1903 3 1924 092 711 120 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092711120 Eng'^'by A H Patchie. 1608 TO 1860: EXHIBITING THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PRINCIPAL MECHANIC ARTS AND MANUFACTURES, FROM THE EARLIEST COLONIAL PERIOD TO THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION ; AND COMFBISING ANNALS OF THE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES IN MACHINERY, MANUFACTURES AND USEFUL ARTS, WITH A IfOTICE OP' %\t ImpriTOt Itttotmns, f raffs, uln % '^mlls of m\ ^mm\ tetts. By J. LBANDBR BISHOP, AM.', M.D. TO WHICH AEE ADDED STATISTICS OE THE PRINCIPAL MANUFACTUEINe CENTRES, AND DESCRIPTIONS OF BEMAEKABLE MANUEACTORIES AT THE PRESENT TIME. IN TWO VOLUMES: VOL. L PHILADELPHIA: EDWARD YOUNG & CO., NO. 441 CHESTNUT STREET. . LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO., 47 LUDGATE HILL. 1864. TS f^\ ^tered according to Act of GongreBS, in the year 1861, b/ EDWAED TOITNG & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the TTuited States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. philadelphia ; 8tebeotypi:d by b. a. seobge, 607 SANSOU 8TBEET. EDWIN T. FREEDLEY, ESQ., AT WHOSE INSTANCE THIS WOEK WAS TJNDEETAKBN, BY WHOSE JUDICIOUS COUNSEL AND KIND ENCOURAGEMENT IT HAS BEEN CABBIED ON, THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED, AS A GRATEFUL EXPRESSION OP THE RESPECT LONG CHERISHED FRIENDSHIP THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. In presenting the public with the first portion of a work on the Manufactures of the United States, I do not deem an apology necessary for the design. The short period of our national history, has furnished an unexampled pro- gress in productive industry, and in the creation and development of all the ele- ments of a great and increasing material prosperity. The annual product of Manufactures, according to the last published returns in 1850, had reached an ag- gregate value of more than ten hundred and nineteen millions of dollars ; and the capital employed in them, exceeded five hundred and fifty millions of dollars. To attain this result from a state of great feebleness in little more than three- fourths of a century, while the other branches. Agriculture and Commerce, which constitute the tripedal support of a nation's prosperity, have been com- mensurately increased, is a subject of national gratulation. The record of such a progress might be expected to show remarkable illustrations of national charac- ter and appetencies, of the influence of social and political institutions, of public economy and of individual genius and enterprise. The operative industry of the country, has exercised no little influence in shaping the public and social organization of the country and the legislative policy of the general and local (lovernments, and has in turn been modified by each and all of these. Jts his- tory furnishes lessons of instruction bearing upon nearly all the great questions of the day, interesting alike to the legislator, the political economist, the mer- chant, the manufacturer, and the philanthropist. Its importance therefore seemed to justify an attempt to trace the successive steps by which our present position has been attained, and the principal causes which have retarded or promoted that progress. This attempt has, however, in the present instance, been confined chiefly to a record of the facts, which have marked the growth of our Manufactures and their more important and ascertained relations to causes, leaving the discussion of abstract principles and questions in legisla- tion, in moral, political, social, legal, physical, or mechanical science, which mav connect themselves therewith, to abler hands. The more 'humble design of 0) 8 PREFACE. collecting a body of facts upon the subject, has appeared to me the less presump- tuous inasmuch as the ground had not been previously occupied to any great extent. We have the valuable statistical works of Pitkins, Seybert, and some others, on the early commerce and resources of the United States, and a few specialities upon particular branches of the practical arts, as those of Thomas, on Printing, and of White (Memoirs of Slater) on the Origin of the Cotton Manufacture. The Federal Government since 1810, has decennially collected the statistics of Manufactures, though very imperfectly ; and several of the local Legislatures publish, at stated intervals, returns of the industry of their States, while much useful information is now constantly furnished by the periodical press, through the organs of special branches of trade and manufactures, of scientific and mechanical associations, Or publications devoted wholly or in part to the discussion of industrial topics ; but no work has yet appeared in which the progressive increase of our national Manufactures, has been consecu- tively presented in one entire view. Believing that it would prove serviceable to a large number of intelligent manufacturers, and others interested in the de- velopment of the industry and resources of the country, I have spent much tame, and unremitted, and nearly unaided labor, in collecting and arranging, with a simple aim at usefulness, the materials for such a history. The hope of securing the co-operation of many who have it in their power to aid in the fur- ther prosecution of the work, by furnishing corrections, suggestions, and con- tributions of facts, has induced an assent to the request of the publishers, to issue a portion of it in advance of the completion of the whole work. Tn the volume which is here offered, I have traced more circumstantially than was at first intended, the origin and early condition of several branches of Manufactures which have since become important, or seem likely, at no distant time, to be engrafted upon the staple industries of the country. I have en- deavored to follow the history of each as an art, from its first introduction, as nearly as could be ascertained, in each of the colonies, through the transitional period of our history, to the adoption of the present Constitution, when we may be said to have first had a national existence. The space thus occupied may, to some, appear disproportioned to the importance of the subject, inasmuch as our domestic manufactures were yet quite in their infancy. It was indeed in all but its latent physical and moral resources, a day of small things with this nation. Though emancipated from foreign political domination, the people seemed yet chained in complete dependence upon the workshops of Europe, —from which, notwithstanding our marvelous progress, they are not en- tirely liberated. But the foundations of a broad and varied industry had* been already laid in the patient toil, indomitable energy, and prudent foresight of an PBEEAOE. 9 ancestry, gathered from the skillful ranks of all natioas. Far back in the colo- nial period where the germs of American liberty and independence were im- planted, were sown also the seeds of those frugal and industrious habits, that facility in adapting means to ends, and in meeting the peculiar contingencies of their lot, that still characterize the majority of American people. The early colo- nists planted most of the mechanic arts, and the roots of a vigorous civilization on our soil, while their children carried shoots from the same hardy stem, into the fast-receding wilderness. The revolutionary fathers, asserting the right to labor and enjoy the fruits of their toil as free-born men, defended the tree of liberty through the storm and tempest of war. The prohibition of their manufactures, restrictions upon their trade, and taxation of their industry, were serious counts in the bill of indictment against the mother country. The blow they struck for equal rights, was not in defense of a mere theory or abstract principle. But while their uncompromising assertion of the rights of the subject taught the sacredness of political freedom, the example of their earnest and laboring lives, also ta,oght that — " Thns at tbd flaming forge of life Oar fortnnes mast be wrought ; Ttins oa the harning anvil shaped Each harning deed and thonght." They bequeathed us an enfranchised industry and respect for property, with- out which the useful arts can never flourish. And now the nation has been long sitting in grateful complacency beneath the vine and fig-tree of this early planting and defense, and historians and antiquarians, with affectionate zeal, are sifting the dust of the remote past, and are questioning every traditional source for anything pertaining to the personal history, thoughts and deeds of those who, in anyway, contributed to build up the fair fabric of our national civilization and liberties. It cannot therefore be deemed unworthy of the subject, to in- quire as to what were their everyday pursuits, how they lived and supported their families, and shaped the character or directed the channels of American labor, as well as to know their lineage and connections, for whom they voted, and how they fought. Unfortunately, history has been too little cognizant of any- thing but the public acts or words of the world's benefactors ; while often the more instructive examples of their struggles and triumphs, the heroism of their daily life, is consigned to a narrower influence. It has been justly said, that " the world might well afford to lose all record of a hundred ancient battles or sieges, if it could thereby gain the knowledge of one lost art ; and even the pyramids bequeathed to us by ancient Egypt in her glory, would be well ex- changed for a few of her humble workshops and manufaetories as they stood 10 PEEPAOE. in the days of the Pharaohs. Of the trne history of mankind, only a few chap- ters have yet been written ; and now, when the deficiencies of that we have are beginning to be realized, we find the materials for supplying them have in good part perished in the lapse of time, or been trampled recklessly beneath the ^ hoofs of the war-horse." Our histories, though in all other respects fall and complete, contain very meagre and unsatisfactory accounts of the daily life and employments of the people, their modes of cultivation, their arts and systems of economy. In endeavoring to rescue from oblivion the facts in relation to our early in- dustry, recourse has been had, as much as possible, to original or cotempo- raneons records, and such later ones as appeared deserving of confidence. All the general histories of the country and those of particular States, as well as many town histories. State' papers, volumes of laws, minutes of assemblies and councils, early periodicals, the publications of the various historical societies, and many 'English works, have been diligently sifted and collated. It would be tedious to particularize all the sources of information from which we have drawn : suffice it to say, that no accessible field which promised anything has been left ungleaned. Credit has been generally given, although it has been found impossible to assign authority for every separate statement where a mul- tiplicity of facts is given. With a view to convenience, the matter in this volume has been topically ar- ranged ; thus grouping together such facts as could be gathered with regard to the history of each art in the several original States. The local details which might otherwise seem inadmissible, thus fall into their proper relations, and it is hoped may prove interesting, at least to many who are still pursuing in their original seats, the same forms of industry that were introduced several generations back. This method while it may have practical advantages by presenting a topic in its completeness, has involved, I am aware, some repeti- tion in regard to governmental policy and other extraneous circumstances. In regard to dates, which I have endeavored to ascertain and give, in place of vague general statements, much care has been used, and it is hoped they may generally be found correct. But, at this distance of time, and with so many sources of error, it is impossible to vouch for entire accuracy in all cases. Notices of particular enterprises will in a few instances, as in that of Iron, be found to extend beyond the date (1790) which was intended as the limit of this volume. I have not pursued a strict method in that respect, when an in- creased activity in any branch generally, or in particular regions, warranted re- ferences which could not be made hereafter. It was intended, had space allowed, to have noticed several branches of PREFACE. 11 colonial industry, which were relatively more important than some that have been noticed. Of this class, were manufactures of Pot and Pearl Ashes, Tar, Pitch, Turpentine, and other naval stores. Distilling, and some others, which were profitable occupations, whEe Vine-growing, and a few more, were quite otherwise. The former, however, are less strictly manufactures than most of those treated of, and have now — from the disappearance of much of our forest — ceased to be of national importance, while wine-making, if still an inconsider- able branch, will, it is confidently believed, one day become highly important. With these explanations, this volume is offered to the candid consideration oLthe public, in the hope that, whatever its imperfections, it will be found to contain a larger collection of facts than is elsewhere to be obtained pertaining to the early manufactures of this country. The author claims only the merit of pains-taking diligence, and a conscientious desire to render it useful and reliable by presenting a true and impartial statement of those facts. For the remaining portion of the work, which will probably require another volume larger than the present, the sources of information are not only more ample and multifarious, but also more strictly authentic and reliable. The matter being more fresh and recent, will be found to possess a much larger degree of interest to most readers, as a considerable portion of the events to be recorded have transpired within the recollection of living men. Much valuable material has been collected, and an earnest appeal is made to all interested in the sub- ject, to communicate interesting facts in their possession, that nothing may be wanting for a presentation of the essentials of our recent marvelous progress. The summary which it is designed to furnish, of the Census statistics of manu- factures in each decenninm since they first began to be collected, will, it is believed, be a valuable feature of the work. The occasions and dates of the introduction of new branches of manufacture, the establishment of new centres of industry, throughout our rapidly expanding territory, the evidences of the many- sided, fertile, inventive talent of the American's mind, furnished by the more important, labor-saving machines, and processes it has originated, and numer- ous other topics, it is confidently hoped, will render the book not unworthy the acceptance of intelligent Business Men. J. L. B. Philadelphia, 1861. A HISTORY OR MANUFACTURES IN THE UNITED STATES. CHAPTER I. OEIGTN OF AMERICAN MANtTFAOTURES, AND A GLANCE AT THE STATE OF THE ARTS IN EUROPE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. The origin of American Manufactures may be said to be contempo- raneous with the first settlement of the country. The earliest mention in history of an attempt at a manufacturing establishment within the present territory of the United States is in 1608, only one year after the first effective English settlement was made at Jamestown in Virginia, and one hundred and sixteen years subsequent to the discovery of the continent by Columbus. This event carries us back to a period anterior to the discovery and application of nearly all those great instrumentalities in science and mechanism which have revolutionized the industrial aspects of the world, and affected its social, moral, and political condition. We are trans- ported to a time when the latent energy of steam and the subtle agency of the electric fluid were scarcely suspected ; and the cotton gin, power- loom, and spinning-jenny, were unimagined. The lucifer match and the daguerreotype, with an infinity of applications of the principles of nature, now most familiar, were then unknown ; and the discoverer of the great Law of Universal Gravitation was himself unborn. Indeed, ; brief as the intermediate period has been, it covers nearly all the im- provements which, iu the present century, are deemed of the most essential importance. The art of Printing, it is true, had been dis- covered ; but stereotype plates, cylinder and power-presses ; lithographic, mezzotint, and other forms of Engraving, and most of the improvements (13) 14 HISTORY OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURES. which have made that Art the most potent agent of civilization, are of more recent origin. The Mariner's Compass had been invented, but the Quadrant was undiscovered; and Chronometers, if used, were most im- perfect ; while the Thermometer, Barometer, an(J Telescope had not re- vealed their uses ; Shipbuilding was but a rude art, and the geography of the sea was altogether unwritten. Those great agencies of mechanical industry which have augmented a thousand-fold the productive power of man, and proportionally increased his comfort, as the use of fossil coal and the blast furnace in the smelting of Iron, of gunpowder and steam in Mining, of the flying shuttle, spinning-frame, power-loom, and carding- m'achines, and improvements in bleaching, dyeing, and stamping, and others in the Textile manufactures, and the wonderful discoveries in Chemistry, all belong to a subsequent period. Cotton, which now em- ploys millions of people and millions of capital in its growth and manu- facture, was not long before only regarded as a worthless weed or a curious exotic. The fire-engine, safety-lamp, life-boat and life-preservers, gas- light, vaccination, the tourniquet and chloroform, and many other appli- ances for the conservation of life and property, were unknown in that era. In short, whatever proficiency may have been attained in the Arts of civilization in the early ages, we may say truly that their present development from a state of almost barbaric rudeness has been contem- poraneous with American History. Let us consider briefly the condition of the principal countries in Europe at the time of which we write, especially with reference to the Great Brit- statc of the Arts. "When the " London Company" made its aiainieos. gj,g^ settlement in Virginia, the vigorous but haughty sway of the Tudors, which had been exercised for one hundred and twenty years, had come to a close by the death of Elizabeth, and James the First of England had been four years seated upon the throne of the Stuarts. The rule of the former line, commencing with Henry Seventh, who united the rival claims of York and Lancaster, was an eventful period. It had witnessed the decay of the feudal system, and the emancipation of labor and the common people ; the subversion of the power of the barons and the encroachments of royal prerogative ; the use of the mari» ner's compass and the growth of navigation ; the discovery of Americ* and the opening of new scenes of enterprise and civilization ; the generai^ use of the printing-press and the steady revival of learning and intelli- gence ; the spread of the Reformation and the establishment of the rights of free thought. It saw the chaotic elements of European nationalities settle down into pretty much their present form, and closed with the consolida;tion, under the new dynasty, of England, Scotland and Ireland into one kingdom, nearly double in extent that which Elizabeth had left. EAELY MANUFACTURES IN FRANCE. 15 The weakness and incapacity of James, and the arbitrary character of his successors, plunged the nation into civil wars, and at length expelled the offending race ; but it taught the people their power, and secured the foundation of free institutions and of the subsequent growth of English greatness and power. In Prance, the long line of the House of Valois, which had held regal authority for two hundred and sixty years, had in 1589 become extinct by the death of Henry the Third ; and the Bourbon prince, ^^g^^ce in Henry of Navarre, surnamed " the Great," was now upon the ^^''^■ throne as Henry the Fourth. He was a lineal descendant of the good St. Louis, and inherited many of his virtues ; emulating him especially iu acts of justice and toleration. Having in 1598, by the Edict of Nantes, put an end to the religious wars which for many years had distracted France, aided by his minister, the able Sully, he took effective measures to promote the welfare of his subjects and to repair the desolations caused by nearly half a century of civil and religious strife. His efforts in behalf of Com- merce and Manufactures, and all the arts of peace, were suspended by his untimely assassination in 1610. During the minority and reign of his son, Louis XIII., the celebrated Richelieu established despotic power, renewed the persecution of the Protestant Huguenots, and subsequently, ■with diplomatic facility, became leagued with the Protestant powers of Germany in the Thirty Years' War commenced in 1618, which involved nearly all Europe inthe miseries of that final conflict of the Reformation. During his iron rule, however, Richelieu encouraged literature and the arts, fbunded the French Academy and " Garden of Plants," built the Sorbonne and the Palais Royal. To him, but especially to the Duke de "Sully, and'to Count Colbert, the prime minister of Louis XIV., France Owes the establishment or first encouragement of many of her most valua- ble public improvements and manufactures. In the time of Henry, the celebrated silk manufactures of Lyons received their first impulse. He rewarded with patents of nobility those who had spent twelve years in the manufacture. Colbert placed under royal patronage the famous Gobelin tapestry manufactures, to which he also annexed a celebrated manufactory of Flemish carpets, originated in 160Y by Sully, under letters patent from the king. A vast manufactory of Sevres china was estab- lished in that town by Colbert, which became the pride of the splendid reign of Louis XIV. The manufacture of Glass, little produced before in France, was brought by him from Venice, and put on a permanent footing ; Tin, till then unknown there, as well as the manufacture of fiine cloth and the stocking-machine, was introduced from England; and Wall-paper, in which France has so much excelled, was invented about the same time. Those splendid public works, the Louvre, the 16 HISTORT OS AMERICAN MANUFACTURES. Invalides, and Palace of Versailles, were built, and the Canal of Langne- doo commenced under the same munificent patronage. But the revoca- tion of the Edict of Nantes hj Louis, in 1685, drove from his kingdom nearly half a million of his best subjects, who carried to England, Amer- ica, and other parts, the knowledge of the arts which he had fostered, and gave a serious check to the industry of Prance, from which to this day she has not fully recovered. The knowledge of working tin and steel is said to have wholly disappeared from France with the Huguenots. By the abdication of Charles the Fifth of Austria — the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella — ^in 1556, his Spanish possessions in Europe and America fell to his son, Philip the Second, who also, in 1583, inherited the crown of Portugal, with all its Colonies in America and the East, rendering him the most powerful of European kings. The Netherlands constituted one of the most valuable portion of his dominions. Its arts. Manufactures, and commerce were equally flourishing. Antwerp was the most important mart of Europe, and Holland the market-garden of England. But the zealous bigotry of Philip, like that of Louis XIV., drove vast numbers of his Protestant subjects, with their arts and en- terpiise, to England, establishing their Manufactures and horticulture there. Under the same impulse, he planned the disastrous attempt to invade England. During his reign, which continued but fifteen years, and that of Philip the Third, who succeeded him in 1598, not only Hol- land was lost to the Spanish crown, but a revolt in Portugal placed the family of Braganza upon the throne of that kingdom. The expulsion of the Christian Moors from Spain, to the number of six.hundred thou- sand of his most industrious subjects, and the general corruption and neglect of industry induced by the golden wealth of the American Colo- nies, now rapidly hastened the decUne of Spain from her formei: grandeur and prosperity. The Austrian dominions of Charles were at this time ruled by the eccentric Rudolph II., who was succeeded in 1612 by Mathias, and in 1619 by Ferdinand IL, King of Bohemia, who was elected Emperor of all the German States. The revolt of his Protestant subjects was the commencement of the Thirty Tears' War. Denmark, Norway, and Swe- den did not become prominent in the affairs of Europe until after this. The heroic Gustavus Adolphus succeeded Charles IX of Sweden in 1612, and was contemporary with the early events in the Anglo-Ameri- can colonies. The Papal power was at this" time shorn of much of its influence by the progress of the Reformation, and Russia had not emerged from barbarism. Such was the vexed and unpromising political condition of Europe during the latter part of the Sixteenth and begin- ning of the Seventeenth centuries. War was still the game of kings, as THE ARTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES. If it had been in past ages ; the balance of power, religious animositjt, or personal ambition, the ruling motives. In times so turbulent as those, the arts of peace could scarcely thrive ; and consequently we find the social and industrial features of that age wholly unpromising. During the Middle Ages, nearly all knowledge of the arts of anti- quity had perished in the gulf which swallowed up so much of the virtue Art in the ^^^ manly sentiment, and political and social rights of the peo- Middie pie, and Feudalism debased all labor, physical and