USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Duxbury > The story of Duxbury, 1637-1937 > Part 5
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Adjoining Ezra Weston's yard were establish- ments owned by Levi Sampson and Luther Turner, both of whom built small vessels for Boston owners.
During this bustling period, it was customary for ships to have elaborately carved decorations on their sterns, and wooden figureheads at their bows. The figurehead tradition is thought to have come down from the Norsemen, who believed that an imposing figure on the bow of a vessel would charm the evil gods of the sea into desisting from any sinister de- signs they might have had on ships or crew.
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Of the Duxbury craftsmen who made these carv- ings, one of the best known was Nathaniel Winsor. He was also a maker of the heavy wooden blocks through which ship cordage sang.
Opposite the spot now occupied by the Duxbury Coal and Lumber plant, Seth Sprague operated a yard. The building now known as Sprague Hall was his head house. Whenever a ship was to be launched here, it was necessary to build the ways across the highway to the water, completely block- ing the road to traffic.
These wrong-side-of-the-road yards were not un- common. Yet none in Duxbury was to be compared, for sheer inaccessibility, to the hillside shipyard of Luther Rogers, a mile inland in Marshfield Hills. It required a hundred yoke of oxen to haul Rogers- built ships to water.
North of Samuel Hall's yard, Nathaniel and Joshua Cushing built ships, among them the bark, Maid of Orleans.
Deacon George Loring operated an anchor forge and shipyard on the southeast shore of the Mill Pond and launched here a number of merchant ships. For Charles Binney and his son, C. J. F. Bin- ney, Boston owners, Deacon Loring built such ships as the brig, Cynosure, the bark, Grafton, and the ship, Binney. It was the annoying habit of ships launched from this yard to plough into the marshy meadows on the opposite shore of the Bluefish River, from which they were extricated with con- siderable difficulty.
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Barkentine, "Benjamin Dickerman," built in the Levi Sampson Yard by Porter M. Keen and launched in 1875
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Another yard from which ships had to be launched across the highway was that operated early in the nineteenth century by Reuben, Charles and Syl- vanus Drew. Brigs, ships and barks for some twenty years slid across the road into the Bluefish River- such barks as Mary Chilton, Hersilia and Kensing- ton, and such ships as Boreas, Minerva, Aldebaran and Susan Drew.
In 1849, this yard was taken over by enterprising William Paulding who occupied it for eighteen years. He launched eleven barks, eleven market fishermen and nine schooners. They were built for various owners and sailed to widely separated ports of the world. Among the barks were Appleton, Bay State, Jenney Fletcher, E. H. Yarnington and J. H. Devoll. For many years following the Civil War, fishermen on the Banks were familiar with such Paulding-built schooners as Daniel Boone, Wil- lie Lincoln, Gypsy Queen and Village Belle.
When Mr. Paulding decided to close out his busi- ness in 1867, he named his vessel, a schooner, Mary Amanda, for his granddaughter, Mary Amanda Bates, who now lives on Cove Street.
In 1856, N. Porter Keen, a former employee of Mr. Paulding, began business for himself in the re-opened yard of Levi Sampson below the bridge on Bluefish River. Here he built the barkentine, Benjamin Dickerman, which continued in service until almost the turn of the century, and a whaler, Mary D. Leach. These were the days when nearly two hundred whaling ships out of New Bedford
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were painting one of the most colorful pages in American maritime history.
In 1869, Keen launched the Samuel G. Reed, the last full-rigged Duxbury-built ship. The steam- driven freighter was rapidly destroying the market for these magnificent old "wind-jammers."
Keen's largest vessel, built in response to the increasing demand for bigger ships, was one of his two Duxbury-built schooners, Henry J. Lippett, the largest that had been launched in Duxbury. Be- cause of her conduct at the time of her launching, she was derisively dubbed "Keen's Elephant" and was accused of "tryin' to git back ashore where she belongs." When her six hundred fifty ton bulk slid down the ways, she drove her bow so deep into the marshy ground on the opposite side of the river that the traces of her "tryin' to git back ashore" and of the excavating necessary to free her are still visible.
His experience with the schooner speeded Keen's decision to find larger quarters for building larger vessels. In the following year, 1875, he moved to Weymouth and there continued his work for some twenty years.
