USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Duxbury > The story of Duxbury, 1637-1937 > Part 6
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By way of contrast with the shops operated now
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W
E. C. Turner, Photographer
House of Alexander Standish (1666)
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by independent proprietors and by the "chain" companies, it is interesting to inspect the Weston store of the past century, to compare the custom of creating demand today with the more simple practice of merely attempting to satisfy the needs of customers many years ago. The Weston store is now in the possession of Winthrop Winslow, but for many years has not been in operation.
Duxbury Clams
The friendly Indian, Squanto, introduced the early colonists to the shellfish which Elder Brewster later described as "treasures hid in the sand." With- out the shellfish from the flats and the fish from the sea, the inroads of hunger would have been far more serious. From the beginning of the settlement, shellfish have provided the people of Duxbury with one of their chief sources of livelihood.
For many generations after the founding of the town, shellfish were used for bait for deep sea fish- ing and for the feeding of hogs; the supply was treated as if it were inexhaustible. Colonists al- lowed their hogs to feed on the flats until the de- pletion of the clam beds aroused them to the neces- sity of putting a stop to the practice.
Shellfish for two hundred years were so numerous that piles of their shells were left on the shore. The shells were used in road-building, in providing lime for the manufacture of mortar necessary to brick- masonry, and in the mixing of plaster. In colonial
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times, some shells were reported large enough to be used as trowels and shovels.
"The oisters," wrote a colonist named Wood, "be great ones in forme of a shoo horn, some be a foote long. ... This fish, without the shell, is so big that it must admit of a division before you can get it into your mouth."
If old timers are to be believed, lobsters weighing twenty-five pounds and clams of more than a foot in length were not uncommon. Clams dug today are marketable when two inches long; and the supply continues only because of efforts toward conserva- tion.
As early as 1869, the selectmen of Duxbury, Kingston and Plymouth were authorized to desig- nate three commissioners "who shall have full con- trol of the digging of clams and taking of eels within the harbors of said towns." This step was taken primarily to protect the supply from fishermen from outside communities.
The first planting of clams by the community was done in that year.
In spite of having provided against abuses by outside fishermen, the citizens found that their own fellow-townsmen would have to be curbed. But these efforts were not effective until 1898.
The business acumen and organizing ability of Edgar Loring of Island Creek was one of the factors which finally prompted drastic regulations and the appointment of officials to compel enforcement.
During the eighties and nineties Mr. Loring em-
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ployed numbers of his neighbors to dig clams. Every day, after the digging had been completed, he sent the harvest in a wagon train to Taunton and Fall River for shipment to more distant places. Levi Perkins drove the horses which pulled the first wagon of the train; the other horses had been trained to follow close behind. In that formation, the wagon train traveled to the Winnetuxet River, where horses and driver were replaced for the second lap of the journey.
All clam digging on a large scale was halted by town order in 1898. George P. Cushman, James K. Burgess and John A. Irwin were designated to super- vise the seeding and protection of flats set aside as reservations for clam propagation; and at the same time, they were instructed to enforce a prohibition against the netting of mackerel and herring. These fish, like the clams, had been depleted so rapidly as to alarm the citizens of the shore towns in the vicinity.
The early steps for conservation were made diffi- cult, however, because many people looked upon them as restrictions of rights which should be con- sidered inalienable.
In the spring of 1899, Kirby's Flat, Round Flat, Mussel Bed and Little Mussel Bed were designated as reservations and were planted with clams.
At this time, the town was trying the experiment of leasing tidal flats to individuals who would agree to abide by certain conservation policies. At the annual town meeting of March 5, 1900, one such
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experiment was pronounced a success; and the lease of Frank W. Boyer was extended for five years.
The same town meeting designated as reserva- tions for clam propagation all flats separated from the shore by channels, and provided three hundred dollars for seeding these areas. As special constable with authority to arrest without warrant violators of the clam laws, Warren E. Peterson was assigned to enforce the ordinances protecting fish and game. But because of the large area to be covered, and the hostile attitude of a portion of the public toward conservation, Mr. Peterson found it difficult to en- force the laws.