intellectual, and every Art but that of carnage. The feeble lamp of learning burned dimly, and only in the cloister of the monk. At length the spirit of Chivalry arose to stay the hand of oppression, to succor the weak, cul- tivate the principles of truth, honor, justice, and generosity, and to plant the wide moral waste with the sentiments of love and of poetry. In process of time, this institution itself degenerated into one of mere pageantry and phantasm. During the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centu- ries, the principal arts in requisition were those of the armorer, the jeweler, the beed-maker, and the costumer. They fabricated corsle1;s and suits of embroidered silk and cloth of gold, or jeweled and enamelled insignia for the mailed knight, gay trappings of lace and silver for his steed, and chaplets, rosaries, gold and silver clasps, and images of the Virgin for the hand of his lady-love. •• From the fascinating spectacle of the Tournament, where gallant knights, who could neither read nor write, received the meed of valor from the hands of high-born ladies, whose only knowledge was the management of their palfreys or their hawks, how to play the spinet or the lute, make a little needlework or confectionary, the boorish and degraded populace retired to their wretched dwellings to rest on floors' of clay, with billets of wood for their pillows. About this time, indeed, we read of the rich laces, splendid brocades, and cloth of gold, the elegant products- of the silk looms of Venice ; of the linen fabrics of Brescia, the woolen manufactures of Padua, and the^ glass-houses of Murano, all dependencies of the " City on a Hundred Isles." These unrivaled manufactures, 'as well as the riches of Egypt, Syria, and the East, her enterprising traders transported to the most distant parts of Europe, and built up in their sea-girt refuge from op- pression, amid the shallow waters of the Lagunes, the most splendid' maritime, commercial, and manufacturing power of the Middle Ages. Her only rivals in opulence, art, and naval supremacy, were the cities- of Genoa, Pisa, and Florence, which, with Venice, rose to the height of their influence about the middle of the Fourteenth century. The mari- time genius of the former nurtured the adventurous spirit of Columbus, ■ and the liberality of the merchant princes of the latter fostered, the new- 2 18 HISTORY or AMBEICAN MANUPACTUEE8. boefn, arts and learning of Europe. But when at length the knowledge of the silk, plate-glass, woolen and other manufactures slowly found their way into Western Europe, as they had been slowly introduced into Italy, by the Greeks and Saracens from the East, they.long continued, as in their former seats, to minister chiefly to the magnificence of courts and of the nobility, while the humbler manufactures and the mechanic arts had scarcely an existence. The condition of the common people, and even of the wealthy classes, was therefore but tardily improved during the slow growth of knowledge and of industry. And when Manufactures began to revive under more favorable auspices, the injurious effects of monopolies, growing out of the abuse of royal prerogative, by limiting its profits to a favored few, repressed aE competition and all stimulus to improvement. The condition of the English people, as respects their civilization and social comfort in the century which jneludes the very early history of the American colonies, may be inferred., from a few facts, which supply the place of correct statistics. During the comparatively tranquil reign of Elizabeth, England had rapidly progressed in wealth and power ; and as history too commonly deals only with the intrigues of courts and cabinets, and the actions of illustrious persons, it might be inferred, from the splendor of her court and nobility, that the common people of England were in a condition of compar^ive comfort. In mere outward display, particularly of dress, upholstery, ^.nd retinue, those days exceeded our own ; but in point of comfort, even the nobility and gentry of the Sixteenth century, scarcely equalled the humblest peasantry or mechanics of England or the United States at this time ; while the latter classes were for the most part worse fed, clothed, and lodged than any class at present known among us. In the beginning of the Sixteenth century, the houses of the com- mon people were, many of them,. built of mud and wood, thatched with EngUsu straw, and consisted of one room without division of stories. Sixteenth'' The floor was the bare earth or clay covered with rushes or Century, gtraw, " uudcr which," • says Erasmus, " lay every thing that is nauseous." Chimneys were almost unknown, even in the houses of the gentry ; and late in the century, even in the larger towns, but few houses contained a chimney. The fire was kindled against a hob of clay called the rere dosse, in the back or centre of the room, which was filled with smoke from wood — ^the only fuel used — ^that found its way out by an opening or lantern in the roof. In this apartment the family dined and dressed their meals ; and in farm houses the oxen often lived under the same roof. Their utensils were mostly of wood ; glass was scarce, and pottery wholly unknown. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, no fire ENGLISH COMPORT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. W was allowed in the tJniversity of Oxford. Glass windows, carpets, chairs, and looking-glasses, were still less common than chimneys ; and forks were not known until the time of James I. Glass windows ia Elizabeth's reign, were movable furniture in the houses of the nobility, and the dining halls of the gentry were covered with rushes or straw. The bedding coasisted of straw pallets or rough mats covered only by a sheet and coarse coverlet, with a good round log instead of a bolster or pillow. An old annalist says : " As for servants, if they had any sheet above them it was well ; for seldom had they any under their bodies to keep them from the pricking straws that ran oft through the canvas of the pallet, and rased their hardened hides." A mattres,? or flock-bed and sack of chaff for a pillow, were considered evidences of prosperity in one who had been seven years married, who considered himself "as w«ll lodged as the lord of the town." Skipton Castle, one of the most splendid man- sions of the North, had but seven beds, and none of the chambers had chairs, glasses, or carpets. Even the Baronial household of Northum- berland, in the beginning of the century, employed but two cooks for a retinue of two hundred persons, including seventy strangers daily counted upon ; had no sheets ; and the table linen, often extremely costly, was washed about once a month. Forty shillings was the yearly allowance for the washing of the household. The earl had three country seats, with furniture for but one, and carried all mth him when he removed, one cart EufGicing for all the kitchen utensils, cooks' beds, etc. The food of artificers and laborers in Henry the Eighth's reign, was "horsecorn, beans, peason, oats, tares, and lentils." Barley bread was the usual food of the poorer classes in 1626, and white bread was but little used by them in 1689. Even as late as 1735, when an improved agriculture had made wheat bread common in the southera^counties, in Cumberland, it is said, none but a rich family used a peck of wheat in a year, and that at Christmas'. A wheaten loaf was only found after much search in the shops of Carlisle. Servants, and the very poor, ate dry bran bread, sometimes mixed with rye meal. Yet the English peasantry were better fed than the French at that period, who ate apples, water and rye meal. Corn was mostly ground at home by the querne or hand-mill, in the time of Elizabeth. Holland at the time supplied London with vegetables, and a century later a large part of England was an unproductive waste. In thei early reign of Henry VIII., it has been said, not a cabbage, carrot, turnip, or other edible root grew in England. Traveling was most tedious and perilous, as well on account of the wretched condition of the roads, as the prevalence of moss-troopers and highwaymen, who as late as the times of Charles II. were hunted in some counties with blood-hounds. In the reign of Henry VIII., it ip 20 HISTORY OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURES. said, tOjOOO thieves were hanged in England. Until the middle of the Sixteenth century nearly all traveling was on horseback, and goods were transported on pack-horses, the foremost wearing a bell to warn travelers to turn out to let them pass, such was the narrowness of the way. Coaches did not become general until the time of Elizabeth, or later, when they were without springs and very clumsy. The queen in her old age is said to have reluctantly used so effeminate a conveyance, which it was a disgrace for a young man to be seen to use ; and she is said also to have declined a breakfast at Cambridge because she had twelve miles to travel before she slept 1 Turnpikes were established by Act of Parlia- ment in the time of Charles the Second, but the gates were pulled down by a mob. In ItOS, public coaches were advertised to perform the whole journey from London to York in four days! And in ItBO, a coach left Edinburgh for London once a month, and occupied a month in the journey. Owing to the diflSculties of transportation, many articles were nearly worthless a few miles from any market. Coals, in the time of Henry VIII., were worth but 12d per chaldron at Newcastle, and four shillings in London. They became so dear in 1643, that many perished for want of fuel, which the tardy means of supply could not prevent. A pamphlet of that period has the imprint — "Printed in the year That sea coal was exceeding dear." Pins were introduced from France in 1543, previous to which, royal ladies used instead ribbons, clasps, and skewers of brass, silver, gold, ivory, bone, or wood. They were first made in England in 1626. Um- brellas, though of great antiquity, were not known in England until 1Y68, and their first use excited the jeers of the vulgar. London and West- minster were first lighted by order of Parliament in 1143, and coal gas was first used for that purpose in 1814. Yet iat that late day the meas- ure was opposed by so enlightened a person as Lord Brougham. But our theme does not permit us to enlarge upon this topic. Every department of the public, private, and social economy of the period, in its intellectual, moral, or industrial aspects, would furnish ample evidence of the dwarfish condition of the kingdom, compared with its present august stature in all the arts of civilized life. Those who would derive a most instructive lesson from history, would do well to consult the third chapter of Macaulay's History of England, and compare the state of England, as depicted by him, just previous to the Revolution of 1688, when the population of the kingdom was between five and six millions, with that of Great Britain as she exists at this day. The progress made since the beginning of the century had been compara- tively small ; and the examination may better enable the reader to appre- MINING AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 21 date the evidences of activity, and of slow but steady progress made amidst poverty, hardship, and savage hostility, in our ov?n country, even previous to the time when national independence and public spirit, com- bined with a suddenly progressive character in the age, gave our industry a permanent impulse. The period of our colonization was one of much talent and great promise, but the " car of improvement" was many years in getting under way. Macaulay assures us that a large part of the country beyond Treat was, down to the eighteenth century, in a state of barbarism I That in 1685, the value of the produce of the soil far exceeded the value of all the other fruits of human industry. Yet the wheat crop was estimated at less than two millions of quarters. But the mineral wealth of the kingdom was stOl less developed. Tin had been an article of export for over two thousand years, and was still one of the most valuable of native minerals. Its product was about sixteen hundred tons. In 1856, it was reported at eight thousand seven hundred and forty-seven tons. The copper mines, he says, then lay wholly neglected, and were not reckoned in the value of land ; but Cornwall and Wales, at the time he wrote, produced fifteen thousand tons annually, worth near a million and a half sterling, or twice the annual value of the produce of all English mines in the Seventeenth century. In 1854, Great Britain produced twenty-three thousand and seventy-three tons of copper, worth over two and a quarter millions of pounds sterling.'' Beds of rock salt were discovered after the Restoration, but not worked, and the salt made in rude brine pits was nauseous and unwholesome. A great part of the iron used at the close of Charles the Second's reign was imported, and the whole quantity cast annually did not exceed ten thousand tons. In 1740, England and Wales, from fifty-nine furnaces, produced only seventeen thousand three hundred and fifty-six tons; and in It 50, twenty-two thou- sand tons. In 1856, the product of pig-iron was ofScially stated to be three millions of tons. ^ The wages of farm laborers, at the same period, did not exceed ordi- narily four shillings a week, but ranged as high as six or seven in summer. And for workmen in woolens, the staple manufacture of England, six shillings were considered fair wages. These prices, it is evident, were not more than one half the rates paid at present ; while most articles of con- sumption cost more than half their present prices. Although as early as 1351, free labor had been recognized in place of villeinage by the legislature, the statute book continued to be loaded with iniquitous laws, regulating the price of labor, down to the time of Elizabeth, when the law of supply and demand was seen to be a better regulator of wages (1) Annals of British Legislation, vol. ii. (2) Ibid. 22 niSTOKY OF AMEKICAN MANITACTUBES. than acts of Parliament. But artificers were even then compelled (by 5th Eliz.), under penalty of the stocks, to assist in getting in the harvest' Four-fifths of the common people, says Mr. Macaulay, were, in the Seventeenth century, employed in agriculture ; a sufficient evidence alone of the undeveloped state of the manufacturing arts. The rate of increase in the population was still more slow. From the year 1075 to 1575, the population of England and Wales but little more than doubled in five hundred years. From 1600 to 1700, the increase was about thirty per cent., and twenty per cent, in the next fifty years. In the first half of the present century, the population of the United Kingdom doubled itself, besides furnishing a constant stream of emigration to this country and to Canada, Australia, California, and other parts of the globe. Even so late as the latter part of the Sixteenth century, when the first adventurers to America were born and reared, the great majority of the English people had experienced only in a very limited degree, that general comfort which is the fruit of diffused intelligence, and a developed state of mechanical industry. Some grand discoveries had been made in science, and some ingenious minds had labo'red in the virgin mine of invention. The art of printing, and the use of movable types, had been discovered, gunpowder invented, and the polarity of the magnet was known. Roger Bacon, many years before, had discovered some faint glimmerings of the greater light to be found in the direction of experi- ment, and the patient observation of nature ; and had made some discov- eries in Astronomy, Optics, Chemistry, and Mechanics. But his illus- trious namesake, the Chancellor of James I., had not yet published his 'Novum Organum. That great work appeared in 1620; and when the genius of the author had pointed out the way, the world seemed ill pre- pared to walk in it. So long narcotized by ignorance and superstition, and the nostrums of the past ages, the mental energy of Europe had not recovered from the torpor thereby induced. " Bacon," observes Macaulay, " had sown the good seed in a sluggish soil and at an ungenial season. He had not expected an early crop, and in his last testament had solemnly bequeathed his fame to the next age. During a whole generation his philosophy had, amid tumult, wars, and proscriptions, been slowly ripen- ing in a few well-constituted minds." "The year 1660," he adds, "the era of the restoration of the old constitution, is also the era from which dates the ascendency of the new philosophy. In that year the Royal Society, destined to be a chief agent in a long series of glorious and salutary reforms, began to exist." But it is always likely to be an axiom that improvements coming in the shape of innovations shall in one form or another meet with opposition. (1) " Eights of Industry." THE IMPEDIMENTS TO PROGRESS CONSIDERED. 23 At this moment, in progressive England, where labor-saving appliances have so enlarged the area of useful industry, and promoted the comfort of all classes, the boot and shoe manufacturing districts of Northampton and Staffordshire are trembling in apprehension of popular violence, upon the attempt to introduce the sewing-machine in that business. But in the Seventeenth century, it was not owing to the opposition arising from the sudden displacement of labor, the interference with prerogatives and monopolies, or a conservative dread of innovation merely, that im- provement so long lingered on its march. The general apathy of the age, the imperfect and tardy interchange of knowledge, the want of a stimulating collision of ideas, and often impolitic legislation, clogged the wheels of progress. The slow accumulation and insecurity of capital, and its conflicts with labor, powerfully impeded the success of industry. Ignorance of the true sources of individual and national power and wealth, and of nearly aU the principles of political econoijiy, paralyzed much of the industrial effort of the times. " It is not more than a century ago,'' says a modern author, " that even those who had ' a great deal of philos- ophy,' first began to apply themselves 'to observe what is seen every day ;' exercising, in the course of human industry, the greatest in- fluence on the condition and character of individuals and nations. The properties of light were ascertained by Sir Isaac Newton long before men were agreed upon the circumstances which determined the production of a loaf of bread; and the return of a comet after an interval of seventy-six years, was pretty accurately foretold by Dr. Halley, when legislators were in almost complete ignorance of the principle which regularly brought as many cabbages to Covent Garden as there were purchasers to demand them.'' Centuries were required, in some instances, for the knowledge of particular arts to travel into contiguous kingdoms, or to be usefully applied. Thus the art of making Glass was known to the Romans when they conquered Britain, and was introduced into the island as early as 6t4 ; but glass did not begin to be used in vrindows there until the Thir- teenth century. It was rarely found in windows, and was not made in England until the middle of the Sixteenth. It was more than a hundred years later before its use became general ; and country houses in Scotland were not glazed as late as 1661. Plate glass was first made in England by Venetian artists, at Lambeth, in 16'T3. The manufacture of silk was more than one thousand years in traveling into England from the shores of the Bosphorus. It had been practiced four hundred years in Italy before it crossed the Alps, CHAPTER II. ORIGIN OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURES CONTINUED, AND THOSE IN VIB- QINIA, TO THE CLOSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, CONSIDERED. The origin of American Manufactures is usually referred to a period in our history much less remote than that stated in the previous chapter. It was not until 1810, two hundred years after the first colonization of Virginia, that any systematic attempt was made to collect general statis- tics of Manufactures. The few particulars which can now be gathered, as to the progress made during those two centuries, are scattered through numerous memorials, local histories, records of councils, and statutes of assemblies. These are nevertheless interesting and instructive, as showing from what feeble beginnings our ancestors conducted their infant manu- factures, through numerous difficulties, and laid the foundation of their present success. Comparing their condition, even up to the close of the last century, with the state of productive industry in our time, or with the progress made during the last half century, in which many new agencies of great power have added intensity to every form of intellectual and material progress, the product makes but a small figure in the annals of history. But it is to be remembered that their advance was at that time equally slow in most parts of the world. Even at the present day, many countries which were reckoned elders in the family of nations, ere the ring of the axe was heard in the forests of America, are essentially less independent in regard to some products of manufacture, than were the American Colonies at the period of the Revolution. Equally with the sister arts of Agriculture and Commerce, our Manufactures have, from the first settlement, of the country, advanced with the increase in popu- lation. We shall proceed to notice, in their chronological order, some of the early attempts to establish manufacturing industry in this country, and a few of the encouragements and hindrances which attended those efforts during the colonial period, and up to the time when our Manufac- tures first attained stability and a commanding national importance The first settlers in America brought with them to these shores a knowledge of most of the Arts and Manufactures of the parent country. Many of them, moreover, were accustomed to the comforts, and even (24) THE SETTLEMENT AT JAMESTOWN. 26 ■what were considered luxuries in that era of civilization. Their primary wants in their new homes were those of subsistence, shelter, and clothing. These could only be supplied by their own energy in subduing the unbroken forest and the virgin soil, which labors again required for their rudest exercise the implements of husbandry and other mechanical appli- ances. To obtain the means of ameliorating their condition, the colonists, whose only wealth was the strong arm and the iron will, were forced to rely mainly upon their own unaided exertions. This was particularly the case with regard to the first settlers of New England, whose expatriation was a voluntary one, in behalf of their principles, which left them without that support and patronage which watched over the more speculative enterprise of the earlier and wealthier colonists of Southern Virginia. The early efforts to make settlements upon the coasts of North America, had been stimulated by the accounts of the great wealth that Spain had drawn from the discoveries of gold in her transatlantic Provinces, and the London Company, which in 160t iirst successfully planted a colony at Jamestown, had hopes of similar discoveries. But they seem also to have, from the first, contemplated some form of manufacture. We are in- formed by one of her historians,' that in the second voyage of Captain Newport to the colony, in the latter part of 1608, the Company sent out in the ship — which brought also a crown for the Sachem Powhatan, and orders for his "crownation" — eight Poles and Gerruans to make Pitch, Tar, Glass, Mills, and Soap-ashes, which, he observes, had the country been peopled, would have done well, but proved only a burthen and hindrance to the rest. After noticing a voyage of exploration and for the purchase of corn, and the return of the vessel to Jamestown, he continues, " No sooner were they landed but the president dispersed as many as were able, some to make glass, and others for pitch, tar, and soap-ashes. Leaving them at the Port under the Council's care and oversight, he himself carried thirty about five miles down the river, to learn to cut down trees, make clapboards, and lie in the woods.'"' The Council in London, complaining that no gold or silver was sent, wrote an angry letter to the president, threatening that if the expenses, £2000, were not (1) Stith's History of Virginia, London, day than a hundred of the reat,Tfho mast be 1753, p. 11. drove to it by compulsion. * » But the axes (2) "Among these were two fine and often blistering their tender fingers, they proper gentlemen, of the last supply. These would, at every third stroke, drown the ■were at first strange divevhions for men of echoes with a round volley of oaths, to rem- pleasure. Yet they lodged, eat, and drank, edy which sin, the president ordered every worked or played, only as the president him- man's oath to be reoorded, and at night, for self did J and all things were carried on so every oath, to have a can of water poured pleasantly that within a week they became down his sleeve, which so washed and masters; and thirty or forty of those volun- drenched the offender, that in a short time tary gentlemen would have done more in ^ an oath was not heard' in a week." 26 HISTORY OP AMERICA^ MANUFACTURES. defrayed by the ship's return, they should be deserted. To this letter Captain Smith returned "a plain and scholarly answer" by the ship, "which was at length dispatched with the trials of Pitch, Tar, Glass, Frankincense, and Soap-ashes, with what wainscot and clapboard could be provided." This cargo, of the value of which we are not informed, appears to have been the first export made from the British Colonies to a foreign country, with the exception of a load of sassafras gathered near Cape Cod in 1608, and consisted almost exclusively of manufactured articles, in the strict sense of that term. The Olass-hovse, he informs us, stood in the woods, about a mile from Jamestown, and though probably very unpretending in its dimensions and appointments, it was doubtless the "first manufactory ever erected in this country. ^ During the next year (1609), in which a new charter was granted, we are told they prosecuted their business with alacrity and success. They made three or four " lasts « of tar, pitch, and soap-ashes ; produced a trial of glass ; sunk a well in the fort ; built twenty houses ; new covered the church ; provided nets and seines for fishing ; built a block-house to receive the trade of the Indians ; thirty and forty acres of ground were broke up and planted, etc. * * * A.n.6i for their exer- cise at leisure times, they made clapboards and wainscot."' The year following. Sir Thomas Gates testified before the Council in London * that the country so abounded in white mulberry trees, that with so favorable a climate he believed it would yield silk equal to Italy ; that there were divers minerals, especially "iron oarS," some of which, having been sent home, had been found to yield as good iron as any in the world ; that a kind of Hemp or Flax and Silk grass grew there naturally, which would yield material for excellent cordage, etc. But the prospects of the country having, from various causes, greatly declined, when Captain Argall arrived as Governor in 1617, he found the public buildings and works of Jamestown fallen to decay, and only five habitable houses in the place. The people had turned their attention to the cultivation of tobacco, and he found the market-place, the streets, and all spare places planted with it. Its price was about three shillings per (1) The first patent granted in England generally estimated at 4,000 lbs., but raries for the manufacture of glass, was on 22d much according to the article, and in dififer- May, 1623, to Sir Eobert IMansell, for "a ent countries. A last of pitch, tar, or ashes, method of making glass with sea coal, pit is about fourteen barrels. coal, or any other fuel not being timber or (3) The Colony, at this time, consisted of wood." Glass bottles and window-glass 200 persons, but was increased soon after to were first made there in 1557, and plate- 500. glass in 1673. (4) A True Declaration of Virginia, 1610. (2) A " last," according to MoCuUoch, is Force's Collection of Tracts, vol. iii. EABLT MANUrACTURES IN VIRGINIA. 