USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Portland > The history of Portland, from 1632 to 1864: with a notice of previous settlements, colonial grants, and changes of government in Maine > Part 38
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The inhabitants found Stroudwater bridge a heavy expense ; to relieve themselves from which they resorted to various expedients. In 1747 they applied unsuccessfully to the court of sessions to make its support a county charge. In 1749 they raised one hundred pounds, old tenor, for repairing it, and the same year petitioned the General Court to grant them a toll to maintain it. But this measure not succeeding, they raised a committee to select a place higher up the river for a new bridge, and apply to the court of sessions for leave to build one. They were however still doomed to bear the bur- den, and as a last resort, they levied a tax of eight pence a day on each vessel that loaded at the bridge.1
The principal money taxes were those for schools, and the support of the ministry ; the highway tax was usually paid in labor upon the roads. The support of the poor had not become so burdensome as it was after the revolution. The town had not thought it necessary to procure a building for paupers until 1761, when they appropriated one hundred and six pounds to buy a house and adjoining land of Ebenezer Mayo, which was after- ward used for a work-house.3 The highest school tax before the revolution, was three hundred pounds, raised in 1773 ; it had for several years fluctuated between one hundred and two hundred and fifty pounds : the tax for town charges the same
1 In 1757 a lottery was granted by Massachusetts to raise twelve hundred pounds for the purpose of building a bridge over the Presumpscot at the lower falls, and another over the Saco at Biddeford. The sum was raised and the bridges built.
3 In 1755 a large number of Acadians or Neutral French, as they were called, were carried from Nova Scotia and landed in different colonies with a view to prevent the continual out-breaking of that people against the English arms ; more than one thousand persons were brought to Massachusetts in an utterly desti- tute condition ; these were distributed to different towns to be supported. Fal- mouth had a number of them for whose support in one year government allowed one hundred and forty-one pounds.
444
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
year was one hundred and twenty-three pounds ;1 the highest parish tax was in 1774, three hundred and seventy-five pounds eleven shillings and two pence, excluding the year 1749, when although nominally higher, in consequence of the depreciation of the paper medium, being five hundred and eleven pounds thirteen shillings and nine pence, it was really not more than an eighth part of that sum in coin.
As we have occasion to speak so often of the currency of the ante-revolutionary period, it may not be improper in this con- nection to give a brief view of the introduction and fluctuation of paper money in the colony. The first emission of paper in Massachusetts was made in 1690, to pay the expenses of an unfortunate expedition against Canada.2 The facility of rais- ing money in this manner made it popular with the government, who frequently resorted to it in cases of emergency, in prefer- ence to the slower method of taking it directly from the pock- ets of the people. The people also preferred it, because it saved them from direct taxation. The system repeatedly pro- duced great embarrassments to trade and ruinous effects upon all the interests of the community, by the fluctuation in the value of the paper, which was always considerably depreciated. Different expedients were resorted to at different periods to
1 The same year men were allowed four shillings a day on the roads and three shillings for a pair of oxen. The whole valuation of property on the Neck, and the families at Back Cove was nine thousand four hundred and eight pounds sixteen shillings. The highest valuation on the Neck in 1772, was Brig. Preble's, three hundred and eleven pounds eight shillings ; the next, E. Ilsley's three hund- red pounds, B. Titcomb's, one hundred and eighty-seven pounds, J. Waite's, one hundred and seventy-one pounds, J. Butler, one hundred and thirty-six pounds.
2 The form of the bills first issued was as follows : "This indented bill of --- , due from the Massachusetts colony to the possessor, shall be in value equal to money ; and shall be accepted accordingly by the Treasurer and the Receivers subordinate to him in all public payments and for any stock at any time in the Treasury. Boston, in New England, February 3d, 1690. By order of the Gen- eral Court."
