USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The story of Essex County, Volume I > Part 29
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For several miles upstream from the sea the Salisbury shore of the Merrimac consists mainly of broad tidal meadows, unsuitable for habitation or industry. There is, however, further up, on the outer side of a crescent shaped bend of the river, an arc of higher ground of about a mile in length, stretching from Gunner's Point, now known as Hawkswood, to the mouth of the Powow River. This strip of shore, backed closely by a sharp ridge of some thirty or forty feet elevation, was known as Salisbury Point, and was a part of Salisbury until about fifty years ago, when it was annexed to Amesbury.
Salisbury Point, or Webster's Point as it was sometimes called, was practically uninhabited until the first or second decade of the eighteenth century, because of the unsuitability of most of its terrain for agriculture. But with the rapid rise of shipbuilding in Newbury
2. John J. Currier : "A Historical Sketch of Ship Building on the Merrimac, New- buryport," 1877, p. 17.
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the advantages of this locality were quickly realized. Before 1725 several families of shipwrights had settled along the shore and were busily engaged in building vessels. Materials were easily available to the shipyards of Salisbury Point. Lumber could be teamed from the nearby forests of Amesbury, Salisbury, or southern New Hamp- shire, floated down the Powow, or rafted on the Merrimac from the upper reaches of the valley. Then, too, the sawmills and iron works at the falls of the Powow in the villages of Amesbury and Salisbury Mills were close by.
Shipbuilding at Salisbury Point, from its first settlement until the Revolution, increased rapidly. The first builders, the Stockmans, the Adamses, the Stevenses, and the Edwardses, were from time to time joined by- others. By the 1750's the industry was in full swing, and the names of Webster, Hackett, Fowler, Osgood, Clark, Swett, and Morrill appeared among the shipbuilders of Salisbury. The Hacketts in particular were noted builders, one of them, William Hackett, especially distinguishing himself during and after the Revolution as a designer and builder of warships.
The exact magnitude of the industry at Salisbury Point is unknown, but it must have been great. The Point's entire length was almost completely built up by the time of the Revolution. On the north side of the road along the river there were in the neighborhood of one hundred dwellings, a good proportion of which are still standing, while the riverside, according to contemporary accounts, was so lined with building yards that the overflow of lumber made the highroad at times almost impassable. The prosperity of this district, which was entirely based on shipbuilding, must have been considerable at this time, for many of the older houses, built for the most part in the 'sixties and early 'seventies, are substantial and of some architectural merit.
Shipbuilding in Amesbury prior to the Revolution was carried on principally in the so-called Ferry District, near the mouth of the Powow and adjacent to Salisbury Point. A few vessels were con- structed within the limits of the town in the last decade of the seven- teenth century. The earliest recorded was built in 1692, while another is known to have been launched in 1699. But the industry did not become of any great importance until about the time of the boom at Salisbury Point. As early as the 1720's, William Bailey,
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Gideon Lowell, Theodore Hoyt, and Captain Thomas Harvey were building vessels at the ferry in the vicinity of Gideon Lowell's wharf. Shipbuilding prospered here as it had in Salisbury, and the Ames- bury Ferry was the most wealthy and populous part of the town dur- ing the remainder of the eighteenth century.
Although shipbuilding on the Merrimac was most active in the lower part of the valley, at Newbury, Salisbury Point and the Ames- bury Ferry, it was pursued at various other places, as far as tidewater extended. South Amesbury, new Merrimacport, Rocks Village, Brad- ford, and Haverhill all supplied their quota of vessels. Haverhill's first recorded ship was launched in 1697, and as the next century progressed the industry attained considerable magnitude here.