However, confident that progress was being made, the town meeting of March 4, 1901, voted to the owners of waterfront property the right to plant one-third of their frontage with clams; the planting area in each property was limited to a maximum of one hundred lineal feet. This tidal flat area was given the protection of the law against trespass.
To give better protection to the reservations, the town authorized the appointment of Samuel G. Chandler and Clarence Smith to assist Mr. Peter- son. In spite of gradually diminishing local oppo- sition to the conservation policies, the persistent law violation by residents of other towns kept the three wardens busy.
Finally, aroused by the boldness of non-resident poachers, the town meeting of 1905 ordered police to arrest any non-resident found digging clams within the town limits. To cultivate public opinion
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favorable to strict enforcement, the selectmen were instructed to post notices urging support of the clam laws, and to print in the town report the state and local ordinances pertaining to clam conservation.
In 1912, the town expanded its leasing policy by voting to grant to Duxbury residents non-transfer- able leases of areas of not more than one acre to an individual.
Because of the wide differences of opinion as to the policy to be pursued, ordinances passed from time to time had conflicting purposes, and so made enforcement difficult. In an effort to remove these contradictions, the town meeting of March 7, 1914, repealed all regulations that had been passed in previous years, and promulgated a set of new ordi- nances. Controversy, however, continued.
There appears to be universal recognition of the need for conservation to prevent destruction of the clam industry ; but the method by which destruction is to be prevented has been a subject for sharp de- bate.
The regulations published by the selectmen in 1937 permit any Duxbury resident to dig without charge a bushel of shellfish every week, either as bait for his own use, or as food for his family. For commercial use, an all-year resident may purchase for five dollars a permit to take by his own labor seaworms, eels and shellfish. The first one hundred bushels of shellfish may be taken and sold without added cost to the digger; but thereafter, he must pay five cents a bushel for clams and oysters dug
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for distribution. Permits are not transferable and digging on Sunday is forbidden.
Though these rules met with the approval of the majority, they were protested by the Duxbury Shellfish Association as discriminatory.
In spite of opposition, however, Duxbury and adjoining towns continue to tighten the restrictions on clam digging. The Duxbury selectmen, in their town report point out that this is done ". . . to keep this a paying business." And they state: "The clam industry has proven itself to be our chief business."
Some thirty-five hundred acres of tidal flats in Duxbury are under the protection of shellfish ward- ens. In 1932 alone, the wardens daily found from twenty to two hundred non-residents poaching on Duxbury clam beds. A dozen organized groups comprising some sixty men were making a daily business of digging quahaugs until arrest and prose- cution halted their activities. Poachers, according to the warden's report, "took everything in shell- fish, regardless of size and number."
In 1933, more than one thousand bushels of clams, quahaugs and oysters were planted. Taken from other beds during that same year and officially recorded, were seven thousand bushel of clams (nine hundred gallons when shucked), seven thou- sand bushels of quahaugs and fifteen hundred bushels of razor-fish. The value of this harvest was estimated as $32,770. Eight thousand bushels of shellfish were marketed in 1934.
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In 1935, seventy Duxbury men were employed by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration to carry on the work of conservation under the direc- tion of town officials. These men seeded some four thousand bushels of clams and one hundred eighty bushels of quahaugs. They destroyed thirty-five hundred bushels of cockles. Such work is done in co-operation with the authorities of Kingston and Plymouth.
Shellfish have done much to alleviate the hard- ship caused by the economic depression. During the so-called "depression years," some of the men of Duxbury who might have found it necessary to appeal for public relief have successfully fought the depression by digging clams. It is their custom to row out with the receding tide, often before day- light, and to dig until the returning tide compels them to take to their boats, in winter chilled through, but bringing back plentiful quantities of shellfish for their table and for sale.
While there is no closed season, the selectmen cause certain flats and shores to be closed to digging until re-seeded clams have grown to the required length of two inches.
The shellfish known in Duxbury as the quahaug is more widely known as the hardshell or little-neck clam, and is readily identified by the blue about the edges of the shell. It was this blue portion which was used by the coastal Indians in making their best grade of wampum; and this explains its name, Venus mercenaria.