445
CURRENCY-ITS FLUCTUATIONS.
counteract the burdensome effects of the depreciation, but with only temporary success; the paper was never the representa- tive of gold and silver. The currency successively bore the names, as new emissions were made, of old tenor, middle ten- or, new tenor first, and new tenor second. In 1748 old tenor was worth only twenty-five per cent. of new tenor, and at that time the provincial debt was about two million four hundred and fifty thousand pounds, old tenor, equal to about one million in silver. The amount had been vastly increased by the ex- pedition to Cape Breton, to meet the expenses of which, bills to an amount exceeding two million pounds, old tenor, had been issued. At the commencement of the expedition, the depre- ciation was about five to one; that is, it required an issue of five hundred pounds in paper to pay one hundred pounds in silver. But at the termination of the war, the large amount of bills issued had so much reduced the value, that it required eleven hundred pounds in paper to purchase one hundred pounds in silver. It must be remembered that in that day and even until the recent great influx of gold, silver was the common standard and regulator of values. The gold used was principally foreign coin, as the doubloon of Spain, moidores and johannes of Portugal, etc.
The following table will exhibit at a single view the depre- ciation of the bills at successive periods during the existence of the paper system as compared with exchange on London and the price of silver ; to which is added the daily pay of the representatives, and the amount of the province tax at differ- ent periods.
Years. Exc. on London.
One oz. of silver.
Daily pay of Rep. Prov. tax.
1702,
133
6s. 10d.
3s.
£6,000
1705,
135
7s.
1713,
150
8s.
1716,
175
9s. 3d.
1717,
225
12s.
1722,
270
14s.
4s. £6,000
1728,
340
18s.
446
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
1730,
380
20s.
6s. £8.000
1737,
500
26s.
1741,
550
28s.
10s.
£39,000
1749,
1100
60s.
30s.
1
By this table it will be perceived that one hundred and thirty- three pounds in New England currency, which was worth one hundred pounds sterling, the par value in 1702, had so much depreciated in 1749, that one hundred pounds sterling could not be purchased short of eleven hundred pounds of the paper.
In 1748 the English government appropriated one hundred and eighty-three thousand six hundred and forty-nine pounds sterling, to defray the expense of the Cape Breton expedition incurred by Massachusetts, and in December of that year the provincial government passed an act to apply this fund to the redemption of the bills of credit, over two million pounds of which it would redeem at their depreciated rate. This judi- cious law took effect April 1st, 1750. The amount paid by the English government was remitted in silver to enable the province to carry into effect its just design.2 By the act there was paid from the treasury, one Spanish milled dollar for every forty-five shillings of old tenor bills, and the same sum for every eleven shillings and three pence in bills of the new or middle tenor. All debts contracted after that time, were to be paid in coined silver. This sudden change in the currency of the country produced at first, as might have been expected, great embarrassment. The immediate consequence was a se- rious deficiency in the circulating medium, and an advance in
1 Douglas Sum. In 1743 the province tax was sixty thousand pounds, in 1745 it was one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, in 1747, one hundred sixty- eight thousand three hundred and twenty-four pounds, in 1748, three hundred eighty-one thousand six hundred and seventy-two pounds, the nominal amount having been swelled up by the rapid fall of the currency; silver had been driven out of circulation by the immense issues of paper.
2 April 2, 1750. This day the province treasury is open and silver is given out for our province bills, which now cease to pass. This is the most remarkable epoch of this province. Its affairs are now brought to a crisis .- Smith's Journal.
447
.
CURRENCY.
price of all the articles of necessity as well as of traffic. Our minister, Mr. Smith, was in Boston in June after the law went into operation, and makes the following remarks on the sub- ject. ""Tis a time of great perplexity and distress here, on account of the sinking of the paper currency. There is a ter- rible clamor, and things are opening for the extremest confusion and difficulties. The merchants, shopkeepers, and others, in Boston, having for some years past got money easily and plen- tifully by the abundance of that fraudulent and iniquitous currency, and abandoned themselves to the utmost extrava- gance and luxury in all their way of living, are now in a sad toss and make outrageous complaints at the stop put to it by the late act." The true cause of the difficulty however, al- . though extravagance and luxury may have inflamed the evil, was an actual deficiency in the circulation, for commercial and other purposes ; and it was sometime before the new medium could wear for itself an appropriate channel. The poorer classes from a wrong estimate of the value of silver, supposed that the rich had hoarded it up, and riots took place in Boston and other towns, in consequence of the real and imaginary evils which had been conjured up. But these, at length, all yielded to the steady and salutary progress of a sound curren- cy, which like the light and dew of heaven, diffused its bless- ings alike on rich and poor; and in a few months the people came to entertain an unconquerable aversion to paper. So great a change after this time took place in the monetary sys- tem of Massachusetts, and gold and silver had so much in- creased in it by the wise policy of the government in relation to paper money, that it obtained the name of silver money col- ony.1
While population, as we have noticed, was making rapid progress in town, its wealth and business increased, and its resources were constantly developing. The construction of