The maritime commerce of Essex County, like its shipbuilding, was from earliest times of great and increasing importance to its population. Very soon after the first settlements were made, small coasters owned in Salem, Rowley, Ipswich, and Newbury were plying the shores of Massachusetts Bay, carrying country produce, such as lumber and pipestaves, to Boston, and returning with articles of Euro- pean manufacture and the few luxury goods which the new settlements could afford. These early coasters for the most part were small sloops and lateen-rigged ketches, seldom over fifty feet in length or thirty tons burthen. The Navigation Act of 1651, however, opened a larger field for colonial shipping by excluding the Dutch and other foreign nations from the colonial commerce. During the next half century many Essex County owned vessels entered the North Atlantic carrying trade, and foreign goods were more frequently brought directly to the ports of Newbury, Ipswich, Salem, and Marblehead. Salem vessels, in particular, took advantage of the increasing com- merce with the West Indies and southern Europe, as well as the older trade with the Mother Country. During this period, and, in fact, well up into the eighteenth century, the merchants and shipmasters of Essex County, like those of the rest of New England, paid no atten- tion to the attempts of mercantilist England to restrict the foreign trade of the colonies.
The Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, marked an epoch in maritime commerce, as it did in shipbuilding. The acquisition of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland by the British opened to maritime New England some of the world's richest fisheries, making available far greater
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supplies of Essex County's staple commodity of export; the catches of Essex County fishermen, dried and salted, found a market in the southern colonies, in the West Indies, and in Southern Europe. Four years later the French West Indies began admitting the vessels of the English colonies, and an important new market for the products of Essex County farms and fisheries was opened. In return the increased importation of molasses from the West Indies gave rise to a new industry- that of the distillation of rum. Before many years had elapsed, sixty-three distilleries were in operation at one time in Mas- sachusetts, and Newbury became an important seat of this industry. New England rum soon became a staple article of export, as well as a favorite domestic beverage.
Although the fisheries have been reserved for a special chapter, the importance of dried and salt fish in colonial commerce deserves some mention here. Every port town on the coast of Essex County maintained its fishing fleet, and the catch was far greater than the domestic demand could consume. Marblehead, in particular, was an outstanding fishing port prior to the Revolution. The export of her catches made her a rival of Salem in maritime commerce. As early as 1669 citizens of Marblehead stated, in a protest against an export tax, "Fish is the only great stapple which the Country produceth for forraine parts and is so benefittial for making returns for what we need."3 Dun fish, the highest grade of salt fish, made by alternately drying and burying the larger cod, were shipped in great quantities to Catholic Europe, and to the "Western" and "Wine" Islands in exchange for Bilbao iron, Cadiz salt, Malaga grapes, Valencia oranges, and Madera and Canary wine. The ordinary dried codfish found a good domestic market, while pickerel, mackerel and alewives, and low grade dried fish found ready sale in the West Indies, where they made up an important part of slave diet.
While fish was the basis of Essex County's exports, many other articles entered in. The Merrimac Valley towns exported quantities of lumber and pipe-staves along with the products of its fisheries and distilleries. From the back county came barreled pork and beef, and such products of the farmer's spare time as buckets, ox-bows, and axe helves, all of which found foreign markets.
3. Samuel Eliot Morrison: "The Maritime History of Massachusetts," Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston and New York, 1922, p. 13.
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The fifty years preceding the Revolution were a period of great commercial development for the coast towns of Essex County. Until the third or fourth decade of the century, Boston was the mart town of New England, and the foreign commerce of the other ports was negligible in comparison. But after 1740 the commercial growth of Boston dwindled-in fact, the population actually decreased, though slightly, from that time to the Revolution-while the seaports of Essex County saw an unprecedented increase in wealth and activity. Newbury, Ipswich, Gloucester, Beverly, Salem, and Marblehead all came to handle a good share of the foreign commerce, in addition to their older coastwise trade. Salem, in this period as well as in others, was the most outstanding of the Essex County ports in foreign trade. Marblehead had a large maritime commerce, as well as being New England's greatest fishing port; in 1765 she was the sixth town in population in the thirteen colonies, being larger than either Salem or Baltimore. Newbury's maritime commerce, shipbuilding, and fisheries developed very rapidly toward the end of this period, and several large fortunes were amassed by merchants of the town. It was at this time of rapid expansion, incidentally, that the commercial district of Newbury, a narrow strip along the riverside, was set apart as a separate town and named "Newburyport." Gloucester, then a rising fishing port, also extended its foreign commerce, concentrating in particular on the export of fish and lumber to Surinam, on the mainland of South America, where products of the Dutch West Indies were shipped as return cargo.
