USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Gloucester > The fisheries of Gloucester : from the first catch by the English in 1623, to the centennial year, 1876 > Part 5
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CHAPTER 6.
SHIPWRECKS AND FISHING LOSSES .- TABLE OF GLOUCESTER FISHING LOSSES FROM 1830 TO 1876.
It might almost be said that every projection of land or rock along the rugged promontory on which the city is seated, has its direful tale of death and disaster to relate, while not a few take their local designations from sad scenes of shipwreck of which they have been the unmoved witnesses. From Norman's Woe on the ex- treme South, towards whose rough reef many a " sheeted ghost " has swept since the disaster which tradition asserts gave it its name, and whence between the fitful gusts may still be heard
"the sound of the trampling surf On the rocks and the hard sea sand ;"
past Thacher's Island, where Anthony Thacher and his good-wife were so strangely reunited on a summer morning in 1635 ; to Gal- lop's Folly on the North ; all along the coast are barren islets and jagged rocks with each its separate tale of disaster to narratc.
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Sometimes unnoticed and unknown, often in sight of anxious watchers impotent to help, not unfrequently despite the bravest ef- forts for their succor, men have gone down into the jaws of death, while the dashing waves have sung their requiem. In 1796 the ship Industry of Boston was wrecked at Little Good Harbor Beach, and all her crew met a watery grave, with none but the all-seeing eye to witness their desperate struggles with the storm-king. In 1829 the ship Persia was wrecked on Eastern Point, and all her crew were lost, while the unconscious town slept, nor dreamed of the dark tragedy enacting so near at hand. In 1839 a score of men were lost in a terrible storm that swept across the harbor. And oft has the despairing mariner, clinging to his insecure foothold on stranded wreck, been snatched from the yawning gulf that waited to cover him, by the efforts of brave men willing to risk their lives for his succor.
FELTER FC
Of late years the improvements in marine architecture and equip- ment have rendered disasters less frequent, and the additional facil- ities for saving life, furnished mainly by the Massachusetts Humane Society, have- greatly lessened the perils of mariners exposed to the dangers of a lee shore. To-day coastwise navigation is compara- tively free from danger, if duly heeding the warning beacons of the Signal Service Corps, and it is to be hoped that our maritime ports
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may never again witness the wholesale destruction of life which they have so often seen in the years that are past.
And while the loss of stranger crews upon her shores has so often awakened sympathy and regret, Gloucester has constantly been call- ed upon to mourn her own sons who have gone down at sea. The ambition of her youth has not been circumscribed by the narrow confines of her fishing ventures or local commerce. Gloucester men have sailed all seas, and their bones have whitened beneath the wa- ters of both hemispheres. Many a sailor and officer and ship-master has graduated from her fishing craft from earlier to latest days, and many a home has been darkened by the loss of husband or father or brother upon some distant voyage. Whole families of sons, taking to the sea one after another, have perished thus. The dark days of the Revolution, brightened by the loyalty of Gloucester sailors and fishers, took on more sombre guise from the sad fate of many of the number. Sixty wives were made widows and scores of children fath- erless, by the loss of the privateer ship Gloucester in 1777. The Cumberland carried down many of " the flower of the town" in 1778, and a large number were lost in the Tempest in 1782.
The history of the Gloucester fisheries has been written in tears. No other industry by sea or land, sustains such a drain upon its re- sources and employes. Other calling's may shorten life, but none show such constant and wholesale destruction. The men who go out upon the Banks take their lives in their hands as surely as he who goes into battle ; nay, the proportion of fatal casualties upon the battle-field is much smaller than in this perilous calling. The growing importance of the business has not been accompanied by greater exemption from disaster and death. In the last 46 years the aggregate fishing losses of Gloucester have amounted to 333 ves- sels, of a value of $1,361,300, and 1590 lives, or an average annual loss of 7 vessels, valued at $27,420, and 35 lives. For the past five years the average annual loss has been 18 vessels, $81,860, and 114 lives. And these figures, so far as loss of property is concern- ed, represent only the total losses of Gloucester vessels, and would be largely augmented if we added the losses of cables and anchors and spars, the damages by collision and stranding, and other disas- ters resulting only in a partial loss.