21 pound, at which price it was fixed shortly after by the governor's edict, under penalty of three years slavery to the Colony. On the nth of May, 1620, a meeting of the Company was called in London, at which many persons of the highest distinction joined the enterprise, and Sir Edwin Sandys, whose term of office as treasurer of the Company had just expired, made, we are told, " a long and handsome speech" on the affairs of the Colony. He stated the means he had taken to turn the attention of the colonists from tobacco to other more useful and necessary commodities. That for this purpose one hundred and fifty persons had been sent to set up three iron-works ; that directions had been given for making cordage, as well as hemp and flax, and more especially silk grass, which grew^ there naturally in great abundance, and was found upon experiment to make the best cordage and line in the world. Each family was ordered to set one hundred plants of it, and the governor himself five thousand. They had also been advised to make pitch, tar, pot and soap-ashes, and timber for shipping, masts, planks, and boards, etc., for which purpose men and materials had been sent over for erecting sundry- saiving-miUs.^ The cultivation of mulberry-trees and silk was strongly recommended, and the king, for the second time, had furnished silk-worm seed of the best sort, from his own store ; and as grapes of excellent quality were a natural production, several skillful vine- growers, with abundance of vine slips, had been sent ; and lastly, that the salt-works, which had been suffered to go to decay, were restored and set up, and that there were now hopes of such plenty as not only to serve the Colony for the present, but also shortly to supply the great fishery on the American coasts. ' Ample provision, indeed, appears to have been made for the domesti- cation of the principal useful arts in Virginia, as the following list of the tradesmen whom it was designed to transfer thither will show : viz., " Husbandmen, Gardners, Brewers, Bakers, Sawyers, Carpenters, Joyners, Shipwrights, Boatwrights, Plonghwrights, Millwrights, Masons, Turners, Smiths of all sorts. Coopers of all sorts. Weavers, Tanners, Potters, Fowlers, Fish-hook-makers, Netmakers * Shoemakers, Ropemakers, (1) It is probable that no saw-mill wna says the original record, " order is given erected thusearly, since in 1649 it was stated fur making it in abundance, and after tho that a saw-mill was much wanted there. See manner of those hotter climates, which may page 31. Saw-miUs were not erected in prove a great help to enrich the planta- England until many years later. Yet it was tion." stated in July following, that in addition to (3J In respect to the last two, the Virginia those sent in the spring to erect saw-mills, adventurers seem to have been more provi- there are lately come from Hamburg divers dent than those of Plymouth, for four years ■workmen, very skillful, to be sent in the after this (1624) ^si-ioo/cB, and seines, and next ship. nets were much wanted in that Colony. (2) Stith, Book iv., p. 176. " For salt,* Winslow, in his " Good News for New Eng- 23 HISTOET OF AMERICAN MANUrACTLRES. Tilemakers, Edge-tool-makers, Brickmakers, Bricklayers, Dressers of Hempe and 'Flax, Lime-burners, Lether-dressers, Men skillful in vines, Men for iron-works, Men skillful ia mines." Of the character of these, says the old chronicle :^ " The men lately sent have been, most of them, choice men, borne and bred up to labor and industry; out of Devonshire about one hundred men brought up to husbandry ; out of Warwickshire and Staffordshire above one hundred and ten ; and out of Sussex about forty, all framed to iron-worhes, etc." Among the natural commodities enumerated in the same Tract, are " cotton-wooll and suger-canes, all of which may there also be had in abundance, with an infinity of othermore. " ' As much as possible to discourage the use and cultivation of tobacco,' several other branches of industry were eWouraged ; and to promote still further the culture of silk, a person skillful in the business was sent over from the king's own garden at Oatlands to instruct others in it. Others were -iSpected from Trance ; and to give full instruction in it, a French treatise on the subject was translated by one of the Company, printed at its expense, and sent over in sufficient numbers for distribution. In ref- erence to the iron-works above alluded to, Beverley, in his History of Virginia, after noticing several appropriations of the Burgesses, the first Colonial Assembly ever held in America, who met the governor and Council in May, 1620, observes, " Many of the people became very indus- trious, and began to vie one with another in planting, building, and other improvements. A salt-work was set up at Cape Charles on the Eastern shore, and an iron-work at Falling Creek in Jamestown River, where they made proof of good iron ore, and brought the whole work so near a per- fection that they writ word to the Company in London that they did not doubt but to finish the work,. and have plentiful provision of iron for them by the next Easter."* In 1621, three of the master-workmen having died, the Company sent over Mr. John Berkeley with his son Maurice, who were commended as very skillful in that way, with twenty other experienced workmen. ^ On land," says, "For though our bays and vation of Cotton in the United States de- creeks are full of bass and other fish, yet serves commemoration. This year the seeds for want of fit and strong seines and other were planted as an experiment, and their netting, they, for the most part, brake plentiful coming up was at that early day a through and carried all away before them." subject of interest in America and Eng- If they had had these, they could hardly land." have suffered so much for want of food. (3) "Against which," says Stith, "that Young's " Chronicles of Plymouth," pp. 171 Solomon of England (King James) wrote a aod^gi treatise entitled 'A Counterblaste to To- (1) A Declaration of the State of Virginia, baoco.'" 1620. Force's Coll., vol. iii. No. fi. (4) History of Virginia, p. 36. (2) Ibid. p. 4. Mr. Bancroft, vol. i. p. (5) Stith. 179, anno 1621, observes : " The first cultl- EARLY IKON-WORKS IN VIRGINIA. 29 the 22d of May following, the plan of a general massacre was put in execution by the Indians, of whom all fears had for some time been laid aside, and Berkeley with all hia workmen and people, except one boy and a girl, who managed to hide themselves and escape, were cut off, with others, to the number of three hundred and forty-seven. The iron-works and the glass-house were entirely demolished, and the preparations for the manufacture of other commodities were abandoned.^ That the iron- work on Falling Creek had really goi^ into operation appears from fur- ther reference to it by Beverley. " The iron," he says, "proved reason- ably good ; but before they got into the body of the mine, the people were cut off in that fatal massacre, and the project has never been set on foot since, till of late ; but it has* not had its full trial "^ * * * * " The superintendent of this iron-work also discovered a vein of lead ore, which he kept private, and made use of it to furnish all the neighbors with bullets and shot. But he being cut off with the rest, and the iJeret not having been communicated, the lead mine could never after be fbund, till Colonel Boyd, some few years ago, prevailed with an Indian, under pretense of hunting, to give him a sign by dropping his tomahawk, a*-the place, (he not daring publicly to discover it, for fear of being murdefed.) The sign was accordingly given, and the Company at that time found several pieces of good lead ore upon the surface of the ground, and marked the trees thereabouts. Notwithstanding which, I know nol by what witchcraft it happens, but no mortal to this day could ever find that place, though it be upon part of the colonel's own possessions. And so it rests till time and thicker settlement discovers it."' Tliis mine was subsequently rediscovered, and lead obtained from it not many years ago. The use of Iron, notwithstanding its high antiquity — furnaces for ex- tracting the metal from its ores, and its manufacture into swords, knives, etc., being assigned to a period before the time of Moses — seems to have been unknown to the Indians generally, although gold and copper were known to those of Mexico before the discovery of that country by the Europeans. This is doubtless owing to the fact, as stated by McCuUoch, that " iron, though the most common, is the most difficult of all the metals to obtain in a state fit for use ; and the discovery of the method (1) It is a enrions eirenmstanoe, that of which, though of as vast important to about the same time that the savages in the world as the former was to Virginia, Virginia were putting an end to this "good was, lilie the latter, not again revived for project" for the manufacture of iron, an Ig- about one hundred years, norant mob in England destroyed the works (2) The revival of the iron-manufacture of Edward Lord Dudley, for the smelting of alluded ' to took place about the year iron ore with pit coal, by his newly-discov- 1712-15. ered process, patented in 1621; and the use (3) Beverley, 30 HISTORY OP AMERICAN MANUPAClX'ftES. \ of working it seems to have been posterior to the use of gold, silver, and copper." Notwithstanding several attempts to divert the people from the culti- vation of tobacco, so profitable had the business become through the increased productiveness under the improved cultivation by the spade, commenced in 1611, and the increased consumption and price in Europe, that in 1621, store-houses and factors were established at Middleburgh and Flushing, and fifty-five thousand pounds were exported to Holland, but none to England.' The year following they made sixty-six thou- sand pounds, and in 1 639 the Assembly ordered all the tobacco in the Colony made in that and the two succeeding years to be destroyed, except one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, in due proportion for each planter. Eor several years preceding the Revolution, the exports of tobacco from Yirginia were about the same annually as in 1621. The instfUctions brought by Sir Francis Wyatt to his government in the latter year were, to withdraw attention from tobacco, and to direct it to corn, wine, silk, and others already mentioned ; to the making of oil of walnuts, and employing the apothecaries in distillation ; and searching the country for minerals, dyes, gums, drugs, and the like. A fund was also subscribed for a glass-furnace to make beads, which were the current coin with the Indians ; and one Captain Norton, with some Italian workmen, was sent overf'for that purpose.' The next year a master shipwright, named Bar- ret, and twenty-five men, were sent to build ships and boats.' In 1623, Alderman Johnson, in justification of himself and Sir Thomas Smith, who had been charged with ruining the Colony ^ during the ad- ministration of tjie latter ending in 1619, drew up an account, in which he states, among other evidences of its prosperity in that time, that barks, pinnaces, shallops, barges, and other boats, were built in the country ; but some of his statements seem to have been questioned by th-e Assembly.* (1) This was in consequence of the impost per lb.; hard pitch and rosin, each, 5«. per which had been laid upon tobacco. Spanish cwt. ; madder, 40s. ; coarse, 258. per cwt.; tobacco sold about this time, we are told, at woad, from 12». to 2O9. per cwt.; aniso-seed, eighteen shillings per pound, while that of 4p». per cwt. ; masts for ships, 10». to 3£ a Virgfinla was limited in the Colony to three piece ; potashes, from 12«. to 14«., which were shillings, and the duty was the same upon in 1660, 368. to 408. per cwt.; soap-ashes, 6«. botK The following was the valuation of a to 8«. per cwt. ; etc. A man's labor was then few articles, growing or to be had in the computed at ten pounds stg. per annum. Colony in 1621, viz. : Iron, ten pounds ster- (2) Stith. ling per ton; silk coddes, 28. 6d. per lb.; (3) At the end of twelve years, the Corn- raw silk, 138. id. per lb., which rose in 1660 pany had expended £80,000, and were to 26e. and 288. per lb. ; silk-grass for cord- £4,000 in debt, and the Colony only num- age, 6d. per lb. ; hemp, from lOe. to 228. per bered 600 persons. owt.; flax, from 22s. to 308. per cwt.; oord- (4) "But in the midst of these troubles age, 208. to 24s. per cwt. ; eoiton kooU, 8d. and alarms," says Mr. Stith, under this date, THE INDUSTET OP VrRQIMIA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 81 To promote the silk culture, the Legislature of Virginia in 1623 ordered all settlers to plant mulberry trees, and in 1656, passed an act imposing a fine on every planter who should not hare at least one mul- berry tree to every ten acres of land. In 1651, premiums were oflferd for its encouragement ; and it is said that Charles II. wore, at his coronation in 1661, a robe and hose of Virginia silk, the art of weaving which was introduced into England in 1620. Sir William Berkeley, the governor, on his return from a visit to England, upon the Restoration, carried his majesty's pressing instructions for encouraging the people in Husbandry and Manufactures, but more especially to promote silk and vineyards. The Company had established a vineyard in the Colony previous to 1620, and a few years after sent out a number of French and Italian vignerons, who, through bad management, were unsuccessful. Wines were made in the Colony in 164t by a Captain Brocas; and in 1651, premiums were also offered for its encouragement as well as for that of hemp ; and in 1657, for flax also, both which latter were annually grown, spun, and woven by Captain Matthews of that State, prior to 1648.' In 1662, an edict of Virginia required each poll to raise annually and manufacture six pounds of linen thread. The manufacture declined on the withdrawal of the premiums. A tract entitled, " A Perfect Description of Virginia," ' published in London in 1649, states, that "they had three thousand sheep, six public brew-houses, but most brew their own beer, strong and good ; that indigo began to be planted and throve wonderfully well, from which their hopes are great to gain the trade of it from the Mogul's country, and to supply all Christendom; that the quantity of tobacco had so increased that it had fallen in price to three pence a pound ; that they produced much flax and hemp ; that iron ore was abundant, and had been tried and proved good ; and that an iron-work erected would be as much as a silver mine ; that they had four wind-mills and five water-mills to grind corn, besides many horse-mills ; that a saw-mill was much wanted to saw boards, inas- much as one mill driven by water will do as much as twenty sawyers ; that they make tar and pitch, of which there was abundant material, as " the Mueee were not silent. For in tbia verse, the one being Sandi/s* Translation of time Mr. George Sandys, the Company's Ovid's Metaviorplioseaj the other the Bay Treasurer of Virginia, mad« his translation Psalm Booh, works widely difiFerent in char- of Ovid's Metamorphoses, a very laudable acter, and yet somewhat prophetic of the performance for the times." In relation to practioal taste of the future nation to whose this performance, Mr. Moran, in his "Con- early literary contribntions they belong/' — tributions toward a History of American Trubner's Guide to American Literatures Literature," remarks, "It is curious that the (1) Patent Office Seport, 1S53, 201. first book written, and the first book printed (2) Force's CoUeetion of Tracts, vol. ii. in what is now the United States, were in Noi 8. 32 HltsTORT OF AMERICAN MANUrACTURES. well as for pot and pearl-ashes ; that all kinds of tradesmen lived well there, and gained much by their labors and arts as turners, potters, coopers, to make all kinds of earthen and wooden vessels ; sawyers, car- penters, tyle-makers, boatwrights, tailors, shoemakers, tanners, fishermen, and the like." ' At what time precisely this want of a saw-mill was supplied does not appear, but Ed. Williams published in London in 1650, a small tract con- taining an " Explication of the saw-mill or engine wherewith, by force of a wheel in the water, to cut timber with great speed." It was accompanied by an engraving, and contained some ingenious modifications of the mill as then used in Norway. Substituting weights for the toothed wheels which moved the carriage in the former, which done, he says " the in- genious artist may easily convert the same to an instrument of threshing wheat,' breaking of hemp or flax, and other as profitable uses." All this he proposed to make very useful in Virginia. * This mill is said to have differed little except in the use of less iron from many to be seen within a very few years in parts of the country in our day. In an earlier pamphlet, or an earlier edition of the same, by this writer (published the same year),' he holds out to the adventurers in a (1) The practice of treading out grain by horses — and sometimes by oxen, after the manner of the ancients — was generally prac- ticed on the peninsula of the Chesapeake Bay as late as 1790. Horses, however, were preferred; and the advantages of this mode over that by the flail, as used in the North- ern States and England at that time, were, that an entire crop could be beaten out in a few days, thus securing it from the ravages of the fly, which prevailed there, and also from fhieveSf and having it earlier ready for market. Three thousand bushels could be secured thus in ten days, which would em- ploy five men one hundred days with the flail. Treading-floors were sometimes shift- ed from field to field, but a permanent floor of good waxy earth, which became smooth, hard, and glossy by use, was preferred. The floors were made from forty to one hundred and thirty feet diameter, usually sixty to one hundred, with a path or track at the outer circumference twelve to fourteen feet wide, on which the sheaves were laid; and they were usually fenced round, sometimes with an outer and inner fence. The horses were led round by halters, in ranks equi- distant from each other, and at a sober trot. Thus, four ranks would preserve the rela- tive position of the four main arms of a wheel, or the four cardinal points of the compass. This method was then believed by some to be preferable to any known mode of threshing grain. It is probable the thresh- ing-machiug has rendered it obsolete by this time. — Bee American Ifttaeum, vol. vii. p. 64. (2) Moore's Patent Office, Append. 306. (.3) The title of this curious volume runs thus : " Virginia, more especially the South- em part thereof, richly and truly valued ; viz., the fertile Carolana and no less excel- lent Isle of Roan oak, of latitude from thirty- one to thirty-seven degrees ; relating the means of raysing infinite profits to the ad- venturers and planters. The second edi- tion, with addition ^ the discovery of silk- worms, with their benefit, and in planting of mulberry trees; also, the dressing of vines for the rich trade of making wines in Vir- ginia; together with the making of the saw- mill, very useful in Virginia for cutting timber and clapboard to build withal; and its conversion to many as profitable uses : by B; W. Gent, London, 1650." The ac- count of the saw-mill he promises soon to publish. &EMARKS ON EARLY ATTEMPTS TO ESTABHSa MANTJPACTtTEES. 33 Btyle of glowing description the immense profit to be derived from the Colonies, and recommends their encouragemeiit by government as a means of getting rid of criminals from the kingdom, a plan already- adopted by King James some years previously, and which afterward proved a source of great detriment to the social and moral interests of the colo- nists as well as to their industry. " It will be," he says, moreover, " to this commonwealth a standing full magaaine of wheat, rice, oolc'seed) rape- seed, flax, cotton, salt, potashes, sope^oshes, sugars, wines, silks, olives, etc." In regard to Iron he says ; " Neether does Virginia yield to any other province whatsoever in excellency and pleatyof this oare: and I cannot promise to myself any other than extraordinary successe and gaine if this noble and useful! staple be but Vigirottsly followed." He compares Virginia with Persia and China ia regard to diJMate and productions, allowing the latter no advantage but in theif antiquity ; and in reference to the silk grass already mentioned he says c " For what concerns the Flax of China, that we maol. 2, p. 163. Ferris, in his History of the that was burnt from oyster shells, before Original Settlements of the Swedes on the any limestone had been discovered. The Delaware, states that he had seen, in his house was built of brick, and was standing youth, the house at Newcastle, in which a few years before he wrote, in 1845. Governor Lovelace entertained George Fox (3) Clarkson's Life of William Penn, ToL in 1672, the timber of which appeared to 1. iiave been hewed, indicating its erection be- PEiNNSYLVANIA AND DELA-VVAEE. Ill places ; but Saw-mills are not particularized. Hand-sawyers are men- tioned as in demand in 1698, and received, for sawing pine-boards, six to seven shillings per hundred. The price for the same labor in ItOS, was ten shillings, which would indicate an increased demand for lumber with- out a proportionate decrease in the cost of production. Boards were then ten shillings per hundred ; shingles, ten shillings per thousand ; tirdber, six shillings the tuu'^ and wheat, four shillings a bushel. In the neighboring county of Bucks, settled by English Quakers about this time, there appear to have been no Saw-mills as late as 1*731, when the framed houses were covered with "nice shaved clap-boards," and "the boards for floors and partitions were all sawed by hand.'" At least eleven mills were erected near Wissahickon, within the late township of Roxborough, in the northwest part of the City, previous to 111'd, but did not include a Saw-mill, according to a recent historical sketch of the place.^ The " Chester Mills,'' including a Saw-mill, in part belonging to the estate of Jonathan Dickinson, on Chester Creek, were advertised for sale in 1723. In ITeO, the Assessors reported within the county of Philadel- phia, forty Saw-mills. Oak, hickory, walnut, and other lumber, either sawed near the city, or rafted down the Delaware, Schuylkill and other streams, was always abundant in the market of Philadelphia, and was exported in considerable quantities. Mills for its manufacture were speedily multiplied in the rivers on the interior, where timber abounded. The industrious Germans of those counties had many mills. In 1Y86, within thirty-nine miles of the Borough of Lancaster, one-third of whose population were manufacturers, there were sixteen Saw- mills. In Delaware, which constituted the three lower counties of Pennsyl- vania, Saw-mills existed on the Brandywine, Christina, and other streams. Some of the first erections in this part of the country, as we have seen, were within its present limits. Vincent Gilpin, in l'I'?2, owned flouring and Saw-mills on the Brandywine, two miles from Wilmington. There was also a Saw-mill within the borough, nearly opposite the site of Hol- lingsworth and Harney's machine shop, which was demolished toward the close of the last century. The export of boards and scantlings from the port of Philadelphia in 1765, was 783,000 feet; the value of which at £3 10s. per M., was £2470. Staves, heading, and shingles, were exported in the same time to the value of £28,450. The exports of planks and boards in the years (1) Dr. John Watson, in Mem. Hist, of (2) Genealogical Account of the Levering Pennsylvania, vol. 1, 278. Family, by H. G. Jones, Esq. App. Note A. 112 SAW-MILIS IN THE COLONIES. 