USA > New York > Suffolk County > Riverhead > Bi-centennial : history of Suffolk County, comprising the addresses delivered at the celebration of the bi-centennial of Suffolk County, N.Y., in Riverhead, November 5, 1883 > Part 7
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HE
OMMERCE,
AVIGATION
-AND-
~FISHERIES ~
-OF-
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
-BY-
ON. MENRY
EEVES.
T HERE is a French saying, whose age not less than its manifest merit entitles it to respect, that whoever essays to excuse himself thereby L becomes his own accuser. I recognize the full force of this truth, yet I am constrained to incur the risk and accept the condemnation it implies. Indeed, I freely confess that no one of this audience, even while the dis- appointment that doubtless awaits them is fresh in mind, can be more swift or less sparing in sentence than is the culprit who stands before them, while I realize the rashness and improvidence of which I was guilty when, at the instance of your committee, I weakly consented to stand in the gap of some better man and to undertake a task of which I then had but a dim and distant appreciation. I yielded to importunity and fell a victim to my own complaisance, mainly because I then supposed that, whatever anticipated obstacles might arise from the lack of suitable preparation, by reason of any adequate previous familiarity with the topics to be treated, and from want of time in the midst of other engrossing cares and duties, to bestow the proper deliberation and thought upon those topics, there would be no serious difficulty in gathering the material of facts and figures out of which to construct a sufficient framework for future elaboration-the foundation stones on which to build, if not a palace to be admired in the daylight, at least a modest dwelling in which to be comfortably housed and entertained for a single evening. But on proceeding to act upon this idea and to search out the necessary data and statistics which I had thought to be readily available, I was, to my great surprise as well as discomfiture; forced to the unwelcome conclusion that they do not exist in any actual or ac- cessible form. Many hours of unfruitful labor have been devoted to this search, many barren inquiries have been made in quarters where inform-
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COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES.
ation seemed likely to be had, many letters have been written which yield- ed little or no valuable return. The Commerce, Navigation and Fisheries of Suffolk County are almost wholly a sealed book, or, rather, the book has not been written that even assumes to record their origin, growth, past development or present condition. None of the histories or historical documents relating to Long Island, so far as I have been able to discover, treat separately and with either any considerable fullness of detail or exact- ness of statement, the subjects which go to make up the several topics cov- ered by my theme. In attempting to do it even the scant justice which such an occasion permits, I am left to grope in the dark, with no clear and fixed illumination to guide my steps in any direction. Instead of the de- scriptive accounts from which some definite and trustworthy generaliza- tions might be drawn, there are but the barest and briefest references, which neither satisfy inquiry, nor supply information; instead of precise data, which are essential to historical accuracy, there are loose assertions, unverified conjectures and random remarks. Even the statistics which appertain to certain branches of the general subject, though gathered in recent years with painstaking fidelity by officials or agents assigned to the work, are comprehended in the figures of other and larger districts, and thus fail to shed light on the particular section to which attention is nec- essarily confined. It would seem even easier to discuss with some degree of satisfaction the Commerce, Navigation and Fisheries of the State of New York or of the United States, than to sift from numberless bushels of chaff the grains of truth which may give in meagre outline some idea of what ought to be said of the Commerce, Navigation and Fisheries of Suffolk County, to which, by the mistaken indulgence of your committee, I have been restricted. Amid some physical disabilities and many pressing en- gagements I have tried faithfully and arduously to collect and combine the elements from which might be composed a worthy testimonial to the last- ing influences, the large results and the wide bearings of these topics in their manifold relations to the development, material, moral, mental and spiritual, of the people who inhabit our good county. My own concep- tion of the scope and character of such a contribution to this bi-centennial celebration as ought to be and as could be made from a proper treatment of the theme assigned me, is a far higher one than, as I am deeply con- scious, has been attained or perhaps approached in performance. In truth, I have been compelled to be content with some general and doubt- less crude observations more or less pertinent to the two first topics, and after considering the last in a similar incomplete way to add some facts which have been secured by dint of diligent research in a field where neither landmarks nor mile posts were ever erected and where one must do his own digging to unearth even small fragments of that full knowledge which probably will never come to the surface. As proof that I am not exaggerating the difficulty attending this inquiry in order to shield myself from your displeasure at not receiving such an exposition of the theme as you may have been led to expect, I may be allowed to quote the conclud- ing sentence of a letter from Joseph Nimmo, jr., the accomplished and indefatigable Chief of the Bureau of Statistics in the Treasury Department at Washington, himself a loving son of Old Suffolk, written in answer to my application for aid from his Bureau. After reciting various insupera- ble drawbacks to the proper preparation of a paper on this theme, he says: " If you should fail to meet the expectations of your audience you will
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COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES.