The development of society in the Essex County towns during this period was so dependent on the sea and shipping that it can properly be termed a part, or, in any event, a product of maritime his- tory. Practically all the larger fortunes were amassed by merchant- shipowners in foreign trade, and, in the absence of a wealthy land- owning class, this group came to be a true aristocracy in the course of a generation. In every seaport town of any importance there were at least a few wealthy merchants who lived well and, as a rule, in good taste. Some, besides their sumptuous town houses, maintained country estates, where great house parties were given. They con- ducted balls and routs in the grand manner. They had unquestioned rule over the communities in which they lived, for the seaboard towns of colonial Essex County in mid-eighteenth century were anything
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but democratic in government, despite the famous "New England town meeting." Class distinctions were fully as strict in the Essex County port towns as in the Old World, save for the superior oppor- tunity here for a man to better his condition.
Many Essex County families attained during this period a high position which they have not yet relinquished. Some of the more outstanding merchants of Essex County, who rose to wealth and power in the generation before the Revolution, were: Michael Dal- ton, Patrick Tracy, and Jonathan Jackson, of Newburyport; John Heard, of Ipswich; Winthrop Sargent, of Gloucester; George Cabot, of Beverly; Richard Derby and Nathaniel Ropes, of Salem; and "King" Hooper and Jeremiah Lee, of Marblehead. Many other names could be included in this list of distinguished merchant- shipowners, but those mentioned here are sufficient to indicate to any- one familiar with Massachusetts affairs the general character of this merchant class.
The Revolution brought many changes in maritime affairs. Tory merchants fled to England and Canada. Shipping and shipbuilding were thrown into chaos and for a time threatened with extinction, while fortunes were won and lost in privateering ventures. Years of readjustment were necessary before the great flowering of maritime prosperity which occurred in the Federalist period.
The history of the seaport towns during the Revolution is replete with valor and glory, though the deeds of their mariners were actu- ated by the motive of profit as well as by the fervor of patriotism. It was to be expected that men whose very existence was so closely tied up with maritime affairs should choose to fight the British on the sea. Such of the merchant fleet as was suited for the purpose was almost immediately fitted out for privateering to prey on British commerce. As the war progressed, and many of the older and slower vessels were captured, new ones were built especially for privateering. To meet the new demands for speed, the Essex County shipwrights incorpo- rated the more scientific design of our French allies. The U-shaped cross-section superceded the old style barrel-shaped bottom, lines were made sweeter, and taller, and more rakish rigs were introduced. Con- sequently, our privateers, though no match in a sea battle for British ships of war, were able to out-sail and out-maneuver the bulkier mer- chant ships of the enemy. Essex County vessels harassed British
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shipping everywhere, and the English Channel itself was not free from the depredations of our privateersmen.
Salem, Newburyport, and Marblehead, as well as the lesser ports, all sent large numbers of armed vessels to sea. The Derbys, of Salem, owned numerous privateersmen, and are said to have been the only privateering firm in Massachusetts to maintain a favorable bal- ance at the end of the war. A Salem vessel, the letter-of-marque ship "General Pickering," Captain Jonathan Haraden, with only fourteen guns and forty-five men, and heavily laden with sugar, engaged in one of the most gallant sea fights of the Revolution, defeating the British privateer "Achilles." three times her size and armament. Newbury- port was very active in privateering ventures, sending to sea some ninety sail, as privateers and letter-of-marque vessels, during the Revo- lution, of which twenty-two, with an aggregate of over 1,000 people aboard, never returned. The Tracys were the leading privateering firm of Newburyport, although Michael Dalton, Joseph Marquand, and others were very active. One of the most famous of the New- buryport privateersmen was the brigantine "Vengeance," about four hundred tons burthen, Captain Wingate Newman master. The "Ven- geance" took numerous valuable prizes, and single-handedly disrupted British communications for a while in 1778 by capturing two packet ships in the North Atlantic, each with several high-ranking army officers aboard. The Salisbury-built "Intrepid," owned by Nathaniel Tracy and commanded by Moses Brown, a famous privateering cap- tain, also distinguished herself, capturing among other prizes the ship "L'Orient," which sold in Baltimore, with its cargo, for $500,000.