1112, 'IB, and '74, were, respectively, 1,Y24, 4,075, and 3,309 thousand feet.' 9. Maryland. — Respecting the introduction of Saw-mills in Maryland, we have no information. The first water-mill for corn in the Colony, was erected by public subscription in 1639. A century after, the Assem- bly encouraged the erection of the same class'of mills by a public statute. The mill-sites on the Patapsco were occupied for corn-mills about the year 1763, by Joseph Ellicott and J. & H. Burgess, from Bucks County, Pennsvlvania. 10. Virginia. — Making boards and clap-boards by hand-labor was one of the first employments of the Virginians in 1609; and the later emigrants, in 1620, were directed to give their attention to the prepara- tion of timber, masts, planks, boards, etc. Artisans were sent in the spring of that year, to set up Saw-mills ; and others, from Hamburgh, were engaged later in the year for the same purpose. Of clap-boards 6r pipe-staves, it was said in 1650, a man could easily make (by manual process) 15,000 in a year, worth in the Colony £4 per thousand; and in the Canaries £20; which would yield, in the lowest market, £60. Walnut, cedar, and cypress planks, were always saleable in England. A Saw-mill at this date was said to be a great desideratum, whence it may be inferred that none previously existed. A Saw-mill, driven by water, would do the work of twenty sawyers. The following "Explication of the Saw-mill, an engine wherewith, by the force of a wheel in the water, to cut timber with great speed," illus- trated by a rude engraving, is contained in a tract published in London, by E. Williams, in 1650,'' who proposed to introduce it into Virginia, where a Saw-mill did not exist at the time. " This engine is very common in Norway, and mountains of Sweden, where- with they out great quantities of Deal-hoards ; which engine is very necessary to be in a great Towne, or Forrest, to cut Timber, whether into planks or otherwise. This heer is not altogether like those of Horway, for they make the piece of Timber approach the sawes on certaine wheels with teeth ; hut (1) Lord Sheffield's Tables from Custom- was ninety-four million feet, of which Ilouse Books, Nos. 9 and 10. eeventy-four millions was in Pennaylva- The census of 1810, from eleven out of nia. From Now York, and several lumber twenty-six States and Territories, returned States, there was no return. Chester, Lan- 2,526 common Saw-mills, and twenty-one caster, Northumberland, and Cumberland, Mahogany mills, of which 1,995 common had the greatest number of mills in Fenn- Saw-mills, and all the Mahogany mills be- sylvania. long to Pennsylvania. The quantity sawed (2) See note, page 33. VIEGINIA. CtJBlOUS INVENTIONS. 113 because of reparations whioU these tooth'd wheels are often subject Unto, I will omit that use, and in stead thereof put two waits (Weights) about two or three hundred pounds weight apiece, whereof one is marked A, the other B. The chords wherewith the said weights doe hange, to be fastened at the end of the 2 peeoes of moving wood, which slide on two other peeces of fixed wood, by the meanes of certaine small pulleys^ which should always draw the sayd peeoes of moving wood, which advancing always toward the sawes rising and falling, shall quickly be cut into 4, 6 or 6 peeces, as you shall please to put on sawes, and placed at what distance yon will have for the thioknesse of the plank or boards ye will out, and whenn a peece is cut, then let one with a lever turn a Eowler whereto shall be fastened a strong cord, which shall brlnge baoke the sayd peece of wood, and left againe the weights : and after put aside the peece already cut to take again the sawes against another peece of wood. Which once done, the ingenious Aktist, may easily convert the sam* to an instrument of threshing wheat, breaking of hemp or flax, and other as profitable uses." This primitive instrument appears to have admitted the employment of a gang of saws, and by comparing the description with that given a century earlier by the Bishop of Ely, the reader who is conversant with the mechanism of Saw-mills, as they existed in remote rural districts, not many years ago, will discover fewer changes, we apprehend, in their essential features than he would be led to expect in the course of three centuries. A Saw-mill, down to the close of the last century, was quite a simple affair ;'and a mill which cost £100, and cut one thousand feet of boards, per diem, was considered better than the average. The benefits conferred by steam in cutting timber, and in prompting invention in the machinery, applied to manufactures of wood, are among the most signal of its triumphs. In a work published in ItSl, quoted by Anderson, which set the value of the British Colonies to the parent country in a clearer light than be- fore, the author enumerates among the valuable imports from Virginia and Maryland, fifteen thousand pounds' worth of lumber annually sent in the tobacco ships, two-thirds of which were gain, as it would not cost above four thousand pounds in the plantations. James Kumsey, a native of one of these States, and an adopted citizen of the other, toward the close of this period made some improvements in the mechanism of mills, which he patented in several of the States, and afterward under the Pederal laws. "With regard to a Saw-mill," he says, in his Treatise on the Application of Steam, etc., published in 1788, "or any other ma- chines that have retrograde movements, I have contrived a method of supplying them with water in such a manner that one twentieth part of what is generally expended will answer every intent and purpose gener- ally requisite. My new invented machine for raising water is simple, the cost will not be more than twenty guineas to complete the mechanism 8 114 BAW-MILLS IN THE COLONIES. of one sufficiently large to raise water to work six saws or a Grist- mill." 11. The Caeolinas and Georgia. — The extensive pine forests and other timber lands of the two Carolinas and Georgia invited the first settlers to a lucrative manufacture of lumber and naval stores. But although South Carolina, as early as 1691, passed an Act "for the better encouragement of the making of engines for the propagating of the staples of the Province," and, in 1101, another for "encouraging the making of potash and saltpetre," followed, in 1712, by an Act "for encouraging the building Saw-mills and other mechanic engines," the Saw-mill does not appear to have come into extensive requisition in Carolina daring colonial times. "The resources of Carolina in lumber," says Dr. Ramsay, "maybe esti- mated from the following statement. There are within its limits two hundred thousand acres, each of which, on an average, has growing on it fifty pine trees, and every one of these on an average, when brought in a marketable form to the seaports, would sell for ten dollars. If to these afe added the cypress and cedar trees, the oaks, ashes, poplars, maples, beeches, magnolias, palmettos, and other common trees in Carolina which are used in furniture, building, as ship timber, and in various forms by different artists, the sylvan riches of the State will be found to exceed all calculation. So great is the eagerness to plant cotton (1808), that forests containing immense quantities of useful wood are merely cut down and burnt, without any other advantage than what is derived from the fertilizing quality of their ashes. This small residue of what might have been made ten times more valuable, is not im- proved by being converted into potash. Such are the temptations resulting from the high value of the new staple, Cotton, that, to extend its culture, other sources of wealth, to an immense amount, are annually sacrificed." South Carolina had at this date only sixty-five Saw-mills and Georgia one. The last-named manufactured about one and a quarter million feet of lumber. As Rice, and, to a less extent. Indigo and Tobacco, had previously engaged the indnstry now bestowed on Cotton, there was comparatively little attention paid to the erection of either Saw or grain mills until after the Revolution. We have no record of their progress during that time. It was not until the middle of the last century that those Provinces began to iourish in any good degree. In 118i, the Legislature once more enacted a law for the encouragement of the Arts and Sciences, giving inventors the exclusive benefit of their labors for fourteen years. A Society which was institnted soon after for the en- couragement and aid of emigrants, stated, in their Circular, that capital might be profitably employed, among other ways, in erecting mills for EAKLY STEAM SAW-MILLS. 115 making paper, sawing lamber, and especially for manufacturing flour. There were hundreds of valuable mill-seats, and the woods abounded with pines. The official value of the different kinds of lumber exported from all the Colonies in the year mO was £154,637, or $686,588. This em-. braced boards, plank, scantling, timber for masts, spars, and buildings, staves, heading, hoops, and poles. In I'? 92, the exports of lumber were 65,846,024 feet ; of shingles, '80,813,351 ; of hoops, staves, and headings, 32,039,707 ; of timber, 21,838 tuns and 12,272 pieces ; 1080 .cedar and oak ship knees; 191 frames of houses; and 48,860 shocks, etc. It was just previous to the period when our Federal history com- mences, and the close of the period embraced in these reminiscences, that the application of steam to mill machinery began to be introduced into Europe and America. The Steam-engine had for some time been used in England and elsewhere, for raising water for the use df mills ; and as early as 1745, a Steam-engine was constructed and in use in the copper- mine of Mr. Schuyler, in New Jersey. Its improvement had also for several years engaged the attention of Oliver Evans, Rumsey, Pitch, Stevens, and others. But it now began to be lised as a direct power for the movement of mill-work for both Saw and Flour-mills. These inven- tions, of which we shall speak elsewhere, and particularly (he high- pressure Steam-engine, and other contrivances of Evans, so admirably adapted to the use of all kinds of factories, opened a new era in the his- tory of Flour-mills and of wogd-working machinery. So great has been the influence of the last-mentioned improvements, as to justify the eulo- ginm of a talented writer, who says, respecting their inventor : " Wherever the Steam-mill resounds with the hum of Industry, whether grinding flour on his native Schuylkill, or cutting logs in Oregon, there do yon find a monument to the memory of Oliver Evans.'" (1) Address before the American Institute, New York, 1 860, by S. G. Arnold. CHAPTER 71. THE INTRODUCTION OF GRIST AND FLOtlR-MILLS INTO THE C0L0NIE8. The earliest instrument for grinding or bruising corn or manna con- sisted of two portable and nicely-wrought stones, one of which was made to revolve, by means of a handle, upon the other. Grinding with these mills wais always a servile and laborious operation, and fell to the lot of the maid-servants, or captives taken in war, as Samson was made to grind in the prison-house of the Philistines, and the captive Israelites in Baby- lon. By the laws of Moses, the mill-stones were not allowed to be dis- trained for debt. The sound of the mill-stones and the song of the grinders, who plied their task in concert at the early morning hour, fur- nished the Hebrew writers with images of cheerfulness and prosperity, and their suspension, " when the sound of the grinding is low," conveyed the idea of desolation. As suggestive of the same ideas of plenty and enjoyment, and as an element of the picturesque, the old-fashioned water Grist-miU of our fathers was, both to the eye and the ear, an object of much interest. In many a frontier settlement, its pleasant sounds were unheard for years by the first lonely dwellers, who were forced to prepare their corn for daily use by a modification of the primitive mill above described, or by the scarcely less operose contrivance of the quern. The pestle and mortar, used by the aborigines of this country, was frequently employed by Europeans, and performed the grinding rather by pounding than by rubbing, as in the Eastern mill. Beside these, horse or cattle mills (the molce jumentaricB of the Romans) were quite common for grinding corn, where pecuniary inability, the sparseness of popula- tion, or absence of water-power, rendered other mechanism- impractica- ble. Wind-mills were also very early, and in some places quite exten- sively employed both for Grist and Saw-milla. 1. Wind-mills. — As a motive power, water was employed much ear- lier than wind. The first saw-mills in this country were mostly driven by water, which the abundant streams and ample fall of the Atlantic slope 016) WIND-MILLS IN MASSACHUSETTS. 11'? rendered everywhere accessible. Some of the early Saw-mills in America were, however, propelled by wind, particularly among the Dutch settlers. With those they were familiar in their native land, where, on account of the level character of the country, and the absence of falling streams. Wind-mills were extensively employed long before they were used in En- gland. Mr. Hume considered the man who first introduced Wind-mills a great public benefactor. We are not aware who first conferred that boon upon America ; but it was probably the Dutch Colonists at Man- hattan. In the Records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, March It, 1628, (0. S.,) it is entered that eleven pounds were paid for a pair of mill-stones to go to New England in the ship, consisting of one hundred and ten burrs, at two shillings each. How early these were brought into use, we find nowhere stated. It is said, however, that the first mill in New England was a Wind-mill, near Watertown, in Massa- chusetts, which was taken down in 1632, and rebuilt in the vicinity of Boston. ' This first Corn-mill was removed from its original site, in Au- gust of that year, " because it would not grind but with a westerly wind." It was set up at the north end of the City of Boston, on the hill previ- ously called Snow Hill, and afterward Copp's Hill, and " Wind-mill Hill," by which name it is mentioned in the Records, in 1635. This Wind-mill is mentioned by Wood in 1633, and was, doubtless, a conspic- uous object throughout the settlements, as being the first attempt to supersede the mortars and hand-mills, previously used by the people. They that year gathered their first harvest of English grain from the ad- jacent fields, now covered by the solid masonry of the tri-montane city. The principal supplies of food were at first derived from England, in flour or meal, or from Virginia, in grain, which was sent to this mill from all the scattered plantations as far east as the Kennebec. " Waterraills were soon after erected, and, in 1636, two more Wind-mills were built, one at Boston and one at Charlestown. The last was blown down in 1648. A Wind-mill was erected at Scituate, by William Gilson, in 163t, and land was the same year granted John Horn, for one at Salem. It was removed by him, in 1639, to Wind-mill Point, on the south side of North River, where a Corn-mill of the same kind stood in 1*1*11. An- (1) In Bond's History of Watertown, we near which, it is said in Brake's Antiquities do not find any mention of the erection of of Boston, to have been originally placed, this Wind-mill, and the laborious author The mill on Copp's Hill was shattered and was unable to determine who built the first set on fire by lightning, in 1642, and the water-mill there. The Wind-mill may have miller rendered insensible for twenty-four etood within (he adj oining limits of Newton, hours. 118 COLONIAL GKIST AND FLOtTR- MILLS. Other one stood on Orne's Point, which gare place to the bridge. A Wind-mill was built at Newberry, in 1103. Edward Holyoke, who took the Freeman's Oath in 1638, owned a Wind-mill on Purchase street, in Boston, near Fort Hill, which he after- ward sold to Richard Woodward. In 1101, John Arnold requested liberty to place a Wind-mill on Fort Hill, and was allowed to build one there " on the Town's land," paying such quit-rent as the Select-men should order. A Wind-mill was, in 1140, removed from Roxbury and placed on the same hill. In 1661, the Select-men of Portsmouth granted Captain Pendleton liberty " to set up his Windmill upon Fort Point, toward the beach, be- cause the mill is of such use to the public.'" Wind-mills, which had thus become numerous in the older settlements of Massachusetts, and were much employed in other parts of the Pro- Tince, were early introduced into Rhode Island, where, as late as 1803, they were common on every eminence in some parts of the State, pre- senting a rugged and grotesque appearance, and much diversity of mechanism. * They were most numerous in the County of Newport. The first Wind-mill in Rhode Island was built in 1663, at Newport, by Governor Easton and his sons, who, in 1639, had erected the first European dwelling at that place. This mill was blown down in 1615.' (1) Annals of Portsmouth. count, who spoke of it as the work of that (2) Notes on Compton, in 1 Mass. Hist, people. But these opinions were all of re- Coll., X. 202. cent origin. The mention of the building, (3) History of Khode Island, by S. G. Ar- in the will of Governor Benedict Arnold, nold, vol. i. p. 370. A curious stone structure who died in 1678, as "my stone-built Wind- at Newport, supposed to have been built for a mill," as well as the traditions of the family Wind-mill about this time, gave rise, not in whose possession it long remained, leave many years since, to considerable specula- no doubt that it was built by him. In the tion and antiquarian discussion. It is de- " Penny Magazine" for November, 1836, scribed as unique in its style, being a circu- page 480, is an engraving of a Wind-mill at lar and massive stone building, twenty-five Chesterton, in Warwickshire, England, feetindiameter, and the same in height, sup- erected after a design by Inigo Jones, ported on eight arches resting on thick col- which, without the roof and vanes, is an ex- umns about ten feet high, on a foundation act fao-simile of the old mill or tower at iive feet deep. The centre arch is about Newport. With this, which must have been twelve feet high. Its erection was by some one of the first in England, Arnold is sup- attributed to the Northmen ; and this theory posed to have been acquainted in his youth, was used to prove that Rhode Island was and to have built in imitation of it after the the "Vinland"of the Scandinavian voyagers, first mill was destroyed in 1675. The Koyal Antiquarian Society, at Copen- Dr. Palfrey, who has ably discussed the hagen, were incautiously betrayed into this historio character of this structure in the opinion. A Danish writer attempted to first volume of hia History, visited the War- prove that it was the work of Northmen; wickshire mill in 1856, and is satisfied that and a gentleman of Albany met, at the resi- it was the original of the Newport Tower, denoe of the Duke of Tuscany, a Swedish It has been made the subject of an infinite A CELEBRATED -WIND-MILL. 119 Half an acre of ground was set apart on Tower Hill, in New London, Connecticut, in 1719, for a Wind-mill, which was erected in 1126. Wind-mills were numerous in New York under the Dutch dynasty, and were employed both for grinding corn and sawing lumber, as before men- tioned. They were a scarcely less peculiar feature of Manhattan scenery, than that of the fatherland, where they were a principal dependence be- fore the days of steam. The first mill on the Island was a Horse-mill,built in 1626, by Frangois Molemacker, under the eye of the engineer Kryn Fred- erick, who in that year staked out a fort at the lower end of the Island, and erected a stone warehouse for the Cbmpany, whence the goodly city has since expanded to its present dimensions. The second story of the mill-building was the first humble place of worship of the early settlers, and its site was almost within the shadow of the present Trinity steeple. A horse-mill, one of the earliest in the city, also stood for many years before the English possession, on the North side of the present South William Street, next the corner of Broad, and gave the name of " Mill Street Lane" to that part of South William. Minnit, the first Dutch governor, built, according to Moulton, " two or three Wind-mills at Manhattan, by which corn was ground and boards sawed." One of these, a Flour-mill, stood on a hill which occupied a part of the present Battery, so near the Fort'that the latter, which was rebuilt by Van Twiller, in 1633, intercepted the south-east wind, and rendered the mill nearly useless. But one of three Wind-mills previously erected, was in operation in 1638, when Keift came to the government. On one of their farms, of which they reserved several in different parts of the Island, the West India Company erected a "Wint-molen," (Wind- mill) for the use of the town. It stood near Broadway, between the pre- sent Liberty and Courtland streets. After having gone to decay, it was ordered, in 1662, that there be another erected on the same ground, " outside of the city laudport (gate) on the Company's farm." " Old Wind-mill lane," running from Broadway to Greenwich street, and be- tween Courtland and Liberty street, upon which it probably stood, was, in Lyne's survey of New York, in 1129, the most northern street west of Broadway, all beyond being the King's farm. Mills of this class were also built by private enterprise. Jan Teunizen amount of verse, traditionary, sentimental, poetic genius has been able to fasten upon and common-place. Some graceful lines by it a more romantic character than the very the Connecticut poet, Brainard, embody an utilitarian one above assigned. It was used Indian legend; and the muse of Longfellow as a Grist-mill in the last century, and af- has rescued it from forgetfulness in the torward as a Powder-Mill. Therefore, beautiful Runic myth of "the Skeleton in " Let antiquarians say what they will. Armor." But neither learned research nor It is nothing but an old stone mill." 120 COLONIAL GEIST AND FLOUB-MILLS. had a "Wind-mill in 1665, which was standing sixty years after, near the corner of Chatham and Duane streets. This. mill was then some distance beyond the limits of the city, on the public road. The bolting of flour, in those days, was usually carried on as a sepa- rate business, and in establishments constructed for that purpose, some- times at a distance from the grinding-mill, and often as an append- age to the bakery. During the operation of an Act of the Assembly, made in ] 684, giving to New York the exclusive right of bolting flour within the Province, mills sprang rapidly into existence in the vicinity of the town, and the manufacture of flour became a principal source of emolument to the city. Two years after, under Governor Dungan, the city received a new charter, giving additional municipal privileges, and confirming the ancient Dutch franchises. A new seal, more rich and elaborate than the old one, was now granted the city, which, as indicative of the principal sources of its prosperity, retained the beaver to represent its ancient commercial interests, and added a wind-mill and a flour-barrel as emblems of its present industry. A Wind-mill once stood on the hill in the rear of the old jail, or the present Hall of Records, and an eminence near the Chatham Theatre was called " Wind-mill Hill." In 1160, John Burling advertised for sale a Wind-mill near Bowery hine, having two pair of stones. Wind-mills were also built at an early period in different places in the estates of the Patroons on the Hudson, and elsewhere as population ex- tended, and were an infinite mystery to the simple mind of the native, who bruised his maize between two stones as he sat under the shadow of their revolving vanes. It is related that the pioneer settlers of Western New York, at a com- paratively recent period, when mechanical contrivances were more easily obtainable, had no mills, and prepared their grain by an improvement upon the Indian method. They used wooden mortars, formed of a hollow log set on end, to which they applied a pestle, attached to a sweep like the pole of a well. It is related thai some of the first settlers of Onon- daga had to go forty miles to a mill, and carry their grist on their backs 1 The Indians were accustomed to prepare their maize much after the man- ner of the ancients, by pounding it with stone pestles a foot long and five inches thick. Professor Kalra, the Swedish botanist, who traveled among them about the year lf48, says they were astonished beyond measure when they saw the first Wind-mills to grind grain. They would come from a great distance, and sit down for days near them, to wonder at and admire them 1 They at first regarded them as endowed with life, or as deriving their momentum from the agency of spirits resident within them. As familiarity abated their reverence, they were often accustomed to assail NEW TOEK AND NEW JERSEY. AMBOY, BUELINGTON, ETC, 121 them, not like the adventurous Knight of La Mancha, in unequal combat with lance or club, but with the more effective instrument of fire. This class of machines was not limited among the people of the several Colonies to the manufacture of flour and lumber. They were employed also in grinding cocoa-nut for chocolate, in making linseed and other oils, grinding sugar-cane, beating rice, raising water, and in many other uses. An aged inhabitant of New York remembered a linseed oil factory, existing about the year 1190, a little over one-fourth of a mile north-east of the present City Offices. As in New York, so in New Jersey, Horse-mills were first used to supercede the primitive and exceedingly laborious performance on the Hand-mill, with which many of the English and especially the Scotch settlers, in whose native highlands the instrument was common late in the last century, if it has yet wholly disappeared, came provided to the country. Each of the three principal towns of the Province under the Proprie- taries, Perth Amboy, Burlington and Salem, and others doubtless, were forced to content themselves with horse-power in the manufacture of flour and meal. A letter from a resident of Amboy to a friend in Scotland, dated New Perth, March 9th, 1685, speaks of a house and mill of this kind which he was then erecting, in a manner which indicates the wants of the community in that respect. " I am told that the mill will be worth £100 a year, but I am sure she will be better than fifty of clear money, for every Scot's boll of wheat or Indian corn payes here for grind- ing of it 2s. sterling. This house and mill stands me a great deal of money, but there is none such in this country, nor ever was." The great wheel, he adds, is 30 feet diameter. An autograph letter of one of the primitive emigrants to Burlington, says they were first compelled to " pound Indian corn one day for the next, for there was no mill except some few steed mills."