Think of a business in which, outside of ordinary depreciation of wear and tear; and added to all other expenses and out-goes, one- fiftieth of its capital and three per cent. of its employes are swept away annually by disaster. In May, 1875, sixty persons lost their
72
lives by the burning of a church in South Holyoke, Mass. A month later the floods in the valley of the Garonne, in France, swept away fifteen million dollars of property and many lives. In 1874 twenty- three lives were lost in a burning mill at Fall River, Mass. The Revere Railroad disaster in 1871 resulted in the loss of twenty-nine lives, and the bruising and scalding of many others. The Mill River (Mass.) flood of 1874 swept away one hundred and forty lives and much valuable property. The history of these and many other dis- asters of like character has been scattered broadcast by the fleet- winged press, and awakened the sympathies of the world. But con- sidering the extent of country and valuation drawn from, these loss- es dwindle to modest dimensions compared with the fishing losses of Gloucester. In a single year (1873) thirty-one of her vessels sailed to return no more, and 174 of her fishermen were laid in an ocean grave. In a single storm, " The Lord's Day Gale " of August 24 of that year, nine Gloucester vessels went down before the dreadful blast, and 128 Gloucester mariners met their doom.
On the next page will be found a table showing the loss of life and property annually in the Gloucester Fisheries since 1830.
B-S
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TABLE OF LOSSES.
YEAR.
MEN.
VESSELS.
VALUATION.
INSURANCE.
1830
7
3
$5,600
$3,100
1832
1
1,000
1833
1
1,000
1834
4
1
1,500
1836
1
1,000
1837
24
5
10,100
5,300
1838
4
4
7,100
3,000
1839
4
2
3,800
3,150
1840
6
2
3,800
1,400
1841
8
2
2,725
150
1842
3
2,000
150
1843
10
3
6,000
2,000
1844
7
3
4,800
1,500
1845
7
4
4,500
2,350
1846
15
3
4,900
3,600
1847
3
6,200
4,450
1849
10
2
3,500
2,200
1850
40
12
15,500
12,900
1851
32
9
17,300
14,800
1852
32
13
41,800
36,700
1853
3
10,000
8,800
1854
26
4
14,600
12,650
1855
21
7
20,900
16,100
1856
2
6
14,400
11,475
1857
9
5
11,500
7,750
1858
42
7
18,700
8,537
1859
36
6
21,900
16,475
1860
73
26,350
20,494
1861
44
15
54,250
43,880
1862
162
19
66,500
53,225
1863
6
9
38,000
8,300
1864
85
13
79,900
50,525
1865
11
8
40,300
32,400
1866
26
15
114,250
82,095
1867
66
11
82,675
59,069
1868
40
4
35,000
28,150
1869
66
16
83,450
54,137
1870
97
13
75,200
59,907
1871
140
19
89,000
77,259
1872
63
12
55,400
49,121
1873
174
31
118,700
100,918
1874
68
10
49,100
44,975
1875
123
16
97,100
81,726
Total,
1590
333
$1,361,300
$1,024,718
CHAPTER 7.
COMMERCE OF GLOUCESTER.
While Gloucester at the present time is undoubtedly the largest seat of the fisheries in the world, it has not always occupied that leading position in the United States. Marblehead was for many years her competitor and greatly her superior. Fifty or sixty years ago the fisheries was not the leading pursuit of Gloucester. No doubt, years before, the fisheries exceeded the foreign commerce in importance, but from 1783 to 1845 the fishing business had declined from its former importance, and the Bank fishery, once so important, had almost faded out of existence, so much so that some years less than half a dozen vessels were engaged in this fishery.
