Cyrus M. (Cyrus Mason), 1824-1891, et al. Edited by H. Wheatland Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Boston, C. F. Jewett Number of Pages: 450

Author: Tracy, Cyrus M. (Cyrus Mason), 1824-1891, et al. Edited by H. Wheatland
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Boston, C. F. Jewett
Number of Pages: 450