* In Salem a Horse-mill was erected near what has in recent times been called Kent's Corner, to grind the grain for the town. These were succeeded in many places by Wind-mills, and in others by Tide-mills or other water-mills. Three Wind-mills were built by the first settlers of Salem. Wind-mill or Clark's Island, between Camden and Philadelphia, was, as its name indicates, the site of an early structure of this kind. The Swedes had a Wind-mill at New Sweden, on the Delaware, pre- vious to the year 1643, which Gov. Printz — who built their first Water- mill that year — says " would never work, and was good for nothing." These machines appear to have been comparatively little used in the 122 COLONIAL GEIST AND- PLOUE-MIHLS;- vicinity of Philadelphia. The county contained in lIGO^but on© of that class and one Horse-mill. Virginia, in 1649, had in operation four "Wind-mills, and five Water- mills. / Notwithstanding the general use of Steam-power in our d3.y, "Wind- mills are still much employed in some parts of the country, where fuel is scarce and water inaccessible. In 1855, the Rochester Mill-erecting Company proposed to erect fifty wind flouring-mills on the "Western prairies. The improvements in their mechanism of late years are exceed- ingly numerous, if we may judge from the records of the Patent Office and mechanical journals. 2. Wateb-mills. — But "Wind and Steed-mills were insufficient for the manufacture of flonr or meal on a scale commensurate with the require- ments of an increased population or sufficient for exportation, which the fertility of a virgin soil and the general attention to agriculture rendered, in a few years, a great resource of the country. The available water privi- leges in the neighborhood of new settlements, and the afflux of the tide in maritime towns, were speedily made to furnish a superior motive power, natural or artificial, for the use of grist and Flour-mills of greater or less capacity. "We shall notice the attempts on the part of individuals and municipalities to introduce, extend, and improve the use of this most valuable class of machinery in the different sections of the country. The individual enterprises in connection therewith, and the regulations made from time to time, curiously illustrate the straggles of an infant people in arts and mechanism, and the progress of ideas in relation to legisla- tive policy. In the extended use of mills of various kinds, and in the improvement of their machinery, America is believed to have been for a long time past in advance of most other countries. 1. "Water-mills in New England. — The locality of the first Water- mill in New England it is perhaps not easy now to determine. A writer in the Massachusetts Historical Collections' says, " The first mill built in Dorchester, and the first in the Colony, was erected by Mr. Stoughton, by leave of the Plantation on the Neponsit River, in the year 1633 (Blake)" ; from which we may infer that it was a "Water-mill. But from a Record of the Court made in 1628, in which "Roxbury is enjoyned to repair the other way toward the Dorchester Mill upon paine of £20 forfett,"" it appears that a Mill existed still earlier at Dorchester. The (1) 1 Mass. Hist, Coll., ix. 164. (2) Records of Got. and Comp. of Mass. Bay, i. 316. MASeACHUSETTft TIRST WATER-MILLS IN. 123 earliest mention we find in the Records, of Stoughton's mill, is in April 1st, 1634, when an entry was made, to the effect that " Mr. Israel Stongh- ton hath liberty granted him to bnild a myll, a ware, and a bridge over Neponsett Ryver, and to sell the alewives he takes there at 5s. the thousand.'" A canal called Mill Creek, which originally divided the central part of Boston from the North end, was formed in 1631, and furnished afterward a Tide-mill. A causeway across the neck which separated the tide-water at Dock Square on the east from a cove running up on the north almost to Hanover Square, converted the cove into a capacious mill-pond, covering the space lietween Charlestown, Merrimac, and Hanover streets, and the Mill Creek through the neck admitted the tide to the mill. The same year in which the first Water-mill was erected, the General Coart was presented with a specimen of rye. The only grain which the people of New England had as yet cultivated was Indian corn. Before the introduction of mills, it was coarsely pounded, and cooked in the Indian mode, and for persons accustomed to a different diet, made, at the best, but an unpalatable bread. " The want of English grain, wheat, barley, and rye," says Johnson, " proved a sore affliction to some stomachs, who could not live upon Indian bread and water, yet they were compelled to it." In reference to the first sample of rye produced, he observes : " This poor people greatly rejoiced to see the land would bear it." Within ten years, wheat became an article of export for Massachusetts, and as the same writer says, "Portugal hath had many a mouthful of bread and fish from us." The second mill is said to have been built the same year at Lynn, where Mr. Edward Tomlins was granted, in town meeting, the privilege of setting up a Corn-mill " at the mouth of the stream which flows from the Flax Pond," a site occupied two hundred years after by Chase's mill. It was removed into the town about ten years after, and the privilege of water and water-courses was granted it anew by the town.^ About the time of its erection, the Pilgrim fathers, who for twelve years or more had been without other appliances for grinding than the primi- tive ones before spoken of — were supplied with a Grist-mill, which must have been nearly as early as either of the foregoing. The first Water-mill erected in the Plymouth Colony, was put up by Stephen Dean, near Billington Sea, in January, 1633, which he engaged should be sufficient to beat corn for the whole Colony. But it is supposed to have been merely a pounding mill, by which the corn was cleared from (1) Records of Gov. and Comp. of Mass. (2) Lewis's History of Lynn, p, 81. Bay, i. 114. 124 COLONIAL GKIST AND FLOUK-MILLS. the hull and prepared for samp (nansamp) and succotash, the use of which had been learned from the Indians. The next year it was agreed that Dean should- surrender his privilege, so soon as a grinding mill should be set up.' Soon after, in 1636, John Jenney, a brewer by trade, who came from England in 1623, was granted liberty by the Court at Ply- mouth, to erect " a mill for grinding and beating of corn upon the brook of Plymouth."* Two years afterward, it appears by the Town Records, Jenney was presented for not grinding corn well and seasonably. Charles Stock- bridge was employed, in 1681, to build another Grist-mill, which was the second upon that stream, and was called the Upper iftill. A Grist-mill was also built at Roxbury in 1638, by Mr. Dummer, and during the following year a Water-mill is believed to have been erected at Watertown, where a portion of the large emigration of 1630 had settled. The late elaborate genealogist and historian of that towh, was unable to ascertain the name of the builder, or the precise date of its erection. He supposes it to have been built at the joint expense of Edward How and Matthew Cradock, in the year 1634, certainly before August, 1635. It stood on Mill Creek, an artificial canal, at the head of tide-water, on Charles' River, at the first fall, whence the water was con- ducted from a stone dam across the river, into what is believed to be the oldest artificial mill-race or canal in the country, and which has been ever (1) Thacher's History of Plymouth, p. 74. equally divided among them, gave to each In Davis' edition of Morton, (note, p. 130), person five kernels, which were parched and 1632 is given as the date of erection which eaten. When Jenney arrived, in 1623, with was probably Old Style. Timothy Hatherly and others. Gov. Brad- (2) Young's Chronicles of Plymouth, p. ford says, "the best dish we could present 172. them with is a lobster or piece of fish, with- it appears that about this period, there put bread or any thing else but a cup of was sometimes but little use for mills of any fair spring water, etc. The devout Elder kind. The Colony, in 1622, consisted of Brewster lived for many months together 100 persons. They planted sixty acres of without bread, and chiefly on fish and dams, corn, and their gardens afforded ample sup- wliich were a constant resource in times of plies of vegetables; but the next year a scarcity. On one occasion, it is said, a severe drouth destroyed all their corn and worthy person from a distance, whose stock vegetables, and they were reduced to the of provisions was exhausted, in despair re- severest want. On this, as on other occa- sorted to Mr. Brewster for consolation, and sions, they were forcedto subsistupon clams, was surprised to find him even more desti- shell-fish, with/ occasionally wild fowls or tute than himself. But his discontent was deer. In winter much use was made of effectually removed when, being invited to ground nuts, which were the tubers of a partake with him and his family, the good species of wild artichoke, instead of bread, man fervently returned thanks over a dish which they often did not taste for three of clams, that they were so highly favored, months together. It is said they were at as to be permitted " to suck of the abund- one time reduced to a pint of corn, which, as ance of the sea, and of treasures hid in the was their custom with other things, being sand." , MASSACHUSETTS. WATEHTOWN, NEWBUEY, ETC. 125 since in uninterrupted use. A grant of land was made to it in January, 1634, '35, and in August, How sold one half of it to Thomas Mayhew, for £200, on a bond and mortgage, having also purchased the other half of Mr. Cradock's agent. Mayhew sold the whole to Deputy-Governor Thomas Dudley, for £400. The mortgage to How not having been redeemed, he afterward claimed the title to it. A decision of the Court, in 1641, declared that the 'right of present possession to the mill at Watertown belongs to Mr. Dudley, and not Mr. How, who sued for it. In 1653, it was rated at £140 for the support of the ministry. More than fifty years after, it belonged to the heirs of the Honorable Thomas Danforth. The next Corn-mill in that place, was on Stony Brook, and was in 16t9, '80, exempted from "rates" for twenty years. This was sold for about £240, and was afterward long known as "the Bigelow Mills." Thomas Rider was, in 1690, the proprietor of a Corn-mill on Beaver Brook, near the site now occupied by Kendall's Mills, on which several fulling-mills were also previously erected. These were the only ones in that ancient town during the first seventy or one hundred years. Mills were afterward built on those and other streams in Waltham and Weston, etc., within the original limits of Watertown, which are now appropriated to extensive manufacturing operations.' In 1686, Water-mills were built at Salem, Ipswich, and Newbury. That at Newbury was the first in the place, and was built by Messrs. Dummer and Spencer, on the river Parker, in accordance with a grant of the Court, and agreement with the town, in 1685. In, 1638, Mr. Dummer, who built the Koxbury mill in 1633, was granted the exclu- sive right of having such a mill within the town, provided he made and kept it in a condition to grind corn, and the town agreed to send all their corn to it. In 1645, another Grist-mill was erected there ; a com- mittee having been appointed to procure a mill to " grynde the come," for which an appropriation of £20, in merchantable pay, ten acres of upland, and six acres of meadow, with freedom from all rates for seven years, was granted. In 1679, the town granted twelve acres of land for another Corn-mill. In 1686, the Records state, that "the towns being sensible of the great want of another come mill," a committee was appointed to view such place or places as may be most convenient, " for ye setting up 'of a mill." Once more, in 1169, the town granted John Emery, Jr., twelve acres of land, provided he bnild and maintain a Corn-mill, within a year and a half. (1) Bond's History of Watertown. Appendix, p. 1073, etc. 12'6 coioniaIj gkist and flour-millb. The fieneral Courtof Massachusetts, in 1638, made regulations Tespect- ing Corn.-mills, prescribing the weights and measures to be used in them, and providing that corn should be weighed both to and from the mill, if required. Although the husbandry of the Colonists, could at that date have made no very great progress, yet their iprospects were becoming brighter. Emi- grating multitudes of English farmers were coming in ; new towns were being settled, and larger quantities of land were put under cultivation, and yielded ample returns. A pamphlet, published in London that year. Bays, " They that arrived this year, (1637), out of divers parts of old England, say, that they never saw such a field of four hundred acres of all sorts of English graine as they saw at Winter-Towne there. Yet, that ground is not comparable to other parts of New England, as Salem, Ipswich, Newbury, etc." Some years later, about the year 1664, wihea the dolonies were in a highly prosperous -condition, a blight first made its appearance in the wheat, "to the no smasll alarm of the grain growers. Every theory as to the cause and cure, seemed to fail, and ait last, for the want of a better cause, it was laid to the Berberry bushes, which, brought from Europe, were beginning to grow aloBg every fence and hedge-row. " Unsparing war," says Eliot, " was made npon the beautiful shrub for nigh two centuries, and the belief in its malignity yet prevails." Trade, which had already become considerable with the Dutch and English Colonies, continental and insular, and with Europe, also, 'by fur- nishing outlets for every surplus product, stimulated the agriculture of the -ceuntry, and increased the demand for Plour-mills, Bolting-mills, and bakeries. The older towns had often no small amount of trouble to pro- vide themselves with the indispensable Grist-mill. It was customary for towns to grant small tracts of land, as well as certain exclusive privileges, as a bonus for the erection of mills. The town of Groton, on the Nashua, voted to several persons, in 1665, twenty acres of land, within its limits, whereon they might erect a mill. They, at the same time, declared such mill free from taxes for twenty years, and prohibited, for that period, the erection of a- mill by any other person, except on his own land, and for his own use merely. A contract was accordingly made and recorded, for the building of a mill by the grantees, who covenanted to build a Corn-mill before the 1st of 11 mo., 1666, to keep it in repair twenty years, "to grind the town's corn sufBciently," taking common toll only. Before the time expired in which they were to complete it, the parties were relieved from their contract, and a new one voted to be made with a Captain Clark, of Boston, who agreed to build a mill. There is no further mention of this attempt. It appears to have become necessary to increase the premium, and, afterward, fivo MASSAOHUSETTS. WORCESTER, RUTLAND, ETC. 127 hnnflred acres of upland and twenty acres of meadow were granted to John Prescott, of Lancaster, for a mill, which, with the land, were to be free from charges for twenty years. The mill was built by him or his son Jonas Prescott, afterward a distinguished inhabitant of the town, in a dis- trict still called the-" Old Mill," now in the northern part of Harvard. By an agreement with the Town, in I&'IS, Jonas Prescott was to grind the Town's corn every second and every sixth day in every week. Simi- lar novel arrangements were made with him a few years later for the erec- tion of a Saw-mill. Pew adequately appreciate the difficulties encountered two centuries ago, in securing even an ordinary Grist-mill in pioneer settlements. It was an enterprise, in most cases, greater than one of tenfold the cost with our more abundant means. The county of Worcester, of which the Pres- ootts were natives, was well furnished with Grain-mills at an early day. The first occupation of the site of the present flourishing City of Worcester was made lay wMteinhabitants, in IS'TS. The second attempt to found a town was in 1684, when Captain John Wing, under Captain Hinchman, erected corn and saw-mills, above the bridge on the north end of Main str-eet, where, not long since, traces of the dam were visible on the small island which divides the stream. The town took its present name the same year, and provision was made for the encouragement of useful arts and trades, which have since become so varied and extensive in that city. The Indian wars prevented the permanent settlement of the town until the year 1713. Rutland, settled the same year, had nine hundred acres of land on Mill Brook, a branch of the Ware, laid off for Benjamin Willard, to promote a mill, which lands were to be free from taxation, " any law or usage to the contrary notwithstanding,'" Several good/ permanent mill-streams flow through this -fine county, as the Nashua, Blackstone, and Millers' River ; but it has numerous small rivulets, in which water-power was by no means constant. Many of these were, nevertheless, occupied by mills. Lunen- berg was thus deficient in water-power, and its inhabitants were obliged to resort to neighboring towns, a part of the year. The enterprise of a Mr. Wetherbee supplied the deficiency, by constructing an artificial mill- race, a mile in length, which drew water from two small branches of the Nashua to his corn and saw-mills in the town. His mills, after the Rev- olution, were thought to make the best flour in New England, and grain was brought to them from, very distant places. Hubbardston, situated a thousand feet above the level of the sea, was not exceeded in water- (1) Whitney's Hist Worcester. — Sacli whole Township was purchased of the In- grants may seem like evidences of plenary dians in 1688, for £23. liberality on the part of the town, hut the 128 COLONIAL GRIST AND FLOUR-MILLS. power by any place in New England of equal elevation, and had, in 1193, no less than eleven saw-mills and five Grist-mills. The entire county, at that date, had upward of eighty Grist and Flour-mills." On the west side of the Connecticut, at Hatfield, a Grist-mill was built in 1661, by Goodman Meakins, by agreement with the Town of Hadley, which engaged to have all its grinding done there, provided he fulfilled his part of the contract, and "made good meale." Finding it inconve- nient to cross the river with their grain, the townspeople, the following year, agreed with two persons to carry their grain over, and return the meal when ground. They were to call on Tuesdays and Saturdays for the bags, which were to be ready filled and marked. The compensatioa was 3d. per bushel ; payable in wheat, at 3s. 6d., or Indian corn, at 2s. 3d. per bushel. Tired of this tax, however, the Town, in 1667, voted to have a mill on the eastern side of the river, and, about that time, Wil- liam Goodwin erected a second one on Mill River, at North Hadley. Nearly a century after, in 1T50, the third mill was built on Fort River, by Edward Hubbard. The last two are now the only Grist-mills in the town. Samuel Bartlet had leave to build a Corn-mill at Easthampton in 1686-7. At Ware, mills were built in 1730, by Jabez Olmstead, and at Greenwich, in 1745. Enfield, Goshen, North and South Adams, Dalton, Pittsfield, Lee, Mount Washington, and other towns in Berk- shire were provided with mills within the next forty or fifty years. These examples may suffice as illustrations of the manner in which water Grist-mills were introduced and multiplied throughout the Prov- ince generally in colonial times. lu that part of Massachusetts, which is now the western part early mus of the State of Maine, and in the settlements on the opposite side of the Piscata(i.ua there were no Corn-mills in 1633, when they first began to be erected near Boston. In 1632, a pinnace belong- ing to Captain Neal, of Boston, was sent from Piscataqua, with sixteen hogsheads of corn to be ground at the Wind-mill recently erected on Copp's Hill, there being no mill nearer.* (I) Whitney's Hist. Worcester. — The oen- small, were in Berts. Six counties made no sua of 1810 returned the mills from two return. Although the number of mills has counties only of the State, viz. : Berkshire, so much diminished, their capacity, of ■which had ' fifty-eight, and Hampshire, course, has been vastly augmented, by the twenty-sir, in all, eighty-four, about equal aid of steam-power and improved mechan- to the number in Worcester County at the ism. Two mills, in Boston, manufacture previous date. The last-named county was more than double the value of flour made not represented in the returns of the Mar- by the whole eighty-four in 1810. The re- shals. By the last official returns of the cent returns, probably only include mer- Seoretary of the Commonwealth, in 1855, chant-mills, and not grist or customer- Massachusetts is stated to have thirty-two mills. Flour-mills, of which twelve, or double the (2) Williamson's, ii. 244. number of any other county, many of them MAINE AND NEW HAMPSHIRE. EARLY MILLS IN. 129 In 1634, the enterprising patentee oflarge tracts of land south of the Pis- cataqua made provision for the erection of two mills within his grant, one of which was a saw-mill, the other, probably, a Grist-mill. The town of Kittery gave lands near Berwick to George Broughton and a Mr. Win- call, for the erection of mills in 1 643, which was twenty years after the settlement of the former town. These appear to have been about the first in the district. William Hutchinson, of Boston, had mills near the same place about the year 16t5. Clark & Lake built mills at Woolwich, on the Kennebec, which they settled in 1660, and occupied till 16'r5. A Corn-mill, at Block Point, and one or two at Falmouth, on Casco Bay, (now Portland,) are mentioned by Joscelyn, in 1674. These last were probably burned by the Indians who destroyed the settlement the follow- ing year. So terrible a scourge were these Vandals of the forest, that York, the ancient Agamenticus, one of the oldest towns in the District, after having been ravaged by the French and Indians, in 1692, was obliged, a few years after, in its enfeebled condition, to contract with a person in Ports- mouth to erect a mill for grinding their corn. For this service he received a grant of the mill-seat, the use of the stream, a lot of land with certain privileges in cutting timber, and the Town agreed that the inhabitants should always afterward carry their grain to that mill so long as it was kept in repair.' In 1682, a tax was laid on mills for the support of Fort Loyal, as a defense against the Indians and French. This continued to be levied until the time of Governor Andros." Some years later, mills were erected by William Pepperell and his son William, the hero of Louisbnrg, on the valuable mill-sites of the Saco, now occupied by the extensive manufacto- ries of that town ; and also on the Piscataqua. It is probable, that saw- mills always far outnumbered Flour-mills in the principal lumber and ship-building sections of Maine and New Hampshire. The coasting trade supplied those districts with a large proportion of their breadstuffs from the southern Provinces, much of which came to them in the form of flour or meal, which they received in exchange for West India productions, purchased with lumber, flsh, and live stock. A portion of the grain and flour thus received was exported to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. New Hampshire constantly imported grain and flour before the Revo- lution.