But until 1860 Gloucester was largely engaged in foreign com- merce. It had two or three large mercantile houses, and ships, barques, brigs and schooners running to the East Indies, South America, Europe, Dutch Guinea and the West Indies. The harbor of Gloucester has seen the arrivals from every part of the globe, and its wharves and storehouses have held the products of every clime upon the earth. But its commercial interests aside from the West Indies (a trade in which for many years it had a large share) was from 1810 to 1860, a period of fifty years, mainly directed to Paramaribo or Surinam in Dutch Guinea. In various portions of this period it had nearly the whole American trade to that port. Its importations of sugar, molasses and cocoa were some years near- ly four hundred thousand dollars, and its exports two hundred thous- and. About 1860 this trade was transferred to Boston, and since that period the foreign commerce of Gloucester has declined.
But two or three new branches of commerce arose to take the place of this Surinam business. Among these are the Nova Scotia,
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Newfoundland and Salt trades. The latter business has attained great proportions, and this ancient port shows more than ever the presence of great ships and barques, sometime's as many as six be- ing in port at one time. Besides this important business Glouces- ter carries on quite a large business with the British Provinces, and its importation of codfish, herring, wood and lumber are very impor- tant. These branches of business are likely to increase in the fu- ture, (especially the salt trade), and this ancient seaport may yet show a greater amount of foreign shipping at its wharves than it did in ancient times.
It will be seen from these statements that not only as a fishing port has Gloucester been celebrated, but as a seat of foreign com- merce it has occupied a very respectable position. But Boston grad- ually attracted the business of all the lesser ports such as Salem, Newburyport and Gloucester, and now it looks almost as if the trade of Boston itself was to be swallowed up by New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, who govern exports to Boston.
The total value of the imports into the District of Gloucester for 1875 was $107,610, as follows: salt, $65,531 ; codfish, $23,100 ; fresh herring, $6,833 ; salt do., $1300 ; firewood, $6575 ; potatoes, $2008 ; cigars, $746 ; coal, $620 : fish oil, $350 : eggs, $169 ; other fish, $174 ; miscellaneous, $204.
At an earlier period of the fisheries, the vessels fitted for the Banks, then took their fares to Spain, bringing return cargoes of salt, &c. Since that time there were no direct importations of any note until the receipt of a ship load June 1, 1861, followed by anoth- er ship load June 5th of the same year, both from Liverpool, Eng. These cargoes amounted to 8507 hogsheads, of an invoiced value of $4905. In 1870, 20,136 2-3 hhds. of Liverpool salt, valued at $8673, and 24,879 1-2 hhds. of Cadiz salt, valued at $13,910, were import- ed in seven brigs and ten barks. In 1875 the importations were 74,- 032 hhds. from Cadiz, 20,480 hhds. from Liverpool, 10,966 hhds. from Trapani, and 3,008 hhds. from Turk's Island. Total importa- tions, 108,486 hhds. in 2 ships, 12 barks, 12 brigs, and 16 three- masted schooners. Of these 42 vessels, 34 were under the American, 5 under the English, and 3 under the Austrian flag. The amount of salt used in the curing of fish was 106,245 lıhds.
CHAPTER 8.
THE GRANITE INDUSTRY OF CAPE ANN.
While the fisheries furnish an exhaustless field for enterprise, Cape Ann has yet another branch of productive industry in which the most active operations make but small apparent dimunition of the supply. Her hills and fields are marked by the outcroppings of the huge ledges which underlie them, mines of wealth as truly as those of Ophir, whose products have been freely yielded for the construction and or- namentation of the temples of the nineteenth century. Her rocks are granite, of a beautiful, dark color, easily wrought into any desi- rable shape, and susceptible of a high polish.