The Paulding yard was taken over in 1870 by John and Amos Merritt and Warren Standish, who built the last ship constructed on that site. The following year they moved to the site of Samuel Hall's yard and built there two schooners, Annie S. Conant, long a familiar sight along the south shore and in Boston harbor, and the Addie R. Warner.
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E. C. Turner, Photographer
The Doorway of Gordon Tweed's house. Built by Nathaniel Winsor in 1807 and later occupied by Captain Erastus Sampson.
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The Warner was lost with all hands during a trip in the fruit trade.
In 1875, the Merritt brothers opened a yard south of that which they had shared with Standish, and there built the Thomas A. Goddard, a bark of seven hundred fifteen tons, one hundred fifty-four feet in length, the last merchant vessel to be launched in Duxbury.
Such ships as those produced in Duxbury ship- yards were sailed throughout the world by Duxbury captains. As often as not, ships and cargoes were uninsured. Many of the captains, in addition to being expert seamen, were astute businessmen. Such a man was Captain David Cushman, Jr., re- puted to have been the highest salaried shipmaster out of Boston, home port of his employer, Augustus Hemenway.
Men of the Cushman stamp left port with cargo, with one destination specified. Where they took their ships and their cargoes from that first port, how long they would be gone, what business they would transact-these were matters frequently left to their own sound judgment. Such was the mutual trust between owner and captain.
Though many of these "sea-going businessmen" were gray-haired veterans of many years of service, others were barely out of their 'teens. At an age when most youths of today are more concerned with frivolities than with responsibilities, these cap- tains were navigating ships to Europe, China, Japan, South America and the African coast and
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carrying to successful conclusion business transac- tions with the shrewdest traders in the world's ports.
At a time of life when most men of today are merely beginning their professional careers, these youthful executives were able, if they chose, to retire in financial security.
During the maritime era, whole families of Dux- bury men went to sea. Among them were the Dawes brothers-Allen, Josephus, and James-of Island Creek. They were widely known as men who liked to crowd on canvas and who insisted upon having crews that relished that dangerous practice.
Born in 1812, Captain Allen took ships on numer- ous fast trips between American ports and the West Indies, in the fruit trade. In that trade, speed was essential; for two or more vessels sometimes left a port at the same time for the same destination. The first to arrive would have the cream of the market. Captain Allen exacted speed from the brig Gustavus on her maiden voyage from New York to Cork, carrying grain to famine-stricken Ireland.
Upon his death, Captain Allen's command was passed along to his brother, Captain Josephus. Many owners were more than mere cold-blooded traders.
James, the third captain-brother, was admired and loved for his numerous rescues at sea, feats which were made possible only by a combination of rare courage and extraordinary seamanship.
As captain of the little brig, Belize, he was suc- cessful in rescuing some twenty people from the
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foundering ship, Mameluke, off New York. So great had been the hardships of those rescued that Cap- tain Dawes disembarked them at New York instead of continuing directly on to Boston. Furnished with a legal loophole, the hard-bitten Boston merchant who had chartered the Dawes ship insisted with complete accuracy that Captain James Dawes had "deviated from his course"; and he refused to pay. This wiped out the captain's finances temporarily. But it did not prevent him from "deviating from his course" to make rescues in numerous later instances.
In 1861, Captain James added to the Dawes tradition of speed by driving his ship from San Francisco to Yokohama in the unprecedented time of thirty-five days.
The brothers Burditt were other well known cap- tains. Captain Alfred Burditt set sail for the fishing banks one day in 1859, in the smart brig, Bird of the Wave. He never came back. The record of his ship closed with "Lost with all hands."
Captain Andrew Burditt, going right ahead with his profession, amazed shipping men by taking a ship loaded with 160,000 feet of lumber out of Wilmington, North Carolina, and "rollin' down to Rio" de Janeiro in forty-five days. This was the same Captain Burditt whose bark, Neapolitan, en route with a fruit cargo from the Mediterranean to Boston, was seized and burned off Gibraltar by the Confederate cruiser, Sumter, in 1862.