^ But the interruption of the foreign trade and its peculiar branches (1) Williamaon's, ii. 25. * up to his eightieth year, he was accustomed (2) Maiuo Hist. Coll. to travel on foot to Boston — then sixty miles (3) Among the many instnnces of great — in a single day to purchase flour, and longevity in the early inhabitants of New having put it on board a coaster, he would Hampshire, it is related of Robert Metlin, a, walk home the following day. He di?d at Scotohihan, and noted pedestrian, who lived Wakefield, in 1787, aged 115 years. This many years at Portsmouth, as a baker, that, route, it was announced in the Boston Even- 130 COLONIAL GEIST AND rLOUE-MILLS. of industry, by the war, turned attention to agriculture with such effect that in 1116 the Province exported corn iu considerable quantity. We find no specific mention of its early progress in Grist-mills, or the manu- facture of flour. Its ample endowment with water-power afforded the greatest facilities for every description of mills, and these were well im- proved for the manufacture of lumber, as they now are for a great variety of manufacturing purposes. Exeter, a flourishing centre of industry, had, some years before the close of the last century, ten Corn-mills within its limits. This State, in 1189, granted Oliver Evans the monopoly of the sale of his improved mill-machinery for fourteen years. In Rhode Island, as we have seen, the first dependence was upon Wind- mills. During the first century and a half after its settlement, while ... Newport was the second city in New England, and at least the in Ehoda equal of New York in Commerce, it is probable many mills were built for the manufacture of flour and meal. It imported provisions for the neighboring Colonies. Some years previous to 1134, an Act of the Assembly was made " for regulating mills within the Colony," to which a supplementary one was made that year.' In 1146, John Smith, called "the miller," to distinguish him from others of the name, received a grant of the valley, in which he resided, along the line of the present Charles street, Provi- dence, in case he set up a mill. He afterward built the mill " where the first stone lock of the Blockstone Canal now is," which he kept in use until that improvement displaced him. A suit was afterward brought against the family who recently owned, — if they do not still, — ^the water privilege, on the ground that the original grant of the town, and the subsequent acts of "the miller," obliged them not only to set up, but to keep in repair, a Grist-mill throughout all time.'' The quantity of flour brought to market in Providence, from the sur- rounding country, in 1114, was so much greater than at any time previous, as to be subject of newspaper comment, and excited the expectation that it would in time become " a very considerable article of exportation." That time has not yet arrived, and becomes more and more distant, as the manufacturers of the city increase, to furnish a home market for its agriculture, of which wheat was never a staple product.' >■ ing Post, in April, 1761, would be aooom- (I) R. I. — Col. Records, toI. 4. plished by a "stage-chaise, with two good (2) Annals of Providence, p. 612. horses, well equipped," once a week, occu- (3) The county of Providence had, in 1810, pying two days each way in travel ! It is 22 Grist and 28 Saw-mills. There were now performed in a fotenoon, allowing no returns for the other oountiej. .abundant time for purchases. CONNECTICUT. NEW HAVEN — NEW LONDON. 131 In the Colony of Connecticut, the Court, September 2d, 1641, granted R. S. Abbington an attachment against Edward Hopkins, — probably the Muisin Governor — upon one-half "the myll standing on the new Connecticut. Bri(3ge^» indicating the existence of a mill at New Haven. An old mill in the environs of that city, furnished concealment to Goffe and Whalley, the King's Judges, in 1661, while officers were in pursuit. In all new settlements, a Grist-mill is an object of so much importance that it has been deemed a matter deserving not only of exclusive privilege by local authorities, but one of general public interest. There are few persons in any community, in aid of whose enterprises gratuitous labor is more cheerfully and promptly rendered than those of the "miller." It is not uncommon, in some parts of America, at the present day, when capital and enterprise are more self-reliant than formerly, for the neighbors to assist in a body in the erection of the dam and heavy work, or in restoring it when demolished by freshets, as frequently happens. The precarious crops, from an imperfect agriculture and frequent drouth, and other circumstances, formerly rendered it, moreover, a business of uncertain profits, and the miller not unfrequently pursued another occupation at the same time, which often conflicted with his duty as the servant of the public. ' On November 10th, 1650, a town meeting was held at New London, to co-operate with Mr. Winthrop in establishing a mill to grind corn, the inhabitants to be at the charge of " making the dam and heavy work to the milne ;"for which labor, six men were to be paid two shillings a day, each. "Further it was agreed, that no person, or persons, shall set up any other milne to grind come, for the town of Pequett, within the limits of the town, either for the present, or for the future, so long as Mr. Winthrop, or his heirs, do uphold the milne to grind the town corn." (1) The " Poet Artist," T. Buctanan Eead, And clattering hoppers, garrulous with in the " New Pastoral," has noticed this grain, feature in rural economy, as well as the He waliss amid the misty meal, and plans primitive custom of making the miller's duty The solemn lesson for the coming sabbath, subsidiary to other employments. In this ***** case, the miller is also the village minister. The dam has burst! and, with ft roar of and no disparagement of his sacred office is triumph, intended by the association : The freshet mocks the miller as it flies. All week he tends within his noisy mill, * * * * * Whose wheel now hangs and dreams o'er The stream has fallen; and at the miller's yonder stream ; dam. And bends his brawny shoulders to the The neighbors, by good master Ethan called, sacks Collecting come with crow-bar, pick, and Which daily cross the threshold; or among spade, The ceaseless' jar and whirr of rambling And in the breach begin the swift repair." stones, 132 COLONIAL GRIST AND PLOUE-MILLS. This"towne mill," which was built soon after, probably by Elderkin, having been leased to James Rogers, whom Mr. Winthrop afterward sued for breach of contract, but without recovering damages, gave dissatis- faction to the people, and the town complained to the General Court that they were not " duely served in the grinding of their corne, and were much damnified." To prevent " disturbance of the peace," the Court ordered Mr. Rogers to give "a daily attendance at the mill." The mill was running, it is said, in 1852.' Leave for a second corn-mill in that town was not granted until 1T09, when several persons obtained permission, and a mill was built in 1^12, by Richard Manwaring, on the falls of Jordan Brook. Nine years after, Joseph Smith had leave to erect fulling and grist-mills, at Upper Alewive Oove. The Tantic, and other branches of the Thames, on which they were erected, afford some of the finest mill-seats in New England. Those at the Falls of the Yantic are scarcely exceeded by any in the world ; and, after the Revolution, were occupied by the mills of Mr. Lathrop, a de- scendant of one of the first settlers. The Assembly of Connecticut, March 9th, 1658, '59, ordained regula- tions respecting grist-mills, ordering a toll dish, " of just a quart," and others of different sizes, to be sealed for every mill in the Colony, and also a proper " strike," for the grain. Four years after, the toll of such mills was established, by allowing of Indian corn one-twelfth part, and of other grain one-sxith part, for grinding. About the same time, by order of the Court, the "soldiers of Middletown, in the same Colony, are abated of one of the ordinary trainings, that they may help him that carries on the mill there, up with his heavy worke." Water-wheels were, from a very early period, occasionally moved by the rise and fall of the tide. Many of. them were used by the Yenetians about 10t8. In this country, tidal-mills were also in use in several places previous to the Revolution. In lllS, the people of Saybrook, in Con- necticut, were compelled to resort to those on Long Island, a severe drouth having so dried up the streams by which the old undershot-mills were operated, that only twenty bushels of grain were ground in four months. In this emergency, John Shipman, of that place, petitioned and obtained from the Legislature a patent for an improved tidal-mill, of his invention. An exclusive right was granted him for the term of forty years, for the town of Saybrook, and twenty miles west of the Connecticut ' River ; and all others were forbid erecting and improving tide-mills within those limits during that time.* (1) Canlkin's History of New London. Colonies, were of the nndershot-kind, having, (2) Most of the early water-milU in the for the most part, been built with as little NEW YORK. THE BOLTING ACT. 133 2. Mills in New Yoek. — Although the ancient Knickerbockers, and their English successors, made great use of wind-mills and cattle-mills, these were not their sole dependence. Water-mills were^lso used ; and the time is not very remote when, according to her annalists, the sound of the mill-stream could be heard in the vicinity of Wall street. Therfa was a water-mill there previous to the year 1661. It stood near the Kolch, or Freshwater Pond, — a collection of water north of the commons, or present city buildings, in Centre street, so deep as to be thought to be without bottom, and abounding in fish, which, as late as 1734, an Ordi- nance of the Common Council declared should not be taken in any other way than by angling. The miller had the use of the valley ; and, to obtain more water, dug a race which admitted the salt water, to prevent which, he was required by law, in 1661, to hang a waste-gate, to bar its passage. The outlet of the " collect," or kolch, was to the North River, nearly on the line of Canal street, through which the Indians entered in canoes to their village on the banks of the pond. A measure adopted by Governor Andros, in 16t8, for increasing the trade of the city of New York, in disregard of the rights of other sections of the Province, shows the manufacture of flour and bread to have already become an important industry, and the export of these articles considera- ble. Some regulations were that year made, giving New York a monopoly of the business, by prohibiting the making and bolting of flour in any place within the Province, but in that city only ; " nor noe flower or bread to be imported into this city, from any other part of the Province, under penalty of forfeiture." The Council prayed the Governor (Dongan) to confirm these laws, which was done. The arguments used by the Cor- poration, in enforcing these ordinances, were, that the prosperity of the city depended upon the monopoly ; and, that it would take nothing away from any other part of the Province. ' expense aa possible, upon small streams, in woodlands, and carried grist-mills and saw- the most convenient localities, and designed mills, when these lands were cleared of wood only for the limited operation of grinding the streams vanished and became dry, the the family grist. Many of these little mills ceased, and in some parts the cattle streams, as the country became cleared, could not be conveniently watered." eitherwholly dried up in summer, or became (1) A curious regulation was made with too small to supply a mill. As population regard to bakers, in 1686. There were and agriculture increased, demands were twenty-four in the city, which were divided made for mills of greater capacity, and over- into six classes, and one class appointed to shot-mills took their place whenever a suf- serve for each working day in the week, ficient body of water could be obtained. The population of the Province was then "It is notorious in these countries," says twenty thousand. The price of a white loaf Douglass, in his Summary of the British weighing 12 oz. was fixed in 1684, at six Settlements in America, " that many streams stivers wampum. of water which in the beginning came from 134 COLONIAL GRIST AND FLOUR-MILLS. Under the operaiion of this law, in 1691, all flour not bolted in the city was ordered to be seized. This privilege of the city appears to have been abolished jn 1694, through the easpest remonstrance of the counties on Long Island and the Hudson River, by an Act of the General Assem- bly " against unlawful by-laws," which was considered so great a calamity that the city was regarded as irretrievably ruined, unless it could be restored. The merchants and city fathers, in the midst of a worse than modern "panic," petitioned the Governor, memorialized his sftcessor, " my Lord Bellamont," and at length voted money to send an agent with an address to the King, praying for the repeal of the obnoxious law abolish- ing the Bolting Act.' " When the bolting began, 16Y8," say the Common Council, "there were only 343 houses. In 1696, there were 594. The revenue in 1678, "79, and 1680, not exceeding £2000; in the year 168T, £5000. In 1678, there were 3 ships, 7 boats, 8 sloops. In 1694, there were 60 ships, 40 boats, 62 sloops : since which a decrease. In 1678, New York killed 400 'beefes,'in 1694, near 4000. Lands had advanced ten times in value. If this Act continue, many families in New York must perish." This danger seems to have been more than imaginary, as the inhabitants, in 1696, complained of the scarcity of bread, and the bakers, being summoned, said they could not purchase flour. The Alder- men were ordered to inquire into the matter, and reported that there were in the city only seven hundred bushels of corn, and the population being 6000, it would not suffice for a week's maintenance — the cause of which was, " the liberty and latitude that every planter hath lately taken, of making his house or farm a market for his wheat, or converting the same into flour by boiling of itt, and that under pretence of a privilege, they conceive they have obtained by virtue of a law of the General Assembly, entitled an act against unlawful by-laws." " The calamity," they say, " hath produced anarchy in the Province, and destroyed the reputation of New York flour." The City Recorder, in a letter to the Committee appointed to address the King, in 1698, says, "he is grieved to find the great heat he saw among them, at the last meetings, when the great con- cern in hand is considered, no less than the livelihood of all the inhabi- tants of New York." He reminds them that only 700 schepels of corn were found in the city. The business of "boalting" must have been (1) The"hnmblo address of the &over- chiefly flows from flower and bread they nour and Counoill of your Majesty's Pro- make of the corne the west end of Long Tince of New Yorke and Dependenoys, Aug. Island and Zopus (Esopus) produoeth, which 6, 1691,"says "New Torkeis the Metropo- is sent to the West Indies; and there is lis, is Bcitnate upon a barren Island, brought in return from thence a liquor called bounded by Hudson's Eiver and the East Eumm, the duty whereof considerably in- River, that runs into the Sound, and hath creaseth your Majesties' revenue." nothing to support it but trade, which NEW YORK. VAN EEXSSELAER's MILLS. 135 considerable at that time, at least in the city, when the withdrawal of an unjust monopoly could produce anarchy in the Province, and destroy "no less than the livelihood of all the inhabitants of New York." It is not so easy to understand by what process of manufacture "every planter" could ruin the trade of the city, and starve its inhabitants, by converting his wheat into flour, or "boalting of itt," unless we suppose a supply of mills to have existed. By the Charter of Patroons, granted in 1629, by the West India Com- pany to all who should plant Colonies in New Netherlands, certain privileges were conferred, which were but an attempt to engraft upon the Dutch Province the decayed institutions of the old feudal system of Enrope. By one of these " Freedoms and Exemptions" the Patroons had the e.\'clusive privilege of " hunting, fowling, fishing, and milling (or grinding), within their manors, to be holden as an eternal inheritance, to devolve as well to females as to males, and to be redeemed on each such occasion on the renewal of fealty and homage to the Company, and the payment within a year of one pair of iron gauntlets and 20 guilders, &c." Every settler was obliged to have his corn ground at the Patroon's mill, and the latter was obliged to erect and keep such mill in repair at his own ex- pense for their accommodation. The first Van Rensselaer, who settled on the Hudson near Albany under this charter, accordingly sent thither, in 1631, a master millwright and two small mill-stones for a small grist-mill, paying for the latter in Hol- land 20 florins, ($16). A water-mill was erected previous to 1636, and was that year placed in charges of Barent Pieterse Koeymans, who had been engaged in Holland, for that purpose, at. 30 guilders a year. The proprietor soon after erected other corn and saw-mills, those on Patroon's Creek being called the Upper Mills, in contradistinction from those on Norman's Kill, five miles below Albany. The former, Koeymans rented for a number of years ; and, in 16t3, became the purchaser of a large tract of land on the west side of the river, and erected Saw-mills, where a creek, and the ancient town of Coeymans, still bear his name. There was also a mill at Rensselaerwyck, in 1643, belonging to Dirck Jansen ; and, in 1646, there was one on the third or Rutten Slill. Nevertheless, in January of that year, they were forced to return to the use of the horse-mill, "the mill situated on the fifth kill being, to the great damage of the Patroon, and the inhabitants of the Colonic (Rens- selaer's), for a considerable time out of repair, or unfit to be worked, either by the breaking of the dam, the severity of the winter, or the high water, (1) O'Callaghan's New Netherlands, i., 218, 325. 136 COLONIAL GEIST AND FLOUK-MILLS. or Otherwise ; besides being out of the way, to the prejudice of the inhabi- tants in going and returning." A contract was made with Pieter Cornelissen, the millwright, to erect a horse-mill, which he was to complete for 300 florins — the commissary, or agent of the Patroon, furnishing materials and horses at their joint ex- pense. On its completion, Cornelissen was to work one day for himself, and one for the Patrcfon, receiving one rix-dollar per day, and an equal share of the profits. In case another mill became necessary for the Colony and strangers who began to resort thither for trade, the privilege of building it should belong to the millwright. Let not the rich flouring corporations of the Empire State, smile at the copartnerships of their Knickerbocker fathers, for they owe much to their prudent efforts. Mills were set up at quite an early period on Long Island. South- ampton was settled in 1640, by people from Lynn, Massachusetts; and Easthampton, by others from the same place soon after. The first Grist- mill, at the last-mentioned place, was driven by cattle ; and tradition relates that, before its erection, the people went to Southampton to mill, and carried their grain on the back of the town bull.' It was not, however, until near the present century that Grist-mills were erected in Western New York. Through all the vast region " Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around. And Niagara stuns with, thundering sound," the Mohawk, the Oneida, and the Seneca, pounded his maize and ate his unbolted meal in undisturbed possession of the "backwoods" of the Genesee and the Mohawk Valleys. There were no mills MUls in •' Western west of German Platts in Herkimer County, in 1T88, and few Hew York. . jt 7 or no improvements of any kind. There was not even a white inhabitant from Fort Stanwix (Rome), to the Western Lakes. Where (U Doo. Hist. N. T., i, 678. brought his grist on a tame bull. Many had Tbis was no uncommon occurrence at that not even tbat accommodation, and instances time, in different parts of the country, are mentioned in the pioneer history of New Eichard Stnith, who founded Kmithtown in York, and still later in Ohio, where men the same county, a few years after, ac- carried their saclts 40 miles or more, on their quired tbo cognomen of " Bull Smith," from own backs to mill to sustain their families, the great use he made of the animal ; and High antiquity m^y be pleaded for this use the family have ever since been so called to of the animal. It was common with the distinguish them from the descendants of Col. Plymouth people in the first years of the Wm. Smith, who have been as universally Colony. It is a well known tradition, that called "Tangier Smiths," from his having John Alden, the fortunate rival of the once been Governor of that Island. Richard courtly Miles Standisb, condiioted his bride Townsend, who built the first mill in Phila- home on a milk-white bullock, delphia, relates that one of his customers NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY. MILLS AT ROCHESTER. 137 Utica now stands, there were then one log house and only two dwellings in 1'I94. Fonr years later, however, both flour and saw-mills were erected, at great expense, at Seneca Palls, by some enterprising persons, who also built a bridge over that river, and co-operated with General Williamson in constructing a good wagon road to Geneva. On the Genesee lands granted, in 1188 to Messrs. Gorham & Phelps, by the State of Massachusetts, and embracing nearlytwo millions of acres in a fine agricultural region, there were, in It 90, only four grist-mills and four saw-mills. In that year, George Scriba, a German merchant of New York, purchased 50,000 acres of land in the present counties of Oswego and Oneida, for $80,000. At a place called Kotterdam, on the shore of Lake Oneida, he set up in 1794, a saw-mill, and the year following, built at the same place, (now Constantia Centre), the first Grist-mill in Oswego county, which at the present time manufactures more flour than any other in the State." The magnificent water-pdk\'er of the Genesee Falls, at Rochester, which, with the artificial additions, represents an annual value in motive-power of nearly ten millions of dollars, much of which is employed in the flour business, was appropriated to that use by the first settler, Ebenezer Allen, who, in 1788 or 1789, built a mill at that place, fifty miles in advance of the nearest settlers, but soon after sold out to Colonel Fish. The mill went to decay, and in 1809, an enterprising Englishman, the builder of Soho Square, London, who built a mill there, was still a solitary dweller in the wilderness, thirty miles north and west of the nearest settlement, and would have sold his improvements in the " Flour City," for $400. His cabin was on the site of the present Eagle Hotel. In 1814, the first flour was exported from that place, where the third mill was that year built. There are now 24 mills capable of grinding 800,000 barrels annually. These were probably the first of those numerous mills which now occupy the many mill-seats among the spurs of the Alleghanies, and on all the streams which seek the northern lakes throughout the flour-producing regions. 3. New Jersey. — Tu the eastern part of New Jersey, mills were pro- bably erected by Uie Dutch and New England settlers at an early period. One of the first of which we find any mention, was a mill at Woodbridge, in 1610-11, built by Jonathan Dunham, who agreed with the town to (1) French's Historical and Statistical of flour daily. The manufacture of barrela Gazetteer of New York, 1859. The mills of for the Oswego Mills, and the Syracuse Salt Oswego City, l8 in number, and with an Works, is a principal business in the county, aggregate of 100 run of stones, are stated to and amounts to one and a half millions an- be capable of manufacturing 10,000 barrels Dually. 138 COLONIAL GRIST AND FLOCK- MILLS. furnish " two good stones, of at least five feet across." It was the first in that place, and the owner received grants of land as an enconragement. The toll was to be one-sixteenth. Others were built there in 1705, by Elisha Parker; in 1*709, by John Pike (a very prominent citizen, from Watertown, Massachusetts) and Richard Cutler ; and in 1110, by Richard ' Soper. Newark, settled in 1666 by people from Connecticut, of whom Robert Treat — afterward Governor of Connecticut — was one, two years after ap- pointed him and Richard Harrison " to erect a Grist-mill on the brook at the north end of the town," setting apart the second and sixth days of the week as grinding-days.' There was a mill at Hoboken, in 1682, which was owned in New York. Flour and grain were that year mentioned as articles of export from the eastern section of the Province. A bis- cuit-maker and bakery was much needed, it was said, to prepare their meal for the West India and neighboring Colonial markets. A superior horse-mill was built at Amboy, the seat of government, in 1685. Water- mills existed in several places, and others were going up. About 1680, a water-mill was built near Rancocas Creek, in West Jersey, by Thomas Olive, and the same year a mill was finished by Robert Stacey, at Trenton. Both of these persons were proprietaries of that part of the Province. The inhabitants, it is said, had, previous to this, pounded their corn, or ground it with hand-mills, and that those two mills were the only ones that ground for the country during the first few years after the arrival under the new grants. In> 1714, Stacey sold his mill and plantation of eight hundred acres, on each side of the Assunpink, to Colonel William Trent, whose name the city bears. It was, we believe, the only one there previous to his death, in 1124. The first residents of Salem brought their hand-mills from England, but soon resorted to horse, cattle, and wind-mills — of which they had at least three — and water-mills. Of these last, tide-mills were first employed, and there were several in the county, viz. : at Mill Creek, Elsinborough ; Mill-hollow, near Salem ; Mahopporay Creek, in Mannington ; Cooper's Creek ; on south side of Alloway's Creek ; and at Carney's Point, in Upper Penn's Neck.^ About the year 1690, John Townsend, one of four brothers, English Quakers, who settled, one in New York, one in New England, one in Pennsylvania, and the other at Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, crossed the river above that place, and traveled down the shore ten miles in search of a mill-stream. Having found one, he returned, purchased a pair of oxen, got them across the river, took the yoke on his. shoulder, — as (1) Barber & Howe's Hist. Coll., 177. (2) Barber & Howe's Hist. Coll., 435. NEW JEESEY AND PENNSYLVANIA. SWEDISH MILIS. 