certainly be entitled to plead in defence the fact that you were asked to do the impossible thing, and you may, if you choose, summon me as witness in your defense."*
The two first topics of my theme, Commerce and Navigation, are so far connected, in the limited sense in which the former word is ordinarily used and in which I have used it, that they may properly be taken together. Commerce, in its widest signification, means intercourse between different individuals or communities for the purpose of exchanging commodities. Practically it is synonymous with trade or traffic, but its use is preferred where the trade is carried on upon an extensive scale, the distinction being one of degree and not of kind. Of course, in this sense, it matters not how it's operations be conducted- whether in vessels upon open waters; in boats upon canals or rivers or lakes; in wagons upon public roads; in railway cars or whatever other conveyances. To commerce between different places within the same country the qualifying terms internal or domestic are applied; to describe the commerce between different coun- tries the word foreign is used. In the United States the commerce between ports in the same or different States on the seaboard is called the coasting trade, while the commerce with other countries is called foreign trade. Though, properly speaking, as before noted, commerce takes no account of the means or agencies by which its work is done, yet in common usage we understand by it that kind of trade which is carried on upon the water by means of vessels propelled by sails or steam power. It is in this latter sense that I have chiefly considered the word as it concerns the present .occasion, and in this sense I have felt justified in treating it and its cog- nate title Navigation' as parts of one whole. Certainly this conjunction must fairly be held to be allowable, if not an absolute necessity, during more than four-fifths of the period over which we are called to cast a re- trospective eye. Until after the extension of the Long Island Railroad through the county, which was completed in 1844, and for a considerable time afterwards, by far the largest part of the commerce of Suffolk County, both domestic and foreign, was carried on in vessels engaged either in coasting or in foreign trade. It is true that some intercourse was had by stages running from different points to Brooklyn and New York, and an exchange of some home-grown or home-made commodities was effected between the north and south sides of the island by wagons, or rather by ox-carts driven laboriously over the long and lonely forest roads; but the stages seldom carried anything beside passengers and their personal Ing- gage, and it was rare indeed that any of the products of fields or woods were carted to the cities or that goods and merchandize were brought back from the cities to the then relatively distant wilds of Suffolk. For all this time, embracing fully 160 years, the main part, almost the whole, of the 'rade between the people in this county and New York was done in ves- sels, as likewise, by a natural necessity, was all trade with their northern neighbors of New England to whom they were continuously drawn by the closest ties of an unbroken community of sympathies, sentiments and in- terests.
*Beside its intrinsic value the letter here referred to may serve sufficiently to set forth some phases of the general subject which, in order not to unduly extend the limits of this paper and because of the recognized impossibility to give precise or even approximate data, I deemed it best to omit from the reading altogether. It has therefore been thought proper to print it 'in full as an appendix, and readers will find it of interest.
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COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES.
Even to this day, substantially all the trade of the county with New York not done by the railroad is done by 'vessels. 'The railway traffic within recent years has had an immense expansion, and its volume swells visibly from year to year; in its course it bears away enormous amounts of the products of the soil, the forest and the water, and it brings back vast burdens of fertilizers, lumber, brick, coal, manufactured goods, groceries and even of breadstuffs which, under changed agricultural conditions are no longer grown at home in quantities anywhere near large enough to feed our resident population, to say nothing of the many thousands of tempo- rary sojourners who come among us for some months of summer recrea- tion. I have sought to procure from its officials some details that would show authentically the progress made in this species of domestic commerce during the last quarter of a century, but I have not been able to procure any. It is stated that the early records were destroyed. Could the exact figures be given they would, I am sure, prove startling in their magnitude as well as conclusive as a demonstration of the activity, the energy and the skill with which the people in this so-called "slow and easy," con- servative old county of Suffolk are subduing to their needs the earth and the sea within their bounds. Yet, great and swift as has been the growth of our railway traffic, it may be doubted if the commerce by sea from and to the several ports that line the north side and the eastern end of the county and the shores of the Great South Bay, does not exceed it in ex- tent, in variety and in value. It seems to me proper, then, to consider the Commerce and Navigation of our county as practically one subject and to treat them from the same point of view.