Volumes could be written on the deeds of Essex County priva- teersmen during the Revolution, but limitations of space demand a halt. It is sufficient here to say that the seaport towns threw all their energy and wealth into privateering, and that the legend to the effect that many Essex County fortunes were based on the profits resulting from these activities is a myth, for practically all the priva- teering firms, including the Tracys, of Newburyport, had lost money by the end of the war.
With the signing of the articles of peace, seaboard Essex County sank into a period of unexpected depression. Foreign commerce languished, and such of it as remained was largely carried in Eng- lish, French, or Dutch bottoms. The reasons for this decline in our
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shipping were many, but principal among them was the loss of our old markets in the West Indies. Britain shut us off from trading with her colonial possessions, and France and Spain quickly followed suit. The lack of West India goods handicapped the coasting trade with the Southern States as well. The once proud merchant mariners of Essex County did little in the early 1780's but peddle miscellaneous domestic produce along the shores of Albemarle Sound, Chesapeake Bay, and Pamlico Sound, returning with corn, tobacco, and naval stores. The cargo of the forty-five ton schooner "Swallow," of Beverly, bound for Maryland and North Carolina, in 1787, typical of this trade, included bricks, butter, fish, rum, potatoes, and hay. Some of our vessels entered the slave trade during this period, but this ugly branch of commerce, contrary to tradition, was never engaged in to any great extent by Essex County merchants.
Toward the latter part of the 'eighties, however, our moribund maritime commerce began to quicken into new life. Shipmasters and merchants found ways to circumvent the restrictions on the West India trade. Cargoes of domestic origin were shipped via Nova Scotia, thus becoming eligible for export to England and the British West Indies. Smuggling, ever a Yankee knack, was indulged in on a large scale, and winked at by colonial officials. The French opened their possessions in the West Indies, though gradually, to our commerce, and Spain allowed direct trade with Havana, Trinidad, and New Orleans. By 1790 our exports of dried codfish to the West Indies exceeded those of 1774.
With the revival of the West India trade the maritime prosperity of Essex County returned. This trade was, and always has been, the keystone of our commerce. Salem and Newburyport vessels once again cleared for the West Indies, perhaps there to pick up a cargo for Southern Europe or the Baltic and to return with fruit or wine, Swedish iron or Russian hemp. This new period of prosperity which maritime Essex County was now entering, the Federalist period, was for most of her ports the heyday, and for all but Salem, the swan- song. Newburyport and Salem attained during the next twenty years their greatest glory-commercially, socially, and architecturally. It was in the Federalist period that Essex County vessels, predominantly those of Salem, sought and found markets all over the world, beat the British East Indiamen at their own game, and gave the impression
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in certain parts of the Orient that Salem was an independent, large, and very wealthy nation.
Though Boston, which like all New England at this time, was finding new and distant markets, fairly monopolized the Northwest fur trade and the Canton trade, Salem vessels shared in the opening of the Pacific to American commerce. Several Salem vessels visited Canton before 1790. The first American vessel to reach Canton was the New York ship, "The Empress of China," in the year 1784. Two years later there were two more American arrivals at Canton, via the Cape of Good Hope, namely, the "Grand Turk," of Salem, Captain Ebenezer West, and the ship "Hope," of New York. The fabulous success of the "Grand Turk's" voyage, the return cargo con- sisting of silk, tea, and chinaware, which were sold at a great profit, stirred Salem to take advantage of the opportunity offered by com- merce with the Orient. Elias Hasket Derby, soon after the return of the "Grand Turk," sent four vessels to Canton by the eastern route; the ship "Astrea," Captain James Magee, the barques "Light House" and "Atlantic," and the brig "Three Sisters," Captain Ben- jamin Webb. The problem confronting the merchants wishing to enter the Oriental trade was to find cargoes salable in Canton; it was solved in their case by assembling miscellaneous cargoes at various places around the Atlantic basin, and disposing of theni at Mauritius, Bombay, Calcutta, and Batavia, where products demanded in Canton were taken in exchange. At Canton, the proceeds of the voyage and of the sale of the "Three Sisters" and the "Atlantic" were invested in silks, chinaware, and three-quarters of a million pounds of tea, which were brought home aboard the "Astrea" and the "Light House," arriving in Salem in June, 1790. Boston, however, gained control of the Canton market by sending her vessels around Cape Horn, exchanging trinkets for the valuable furs of the northwest coast of North America, and selling them in China, where they were in great demand. Salem vessels still visited Canton from time to time, but concentrated for the most part on the East India trade, which term denoted not only commerce with the islands of the East Indies, but also that with the mainland of Asia and the Malay Peninsula. The Salem East Indiamen both sailed and returned by way of the Cape of Good Hope.