1 Hutchinson, vol iii. p. 350.
448
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
their buildings created, at the commencement of the settlement, an urgent demand for lumber, the manufacture of which soon gave employment to a large number of people. At what pre- cise time, or in what place the first mill was built, we cannot ascertain. The earliest record we find in relation to this sub- ject is in May, 1720, when the town voted "that every saw- mill already erected, and that shall hereafter be erected, shall pay six pence per M. for each thousand sawed in said mills for three years next ensuing." We believe the first mill to have been at Capisic, and are confident that after the destruction of the town in 1690, none had been built on the Presumpscot previous to that time. The width of that river in our neigh- borhood, rendered the expense of a dam upon it, too serious an undertaking for our settlers. Much was not done in this branch of business until after the peace of 1726, probably nothing more than to supply the immediate uses of the people. After that event, the influx of speculators and settlers gave in- creased animation to the trade. In 1727, Mr. Smith says "a saw-mill was built, and several of the inhabitants begun to get logs ;" the mill referred to by him was no doubt at Capisic, he speaks of it as "the old sawmill that was Ingersoll's."
In June 1728 the privilege of Long Creek was granted "to Samuel Cobb, William Rogers, Francis Hull, and John Owen, to build a sawmill on," and at the same time Muscle Cove Stream' was granted to Benjamin Blackstone for the same pur- pose. It was also voted "that Samuel Proctor, John Perry, and Simon Armstrong have the privilege, if they can find one unappropriated, to build a mill on within eighteen months, fit for service, to pay the usual custom for sawing to the town, and to saw for any persons that bring timber for their own houses and buildings, to the halves." The stream called Barberry Creek at Purpooduck, was granted to Joshua Moody and John
1 Muscle Cove is a small bay in Falmouth, east of Macworth's Point, into which the stream spoken of, discharges.
449
SAWMILLS.
Brown for the same purposes and on the same condition. On the 9th of July in the same year, the north-west branch of the Piscataquis, a small stream emptying into the Presumpscot, was granted to Major Samuel Moody for a sawmill instead of the one granted to him in 1720; and January 2, 1729, the falls on the east branch of the Piscataquis, were voted to Jeremiah Riggs, John East, and Henry Wheeler. It was not until De- cember 2, 1729, that the falls at Saccarappa, the most valu- able in our vicinity, were disposed of; they were then granted to Benjamin Ingersoll, John Bailey, Benjamin Larra- bee, Jr., and company, for the purposes for which they have ever since been improved. In 1732, Colonel Westbrook, the Moodys, Henry Wheeler, Phineas Jones, Moses Pearson, and others, erected a mill on the north-west branch of the Pis- cataquis ; and finally in 1735, Col. Westbrook, Samuel Waldo and others built a dam and sawmill on the lower falls of the Presumpscot.
All the privileges of sufficient consequence to attract atten- tion or to be used profitably, appear now to have been improved. This branch of business, whose increase was astonishingly rapid, contributed essentially to advance the growth and pros- perity of the town. In 1752, there were ten saw and grist mills in the limits of the first parish, and in 1754, there were six saw mills and ten additional saws in operation within the same precinct. The demand soon extended beyond the supply of the immediate wants of the settlers, and lumber became an important article of exportation. In January, 1765, Mr. Smith remarks, " the ships loading here are a wonderful bene- fit to us. They take off vast quantities of timber, masts, oar rafters, boards, &c." But many years before this, the exporta- tion of lumber was one of the principal sources of the pros- perity of the town. In fact so entirely engrossed was the attention of our inhabitants in procuring timber and lumber, and in building vessels, that the cultivation of the land was neglected, and the people were compelled to procure by con-
450
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
merce articles of the first necessity. The lumber business particularly, by its more ready command of money, held out irresistible temptation to the people to engage in that pursuit, which, while it produced more sudden prosperity, was yet hostile to the agricultural interests of the territory, on which are laid the broad and deep foundations of wealth and happi- ness.