Captains Charles F. Winsor, John Weston, Otis Baker, Otis Baker, Jr., John C. Dawes, Erastus
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Sampson, Freeman Soule, John Bradford, Edwin Powers and his son, Charles, who commanded light- ships at Vineyard Sound, Great Round Shoal and Succonosset Shoal, John Weston and Elbridge G. Winsor were but a few of the Duxbury captains who helped to establish the Duxbury tradition of seamanship.
Among the last of his colorful kind is Captain Parker Hall, known up and down the New England coast as "the lone mariner." Sometimes, when un- able to find suitable help, he sails his schooner from port to port alone.
Before 1870, the demand for speed and size to match the steamships had brought the clipper ships. These were much too large to be built in the little yards of Duxbury.
Gold had been discovered on the west coast of the United States. The eyes of America had turned quickly from the east and from the sea to the western frontier. The Scituate-built ship, Columbia, in addition to having been the first American ship to sail around the world, had nosed her way into a great river on the west coast. Captain Gray had named the river "Columbia" in honor of his ship, and had brought back the news that caused Cap- tains Lewis and Clark to be sent out to investigate the accuracy of the mariner's report. So a neighbor of Duxbury had contributed toward changing the commercial life not only of Duxbury, but of the en- tire nation.
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The clippers fled around the Horn and up the California coast in the race for the new trade that followed the discovery of gold. The outreaching railroads increased the demand for speed and more speed.
The nation became convinced that the fortunes of the future lay not across the seas, but in the west. America ceased to be a maritime nation, and turned her tremendous energy toward the development of her new frontier and the upbuilding of trade in this virgin territory.
The demand for sturdy little sailing ships ceased. Some of the Duxbury ship-builders moved up to Weymouth and to Boston and continued in their trade, generation after generation. Others laid aside their tools.
Some of the Duxbury captains took their ships out of larger ports. Others preferred to retire to residences as solidly built as the ships which they had commanded, residences constructed by the same carpenters who built ships.
The shipyards, however, lay idle and neglected. The traveler who passed along the highway from which more than a dozen ships once could be seen under construction, could now only draw upon his memory for the re-creation of those days when Duxbury was one of the world's busy ports, when Duxbury ships and Duxbury men were carrying her good names to the far corners of the earth.
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Fisheries
In 1837, some fifty fishing vessels out of Dux- bury were making regular trips to the Georges and the Grand Banks. Cod and mackerel comprised the major portion of their catch. For more than thirty years thereafter, Duxbury fishing produced an av- erage annual business ranging from $60,000 to $80,000.
Along the Duxbury waterfront, provision was made for every phase of the fishing industry-cur- ing, packing, storing and shipping.
On the ground now occupied by the homes of William Winsor and Spencer Winsor were flakes- long rows of drying-racks-where the fish were cured for packing.
Much of the salt used in the packing was obtained by the evaporation of sea water in great kettles beneath which fires were kept burning. Because of the expense of the fuel required for this purpose, most of the work was done in the summer months when the rays of the sun could be utilized. Old records indicate that approximately one pound of salt was obtained from each five gallons of sea water evaporated.
There were salt works at the Drew shipyard at Powder Point, at the Sampson yard in the Nook, and on the land where the Sheldon orchard now flourishes. Because of the slowness and the expense of this evaporating process, no attempt was made to
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Samuel Frazar. Samuel Hunt. Duxbury fishermen.
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produce salt for the commercial market; only enough was made to fill the needs of the fish- packers.
Instead of producing their own salt, the Westons preferred to import from Cadiz, Turks Island and St. Ives the supply necessary for packing the fish caught by vessels of their fleet.
Mackerel was packed in barrels; the salt cod in neat boxes. There was a ready market in south- ern ports, the West Indies and certain ports of Europe.
While awaiting shipment, the packed fish was stored in warehouses near the flakes. Nathaniel Winsor and Joshua Winsor, and the Westons owned large warehouses at their own wharves, while smaller buildings were scattered along the water- front.
The value which European epicures set upon Duxbury salt cod is indicated by an incident related in Duxbury Sketches, by Jerusha Faunce Hatha- way.
In a shipload of salt cod sent to England, Captain Joshua Winsor included a box for each of his two daughters. With the money obtained from the sale of the two boxes, one daughter purchased her silk wedding gown, while the other bought a ring which is still in the possession of the family.