From the earliest times the rocks of the Cape were made to serve the necessities of the inhabitants, in the construction of their build- ings and fences, but their merchantable value was a thing of slow growth. The rapid growth of the fishing business in the last century, and the lack of harbor accommodations on the North side of the Cape, opened a new use for this abundant material, in the mooring of the diminutive craft of those days off shore. Flat blocks of gran- ite, about six feet square, and from ten to fifteen inches in thickness, were prepared by cutting a hole fifteen inches in diameter in the cen- tre, into which an oak butt, having the roots attached, was inserted. The stone and spar were then dropped at a proper distance from the shore, and used for the securing of fishing craft, affording a safe mooring except in heavy easterly gales, when it was found necessary
77
to secure greater protection by seeking a harbor elsewhere. It was not until 1824, however, that the business of working stone for shipment reached any considerable importance. In that year a Mr. Bates of Quincy came to Sandy Bay and leased a ledge, inaug- urating an industry that soon had a rapid growth, and became the second business in importance on the Cape. Not long after quarries were opened at Annisquam, where an extensive business was carried on for many years, furnishing stone for the fortifications erected in Boston harbor, and for wharf and building purposes. These quar- ries were long since abandoned, and the business is not followed to any considerable extent at this point.
The flourishing granite industry at Pigeon Cove, now embraced within the lines of Rockport, had its origin in 1827, when Messrs. Ezra Eames and Beniah Colburn opened a quarry there, by the sea- side, and soon found a ready market for their products for building and cemetery purposes. Their first year's business is said to have resulted in a net loss of fifteen dollars, but the government became their patron, and a profitable industry was soon developed. Their first quarry was abandoned when it reached the level of the sea, but new ledges were opened, and changes made in the firm from time to time, until it developed into a wealthy corporation, under the name of the Rockport Granite Company, who now own a valuable proper- ty and conduct an extensive business. The Pigeon Hill Granite Company also have an extensive trade, and was the first in Rock- port to build a railroad from the quarry to its wharves to facilitate the transportation of rough stone for dressing and shipment.
The extensive granite industry at Bay View is the outgrowth of a modest beginning in 1848, when a quarry was opened to supply the stone for building a bridge across Hodgkins Cove. The first stone shipped from this point was in 1849, but no considerable business was done in this line until 1853, when Mr. Beniah Colburn and Mr. William Torrey purchased the quarries and commenced active oper- ations, which were continued, under various firms, for a dozen years. These quarries were not worked to any extent from 1865 until 1869, when, on the suggestion of General Butler, who had erected a sum- mer seat in the immediate vicinity, that it was too valuable. a prop- erty to lie idle, it was purchased by Col. Jonas H. French and oth- ers, and a corporation organized, with a working capital of about $125,000, to conduct the business, under the name of Cape Ann Granite Company. Since the latter date an extensive business has been carried on, large additions having been made to the landed
78
possessions of the corporation, and great improvements made in the property. A railroad has been constructed, on which a locomotive and eighteen platform cars are employed in the transportation of stone from the quarries to the wharves, a distance of a mile and a quarter ; the wharves have been extended and the harbor protected, and the population and property of the village more than doubled. The securing of the contract to furnish stone for the new Boston Post Office gave an impetus to this company which at once placed it in the front rank in the granite industry of the old Bay State. The largest granite blocks ever quarried in this country were furnished by this company, for the Scott Monument at Washington, D. C., one of the blocks, for the foundation, being twenty-eight feet two inches long, by eighteen feet eight inches wide, and three feet two and three-eighths high, weighing nearly one hundred and fifty-one tous. The company employ two hundred and seventy-five men, and use four steam engines for hoisting and drilling purposes.
The stone business at Lanesville antedates the operations at Bay View, and is still carried on on an extensive scale. The changes in the management of this business at this village have been numerous within the past quarter of a century. There are now three firms en- gaged in it, the Lanesville Granite Company, the Bay State Granite Company, and Messrs. George Barker & Co., the latter being a branch of a firm also doing business at Quincy. These companies represent a capital of about $110,000.
