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 83
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These works, having so good a commencement, were made the subject of several applications to the General Court for privileges during the next few years. They seem to have been favorably con- sidered every time : in 1644 they, with their stock and workmen. were exempted from taxes for ten years, with land privileges for ten more. Later in the same year, the stock was opened to all buyers. more privileges were granted, and the workmen exempted from mili- tary duty. In 1645 more land was bought, this time of Thomas Dexter; and the privileges before granted were obtained in doen- mentary form, after the manner of a patent from the Court. In 1646 a better water-power was desired. The dam, which had been not far from the present one of Scott's Mill, was given np, and an agreement made with Dexter for a new one, pretty near or perhaps the same as the existing one of Pranker's Mill. More land was bought ; and Dex- ter agreed for the passage of the canal near his house : the compmy making bridges and fences as wanted, and keeping water enough in the natural channel for the passage of the alewives ; for Dexter meant to preserve his fishery, iron or no iron. This agreement gives color to the idea that his bridge and weir may have been above the works, rather than below, as has been supposed, or he may have had more than one. The pond was raised, flowing some of Adam Hawkes's meadow. The canal was dug, and may be seen to-day ; the upper end still holding water, but most of it a green furrow in the earth. This energetic course was not without expense, and the company again applied to the Conrt for help. It seems that money was the thing most wanted, and they decided not to sell save for cash. But the Court answered, that autumn, that they could promise no pay other than what the people had to give, which was not often silver ; and, as to getting iron, they could buy elsewhere for their "corne and pipe-staves." Probably this was the beginning of the end. The next year, 1647, Jenks thought best to work on his own account ; so, buying a right for a forge, he set up the making of seythes. A year later, Ang. 4, 1648, Winthrop wrote cheerfully about the works, but leaked out several suspicious things. The company had sent one Dawes from England, to oversee Leader and set things right ; but Winthrop and the rest upheld Leader, instead, and Dawes retired and went home. Again, he says they had begun to find what they " con- ceived" to be silver ; a poor statement for that juncture, too much like a sensation contrived to get popularity. They must have been ignorant or designing ; since silver is so easy of detection, and, besides, does not belong with that ore at all. They were now making eight tons per week, and their bars and shapes were thought as good as the Spanish.
In the same year, the authorities of Lynn, considering how impor- tant to them would be the taxes on all this manufactory, applied to the Court to know what were the " public taxes" from which they had been exempted. The Court responded that the privilege only covered levies of the Commonwealth, and not of the town or ebureh. Di-
reetly, it would seem, some effort was made to collect town rates about the premises ; but the fancied privilege for so long had made itself almost as good as the real would have been. The iron-people would naturally resist, dangerous as it was to do so; and at last, May 7, 1651, Richard Leader, whose ascendency had seriously de- clined, going home to England, let his tongue loose in mid-ocean (where he thought he surely might), and stated what he thought of the whole matter. This coming to the ear of Endicott, he had him brought back, arraigned before the Court, and fined £200 for con- tempt and slander of everybody here, from the Governor down to the Lynn constable. By and by they cooled down, and reduced the fine to £50, which they bonnd him in £100 more to pay, and to be of good behavior till next Court. What became of him afterward we know not. They had succeeded in wiping him out, and John Gifford became agent in his stead.
Mr. Gifford did not come with much of triumph. He was already deep in debt ; for which he was, afterward, nearly starved to death in prison. He is supposed to have come from the other or second forge, at Braintree, where he had not found it wholly plain sailing. Ilis first job here was to raise the dam, and flow six acres of Adam Hawkes's cornfield. This involved a new expense of £8 for damages, of which they seem to have paid enough already.