Essex-23
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At the time of her entrance into the East India trade, Salem had changed but little in appearance and activity since 1775. Her popula- tion was in the neighborhood of 8,000, as it had been for some time. The landward side of Derby Street, which ran along the waterfront, then as formerly the business and residential center of the town, was lined with the pre-Revolutionary gambrel roofed houses of the gentry. The wharves, warehouses, and counting rooms on the harbor side of the street were little changed, while in the backgound, in the rear of Derby Street, were ancient dwellings, some of pre-witchcraft days, with overhanging upper stories and small-paned, leaded windows. All in all, the atmosphere of Salem at the beginning of its great Fed- eralist period was antique, quaint, above all salty, and not a little sleepy. In the years to follow, however, all traces of somnolence vanished amid the bustling activity of Salem's commerce.
To convey a clear conception of the grandeur, the pomp, and the social and economic significance of Salem's East India trade at the turn of the century, no better means can be found than to quote at length Professor Morison's imaginative description of a typical arrival of an East Indiaman in Salem harbor :
"Whenever a Salem lad could tear himself away from the wharves, he would go barefoot to Juniper Point or pull a skiff to Winter Island, and scan the bay for approaching sail. The appearance of a coaster or fisherman or West India trader caused no special emotion; but if the stately form of an East Indiaman came in view, then 'twas race back to Derby Wharf, and earn a silver Spanish dollar for good news. The word speeds rapidly through the town, which begins to swarm like an ant-hill; counting room clerks rush out to engage men for unloading, sailors' taverns and boarding houses prepare for a brisk run of trade, parrots scream and monkeys jabber, and every master of his own time makes for cap-sill, roof tree, or other vantage-point.
"Let us follow one of the privileged, an old-time provin- cial magnate now in the East India trade, as with powdered wig, cocked hat, and scarlet cloak, attended by Pompey or Cuff with the precious telescope, he puffs up garret ladder to captain's walk. What a panorama! To the east stretches
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. the noble North Shore, Cape Ann fading in the distance. No sail in that direction, save a fisherman beating inside Baker's. Across the harbor, obscuring the southerly channel, Marble- head presents her back side of rocky pasture to the world at large, and Salem in particular. Wind is due south, tide half flood and the afternoon waning, so if the master be a Salem boy he will bring his ship around Peach's Point, inside Kettle Bottom, Endeavors, Triangles, and the Aqua Vitaes. We adjust the glass to the outer point where she must first appear, and wait impatiently. A flash of white and the sun catches foretopgallant sails over Naugus Head; then the entire ship bursts into view, bowling along at a good eight knots. Her ensign's apeak, so all aboard are well. A puff of smoke bursts from her starboard bow, and then another, as the first crack of a Federal salute strikes the ear. Fort William replies in kind, and all Salem with a roar of cheering. Everyone recog- nizes the smart East Indiaman that dropped down-harbor thirty months ago.
"'Is the front chamber prepared for Captain Richard?' asks our elderly merchant as he descends to greet his son- just in time, for the ship, hauling close to the wind, is making for Derby Wharf. Within ten minutes she has made a run- ning moor, taken in her sails, and warped to the best berth. The crowd parts deferentially as master and supercargo stalk ashore, gapes at the turbaned Oriental who shipped as cabin boy, exchanges good-natured if somewhat Rabelaisian banter with officers and crew, and wait to see the mysterious matting- covered bales shouldered out of the vessel's hold."+
This was a time of great opportunity for young men of ability. Youths of fourteen, some sons of well-to-do families, some not, fre- quently shipped as cabin boys, were able-bodied seamen at eighteen, ship's officers at twenty, and sometimes shipmasters in their middle 'twenties. To go to sea was an honorable calling, and the ships of Salem, Newburyport, and Marblehead were manned principally by young men of ambition and good background. Yankee sailors of the
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