In consequence of this dependence upon commerce for the supply of their most common wants, the inhabitants were often reduced to distress by the failure of the usual supply.1 Indeed so great was the scarcity at times, that instances occurred, where the cobs from which the corn had been taken, were ground for bread. The coasting trade was nourished by this course of business, and a number of vessels were constantly employed in the importation of corn, sometimes procured directly from the south, at others from intermediate ports, by the exchange of our fish and lumber .?
1 Mr. Smith's journal furnishes us ample evidence of the suffering often produced by the deficiency of bread stuffs.
1737, March 5. It is a melancholy time in regard to the scarcity of corn, some have had none for several weeks. April 21. All the talk is no corn, no hay, and there is not a peck of potatoes to eat in all the eastern country.
1741, January 10. There has been for some time a melancholy scarcity of corn. May 14, Mr. Jones came in with nine hundred bushels of corn. Mr. Jones sells his corn at fifteen shillings a bushel. People groan terribly at the price.
1758, February. It is now a time of dismal scarcity for bread.
1763, March 1. To-day in God's gracious providence, we were relieved by the coming in of Mayhew's schooner from Connecticut, with one thousand bushels of Indian corn. People were reduced to the last and extremest distress, scarce a bushel of corn in the whole eastern country.
1772, October 3. There is a famine of bread in town, no Indian and no flour ; no pork in town or country. 1775, January 2, there is a great scarcity of corn in this part of the country.
2 1737. Mr. Goodwin came in with three hundred bushels of corn. 1763, March 23, to-day came in a sloop from Boston with three thousand bushels of corn. March 24, a schooner came in from Cape Ann with one thousand six hundred bushels. 25, Capt. Gooding got in with two thousand three hundred
451
GRISTMILLS.
The principal article of bread stuff imported in the early days of the settlement, was corn, which rendered the construc- tion of grist mills necessary ; but little wheat seems to have been used. In 1722, the stream which empties into Lawrence's cove in Cape Elizabeth, was granted to a company to erect a corn mill upon, and the town's right in a hundred acres of land there, was given them to encourage the undertaking. But the project did not succeed, and the people were under the necessity of carrying their corn to Biddeford to be ground.1 In 1727, Mr. Sawyer who came here from Cape Ann, erected a mill at Capisic, which was very successful. In 1729, James Winslow built another on Fall brook? at Back Cove, and the town established the toll at two quarts in a bushel. There was also a grist mill at Lawrence's cove in 1733. In 1748, it appears from Mr. Smith's journal that there was but one corn mill in town in operation at that time, and this was owned by Mr. Conant at Saccarappa ; there was then no other between Saco and North Yarmouth.3 Soon after this, a wind-mill was
1 In the early history of Portsmouth, the inhabitants carried their corn to Boston for the same purpose.
2 Fall brook is a stream now almost dry, rising in swampy land in Westbrook and flowing into Back Cove just east of Seth Clark's house, and west of the Ilsley farm ; clearing the country of forests has diminished these small streams. This stream has become nearly dry and wholly incapable of turning a mill, in consequence of the clearing up of the country. It has not been occupied for many years as a mill site.
3 1748, February 27. Mr. Conant tells me he has ground one thousand bushels of corn this winter, there being no other mill than his between North Yarmouth and Saco .- Smith's Journal.
bushels more. 1765, February 25, A vessel from Newbury brought in five hundred bushels of corn, and Dyer of Purpooduck one thousand. March 4 one Davis brought from Boston one thousand bushels of corn ; and neighbor Mayo and Lt. Thomes one thousand more. 14. Jeremiah Pote came in from North Carolina, and brought two thousand nine hundred bushels of corn. 1766, March 20, Harper came in with three thousand bushels of corn .- Smith's Journal.
These are only occasional notices made in seasons of scarcity.
452
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
erected on the corner of School and Congress streets, where Mr. Hussey's house now stands, which continued through the revolutionary war. After the war, another was built on a rocky hill in Free street, now occupied by a double brick house, owned in 1854 by the Anderson family ; this was moved about thirty years ago across Back Cove, on the ice, and placed on the rising ground near Fall brook. In 1754, there were in the first parish two grist mills and one wind mill. In later times the inhabitants have been accommodated by mills at Lawrence's Cove, Capisic, Deering's Bridge, Saccarappa and Stroudwater.