139 there was not room to drive them abreast, — and thus drove them before him, on an Indian path, to the spot previously selected. He there built a cabin and a mill, and made a clearing ; which he left, at his death, to three sons, from whom a numerous family have descended. His brother Richard became a pioneer in a like enterprise in the forests of Pennsylvania. A letter from Princeton to the General Advertiser, in 1190, mentions a new species of water Grist-mill, lately invented by a Mr. Macomb, of that place, which promised entirely to supersede the mills in common use, by its superior excellence in performing the same amount of work with a far less expense of water, by the use of horizontal wheels. He received a patent for it the following year. The water-mills near the Trenton Falls, about this time, were of a supe- rior kind in regard to mechanism, and in addition to grinding grain, rolled and slit iron, and ground plaster. New Jersey is remarkable for the number of mill-seats, of which, in 1196, eleven hundred were improved. Five hundred of these were occu- pied by Flouring-mills. 4. Pennsylvania. — The first Grist-mill in Pennsylvania, was built by Colonel John Printz, the Governor of New Sweden, in 1643. Commis- sary Hudde, the agent of the Dutch West India Companj, who was instrncted to watch the actions of the Swedish Colony, reported that Printz built a " strong house," in a place named Kingsessing by the sav- ages, and "about half a mile further in the woods. Governor Printz con- structed a mill, on a kill which runs into the sea (river), not far to the south of Matinnekonk" (now Tinicum). He cites Campanius as saying, in reference to it, that " It was a fine mill, which ground both fine and coarse flour, and was going early and late, and was the first that was seen in that country. The creek on which it was built, Campanius says, was the Karatung, otherwise called the Water-mill stream — a fine stream, very convenient for water-mills.' The site of this, the most ancient water-mill in New Jersey, Pennsylva nia, or Delaware, is now ascertained to have been on the Darby road, the oldest highway in Pennsylvania, near the Blue Bell tavern, where the holes in the rock, which supported the posts of the frame-work, are still to be seen. The stream, or "kill," on which it was built, is Cobb's Creek, a tributary of Darby Creek, which empties south of Tinicum, of which Printz had a grant from Queen Christina of Sweden, the youthful sovereign from whom the Swedes named the creek at Wilmington, Dela- ware, where they built a trading house and fort. In 1658, soon after the formal surrender of the conntry by the Swedes (1) Ferris' Hist, of Swedes on Delaware, p. 71. 140 COLONIAL GRIST AND FLOUR-MILLS. to the Dutch, Joost Andriansen & Co. proposed to build a saw and Grist-mill below the Turtle Falls at New Amstel (New Castle), in Dela- ware, and a patent was granted at their request, by the Director-General, Peter Stuyvesant, on condition that they ask no more for grinding than at the Company's mill.' The " Company's mill" referred to, was probably the "Wint Molen," already mentioned as having been erected on or near Broadway, upon their farm at Manhattan, and rebuilt upon the same site in 1662. The Company may have had a mill on the South River also, as the Colony of New Amstel is credited, in October, 1661, by Hendrick Reael, for two mill-stones, 82.10 florins. In a list of articles purchased for^the same destination in November, 1662, are named, — iron-work for a saw-mill, four hundred florins ; and one pair of mill-stones, four and a half feet, six florins." There was a mill on the Delaware, at "Car- coen's Hook," which, having fallen to decay, the town of Newcastle, in 1671, represented to Governor Lovelace, that it " heretofore apper- tained to the public, and now is endeavored to be engrossed by some particular persons for private uies ;" and proposed that it should be repaired for the public benefit. On which the Governor ordered the mill-stones to be taken out of the mud and preserved, and the mill to be let out to the best advantage. In a special Court held at Newcastle, May 25th, 1615, after the cession of the country to the British, the sub- ject of mills was considered ; and as there was a want of corn-mills,' and keeping them in repair, the justices were advised to examine, and have them repaired, and others built : the tolls for grinding were to be regu- lated, and all mills, public or private, were to be encouraged. In 16T8, it is recorded in the Upland Court, that " it being very necessary that a mill be built on the Schuylkill, and there being no fltter place than the falls called Captain Hans Moonson's Falls, the Court are of opinion that Mr. Hans Moonson ought to build a mill there (as he says he will), or else suffer another to build for the convenience of all parts.'" In 1616, seven years before the settlement of Philadelphia, the Court ordered that no grain shall be distilled, unless it be " unfit to grind and boalt :" a measure proposed by the town of New Castle, in IGU, be- cause it consumed " an immense amount of grain."* On March 10th, (1) Hazard's Annals of Pa. Creek, which empties into the Schuylkill (2) Doc. Hist. N. York, i. 35S. immediately south of Woodlands Cemetery. (3) The Manuscript Records of the Court, The " Careoen's Hook," or creek and mill, held at Upland, between the years 16? 6 and above mentioned, were the Amesland Creek 1681, the first English Tribunal in Pennsyl- and mill of the Swedes, on Cobb's Creek, vania, have been recently printed and pub- the Dutch name of Careoen's being u cor- lished under the auspices of the Pennsylva- ruption of " Kacarikonk," the Indian name uia Historical Society. By the notes of the of the region. — Records, pp. 88. 115. 141. Editor, it appears that Hans Moonson's (4) Grain was made payable for taxes, in " Great Mill-fall" was the present Mill 1677, at five guilders per soipple for wheat, PENNSYLVANIA. riRST MILLS AT GEBMANTOWN. 141 IfitO-SO, the Court at Upland granted Peter Nealson, on petition, leave to take np" one hundred acres of land on the west side of the Delaware, for the accommodation of a water-mill. The first Grist-mill in Philadel- phia County was set np in 1683-4, at Germantown, by Richard Town- send, a Friend, who came over with William Penn.. It stood in Church Lane, one mile north-east of Market Square, and was at a late period known as Roberts' Mill. He had also a mill, previously erected on the left bank of Chester Creek, about a mile and a half north-west of Chester, built of materials which he had brought, ready framed, from London. The mill is gone, but the rocks bear traces of its existence. The owners of the mill were William Penn, Caleb Pusey, and Samuel Carpenter, whose initials are inserted in a curious, antiquated iron vane, which was once erected on the roof of the mill, " and is still (1843) engaged in its one hundred and forty-fourth year of its duty, on the top of Mr. Flower's house"' Samuel Shaw, before the Revolution, erected a second mill near the place. There were a number of mills in the county in 1695. Pastorius, who, as the Agent of the Frankfort Land Company in Ger- many, founded Germantown in 1684, in an account of the Province which he left, says, " Of mills, etc., we had the necessary number ;" and speaking of another Company which laid out Frankfort, he says, "they have already established several good mills. "^ Thomas Parsons owned a Grist-mill at Frankford, in 1698, and Rich- ard Dungworth had a mill not far distant, in Oxford Township, one or both of which were probably on Tacony Creek.' An Englishman, writing of the Province in 1698, speaks of "famous Derby River, which comes down from the country by Derby Town, whereon are several mills, fulling-mills, corn-mills, etc. The water-mills," four for rye and barley, and three guilders it, it woul^ skip awayj but an accident mado for Indian corn, etc., " or elce, wampum and him stumble, and so scared the deer, that skins at price current." he rushed suddenly aside against a sapling, (1) Day's Hist. Coll. of Penna., where it and being stunned, he was taken alive and is said (p. 4), that Townsend built and su- killed, to the great relief of the family perintended the mill, but was not a partner. These incidents illustrate the value of such Mr. Townsend states that the people were pioneer enterprises in those early times, and accustomed to bring their grist on their the privations to which their originators backs, save one man who had a tame bull, were often exposed. A ni-ill far in the woods which performed the labor, — that by reason was often the nucleus around which a vil- of his seclusion in the midst of the woods, lage,with other forms of industry, soon col- he had but little chance of any supplies of looted. Along with the materials for the fresh meat, and was sometimes in great first mill, Penn also brought one or more straits therefor. On one occasion, while he houses, ready framed, from England, Which was mowing in his meadow, a young deer were among the first erected in the city, came near him, and seemed to wonder at his (2) Memoirs of Hist. Soo. of Penna. labor ; it would follow him up while ha (.^) Colonial Records, i. 600. worked, but when he stopped or approached 142 COLONIAL GRIST AND FLOUR-MILLS. he elsewhere remarks, " far exceed those in England, both for quieltness and grinding good meal, there being great choice of good timber and earlier corn than in the aforesaid place; they are made by one < Peter Deal, a Famous and Ingenious workman, especially for inventing such machines.'" A number of corn-mills were erected about this time, or soon after, on the Wissahickon, by the German and English amilies who settled in Ger- raantown and Roxborough. William Rittenhouse and his son Nicholas, previous to 169T, built on a branch of that stream the first paper-mill in this country. Another son, Garret or Gerhard, set up a Elour-mill on Cresheim Creek, which flows into the Wissahickon from the eastward, and was named from that part of the Palatinate whence the family had emigrated. A Grist-mill and bolting-house were built, by the family of Robesons, on the main stream, near the Schuylkill, in the late borough of Roxhorongh, not far from the same time, and were known as the " Wissahickon Mills." The Robesons still own mills on the river. Eleven mills were built in that township, (now the -twenty -first ward of the city,) previous to 17'79, nine of which were on the Wissahickon, and eight of them Grist-mills. Several of these belonged to the Rittenhouses. There has been but one built on that stream, within the same limits, since." The mill-seats on the Pennepack were early occupied. The inhabitants of Solesbnry, and the neighboring parts of Bucks county, were compelled to go to the mill of Morris Guinn, on this stream, or to Trenton, for twenty years, until Robert Heath built a mill at Solesbury. In the fertile -and well-cultivated lime-stone tracts of Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, and Lancaster, mills were rapidly multiplied on the numerous confluents of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. A tremendous freshet, in June of that year, damaged many of these, and also many in New Tork. A mill belonging to Robert Hayton, on the Schuylkill, was entirely carried away, and another, owned by Thomas Stockworth, was nearly submerged. The loss in dams, grain, and flour, destruction of bridges, etc., was very great. Much of the flour made in that day was, as before remarked, bolted in separate establishments, which were often connected with the baking business. We have seen how valuable was the monopoly of this business to the city of New Tork. In Philadelphia, where the flour of the country found a market, that class of machines was numerous about this time. Several were advertised for sale in 1121-22 : two by Robert Hobart, baker, " in the Front street," one of them furnished with (1) S, Thomae' Hist. Penna., Lond., 1698. (2) Genealogical Aooount of the Leveling Family, etc., by Horatio Q. Jones. PENNSYVANIA. MILLS IN LANCASTER, ETC. 143 cloths, and one without ; and another, with a granary and other property, by Owen Roberts. The burning of one at Bristol is noticed also. This place was early noted for its fine mills, of different kinds, built by Samuel Carpenter, formerly a Barbadoes merchant. In 1723, the executors of Jonathan Dickinson, one of the first Mayors of the city, advertised for sale his interest in the Grist and saw-mills on Chester Creek, commonly called the Chester Mills. There were at this time, mills at New Castle, in one of the " lower counties," owned by John Evans, probably the same who was Governor a few years before. In 1160, the assessors reported, within Philadelphia county, eighty-three Grist-mill and Forty saw-mills. Yincent Gilpin, in ItIS, owned merchant Flouring and saw-mills within two miles of Wilmington, on the main body of the Brandywine. The mill-house was of stone, with bolting-mills, fans, hoistings, etc., car- ried by water, and was capable of manufacturing twenty thousand bushels or more of wheat yearly. Philadelphia, at an early period, excelled as well in the quality as the quantity of flour which she exported, and soon became a principal market for the grain of the more southern provinces. The great agricultural ca- pacities of the State, improved by the rapid influx of the Germans, led' also to the speedy establishment of mills in the interior. That thrifty people, who were chiefly intent oa agriculture, selected, for the most part with great discriminatitfn, the fertile lime-stone valleys and rich alluvial districts of the State, particularly of Lancaster, Laacaster BcrlvS, and Northampton, which are still in the hands of their enriched descendants. These and the mill-building New En- gland people, who penetrated still farther north and west, soon distributed corn-mills on the numerous streams in all the inland towns. Douglass writing, about IfSO, of the religious sects in Pennsylvania, speaks of the Duraplers, who, he says, are a small body of Germans, about fifty miles from Philadelphia, men and women professing continency, live in separate apartments, etc., . . . although an illiterate people, they have a very decent chappel, and as craftsmen, are very ingenious ; upon a fine stream they have a Grist-mill, a saw-mill, a paper-mill, an oyl-mil], and a mill for pearl-barley, all under one roof, which brings them in con- siderable profit." He probably refers to the society of Tankers in Lan- caster County, who established mills and several branches of the arts at Ephrata about that time. In 1786, there were within ten miles of Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, eighteen grain-mills, besides sixteen saw-mills, one falling-mill, four oil- mills, five hemp-mills, two boring and grinding mills for gun-barrels, etc. Lancaster lay on the great road or highway to the western settlements, and the teams which returned thence to Philadelphia, conveyed great 144 COLONIAL GRIST AND FLOUR-MILLS. quantities of flour and grain to market. The Conestoga wagon, for the conveyance of produce from the interior, and especially flour from the mills on Conestoga and other creeks, was a peculiar feature of the trade arrangements of Philadelphia. In mo, we find mention of mills on the Monongahela, Chartier's, Red- stone, and other rivers and creeks in " Gist's Settlement," so famous in the border wars of Virginia and Pennsylvania. Several of the mills in Pennsylvania early adopted the improved ma- chinery of Evans and Rumsey, whose inventions were patronized by the State Legislature, and by prominent citizens. A mill of Rumsey's, (Baker's improved,) in operation near Philadelphia, in 1T96, ground and bolted flour, ground chocolate, snuff, hair-powder, and mustard, and pressed and cut tobacco, by water-power. The following table shows the quantity of flour and other bread-stuffs exported from Philadelphia at different periods : Tear. 1729 1730 1731 1752 1765 1772 17732 1774' In 1786 the exports of flour were 150,000 barrels ; in 1787, 202,000; in 1788, 220,000, and in 1789, 369,668.'' 5. Delaware. — In 1677, there was a mill on Christina Creek, (Wil- mington,) which was granted liberty of cutting timber for repairs. The first mill within the borough of Wilmington, Delaware, was built in 1742, by Oliver Canby, near the termination of Orange street. To this mill the Swedes and other settlers brought their grists from New Jersey, and from the inlets along the Delaware, Christina, and other places, in boats. Twenty years after, the plan of constructing a long race and overshot mills was formed — the commencement of the extensive milling operations for which that place has been so celebrated. Thomas Shipley, who owned (1) This sum includes flnx-seed to the in Philadelphia, in September, 1774, pro- yalue of 42,329 pounds. hibited millers from grinding fpr Tories, and (2) These three years, in addition, ex- the printers from printing for them. The ported an aggregate of 598,283 bushels of exports to the West Indies were suspended corn. — Sheffield. by the war. (3) The OontinoBtal Congress, which mot (4) Coxe's View of Vnited States. Wheat, Flour, Brpad, Value of Flour, Wheat, and bushels. barrels. casks. Flaxseed. 74,809 35,438 9,730 £62,473 currency. 38,643 38,570 9,622 57,500 53,320 66,639 125,960 12,436 62,582 " 365,522 148,887 ^ 34,736 432,615 sterling. 51,699 252,744 38,320 92,012 284,872 50,504 182,391 265,967 48,183 \ DELAWARE. OLIVER EVANS' IMPROVEMENTS. 146 part of the old water-power, in a grant to the projectors of the scheme, reserved to himself the sole right to grind all the grist brought from- any place within thirty miles of his mill. This circumstance is an evidence of the value to a community, of a mill erected in their midst, and of the little account that was made of the navigation of the creek for large vessels, which were then moreover excluded by a bridge, below the mill. So im- perfect were the arrangements of mills about this time, that we are told the meal and flour, ground on the Wilmington side of the creek, were sent over to be bolted at an old mill which once stood on the northeast side of the creek, where a large mill was afterward built by Mr. Thomas Lea. Yet, within thirty years after, there were twelve merchant Flouring-mills, with twenty-five pair of stones, at Brandywine, and sixty within the county, all driven by water. The former were supposed capable of grind- ing four hundred thousand bushels of grain in a year. About half a million dollars' worth of flour was annually sent at that time to market. The Brandywine was then the seat of the most extensive mills in the country, and had, within forty miles, one hundred and thirty improved mill seats. The exports of flour from the Port of Wilmington, which owned a number of square-rigged vessels, was in 1786, 20,783 barrels of superfine, 457 of common, 256 of middling, and 346 of ship-stuff. The manufacture of flour was carried on to a higher degree of perfection in Delaware than in any State in the Union. Beside well constructed mills on Red Clay, White Clay, and other Creeks of the State, those on the Brandywine, were the most celebrated flouring establishments in the United States. The great improvements in mill machinery, introduced about this time by Oliver Evans, a native of Newport, in Newcastle County, Delaware, constitute a lasting memorial of one of the most ingenious mechanicians this country has produced. These, with the application of steam, have effected a complete revolution in the manufacture of flour, as well in Europe, as in America. His innovations were, however, opposed by the Brandywine millers, and their refusal to adopt them, until several others had established a formidable rivalship by their use, cost the inventor thousands of dollars and several years of labor, to overcome the prejudice which their example had generated- among smaller establishments.' (1) It is related of the Brandywine mil- thyself to set up the machinery, in one of lera that having at length reluctantly agreed our mills, thee may come and try; and if it to make a trial of the new machinery, in one answers a valuable purpose, we will pay thy of the mills, they deputed one of their num- hill; but, if it does not answer, thee must ber to Evans, with the following proposition ! take it all out again, and leave the mill just " Oliver, we have had a meeting, and as thee finds it, at thy own expense." On agreed that, if thee would furnish all the another oecasy>n, several of them having materials, and thy own boarding, and come visited the mill, and found it attending Itself, 10 146 COLONIAL GRIST AND FL0DE-MILL8, t 6. Maktland.— "We may easily estimate," says Chalmers, "the num- bers and wealth and power of a people, who think it necessary by general contribation to erect a water-mill for the use of the Colony." This was said in relation to a bill which passed the third Assembly of Maryland, in 1638-9, authorizing the Governor and Council to contract for the erec- tion of a water-mill, provided its cost should not exceed " twenty thousand pounds of tobacco," which were to be raised for the purpose by general taxation in two years. ' A mill is mentioned, however, as having been set up in 1635, "near the town," probably at St. Mary's, the capitol. The sparseness of population, for which hand-mills sufficed, may have suffered this to go down. The other, it is probable, was built in the Isle of Kent, as the other county of the Province was called. Plantagenet, in his account of New Albion, 1648, mentions a mill and fort on Kent Isle, "lately pulled down, and, on account of war with all the Indians near it, not worth the keeping." Maryland passed several judicious laws for the encouragement of industry and manufactures at an early period. One of these, in 1681, aimed, among other things, to promote tillage and raising of provisions for ex- portation. It was not until 1729 that the site was laid out for the present city of Baltimore, now one of the largest flour markets in the world. It was late in the Provincial period, before the place entered upon its career of rapid growth. How early mills began to be erected on the Patapsco, Jones's JPalls, and neighboring mill streams, so rich in water- power, — we are unable to say. About the earliest, however, was one erected in I'm, by Jonathan Hanson, millwright, on a mill-seat pur- chased of Mr. Carrol, and of which the ruins were visible in 1824, at the intersection of Halliday and Baltimore streets. The Maryland Legislature, about the year lt48, made grants of land to those who would erect water-mills, in order to encourage the manu- facture of flour for exportation. Many of the arts were carried into Maryland by people from the more northern Provinces, particularly from Pennsylvania. In 1'762, William Moore, a native of Ireland, removed from the Bran- dywine Mills, in Delaware, to Baltimore, where he purchased mill property of Edward Fell. The upper mill-seats he sold to Joseph BUicott, and cleaning, grinding, bolting, cooling, etc., millers, that the whole was a set of "rart/« while the owner was at work in the hay- traps." Howe's jEminent Mechanics. field, — and having received from him a de- (1) Tobacco was the early currency of tailed explanation of the several operations, Maryland, and the quantity named in the to their oomplete approval and conviction text would be worth, according to the pricea of its utility, as he supposed,— .what was his at a later period, about $333. surprise to find it reported to neighboring MARYLAND. ELLICOTT's MILLS. 147 John and Hugh Burgess, of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who built a mill "opposite the site of the jail." Ten years after, Ellicott, with two brothers, John and Andrew, built mills on the Patapsco. In 1'769, not- withstanding the general attention to tobacco, there were exported from Baltimore, 45,868 tons of flour and bread. Two years after, an Act of the Assembly, was made to prevent the export of Flour, Stares, and a Shingles, which were not merchantable ; and to regulate weights and measures, etc. Jonathan Hanson, whose father had erected the third, fourth, and fifth mills on the Falls, was appointed Inspector of Flour, which continued to be sold by weight until after the Revolution. The salu- tary effect of such ordinances was made apparent in the high reputation of Maryland Flour, which, with that of Pennsylvania, where the same attention was paid to inspection and quality, commanded better prices in the southern Provinces, and the West India markets, than other flour perhaps scarcely inferior. In 1T8'7, Oliver Evans made an application to the A-ssemMy of Mary- land for the exclusive right of using his improved mill machinery, and also his steam carriages, all of which was granted — although the last- named project had been rejected and derided in the Legislature of Penn- sylvania early in the same year. The mill improvements of the Patentee were, not long after, introduced into the large establishment of the Elli- cotts, on the Patapsco. The saving in the expense of attendance alone thereby effected at these mills, where three hundred and twenty-five bar- rels of flour were daily made, was estimated ^Xfour thousand eight hun- dred and seventy-five dollars annually ; and the saving made by the increased manufacture was at least fifty cents a barrel, a gain in that department of thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars. Some important improvements in mill machinery were also made by James Bumsey, a native of the State, about the year 1784. Frederick County, according to Dr. Morse, in 1796 had 37 Grist-mills on the Monocacy and its branches. The State contained, in 1810, 399 Wheat-mills. 7. ViRQlNiA. — This State had in 1649 four Wind-mjlls and five Water- mills for corn, beside many Horse-mills\ What progress was made in the use of these appliances subsequently we have not the means of know- ing. "Virginia exported to the sister Colonies at an early period con- siderable quantities of flour and grain. Her capacity for producing grain, and facilities for milling operations, were among the best in the country ; although the former were impaired by a defective system of cultivation, and the latter too much neglected for other pursuits. The operations at Richmond, Petersburg, and other places, have since shown the value of 148 COLONIAL aRIST AND FLOTJR-MILLS. both to the State. Mr, Jefferson, writing to M. De Warville, August, 1T86, observes, "Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, abound with large manufacturing mills for the exportation of flour." The exports from Virginia for ten years preceding the War were, one year with another, 800,000 bushels of wheat, and 600,000 bushels of Indian corn. Petersburgh, during that time, made about 28,000 barrels of flour annually ; and the mills in the neighborhood and in the country places furnished for sale about 60,000 barrels annually at that place, in addition to 12,000 barrels of bread, 3,000 barrels of Indian meal, and 60,000 bushels of wheat, and 39,000 of Indian corn. There were exported from City Point, in 1191, 10,090 barrels of flour; in 1T93, 28,817 barrels ; in 1794, 5,853 barrels. 