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The so-called long-neck clam-Mya arenaria- is the true Duxbury clam. To the people of Dux- bury, it is the most valuable of their "treasures hid in the sand."
Cranberries
One of the first tasks performed by the men who came across the bay from Plymouth to clear the arable land of Duxbury, was to mark for protection the fruits and wild berries which the Indians had taught them to use. Among these were the cran- berries; they grew abundantly in the swampy, low spots where nothing but swamp cedar seemed to thrive. The settlers used the berries as food and medicine and never wanted for a plentiful supply.
Ship captains were quick to discover the value of cranberries as preventives of scurvy, one of the most dreaded diseases suffered by seafarers; they carried barrels of the berries on their voyages, as part of the regular diet.
Yet it was more than two hundred years before cultivation of the cranberry was undertaken as a commercial enterprise. About ninety-five years ago, in a lot that had been a cedar swamp, Stephen N. Gifford began experimenting to ascertain the prac- ticability of raising cranberries for the commer- cial market. His bog was near Thomas Al- den's Corner, where a large bog is still under cul- tivation.
One of the first bogs to prove profitable was that
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of John S. Loring, who spent much time and money experimenting with growing methods. At about the same time, the Fletcher bog near Church Street began to pay dividends. A third, still in operation near the Duxbury railroad station, was built by Joseph Weston in 1872.
But these men considered their cranberry bogs as mere adjuncts to their farming. Others raised cranberries because they attracted numbers of birds which gave valuable assistance in protecting other crops from pests.
Cultivation for purely commercial purposes has increased slowly. Fifty years ago, the cranberries were picked by hand by the neighbors and their children. The harvest was done in a holiday spirit. Pickers received sixty-four cents a bushel.
During the intervening years, experimentation has been carried on in stations maintained by the Massachusetts State College and the United States Department of Agriculture. The cranberry business has become one in which competition is so keen that a constant search for improved methods of cultiva- tion and marketing is necessary.
The experiments have included the use of bees as pollination agents, and of birds as definite factors in pest control. To encourage the presence of birds, houses and boxes have been erected in the bogs, and their protection of birds has been recognized as a benefit to the community. Certain bogs, therefore, have become bird sanctuaries as well as business enterprises.
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Today, there are about twenty-five people who operate some six hundred acres of cranberry bogs in Duxbury. These bogs produce an average annual crop of 36,000 bushels, with an estimated value of $120,000.
Harvesting is done largely by Bravas who use ingeniously designed pronged scoops; these make the berry-gathering much more rapid than was possible in the hand-picking days.
Cranberry growing is the newest of Duxbury commercial enterprises of appreciable scope. The town is located in the largest cranberry-growing county in the world, and is well supplied with low- lying areas of swampy, acid soil which has been found ideal for the cultivation of cranberries. Be- cause there is a growing national market, the cran- berry industry may well prove to have been only in its infancy in 1937.
Other Industries
During the ship-building era, castings were made in forges that were operated in conjunction with the shipyards. Both iron and brass were used. Ore for the iron casting was obtained from the peat bogs of the vicinity. Anchors, marline-spikes, brass and iron ship-fittings were among the products of these forges.
In Tinkertown, there were several small shops where tinsmiths made funnels, lamps, lanterns, measuring devices and kitchenware. These little
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Harvesting Cranberries.
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shops were much like the shoe shops, and existed during the same period.
In the 'eighties, the Standard Fertilizer Company operated at the foot of Captain's Hill a "pogie fac- tory" in which the fish were reduced to fertilizer. So great was the controversy over the merits of this plant that it became a subject for discussion at the State House where Duxbury carried its com- plaints, and at the Duxbury town house where a town meeting, in 1885, finally expressed its ap- proval of the business.
For a brief time wooden pumps were manufac- tured by individuals who specialized in that work. Carriages, wagons and harness were made, calling for the collective skill of several specialists.
A sample of the excellence of workmanship is the carriage built some fifty years ago for Captain David Cushman. It is now owned by Mrs. Walter Cushman. Ironwork was done by James Vinal, blacksmith; Nelson was the wheelwright. Leather and upholstery was supplied by Joshua W. Swift, harness maker. All three had their shops not far from the Bluefish River bridge.