The only other part of the Cape where the business is carried on to any considerable extent is at West Gloucester, where the quarry- ing of stone was commenced by the Gloucester Granite Company, a corporation with a handsome capital, which was exhausted in the heavy outlays required in the construction of a wharf, railway and buildings, and in working the surface drift and developing the value of the quarry. This property has since passed into the hands of other parties, who are building up a successful and profitable trade.
The granite business combines with the fisheries in attracting set- tlers from abroad, the number of native-born citizens engaged in either being but a small per cent. of the whole number employed. The two branches of industry however serve to attract totally differ- ent classes of residents, the fishing business drawing its workmen principally from Maine, the British Provinces and the Western Isl- ands, while the granite industry brings its quarrymen from "the Gem of the Sea," its teamsters from the Granite State, and its. skilled hammerers from the heather hills of Scotland.
CHAPTER 9.
SUMMER ATTRACTIONS OF CAPE ANN.
Of the sea-side places of summer sojournings and recreation on our Atlantic coast, from Eastport to Cape May, including Mt. Des- ert, Old Orchard Beach, Hampton Beach, Newport, Long Branch, and Atlantic City, none equal in all particulars united, the promon- tory on which are located the city and parishes of Gloucester, and the villages of Rockport and Pigeon Cove.
As to altitude Mt. Desert is pre-eminent ; but the general eleva- tion of Cape Ann, presented in hundreds of hills, ledges, bluffs, and precipices, and in huge castellated and rounded rocks, is sufficient for broad and various views. Besides, from the top of Thompson's Mountain, in the West Parish of Gloucester, may be seen, on any fair day, Bunker Hill Monument, and the domes of Wachusett, Mon- adnock, Gunstock and Agamenticus. From Meeting-house Hill, in the same parish, Butler's Hill at Annisquam, Pigeon Hill, Pool's Hill and Great Hill, at Pigeon Cove and Rockport, and Lookout Hill and Governor's Hill at Gloucester Harbor, the vision takes in more or less of Massachusetts Bay, on the south side of the Cape ; and on
80
the north side, Ipswich Bay and the line of coast, backed by the nearer hills and towns of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, ex- tending from Essex, Ipswich and Newburyport, far northeastward to the hills below Agamenticus and the ancient town of York, in Maine. It will be observed, of course, that within this compass of the eye, something more than a score of miles from the northern shore of the Cape, lie the Isles of Shoals.
As to stretch of sand, Old Orchard Beach is a marvel, but Little Good Harbor Beach and Long Beach, on the south side of the Cape, near the boundary between Gloucester and Rockport, and Coffin's Beach on the Ipswich Bay border of the West Parish of Gloucester, are more than satisfactory, as hard, smooth floors for the wheels of carriages or the feet of pedestrians ; or for the accommodation of picnics and bathing parties ; especially since they are placed in con- trast with granite boulders and ledges, and with pastures of sweet herbage, bayberry and wild-rose bushes, close by them, and with rugged hills but a little farther off.
As an area for sea-side rest and pleasure and for country shade and enjoyment, at the same time, Cape Ann is incomparable. Here, the tourists, the summer cottages, and the visitors occupying the ho- tels, are delighted with the remarkable blending of the marine with the rural. If they would sail, there are harbors all around the in- dented shore, from any one of which they may go forth upon the sea within sight of pleasant cities and villages, picturesque heights and intervening vales, with wood and orchard and field. From the har- bor of Gloucester city, Fresh Water Cove, or Magnolia, the trip may be to Salem, Baker's Island, Manchester, Lowell Island, Marblehead, or, by rounding Eastern Point, to Thacher's Island. From Rock- port, Pigeon Cove, Folly Cove, Lanesville, Bay View or Annisquam, it may be to Chebacco River, Ipswich River, Plum Island, Newbury- port, Boar's Head, Portsmouth, the Isles of Shoals, or, by doubling the southern horn of the Cape and Straitsmouth Island, to Glouces- ter Harbor ; or, by the way of 'Squam River and the Cut, to Glou- cester Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. If they would ride, from whatever starting place, the most popular route is the " road 'round the Cape." On almost every rod of this highway of fifteen miles, the waves of ocean, bay, or inlet, are within sight.