During the entire period from the early settle- ment of Duxbury to the close of the ship-building era, individual owners operated single fishing ves- sels out of Duxbury harbor. Fleets were operated
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by larger owners such as the Westons and the Samp- sons.
Deep sea fishing, as Duxbury knew it, gradually gave way to the more modern methods. Seiners re- placed the hand lines. Trawlers gathered in a single hour more than the old-time schooners could haul over the side in several days. Mass production in the fishing industry changed the nature of the business; and as rapidly as the steam-driven fishing vessels came in, the colorful fishing schooners disappeared.
Though schooners still are used in fishing in some few ports, the last fisherman to use Duxbury as a home port sailed out of the harbor more than fifty years ago.
Shoe Shops
Many of the men who went to sea during the summer months, spent the winter making boots and shoes in neat little shops. Scores of small one-room buildings, some of them no more than eight by ten feet in area, dotted the county.
Usually, these shops were located in the door- yards beside the homes of their proprietors. They were solidly built, neatly finished with shingled roofs and clapboards, and painted to match the houses beside which they stood. Frequently, they were bordered by neat flower gardens and garnished by climbing vines.
There were numbers of these tiny shops in Dux- bury; Tinkertown, in particular, was a center of shoemaking.
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In 1837, Duxbury shops produced more than forty-two thousand pairs of shoes and one thousand pairs of boots, the combined value of which was nearly $56,000. The shoemakers made their prod- uct not only for individuals and stores in towns in the vicinity, but for export. There was a good market for them in southern ports, where much New England trade was carried on, and, to a lesser extent, in England and Europe.
Every phase of the work was, of course, done by hand and by one man. Much of the output was "made-to-measure business." Individuals were ac- customed to having boots and shoes made to suit their personal preferences, much as tailor-made clothing is ordered today. One result was that, in much the same manner in which the family of today employs a family physician, the family of the ship- building era had its favorite shoemaker.
Gradually, however, as standardization advanced, the individual order became less common. Bulk orders for wholesale or retail stores became routine matters. And by the time that the Civil War had begun to threaten, sewing machines had made such inroads in the shoe industry that the small one-man shops dwindled rapidly in number.
As early as 1881, Chambers's Encyclopaedia re- ported:
"The plan of making boots and shoes by isolated workmen at their own homes, has been found quite incompatible with the modern necessities of trade. As in the case of the hand- loom weaver, the shoe-maker of the old school has had to
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succumb to machinery. After an unsuccessful struggle to oppose the introduction of sewing-machines, these are now coming generally into use, and men are employed in large numbers together in what may be called shoe-factories."
So one of Duxbury's most colorful institutions- the tiny shoe shop which served as forum, news center, and, as many women insisted, loafing place -was thrust permanently aside. As reminders of a more leisurely period, however, many of the little buildings remain-some of them serving as garages, others as studios or workshops, and still others merely as convenient catch-alls in which are stored cast-off articles and imperishable memories. And in the garrets of old Duxbury houses, there are still some of the benches, clamps, pegs, awls and lasts used by the shoemakers of old.
Mills and Stores
Milling in the town began in 1640, when William Hiller and George Pollard, having been granted ex- clusive rights for grinding grain, built a grist mill on the stream which thenceforth has been known as Mill Brook.
About one hundred years later, Eleazer Harlow and associates built a fulling mill, and the South- worths were preparing to build the second gristmill in the town.
There were sawmills in Duxbury from the be- ginning of the eighteenth century until the time
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Old Factory at Millbrook and surrounding country, 1890
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when timber in the near-by forests had been depleted.
Three sawmills were built in about 1700; two of them were operated for more than one hundred . years. The first, on land now in the possession of the heirs of Horatio Chandler, was owned by Isaac Partridge, Ephraim Holmes and Nathaniel Loring. In 1836, it was rebuilt and continued in operation by Jared Howland. The second mill, owned by Ichabod Bartlett, in Ashdod, ceased operations be- fore the Revolution, while the third, built by Samuel Seabury, continued to function for almost one hun- dred fifty years, until it was abandoned in 1848.