A single word as to the nature and high function of this branch of the theme may be pardoned. If it be true, as has been aptly said, that Com- merce is the handmaid of civilization, is it not equally true that she is the foster-sister of agriculture and the industrial arts? While the former might supply mankind with the simple necessaries of existence, and while the latter might enable them to grasp a fuller measure of comfort and conve- nience than they could otherwise hope to enjoy, or even to acquire some of the luxuries of life, yet the kindly offices of commerce are needed to diffuse the blessings derived from each of the other two, and without her beneficent interposition neither could attain unto its complete develop- ment.
ยท We assemble to-day to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the forma- tion of Suffolk County as a distinct civil division of this State. On Nov. 1, 1683, an act was passed by the Governor, Council and General Assem- bly of the Colony, to divide the province of New York into counties; and Suffolk was described as containing the towns of Huntington (from which Babylon has since been set off), Smithfield (now Smithtown), Brookhaven (first known as Setalcott or Setauket), Southampton, Southold, East- Hampton to Montauk Point, Shelter Island, the Isle of Wight (another name for Gardiner's Island), Fisher's Island and Plum Island. These isl- ands subsequently became integral parts of the towns of East-Hampton and Southold. This, then, is the area within which my theme limits me to a consideration of the commerce, navigation and fisheries during the past two centuries.
The founders of the first settlements in this county, and many of those who during the first century followed them to its shores, were from Suffolk county in the Southeast part of England, a sea-coast county whose allu-
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COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES.
vial meadows and marshes fronted the turbulent North Sea. Many of them had been mariners and fishermen by occupation, as their fathers had been before them; and from generations of descent not less than by per- sonal habitudes, they had inherited or acquired much of the sturdy self- reliance, the dauntless courage, the unshrinking fortitude, the bold spirit of restless enterprise, the physical vigor and the strong, stout, active man- hood, which characterized the British sailor at his best estate. How large a share of these sterling elements of moral and physical stamina were add- ed ta and immovably embedded in the character of the present population of this county, no man can accurately estimate; but the indelible impress of these grand qualities has always been and still is plainly discernible in the lives and careers of every generation that has succeeded the first settlers. From their prolific loins have gone out multitudes to blaze the way of coming civilization in all the spreading wilderness that has since been sub_ dued and made to blossom as the rose, westward, northward and south- ward from the Mohawk Valley toward the setting sun. Everywhere, as one travels over the vast area which comprehends our Uncle Samuel's wide domain, he either meets or hears of descendants from Suffolk county fam- ilies, some of them foremost in the ranks of workers and thinkers. The spirit which impelled them to face known and unknown perils, to endure years of grievous privation and toil, and to encounter, sometimes single- handed, all the hazards and the hardships of frontier life, was largely re- cruited from the sailors and the fishermen who at some period of a more or less remote antiquity had crossed their blood with the less swift but not less healthy and pure stream that flowed in the veins of the landsmen of Suffolk County. We owe to those hardy and chaste and manly seamen who came over from the Suffolk of England to the Yennacook of the Long Island Indians and brought to it across the sea the name beloved at home, some of the noblest elements which go to make up human character. Naturally, Long Island, with its extended shore line, indented with its numerous bays and creeks, its abundant waters pop- ulous with the finny tribes, its smiling valleys and wooded head- lands green to the depth of verdure and radiant under the sunlight of skies more bright than those which bend over the famed land of poesy and song, had an irresistible attraction to those dwellers by the low-lying shores of the distant English sea. In skirting Long Island Sound they en- tered Peconic Bay and at Town Harbor found the first "fair haven " of their desires, where they laid the foundation of the town of Southold. Al- most or. quite coeval with this landing at Town Harbor, settlers from other parts of New England, all of them emigrants from the old England, commenced the settlement of Southampton .. While no definite records exist to put the facts beyond question, there seems to be good reason to believe that early in the infancy of these eastern towns, and of the other settlements which developed into the present towns of East-Hampton, Brookhaven, Smithtown and Huntington, small open boats and canoes, with a few of larger size and decked over, sloop-rigged though called ketches and pinnaces, were built from the native woods, with sails and rigging made stoutly though to modern eyes uncouthly, by men who had but slight acquaintance with the arts of either sail or rope making; but zeal and perseverance overcame all obstacles and they put together sub- stantial and staunch craft, however clumsy or slow, and in them they voyaged to New York, New Haven, Hartford, and even as far as to Bos-
COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES.