The favorable situation of the town for commercial opera- tions, early rendered it a place of considerable trade.1 Coast- ing and fishing at first employed a few small vessels, and cord wood, fish and lumber were transported to the western and southern ports. Large quantities of wood cut in town, and some of it upon the Neck as late as the revolution, were sent to Boston, the vessels frequently going round Back Cove and up Wear creek which empties into it, to receive their cargoes. Ship building soon came to be a very important auxiliary and a lucrative branch of business.2 The ancestors of many of our present men of property laid the foundation of their fortunes in this profitable pursuit. The first ship yard in town was on the cove east of India street, which continued to be occu- pied for the same purpose to 1850 ; there was another near the foot of India street, and another between Titcomb's wharf and Clay Cove. James Gooding who came from Boston, was
1 April 9, 1726. Twenty-six vessels now in the harbor. September 17, Capt. Langdon came in with a large ship. This month we always have a great number of fishermen in here. 1727, September 10. About thirty vessels before the door for several days. (Mr. Smith then lived at the foot of India street.) 1732, September 24. There are twelve coasting sloops, beside some schooners, that all lie close before the door .- Smith's Journal.
2 1728. One Reddin came here to build a ship. August 9. A sloop built before my door was launched to-day. In 1737, a mast ship was built here .- Smith's Journal.
453
MAST SHIPS.
among the earliest ship builders in town ; it is said that he was concerned in building the first ship ever launched here. He followed the occupation more than half a century, and instructed many active and intelligent young men in the same business. '
A few years after the commencement of the settlement, the English government turned its attention to this place as a central situation for procuring masts for the royal navy. This brought a number of large ships here annually until the revo- lution, and became a business of great importance to the town, furnishing a ready market for timber and encouragement to . ship building. Col. Westbrook, who was the agent appointed by government for procuring the masts, came here from Ports- mouth in the spring of 1727, from which place the business had been transferred to Falmouth the winter previous. The first ship of this kind was loaded here in May, 1727.2
1 He lived in a story and a half house, which he early built in India street, which stood on the spot now occupied by a three-story house, built by his grandson, Major Lemuel Weeks,* in 1804. He married the widow of Henry Wheeler for his second wife in 1753. He was born in 1696, and died at the house of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Bryant, in Congress street in 1780. He had always enjoyed excellent health, having never been sick until a few days before his death, and never lost a tooth. He had a son James who died in 1793, and several daughters. Two of his apprentices were Deacon James Milk and Samuel Cobb.
2 The New England Weekly Journal, May 8, 1727, printed at Boston, ob- serves : " We have an account that the mast business, which has for some time been so much the benefit of the neighbor province of New Hampshire, is re- moved farther eastward, where it has been carried on the last winter with such success as could hardly have been expected, considering the very little season- able weather for it. Capt. Farles, in one of the mast ships, now lies in Casco Bay, who, we hear, is not a little pleased with the peculiar commodiousness of that fine harbor to carry on the said business. And as this must tend very much to encourage the settlements of those parts of the country, especially the flourishing bay that will be the centre of it; so there is no reason to fear but that our government will, in their wisdom, look upon it very much to their interest to protect and encourage it."
* Major Weeks' house was moved about 1855 to Green street, where it is used as a tavern. The place it occupied is appropriated to the uses of the Grand Trunk Railway.
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
The masts were brought down Fore and Presumpscot rivers, and together with spars were prepared upon the banks, and the ships sometimes went above Clark's point to take them in. There was a mast-house on the bank of the river a little below Vaughan's bridge, where the business was pursued, until the revolution. The government of England kept in the colony a surveyor general of the woods under a large salary, whose duty it was to prevent depredations, and to select and mark trees suitable for the navy. All persons were forbidden to cut down the marked trees without a license, under a heavy penalty imposed by a statute passed in 1722. The government paid a premium of one pound a ton on masts, yards, and bowsprits, and the commissioners of the navy had a right of pre-emption for these articles twenty days after they were landed in Eng- land. By the usual contract, the mast was not to exceed thirty-six inches in diameter at the butt, and as many yards in length as there were inches in its diameter at that end.
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