For many years, outlying sections were served by one or more pedlars who carried their goods in wagons. Their stocks included almost everything from clothing to kitchenware, and from medicines to spectacles. They were tradesmen who had an uncanny understanding of the needs of average fam- ilies, and of the prices which such families could afford to pay.
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Duxbury is the headquarters of William Clapp, scientist, who has devoted many years to the study of the Teredo and other destructive invertebrates. For some years, his laboratory was a schooner tied up to a Boston wharf. He now has perfected methods of protecting timber from hitherto uncon- trolled organisms, and markets his preventive serv- ice.
The Franco-American Cable
An important forward step in the commercial de- velopment of the nation was taken on July 23, 1869, when the cable connecting France with the United States was pulled ashore at Duxbury Beach.
Because of its international significance, the event attracted attention from Europe as well as the United States, and brought once more to Duxbury a fleeting moment of the fame which it had enjoyed during the maritime era. The town took tremendous pride in the fact that it had been selected as the landing place of that unbroken wire running from Brest, France, three thousand three hun- dred miles along the bed of the ocean to this con- tinent.
In preparation for the formal ceremony cele- brating completion of the laying of the cable, Dux- bury citizens assembled at a meeting in Cornerstone Lodge, the Masonic headquarters, on July 16, 1869. To arrange and direct "a celebration on this oc- casion worthy of the ancient renown of the old Pil-
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grim town of Duxbury," the citizens designated a committee consisting of Stephen N. Gifford, John S. Loring, Isaac Keen, James Wilde, C. B. Thomas, Allen Prior, Alfred Drew, Walter Thompson, Calvin Pratt, M.D., and Jonathan Ford.
The committee set Tuesday, July 27, as the day upon which the celebration should be held, and se- lected Abram's Hill as the site. The actual landing of the cable, however, took place some days before the appointed date.
Early on the morning of Friday, July 23, the French cable company's ships, Chiltern and Scan- daria, dropped anchor off Rouse's Hummock and launched sea boats to pay out the final lengths of the cable. A swarm of welcoming small boats hurried out, and spectators immediately began gathering on the shore.
Finally, at five o'clock that afternoon, the sea boat which was towing the end of the cable was beached. Scores of eager hands grasped the heavy rope attached to the cable. Stephen N. Gifford, clerk of the Massachusetts Senate, Collector Thomas Russell of the port of Boston, and other notables who had come to Duxbury on the school ship, George M. Barnard, joined sailors, farmers, towns- people and small boys in hauling the cable over the ridge of the beach, across the marsh to the cable house. Cheers rose from the watchers. Guns were fired by the Chiltern and the Scandaria.
That evening, while Duxbury citizens were being entertained aboard the two vessels, the first message
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over the new cable announced a rise in cable shares in Paris.
On the following day, Mayor N. B. Shurtleff and a group of aldermen and councilmen of Boston brought to Duxbury the felicitations of their city.
The formal celebration of the completion of the cable took place on Abram's Hill on the following Tuesday, July 27. Boston assisted by having flags flown on her public buildings and by having a salute of one hundred guns fired on Boston Common.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, festivities be- gan in a great tent where tables for six hundred guests had been set. Flags of the United States, France and other European nations added their color to the decorations. The band from Plymouth played.
Outside, twenty-five men of the Second Massa- chusetts Light Battery, under Lieutenant C. W. Beal, lined up two field pieces to fire a salute when the cable finally should be pulled up to the tent.
Among the company at the banquet were Stephen N. Gifford, president of the day, Mayor N. B. Shurtleff and a delegation of officials representing the city of Boston, Thomas Russell, collector of the port of Boston, George O. Brastow, president of the Massachusetts Senate, accompanied by members of the General Court, Viscount Parker, Lord Sackville Cecil, Sir James Anderson, representing the Franco- American Cable Company, Professor Birtsch, French electrician, Professor Pierce of Harvard
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THE FRENCH ATLANTIC CABLE-THE LANDING OF THE SHORE END ON THE BEACH NEAR DUXBURY, MASS., JULY 23BD-THE SALUTE BY THE CABLE FLEET .- FROM A SEEICH BY OUR SPECIAL ARTIST. 1869.