To give the iron-works a moment's rest, we turn to the infant shoe- trade, that was growing in its eradle, even to threatening to drive ont all else before it. So soon as 1651, we are told by Johnson, of Woburn, the shoemakers of Lynn had become a corporation, "and were enriching themselves very much." He further explains that a good understanding with the tanners helped this very much, so that together they kept up the price of shoes to almost double that in England. Yet they succeeded in exporting all their surplus. Lewis, however, denies that it was yet a principal business ; and says but few were in it, and they only sold in Boston. Little but calf- skin was wronght; for cloth was expensive, moroceo was not intro- duced, and the keeping and raising of goats had been almost given over. The industrial aspect of the place innst now have resembled that of an English town. They had corporations for the shoemakers
and coopers ; which latter were then an important class in Lynn. founded, no doubt, by Joseph Rednap, a London wine-cooper, who arrived in 1630, among the first settlers. He lived to a great age, dying in 1686. This fact explains the allusion of the Court to " pipe- staves," a little way back. They probably, with timber all round them, made large quantities of casks, which were taken down, packed, and exported as "shooks," or staves in bundles. We also notice, November. 1646, that the people had obtained a market, to be kept here " every third day of the week," which made them equivalent to an English town, or very near it. Edward Randolph was therefore very wrong, as well as spiteful, when, in 1688, he declared the town of Lynn to be " equal to a village in England & no otherwise."
Returning now to the great industry at "Hammersmith," as the vil- lage at the iron-works was called, we find John Gifford, the new agent, in 1652, again raising the dam. This time he flowed ten acres more for Adam Hawkes, and the cost began to get serions. The first agreement was sixteen loads of hay every year, and 200 cords of wood beside. They finally toned it down to a money value of £7 for all, and ten shillings annnal royalty afterward.
A pleasant episode occurs here, in the fact of the first dies for mint- ing having been made at these works. in this same year, by Joseph Jenks, for the government at Boston. The money coined is generally spoken of as " pine-tree shillings," but was really sixpences and three- pences as well. And though the execution was terribly poor, and we have several workmen in Lynn to-day who could do a hundred times better, yet it is pleasant to think that at that time no man could be found to do such work in all the Colony but the curious artificer of the Lynn Iron-Works.
Then fell the heavy hand of law on the once-promising enterprise. Thomas Savage and Henry Webb, of Boston, by the former, sued and attached the iron-works for debts due and owing to them both. This was in 1653, and in September of that year, he (Savage) recovered for himself £894 2s .. and for Webb £1,351 6s. 9d. It is not hard to guess the embarrassment that may have arisen under an execution for £2,245. The old controversy with the town was not over, either ; but the Court, in May, allowed £10 per annum to the town as long as the iron-works should be continued. Whether this was in recom- pense for the exemption before given we do not learn, but it looks much like hoping they would not last very much longer.
The genius of the spot was not idle, however. Within the next year, 1654, Jenks had agreed to build for the selectmen of Boston
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" an Ingine to earry water in Case of fire," and it is understood that he did it, rightly and well. There was not another in America, nor many in the world, we presume. But Jenks meant and did still more. The General Court had, June 10, 1646, granted him a patent for fourteen years' exelusive control of his improvements in mill-work, and though such a grant was rather an assumption of power by them, yet he liked it so as to try again. May 23, 1655, he obtained from them a patent for seven years. for an improved scythe " for the more speedy cutting of grass." This was just the tool we see used all round us ; for it at once displaced the old clumsy Dutch scythe, which was no better for grass-cutting than a butcher's knife, and only survives in the emblematie pictures of Death and Time.
But if he was fortunate, his old associates were not. The same year, 1655, Gifford, the agent, was arrested and imprisoned for the company's debts. This brought a petition from London to deliver him, signed by several stockholders. Its fate we do not know; but by 1660 Gifford had retired from the management, and we find his place occupied by Oliver Purchis, in some respects the greatest man yet intrusted with it. But lawsuits had grown customary, and Pur- chis was at once sued by Adam Hawkes for damage by the flowing of his land, just the old story of every mill-site. Yet it seems that Purchis kept the water as low as it could be worked with.
In 1667, Joseph Jenks, still contriving, proposed to set up the manufacture of wire, and petitioned the Court about it, but they had grown cautious and would not help him. Still he seemed to manage with fair success, but the company's men were not so fortunate. Poor Gifford, 1671, was sued by Samuel Bennet, carpenter and contractor, for labor done at the works, amounting to £400. Then others came down on the stricken enterprise, and finally a fellow was hired to go and eut down the dam in the night. The pond was full ; the works were nearly washed away and many lives imperilled, though none lost. The villain fled and escaped. Afterward, a reduced form of manu- facture went on there, but the suits continued for twenty years, depleting the enterprise and at last destroying it. It is suspected that the people about were afraid the furnaces would consume all the wood of the forests, and so stifled the business betimes, lest it should cause scarcity of fuel. Such prejudices are met with in later times. The works finally and gradually disappeared, ceasing wholly about 1688, when the entire property was taken by James Taylor, of Boston, and now the beautiful spot of their location only shows por- tions of the long canal, and an immense heap of slag and scoria, from which the boys pick bits of cast-iron, and tell their mates they came out of the " Cinder Banks."