Branching from this principal road are other roads extending to or passing through villages or sequestered neighborhoods near the sea, or near the coves here and there. The ride may be varied from day to day by turning into these by-ways, and so driving to Bass Rocks,
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Pavilion Hotel,
GLOUCESTER, MASS.
Delightfully situated in the centre of Pavilion Beach where a full view of Gloucester Harbor is obtained, forming one of the coolest retreats upon the coast. Every facility for boating, fishing, riding, bathing, etc. Charming scenery on every hand. Good Liv- ery stable in the vicinity, and every attention paid to the comfort of guests. For terms, etc., address,
G. S. SEAVEY, Proprietor.
MAYO & DAVIS,
Patentees and Manu- facturers of
ROWLOCKS.
Send for Prices & Discounts.
Fishing Establishments in Gloucester.
The Centennial Year, 1876, finds thirty-eight fishing firms and es- tablishments in Gloucester Harbor, owning and fitting out 361 ves- sels, as follows :
D. C. & H. Babson,
12 Wm. Parsons, 2d, & Co., 13
Clark & Somes,
11 Perkins Bros., 10
George Dennis & Co.,
6 Pettingell & Cunningham, 5
Cunningham & Thompson,
9 John Pew & Son,
20
Dennis & Ayer,
15 Procter, Trask & Co.,
4
Joseph Friend,
7 Joseph O. Procter,
13
Sidney Friend & Bro.,
14 Rowe & Jordan, 12
George Garland,
7 Sayward Bros.,
5
Benj. Haskell & Sons,
3 Daniel Sayward,
5
Samuel Haskell,
5 Shute & Merchant,
13
Harvey Knowlton, Jr.,
3 Smith & Oakes,
7
Samuel Lane & Bro.,
8 Smith & Gott,
17
Leighton & Co.,
20 ! James A. Stetson, 2
David Low & Co.,
13 George Steele,
11
Maddocks & Co.,
io James G. Tarr & Bro.,
16
James Mansfield & Sons,
10 Walen & Allen,
14
Mckenzie. Hardy & Co.,
7 Leonard Walen,
4
George Norwood & Son,
8 John F. Wonson & Co.,
12
Charles Parkhurst,
5 William C. Wonson,
DA
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Eastern Point, Little Good Harbor Beach, Fresh Water Cove, Mag- nolia, Meeting-house Hill, Coffin's Beach, Wheeler's Point, Annis- quam,-all within the bounds of Gloucester ; or to Andrews' Point, the northern horn of the Cape, near Pigeon Cove ; or to Pebble Stone Beach and Long Beach, on the Massachusetts Bay side of the town of Rockport.
Encircled by the great road already described, is an extensive do- main, partly of forest, traversed in every direction by uneven and winding foot-paths ; and partly of pasture, with hills and hollows destitute of trees, but strewn with boulders ; and with a few swamps, thickly covered with stunted maples and pines, with black alders, and with bushes and ferns. Many of the boulders all over the hundreds of acres of treeless undulations, are immense ; and they are both gray and black with patches and flecks of inoss.
Near the centre of this waste, are the cellars of an ancient settle- ment, now overgrown with grass and weeds, and overrun by grazing cattle and horses. And from its many elevations may be seen the towers and steeples of the city of Gloucester, two or three strips of Massachusetts Bay, some of the roofs of Riverdale and Wheeler's Point, the village of Annisquam at the confluence of Lobster Cove and 'Squam River, the estuary uniting 'Squam River with Ipswich Bay, Flag-staff Ridge, overlooking the River and the Bay, and sep- arating Annisquam from the Bay, Coflin's Beach, directly across the estuary from Annisquam, and the white sand-hills near, and, farther away, the knob called the Loaf, at the Chebacco River termination of the curving beaclı.
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