Town records of 1767 show that a group of citi- zens headed by Joseph Drew was granted permis- sion to erect a gristmill on Bluefish River. In 1808, when the bridge across the river was built, power for milling was made available by construction of water-gates to harness the tide. Here a gristmill, driven by the tides, was operated by the ship-build- ers, Deacon George Loring, Reuben Drew and Samuel A. Frazar. Later, Edward Winslow became the proprietor.
The two most widely known mills of the past century were those of Isaac Keen and the James T. Ford & Company. The Ford mill was founded earlier and was operated longer.
Isaac Keen, who had been a merchant in New Orleans, came to Duxbury in 1865 and built a three- story structure, one hundred feet in length, on the stream which is now known as "Keen's Brook."
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For some thirty years, he manufactured shingles and building lumber for local use and for shipment to other towns. Many of the houses built during and after the Civil War were constructed of lumber produced at the Keen mill.
For many years, a Duxbury-built schooner, named Isaac Keen, was operated in the coasting trade, and as late as 1900, was reported to be in service in Bucksport, Maine.
During the war of 1812, when the British block- ade shut off the supply of sail-cloth required by the ship-builders of Duxbury, the Weston firm promptly organized the Duxbury Woolen & Linen Company. The company was taken over later by Nathaniel Ford and his two brothers, James and Peleg. Under the firm name of James T. Ford & Company, the brothers produced sacks, yarns, trowels, meal and cloth. They established a wide market for their satinet, an imitation satin made with cotton warp and wool filling.
In conjunction with their mill, the Fords operated a sloop, Mink, commanded by Captain Timothy Trusty. Their vessel left Bourne's Wharf in Duck Hill River with products of the mill, and brought back from other ports raw materials for processing, and merchandise to be distributed at their retail store. Much of their product was sold for cash in Boston and other Massachusetts coastal towns.
The Ford account book of 1829, which is now in the possession of the Misses Harriett and Florence Ford, granddaughters of Nathaniel, records the
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E. C. Turner, Photographer
First department store in America, "Ford's Store," established 1826. Burned 1921.
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shipment of two cases of satinet, via the Mink, to Shaw & Tiffany of Baltimore, in exchange for south- ern corn to be ground into a new "Johnnycake ma- terial."
The Misses Ford also have some of the recipes for dyes, and drafts of some of the patterns which were used at the mill. One recipe calls for copperas and logwood for making black dye, another for alum, nutgall and copperas. One of the drafts pre- scribes "thirty-two spools of white, two of blue, two white and blue twisted for the filling; warp of gray." There are directions for making gay cloth in which blue, deep blue and orange are combined, and for a gray shawl with a bright plaid border.
For almost ninety years the mill was operated; during its later years, its work was confined to weaving. Celebrating vandals destroyed it by fire on July 4, 1900.
The Ford store carried a carefully selected as- sortment of domestic and imported merchandise for almost every purpose. It was the first department store in New England. It was burned down in 1921.
During the early part of the past century, two of the best known storekeepers in Duxbury were Major Judah Alden who manifested a severely solicitous interest in the uses to which his customers intended to put the purchases made at his store, and versatile Thomas Soule.
Mr. Soule was known for his readiness to under- take almost any sort of legitimate trade. From 1819 to 1870, he sold services as well as merchandise.
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Among his best customers were the owners of the schooner, Pilgrim.
The variety of Mr. Soule's enterprise is indicated by the entries in one of his account books. He per- formed such services as mending sails, making a topmast, graining, pointing a crowbar (price, ten cents); and he sold such merchandise as twine, bread, tar, ballast, brooms, wine, plates, mugs, paint, mackerel, sugar and cordage.
Among the several other stores of this same period were the Hicks store which stood on St. George Street, and the Union Store, where ship-builders, mariners and leading citizens of the town gathered, not only to make purchases, but to exchange and discuss the news of the world. The Duxbury Rural and Historical Society occupies the building to- day.
Several of the Duxbury stores, catering chiefly to the needs of ship-owners, carried stocks for outfit- ting ships for their voyages. These stores were lo- cated near the wharves. Others, supplying the needs of families, were located on the highways near the various centers of population; they occupied rooms in the residences of their proprietors.
The custom of operating a store within the home was inaugurated by Alexander Standish, son of Captain Myles Standish; and it was not until after the Civil War that this plan was superseded by the establishment of stores in buildings devoted ex- clusively to business.
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