By and by Jenks made another application to the Court. He would take the whole contract for coining the pine-tree money. But the Court, perhaps thinking there was risk enough about it already, again said no.
The ancient delusion about iron ore being on Nahant was ever and anon revived and rejected. The black ledge on the east side is nothing but massive horublende, with no appreciable amount of iron about it ; yet they must needs smelt some at Saugus, and in 1691 the town voted that Mr. Hubbard of the Braintree furnace might have some of it at three shillings a ton, but only what the town " sees convenient." IIe probably never pressed the thing far.
A rather important branch of industry here in those days was the making of lime. The product of the kilns of Rhode Island and Maine had not made its appearance then, and all the lime they had was made from shells. It was quite a business to gather the shells of " great clams " and the like, and burn them. The lime was good and all the old work was done with it. A great quantity was made in 1696.
By 1704, it was found, as it might have been before, that the clear- ing of Nahant had gone too far. There was now "no shade for the creatures," and further eutting was forbidden. But the forest was effectually destroyed and never grew again.
We note, about 1718, as a very interesting fact in husbandry, that the first potatoes ever known in the town were then introduced. Tra- dition points, not very exactly, but nearly enough, to one John Newhall as having the first of them, and when he had raised a couple of bushels knew not what to do with them. But there is a suspicion that Lynn was only so much behind the age, for they are certainly mentioned in the Colony Records in 1628. This even antedates the introduction into England by Hawkins, generally placed in 1653. They were very slow in coming into general use, partly, perhaps, from being most used by the Scotch-Irish.
An.establishment was started in the year 1723 that has proved im- portant for later times. This was the large grist-mill at what was
called the " Great Bridge," now East Saugus. The privilege was first granted to Benjamin Potter, Jacob Newhall, and William Curtis, Oct. 27, 1721, but they did not accomplish anything. A new grant was made, Oct. 8, 1722, to Thomas Cheever and Ebenezer Merriam, who soon built the mill. Merriam sold to Cheever in 1729, Cheever to Joseph Gould, in 1738, and he died, leaving the mill in bad con- dition, about 1774. Finally, George Makepeace bought and repaired the establishment, putting in machinery for making snuff, grinding spices, and making chocolate. The concern passed to Amariah Childs, June 6, 1812 ; again, to Charles Sweetser in 1844 ; and finally to Herbert B. Newhall, the present owner.
A word is pertinent here on the chocolate manufacture. It is said to have first begun at Milton Lower Mills, but it surely was in Lynn at a very early time. Either Thomas Newhall or his ancestor, or some lessee under them, had a small mill of this kind on Boston Street, at the mouth of Mower's or Beaver Brook, as early as 1782. The building was finally moved to Shepard Street, by Matthew Breed, and has only recently been demolished. Mr. Makepeace, and Childs after him, made great quantities at East Saugus, and at some time not far from 1830 Hezekiah Chase fitted up a section of his mill on Sum- mer Street, and manufactured very extensively for a long time. The business ceased not far from 1860, and seems to have departed from among us.
Ship-building, as a business, was not one that carly engaged the efforts of the men of Lynn, for they were neither sailors nor fisher- men. But, in 1726, a yard was opened at what has since been known as the "Town Landing," at Liberty Square. Zaccheus Collins, to whose journal Lewis acknowledges obligation, says that from this year to 1741 two brigs and sixteen schooners were built here; but, strangely enough, nobody gives the name of the proprietor, nor tells ns what the vessels were for.
About the same time the first attempt was made at another busi- ness, which has been tried several times since, but never yet success- fully. This was the making of linen. Flax had always been a favor- ite erop here, and the soaking of it had given name to the Flax Pond ; but now the making of cloth in a business way was undertaken. This year, 1726, Nathaniel Potter took a prize from the Salem Court of £13 15s., for three pieces of these goods made here.