THE FRENCH ATLANTIC CABLE-VIEW OF THE TOWN OF DUXBURY, ON MASSACHUSETTS BAY, MASS., FROM CAPTAIN'S HILL-FROM A SKETCH BY OUT. SPECIAL ARTIST
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University, Lieutenant Vetch of the Royal Engi- neers, Edward S. Tobey of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, Messrs. Watson and Brown of the cable company, and other notables of state and nation.
Rev. Josiah Moore, pastor of the Unitarian Church, opened the ceremonies with prayer. After having referred to the recent opening of the Pacific Railroad which had reduced the time required for a transcontinental trip from thirty days to seven days, Stephen N. Gifford said: "Today, we meet to re- joice over the landing of a line that not only has an- nihilated the space between two continents, but at the same time, if not a guarantee, is at least an earnest, that peace and good will shall forever continue between us and the mighty nations that occupy them. This is . . . a great step in the ad- vancing march of civilization."
Thomas Russell responded to the toast, "The President of the United States"; George O. Bras- tow, to "The City of Boston"; and C. B. Thomas, who served as toastmaster, replied to the toast, "The Town of Duxbury."
The Plymouth band played the anthems of the respective nations when the assembly rose in re- sponse to toasts to "His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of France," to "His Majesty, Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy," and to "Her Majesty, the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland."
Toastmaster Thomas read a note received from the eighty-six-year-old widow of Deacon George Loring, the ship-builder:
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"In memory of the past generation of ship-masters and ship-builders:
"May the electric spark now kindled so animate the coming generation that it may worthily fill the places of the past, is the wish of an 'Old Settler.' "
In reply, George B. Loring said: "The old ship- masters and ship-builders of Duxbury! What mem- ories do their names awaken! Their lives form a part of that history of this town which makes it a remarkable illustration of the advancement and progress for which this age is distinguished. They gave Duxbury a name in all the great markets of the world, and made it a familiar household word in Antwerp, Hamburg, Liverpool and London in the vigorous periods of commerce. . .
"I ought not to forget the name of George Loring while I live. And who needs to be reminded here of the Sampsons, that stalwart race whose axes swung the brightest and sharpest, and whose ham- mers, as they drove the treenails, wakened me at dawn, even in the long summer days? Can we ever forget the name of Frazar ... and the Smiths, the Drews, the Soules, and Westons-a long list of enterprising and honorable men who gave this town its wealth and distinction in early days . . . ?
"The old ships may be gone; the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Susan Drew, models, in their day, of the best naval architecture, may have perished; but the good names of their builders and masters still remain, and will remain so long as the commercial
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world shall set high value on solid ships and honest merchants."
Charles L. Woodbury replied to the toast, "Sci- ence," while Lord Sackville Cecil made gallant re- sponse to "The Ladies." The elation of the as- semblage was expressed by the declaration of George Frazar: "The seeds of the Mayflower, though planted in New England's cold December, have germinated, taken root and flourished, until their fruits are known the world over."
Representing the Boston Chamber of Commerce, Edward S. Tobey brought graphically before the gathering the turn in the commercial tide of the na- tion and the startling disappearance of American shipping from the sea.
"The traditional history of this ancient town," he said, "shows that it was once foremost, not only in the foreign commerce of the Commonwealth, but of the United States. To speak of the character of the numerous first class ships which have been built here, would be to recall the names of the best me- chanics and skilled artisans of the whole country.
"The representatives of foreign nations now pres- ent will, I am sure, pardon my American feeling when I state that the American flag does not wave over a solitary steamship which crosses the At- lantic. This fact, humiliating as it is and ought to be to our national pride, is one to which I desire to call the attention of the whole country. Of more than seventy steamships which now ply between
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New York and Europe, not one is the product of American skill and industry."
Shortly before six o'clock, after twelve hours of hard work under Clerk Gaines of the cable company, fifty hot, weary men finished their task of hauling the cable from the cable house over the marshes, across the channels and up to the banquet tent on Abram's Hill. As men crowded about to seize the rope for the final pull, Lieutenant Beal's detail fired the long-awaited salute.
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