ton Bay-carrying with them little beside such occasional surplus of corn as might have been grown above the needs of the settlers, the skins and furs of wild animals procured from the chase or by traffic with the Indians, and the oil and bone of whales drifted on shore or captured by their own strong arms, and bringing back modest stocks of goods from the mother country adapted to their most urgent wants. Sometimes these voyages were made wholly or mainly for pleasure, to visit relatives and friends from whom they had long been parted. To us, who are brought by daily steam communication so near to the places named, it may not be easy to esti- mate the serious nature of such an undertaking as ant trip at that time from Eastern Long Island to the Dutch settlement of New Netherlands or to the New England ports with which their commercial, like their political and civil intercourse, was more intimate and frequent. Except for the compass to guide their course, no aids to navigation then existed. No buoys marked the channels and shoals of water ways; no beacons or light- houses shed friendly instruction by day or night over the dangerous pas- sages or the shores and rocks to be avoided. By the compass alone, when not close in with the land, they steered through the day, and by the light of moon or stars they sometimes sailed at night, but often when the weather was not fair they sought the shelter of some bay or cove and cast anchor or drew their boats to land till morning. It may not have been a display of such sublime faith and such calm courage as were shown by the heroes who a century before turned the prows of their frail barges from the old world toward the unknown new and boldly pressed on into the welter- ing waste of Atlantic waters; but it was a great enterprise and an actual achievement, into which the same elements of faith and courage and skilled seamanship according to the conditions under which it was then exercised, may be' said with no less truth, though in less degree, to have entered.
Coincident with the first settlement of Southold in 1640, Thomas Weatherby (appropriately named) is mentioned as a mariner and as having bought a house and lot at Town Harbor for {15, on October 25, 1604. In Book A of the Town Records is entered the sale of a ketch of 44 tons. Though this word is usually given to vessels of 100 to 200 tons or over, having main and mizzen masts and decked over, it is probable the vessel referred to was a sloop whose tonnage rated by the measurement now in vogue would perhaps not exceed 12 to 15 tons. Pinnaces were also men- tioned in the old records, and were small open boats navigated with oars or sails; if with the latter they generally had two masts but were sloop- rigged .:
As the colonies slowly grew in numbers and increased the products of their industries, this commerce, especially with New England, to whom the affections and the alliances of our ancestors went out with especial force, kept equal or more than equal pace in the extent, variety and vol- ume of its operations. The size of the vessels was enlarged and their equipments improved. Sloops of 10 to 20 or 30 tons were built and used in carrying produce, whale oil and bone, peltry, etc., and passengers, across the Sound or to Massachusetts' ports, returning with such wares as were fitted to the few and simple wants of a Puritan people. While there were no Custom Houses and no records before the latter part of the last century, we have reason to believe that the coasting trade along the shores of New England and Long Island was already active and considerable; though conducted in small craft. It is. evidence of . Long Island's having
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COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES.