Water communication with Boston became desirable, and in 1746, Capt. Hugh Alley began running a schooner thither. It ran for a long period. In this and other ways business seemed encouraged ; but not so the farmers. In 1749, every green thing was caten by the grasshoppers, or burned by drouth. Hay had to be imported. By 1753 wolves and foxes were so destructive that the whole population took to the woods to kill them, and the same year the Court ordered the barberry bushes extirpated, as they were held to blight the grain.
We must now resume consideration of the shoe manufacture, which had been advancing, though slowly, since the days of Philip Kertland. With the year 1750, arrived in Lynn a skilful shoemaker from Wales, named John Adam Dagyr. Only three manufacturers then had jour- neymen, John Mansfield, Benjamin Newhall, and William Gray. Mr. Dagyr settled and married at Lynn, and in a few years wrought a con- plete revolution in the business. He drew every one to him for instruction, and reduced their loose methods to such system that he was soon known as " the Celebrated Shoemaker of Essex." His wife was Susanna Newhall, and his dwelling near the foot of Mall Street, where he brought np three children. But, like most of those who are of real service to any place, he was ill-paid in life, neglected in age, and, though of the best habits and proverbially honest, he was suffered to go to the almhouse, where he died in 1808, after all the imperishable service he had rendered the town.
The shoe trade of Lynn was by this time an accomplished fact. The Boston "Gazette " praised the manufacture, and gave the town a leading reputation in this regard. The Boston " Palladium " stated the number of shoes made here in 1767 at 80,000 pairs.
On arriving at the year 1795, after the coming in of the new order of things, we find the people at Swampscott contemplating a branch of trade not before largely followed in Lynn. Farming seems to have grown out of favor, and these men decided to try the ocean fishery. The schooner " Dove," of twenty tons, was fitted out for this trade, by James Phillips and others ; but in two years she was wrecked and totally lost. Then they bought the "Lark" schooner, of sixteen tons. She went about two years, sprung a leak, and sunk at her moorings. Then they procured another, and so on, till in latter years the Swampscott fleet has been quite numerous, the catch of fish often very large, and more than one skipper and owner have laid up money from the proceeds.
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
Another important industry now appears. The making of morocco and kid upper leather was a new thing in the town ; but in 1800 one William Rose, an Englishman, set up a factory on the south side of the common, near the head of Blossom Street. Since theu the busi- ness has grown larger every year, though the tanning of sole leather has declined and finally disappeared. The last tanner of sole leather was Winthrop Newhall, who operated on Market Street, west side. just below State Street. There were six in 1820, but all stopped work before 1833.
Watching the appearance of the successive industries of the place, we note, in 1808, that two very diverse branches were begun that year, both which still remain, large capital being invested in them. One was the trapping of lobsters, really commenced at Swampscott, by Ebenezer Thorndike, with twelve pots. Eventually this trade mostly passed to Nahant, where it has been a staple business for a long time. The other was the manufacture of tobacco and cigars, in Sangus, at the village of Cliftondale. The first manufacturer was Samuel Copp; after him, the Sweetsers, Raddins, Howletts, and others. Nearly all have been successful.
A fresh effort was made in 1811 to establish the wire manufacture. The " Lyun Wire and Screw Manufacturing Company " was incorpo- rated, built a dam and factory on Saugus River, and for a time had good prospects ; but cheap importation presently undermined the enterprise, and it failed and disappeared.
Also it must be remarked that next year, in 1812, William Jack- son commenced the pottery business, in Cliftondale, Saugus. The clay was fine and the work good, but the industry did not long survive. Another attempt was made by John Raddin, about 1850, near "Bass Rock."
In 1814, a definite undertaking of the linen business was made. This, too, was in Saugus, by the "Lynn Linen Spinning Factory Company." They built a capacious mill and began making sail duck. But they soon fared in the same way as the wire company. Nathaniel Perry tried the same in 1816, at the same place or near it, intending to make fine goods; but he had no better success.
But the water-power of Sangus River was always tempting ; and. in 1829, Messrs. Brierly & Whitehead attempted the making of flannel, at a point just below the old dam of the iron-works. They seemed not to encounter the same competition, and notably succeeded. Indeed, wool-weaving could always be done in this country to profit. The business afterward passed to Edward Pranker, and Francis Scott started a second mill a little lower on the stream. All have well succeeded, and still go on.
A new tide-mill was built in 1831, by John Alley (father of Hon. John B. Alley), at the foot of Pleasant Street. The old mill, at the month of Strawberry Brook, originally undershot, had been moved down the stream, and run by the tide for many years.
The year 1832 witnessed the birth here of a new enterprise; to wit, the whaling business. A company was formed by Hezekiah Chase, Andrews Breed, and others, and the business set in order, from the wharves that they built at Foxhill Bridge. up to the offices at Chase's Mill. A ship-yard was opened between the two, at Need- han's Landing, where the old ferry had been. Great activity pre- vailed for a time. Lewis says they had tive ships, of which they built three ; Judge Newhall. correcting, says they built nothing larger than a schooner. Rightly stated, they had six ships, only a part of which ever di-charged here. and only five ever enme up Saugus River. They built only two vessels : a brig of some 180 tons, named the " Chase." after the owner, and a smaller schooner. called the " Berry," for his partner. But they brought many new people here, mostly from Sag Harbor, L. I. Such are among us yet : the Cones, Wooleys, Jag- gers, Hands, Harlows, and Schellingers, all owe their residence in Lynn to the old whaling enterprise. But whaling was a declining business, and there was powerful competition in many places. They did not manage well, their money slipped away, their business all failed, and the crash of 1837 beat them utterly to powder. Many relies of the old industry remain, but indicate little of what they once were.
The year 1836, with its wide-spread spirit of inflation, caused several efforts at new business to sprout forth in Lynn. Heury A. Breed, always a willing helper of enterprise, having secured the right of the old mills ou Water Hill, made improvements and built a large brick factory for silk and calico printing. It was a costly experiment, and soon met an ill fate. The business was subsequently revived, though feebly, and the whole establishment was burned. Aug. 9, 1846. The same kind of work had been done at the factories in Wyoma Village, and was afterward practised by a smaller concern -
that located on the brook at Strawberry Avenue. The enterprise at Water Hill really grew out of the " morus multicaulis" excitement, then widely raging. Acres of the mulberry were planted here.
Photography, as a remunerative art, has long been successful in this place. The first pictures ever taken in Lynn were by Judge James R. Newhali, the historian, then a printer. News and job printing began here Sept. 3, 1825, when Charles F. Lummus opened the office of the Lynn " Mirror." Beautiful work in both these callings has been, and still is, done here.
A prominent enterprise was entered on in 1842, when the mills on Oak Street were started, by Theophilus N. Breed. He had previously mnade shoe tools, on South Common Street, corner of Pleasant ; but, seeing good power in the issue of Pine Hill Swamp, he purchased and built, raising a pond of some fifty-three acres. Many branches were carried on here. The second iron foundry in Lynn was here, operated by John and George Knowles. A grist-mill ran awhile. the roasting and grinding of coffee was done, and especially the making of finished grindstones, since a profitable business, was here com- menced. Mr. Breed was not finally successful, and the property passed to other hands, lay idle very long, and seemed abandoned. In 1863 the estate was bought by Enoch T. Kent and Stephen R. Marvin, who fitted it up for the preparing of upholstery and felting hair. This trade, too, declined, after some time, and the premises were taken by parties who attempted the making of worsted goods. The spot was busy enough for a few years, but the same destiny was upon it always ; the proprietors failed, and the old mills were for- saken again. But, in 1870, Hon. Edwin Walden, then mayor, con- ceived the idea of utilizing the pond as a public water-source ; and this was put into execution within another year. Since then the whole has been city property, and no manufactures have been had there.
Agriculture, in the large way, had been steadily giving way before manufacturés for many years. At last a strong effort was made by the remaining farmers, and the annual exhibition of the Essex Agri- cultural Society was brought here in 1846. It seemed so successful that it was repeated in 1847, and, by the activity of some parties high in interest, was even brought a third time, in 1848. But it was presently seen that this was forced, and agriculture really had no such prosperity here as this would show. Since then it has gone down more and more, till hardly a farmer of any tolerable scope is found in Lynn.
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