even tnen shown marked advances toward that commercial development which its natural conditions invited and which the enterprise of its people made necessary, that by an act of Congress in 1788 Sag Harbor was con- stituted a Port of Entry and U. S. Collection District, being named first in the act, which also erected the port of New York. It was then and for some time afterward relatively the more important port of the two. It has continued a port of entry and a collection district ever since, though under- going great variations in the amounts of tonnage registered and business done within its jurisdiction. David Gardiner, of East-Hampton, wrote and pub- lished in the Sag Harbor Corrector about the year 1840, a series of "Chron- icles of the town of East-Hampton," which were afterwards revised, gathered into book form, and printed in New York in 1871. In this work, on page 71, he says, what the historian Prime had already said in almost the same words, apparently adopting them from the Corrector's print, that " As early. as 1760, when yet the commerce of New York was carried on principally with schooners and sloops, a small trade was had from this port (meaning Sag Harbor) with the West Indies. Col. Gardiner owned two brigs en- gaged in that trade, and there were several sloops employed in the fisheries and coasting business partially owned by the inhabitants of this town. On the conclusion of the war Dr. N. Gardiner and his brother purchased a ship called the Hope and sent her upon a whaling voyage under command of Capt. Ripley, she being the first ship that sailed from Sag Harbor. About the same time they dispatched a brig of the first class upon a like voyage. These voyages were unsuccessful."
John Gelston, of N. Y. City, a native of Bridge-Hampton, was the first Collector of customs, having been appointed under Washington. He served abont a year and was succeeded by Henry P. Dering who held the office for 31 years until 1821, when his son, Henry Thomas Dering, was appointed, and for many years he, too, served in that office to the great satisfaction of all who had to do with it.
On page 91 of Gardiner's Chronicles it is recorded that "The princi- pal commercial intercourse was had with Boston, and several sloops were employed in the trade ; among others as early as 1765, the sloop Endeavor, Abraham Schelling master. Cattle, horses, sheep, goats and oil were bar- tered for lumber, the produce of the West India islands, and such articles as merchants deal in." The trade with the Indians which began with the first settlement and continued throughout on a basis of practically uninter- rupted friendship and good will, consisted mainly in an exchange of rum, ammunition and guns for pelts and furs .*
The boundary line between the English and Dutch was established at Hartford by commissioners, who fixed it at the westernmost line of Oyster- bay southerly to the sea. From 1640 to 1664, the settlers were virtually their own masters and owned allegiance to no one lower in authority than the British Crown itself. The first individual English settler in this county and State was Lyon Gardiner, on Gardiner's Island, in 1639. The dates
*A brief extract from the introduction to the excellent History of New London by -Miss Frances Manwaring Caulkins may not be out of place here :
" Here lies Connecticut and Long Inland forever looking at each other from their white shores with loving eyes, linked as they are by the ties; of a common origin, congen- ial character and similar institutions; and guarding with watchful care that inland sea which, won from the ocean, lies like a noble captive between them, subdued to their service and enclosed by their.protecting arms."
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COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES.
of settlement of the towns were : Southold and Southampton, 1640: East- Hampton, 1648 ; Shelter Island, 1652 ; Huntington, 1653; Brookhaven, 1655; Smithtown, 1663. On Nov. 30, 1664, commissioners appointed by Governor Nichols decided L. I. Sound to be the boundary, and for the first time all Long Island came under English rule.
During later years there has been a great expansion of the trade and ton- nage of the county. Larger vessels came into play, and longer voyages became common. The extensive forests of pine and oak that covered the larger part of the county furnished and continue to furnish great quanti- ties of wood for fuel or for the dunnage of ships bound on foreign voyages, and its transportation to market gave and still gives employment to many vessels. The surplus of farm produce and the products of the whale and other fisheries, with brick and fire clays, sands, gravel and other materials for use or consumption in other places, served to swell the volume of out- going commodities for which the goods and merchandize of the cities and the products of labor or art were exchanged. In 1794 the Sag Harbor Custom House had on its books 472 tons of registered and 473 tons of enrolled and licensed vessels ; in 1800 it had 805 of the former and 1,449 of the latter ; in 1805, 1,916 and 2, 228 ; in 1810, 1, 185 and 3,223 ; in 1815, 808 and 2, 719 (this decline being caused by the war) ; in 1820, 2, 263 and 3,416-a total for the last named year of 5,679 tons From that time on it showed a steady and rapid advance until the Califor_ nia exodus, the great fire, and other causes that co-operated to depress the whale fishery, began to cut down its large proportions.
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