8. North and South Carolina and Georgia. — In Carolina and Georgia the introduction of mills was an object of public regard at an early day, as indicated by the Act of Assembly passed in 1691 for the encouragement of the making of " engines for the propagating the staples of the Colony ;" and in 1712 for the building of saw-mills and other me- chanic engines. Emigrants from New England also introduced these and other useful improvements wherever they settled. About the year 1750, a Colony of Quakers from Ireland settled at Camden, S. 0., and built one or more mills on Pine-tree Creek. Colonel Kershaw, from whom the county is named, a few years later also built mills at that place, and his enterprise encouraged the production of wheat there, which had not been much attended to previously. The flour made at the place did not command as high a price as that made from wheat imported from Northern Provinces to Charleston. The defect was probably in the mills. It was, however, shipped to the West Indies, with the brand of Baltimore and Philadelphia ; and the fraud, if detected, was not com- plained of, as the quality was believed to be substantially equal. The Revolution, in which Camden has a prominent history, put an end to the manufacture. A Mr. Broome, of Col. Lee's cavalry, during the cam- paign, was so impressed with the advantages of the place for mills, that he returned aftei* the peace, and erected there a very complete set of mills ; and in 1801, 40,000 bushels of wheat were manufactured at three mills within a mile of Camden. This success led to the erection of other merchant mills in Lauren's district by Thomas Woodworth, and at Green- ville, on Reedy River, and in other parts of the State. The cultivation of cotton after the Revolution, as that of rice, indigo, tobacco, tar, pitch, and turpentine had done before, diverted attention from the cultivation THE CAROLINAS. BURE MILL- STONES, ETC. 149 of wheat, and considerable quantities of flour were regularly received from the Northern States. In North Carolina there were, in 1794, three excellent Flour-mills at Fayetteville on Cape Fear River, from which flour and produce were sent down to Wilmington in boats carrying 120 to 600 barrels each. The records before us do not indicate the introduction of mills or the extent of their employment previously in that Province nor in Georgia. In the last-mentioned State, there is one of the few localities in the Union, if not the only one, that furnishes Burr millstones, identical, in compo- sition and geological position, with the French burrs. The manufacture of these was carried on about fifty years ago near Philadelphia, by Oliver Evans, and extensively at the present time in Savannah. The total exports of breadstuff's from all the Colonies in ITTO was, of bread, flour, and meal, 45,868 tons, or 458,868 barrels, valued at about $2,862,190. The wheat exported in the same time was 851,240 bushels, and the Indian corn, 518,349. This amount Lord Sheffield, after the ■war, doubted the capacity of this country to exceed. England, up to that time, had usually exported grain, yet had at different times been forced to depend on supplies from the Colonies ; and her West India possessions were mainly fed from this country. Hence, in the traffic with the Islands, this branch of Colonial industry was an exceedingly important one. Of the value of the Provinces to England, in this respect, Mr. Borke, in his speech in 1774, speaks in the following expressive imagery : "For some time past, the Old World has been fed from the New. The scarcity you have felt would have been a desolating famine, if this child of your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, had not put the full breast of its youthful exuberance to the mouth of its ex- hausted parent." The exports, from the peace of 1783 to the formation of the present government, cannot be known. ^ The total export of flour from the United States in 1791, was 619,681 barrels, in addition to over one million bushels of wheat. Among the early improvements which this class of machinery received from native ingenuity, the most important, by far, were those of Oliver Evans, already alluded to. Few, if any, capital improvements have been introduced into the machinery of Flour-mills since his time, although numerous minor changes in the manufacture and running of the stones, and in the bolting apparatus, have been patented and adopted. His machinery is now in almost universal use in the extensive mer- 150 COLONIAL GRIST AND FLOUK-MILLS thant-mills of this country, and has been very generally adopted ia Europe, and particularly in Great Britain. These improTements, which were completed in theory about the year 1783, consist of the elevator, or endless chain, with buckets to raise the flour or meal to any required height ; the conveyor, to carry the grain or meal from one place to another ; the hopper-boy, to spread or gather the grain or meal, and thus to dry or cool it, etc. ; and the drill, to move the grain or meal, in any direction, like the conveyor, but by means of rakes instead of buckets ; to which he added, originally, the kiln-dryer, to dry and cool the meal as it passed through the elevator and hopper- boy. The apparatus, now variously combined according to circumstances by flour manufacturers, is too well known to require particular de- scription. The saving effected was fully one-half in the labor of attendance, and the manufacture was better accomplished, with an increase of about twenty- eight pounds of flour to each barrel, above the old method. Yet, it is said, his brother traveled through the States of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, at much expense, offering the improvements without cost to the first in each county who would adopt them, but with little success. The Legislature of Pennsylvania, in March, 1781, gave him the exclu- sive right of making and selling them within the Commonwealth, rejecting at the same time his propositions for making steam-carriages, with which the application was coupled, as too visionary to be patronized. Maryland, the same year, gave him like privileges for both. These inventions were one of the three objects for which patents were granted during the first year that the present Patent Office was in existence. He made an early application of bis improvements in steam-engines, to the purposes of mill- work, and published the first practical work on the subject of mill-con- struction, we believe, by an American author. Steam was early applied by him to mill-machinery, for the various purposes of sawing wood and stone, manufacturing flour, etc. Some valuable improvements were also made by James Rumsey, in the mode of applying water to work mills, and other machinery, by which a saving of power was effected, especially for undershot wheels. A modi- fication of the principle of the English-mill of Dr. Barker, by which it was rendered more simple and less expensive, effected a considerable saving in that respect. He received exclusive privileges for these im- provements in several States, as well as for the application of steam to the purpose of raising water for mills and other uses. An. association of influential persons, called the Rumseian Society, of which Dr. Franklin was the head, was formed in Philadelphia, to promote the introducti »? ^^ gave to the poore ; .. - 1. . . ,. 1 1. t Two wives he had partakers of his Payne, ant of that eminent typographer, may be ^ach w,/e twelve baL, and each of them one strengthened by a portion of the inscription more. 156 FEINTING IN THE COLONIES. by granting him three hundred acres of land, as "being the first that sett upon printing." He had not obtained possession, however, in 1655, when tlie gi;ant was confirmed to him. He died in 1668, at the age of fifty-eight. The first strictly original composition published in New England, was a volume of Poems, by Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, the wife of Simon Brad- The first street, afterward Governor of Massachusetts, and the daughter compo^sl- °^ Thomas Dudley, who came out as Deputy-Governor, in 1630, *'"''■ in the same ship with the Greens. It was published in 1640, and re-printed in England, where it was quite popular. In the compo- sition and printing of those two volumes, and of Sandy's version of Owid, the first book written in America ; of the Golden Fleece, a poem, written about the same time, by Dr. George Vaughan, at Newfoundland, and the JVb'ua Anglia, the first classical Latin poem descriptive of New England, written at Plymouth, in 1623, by William Morell, of Weymouth,— the American helicon gave early promise of its later copiousness. No reason is known for the tranfer of the Press to the charge of Green, whose first essays exhibit no improvement upon the work of Day. From the gene- ral similarity in faults and workmanship, Thomas supposes he was not a printer by trade, and that he was assisted occasionally by Day. It seems probable, however, that being a youth whom he educated, he may have acquired his knowledge and style from Day previous to his undertaking its control. One of the first works printed by him was the Cambridge Platform, which was badly executed, both in press and case-work. A new edition of the Psalms, revised and improved by President Dunster and Mr. Lyon, was printed in 1650, which became the standard edition of the work. In 1654, the General Court made an order for the regular printing of such laws as were ordered to be published, in impressions of from 500 to TOO copies, which the Secretary was to pay for "in wheate or otherwise" at the rate of one penny a sheet, or eight shillings a hundred, and a copy was to be distributed to each freeman in every town. In October, 1658, Green was granted by the Court, for his encourage- ment, on petition, three hundred acres of laud "where it is to be found." It was subsequently laid out for him at Haverhill. In 1653, a Catechism in the Indian language, by Mr. Eliot, was printed at the expense of the Corporation in England for propagating the Gospel among the Indians in New England, Of which the Hon. Robert Boyle The Bscond ^^^ president. In 1655, the Corporation sent over a second c™onies"'° ^^^^^> '^^^^ the ncccssary furniture and materials for further publications of the same kind. In 1659, a version of the Psalms, in the Indian tongue, was printed by Green. The press was set up in the MASSACHUSETTS. ELIOT'S INDIAN BIBLE. 151 same building at Cambridge occupied by Mr. Glover's press — a substan- tial brick edifice, erected at a cost of between £300 and £400 for an Indian college, and in which all the printing in the Colonies for near forty years was executed. To this establishment, fully equipped with the necessary apparatus, was added by the Corporation, in 1660, another printer, Marmaduke Johnson, of London, with better artistic qualifications than his predecessors. During the twenty years which had now elapsed since the first press was set up, its publications, although the only one in the Colony, had not much exceeded an average, in books and pamphlets, of one work annually, exclusive of Almanacs. The second press was designed exclusively for printing the Bible and other books in the aboriginal tongue. It was to assist in this labor that Johnson was sent over. This was so considerable an undertaking as to attract the attention of the chief personages in England, and rendered the Harvard Press for a time as celebrated as those of Oxford and Cam- bridge in England. In 1661, the New Testament was issued. In 1663, the entire Old and New Testament, with the New England Psalms in Indian verse, all translated by the Rev. John Eliot, Minister of Roxbury, into the dialect of the Nipmuck or Natick Indians, was printed in quarto with marginal notes, and issued with the joint imprint of Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson, and a dedication to King Charles II. The work had been three years in the press, having been much retarded by the irregularities of Johnson, which were a source of annoyance to his employers and of trouble to himself. In the execution of the work. Green was assisted by an Indian whom he had taken as an apprentice in 1659, and named James Printer. His father and two brothers were principal personages in one of the Indian Churches ; and he had been instructed in reading, writing, and English, in the Indian school at Cambridge. He was after- ward of much service in the Indian publications, and was employed by Green as a pressman. While the second edition was in press, in 1682, Eliot wrote Mr. Boyle : " We have but one man, viz., the Indian printer, that is able to compose the Sheets and correct the Press with understand- ing." In 1T09, an edition of the Psalter was issued, with the imprint B. Green and J. Printer, in the English and Indian languages. The earliest application of the Book-binder's art in this country, of which we have seen any account, was upon the first edition of this first Bible printed in British America. This was executed by John bound in the Ratliffe, who came from England expressly for that purpose. As appears by a letter from him to the Commissioners of New England, August 30th, 1664, he was not well satisfied with the price 158 PRINTING IN -THE COLONIES. paid him for binding, and states that 3s. id. or 3s. Gd. per book is the lowest price at which he can do it and live comfortably. One Bible was as much as he could do in a day. Out of the price received, he had to supply thread, glue, pasteboard, and leather clasps, all of which would cost him in this country over one shilling. He had to pay here eighteen shillings for what he could buy in England for four, " they being things not formerly much used in this country.'" The press-work on a portion of the above was charged as follows : Sheets of the Old Testament, executed by Green alone, £8 10s. per sheet ; with Johnson's assistance, at £2 10.S-. per sheet. Title sheet, £1 ; Indian Psalms, £2 per sheet ; Baxter's Call, £2 10s. ; Indian Psalter, £1 per sheet. The paper, which was fine Post, was charged at 6s. per ream. Thomas thus sums up the expense of this enterprise, of which the practical details may serve for comparison between present rates and those of two hundred years ago. " I have ma^e a calculation from the documents 1 have seen, and find the whole expense attending the carrying through the Press 1000 copies of the Bible ; 500 additional copies of the New Testament ; an edition of Baxter's Call to the Unconverted ; an edition of the Psalter, and two editions of Eliot's Catechism, all in the Indian language, including the cost of the types for printing the Bihle and the binding a part of them, and also the binding of a part of Baxter's Call and the Psalter, amounted to a fraction more than £1200 sterling.'" On the completion of the work, the Corporation presented the printing materials to the College, and they were afterward used by Green under its direction. They were valued at the low price of eighty pounds. A second edition of two thousand copies of the Bible, revised by Mr. Eliot and Rev. Mr. Cotton, was printed in 1685 by Green. It was six years in the Press, though less expensive than the former one. A letter from Mr. Eliot to Hon. Bobert Boyle, in 1685, acknowledges the receipt of nine hundred pounds, in three payments, for carrying it through the Press.' Mr. Eliot gave a part of his salary toward the expense of (1) N. Y. Hist. Mag. for Aug., 1859. WnsKu Testament." _ Aa copies of either (2) Thomas' History of Printing, i. 243, edition of this early specimen of book-mak- 245. ing are now extremely rare, the following (3) The title of this " typographical curi- extracts from a review of the work, which osity," as it most assuredly is, of which few appeared a few years ago in the Button copies now exist, although a new edition Transcript, may not be unacceptable. The with notes by Peter S. Duponoean, and an one described is the edition of 1685. introduction by J. Pickering, was published " The ancient book is in quarto form, in Boston in ootavo, in 1822, is as follows : rough and rusty with old age, and hallowed " Wunneetupawatamwe UP-BIBLUM GOD by old associations. Naneeswe NuKKONB Testament Kah Wonk "The language in which it is written iB MASSACHUSETTS. ELIOT'S MISSIONARY- liABORS AMONG THE INDIANS. 159 printing it, and generously remitted another portion in behalf of Mr. Cotton, who assisted him in its revision. Mr. Eliot's missionary labors among the Indians commenced as early as October, 1646, partly in consequence of an Act of the General Court of Massachusetts for encouraging the propagation of the Gospel among that people, of whom there were between twenty and thirty different nations in New England. His efforts to instruct them, and to encourage industry and the arts of civilized life among a savage people, were at- tended with remarkable success. Their progress in husbandry and the mechanical arts was such that several towns were built by them ; the women had learned to spin, and to engage in other domestic arts ; and several laws and municipal regulations, framed for them, were early adopted, and courts of judicature established and obeyed with exemplary submission. Schools and churches were formed, and well attended ; and considerable attainments were made by some in English, Greek, and Latin, and other branches of knowledge, in which they afterward became instructors. In 1672, Eliot printed 1000 'Copies of a logic primer, and prepared little systems of all the liberal arts for their use. There were, in lest, six churches of baptized Indians, eighteen assemblies of catechu- mens professing Christianity, and twenty-four native preachers. The dead — entirely dead; no man living can either read it or speak it. "This Bible was printed in 1686. The quality of the paper is poor enough, and the type is uneven and unsightly; that of the title-page seems in part to have been cut with a penknife for the occasion. It is bound in sheep, with heavy ribs upon the back. "The 'illuminations' at the beginning are extremely riide; and the lines are bent and broken. » » » "The longest word which I can find in this Bible is in Mark i. 40 : ' Wutteppesitt- nkqussunnoowehtunkquoh,' and signifies 'kneeling down to him.' " In translating Judges v. 28 — ' The mother of Sisera looked out at a window and cried through the lattice^ — lie asked the Indians for the word 'lattice,' and found, when his translation was completed, that he had written, ' and cried through the eel-pot,' that being the only object which the natives knew, as corresponding with the object Mr. Eliot described to them. " The Psalms are translated into that form of verse which is termed in our hymn- books ' common metre ;' and nothing can be more clumsy and uncouth than the struc- ture of the rhymes. Bternhold and Hopkins even may be read with exquisite pleasure after perusing a few stanzas like the follow- ing, which are from the 19th Psalm — ' The heavens declare the glory of God, Ac.:* '" 1. Kesuk kukootomuhteaumoo God wussohsumoonk Mamahchekesuk wunnahtuhkon Wutanakausnonk '"2. Hohsekoeu kesukodtash Kuttoo waantamonk Kah hohsekoe nukonash Kekotookon wahteauonk.' " Dr. Mather states that the entire transla- tion was written with but one pen. The first American edition of the English Bible was published in 1782, nearly one hundred and twenty years after the first appearance of Eliot's. Sower's German Bible came out eighty years after Eliot's, and nearly forty years before the English reprint. 160 PRINTING IN THE COLONIES. knowledge of this work was early brought to the notice of the British Parliament, and the subject was referred to the Committee on Planta^ tions, who were directed to prepare and report an Ordinance "for the encouragement and advancement of learning and piety in New England.'' The Act providing for the formation of a Corporate Society and general contributions to the object, was, with the liberality which that body has ever shown in matters of benevolence, passed in July, 1649. The Xlni-'' varsities of the Kingdom, and many of its most eminent men, no less strongly recommended the work. Had the rights and interests of the native race been equally regarded by all who settled upon their heritage, many of the horrors of Indian warfare and Indian degradation had never been recorded upon the pages of American history. The zealous and unremitting exertions of John Eliot, in behajf of the natives for over forty years, justly entitle him to the appellation given by his cotemporaries, but earnestly disclaimed by himself, of the "Indian Evangelist." His translation and circulation of the Bible, and other works, is alone sufftcient to unite the general voice in the emphatic decla- ration of one, who is himself a conspicuous example of disinterested labor, that Eliot, was " the Apostle — and truly, I know not who, since Peter and Paul, better deserves that name.'" Mr. Eliot died in 1690, at the age of eighty-six. Johnson, soon after the completion of the first edition of the Bible, was dismissed, but was allowed to retain, at their original cost, the font of types which was sent out with him. With these, he printed several works on his own account, of which Thomas was able to identify, about ten, the latest dated in 16T4. He died the following year. Green continued printing to an advanced age, and died in 1T02, aged eighty-seven. He was much esteemed in Cambridge, where he held several civic and military offices. There was no Printing done at Cam- bridge, for a long time after his death. He had nineteen children, and his descendants were printers, In different parts of the country, for over a century after his decease. Thomas was able to collect a list of nearly one hundred books printed by him in the fifty years he conducted the Cam- bridge Press, including those issued in connection with Johnson, and for a short time in partnership with his son. But the General Court of Massachusetts, jealous of allowing too ranch liberty to an instrument of so much power as the Press, or modeling its Legislation upon that of England, appointed in 1662, two licensers to watch its operations, and determine what works it would be safe First Cen- . ^ Borsotthe to pimt. One or two religions publications — a class which chiefly occupied the press for many years — were issued that (1) Hon. E. Everett's Oration at Dorchester, Mass., July 4, 1855. MASSACHUSETTS. FIRST CENSORSHIP AND COPYRIGHT LAWS. 161 year; and being deemed by some of heretical tendency, probably gave rise to the order of the Court. It was repealed, however, in May of the fol- lowing year. The first licensers were Daniel Gookin, and the Rev. Jona- than Mitchell. In October, 1664, on account of the polemical freedom which the press exhibited, the Court again made an order, that "for the preventing of irregularities and abuse to the authority of this county, by the Printing Presse," there should no Printing Press be allowed in any town within its jurisdiction, but in Cambridge ; and, that no person should presume to print anything without a license from the Court, under the hand of its appointed officers. The penalty was the forfeiture of the press, and of the privilege of printing within the jurisdiction in future. The licensers having permitted the Printing of the "Be Imitatione Christi," by Thomas -a Kempis, the Court, more vigilant than discrimi- nating, in 1668, ordered the Censors to make a fuller revisal of the work, and the press to stop in the mean time. More or less surveillance and interference with the operations of the press, continued to be exercised until after the Revolution. The first law securing the benefit of copyright, in this country, was enacted in 1672, when the General Court of Massachusetts, granted to John Usher, a wealthy Bookseller, of Boston, the privilege of publishing First Copy- "'^ ^'^ ^'^^ account, a revised edition of the Laws of the right Act. Colony.' The right was secured by two orders of the Court, granted on petition of Usher; the first, made in May, 1673, which decreed that no printer should, print or sell any more copies than were agreed upon, and paid for by the owner; and the second, enacted in May, 1673, secured to Usher, the copyright for seven years. Hezekiah Usher, pre- viously mentioned as the agent of the Corporation, whose Indian publi- cations he superintended, had been a bookseller in Boston, for about twenty years, and is believed to have been the first in British America, in that business. Several of Green's works were printed for him. One of the earliest of these was an edition of the Psalms, which Isaiah Thomas, who owned a copy, believed, from its superior typography, to hare been printed after the arrival of Johnson, and about the year 1664, or '65. It was printed on a handsome-faced nonpareil type : and, he says, is the only specimen of a book printed, either at Cambridge or Boston, in that type, previous to the Revolution. Even brevier types were seldom used by the printers of Boston, previous to 1760. It was during the same year, that Usher's edition of the laws was printed, that those of the Plymouth Colony issued from the same press. (1) The first copyright law enacted in act expired, in 1694, anthers defended their England was by 8 Anne, o. 19, which se- rights by actions at common law, as they cured to authors the right in literary pro- continued to do after the expiration of the perty for fourteen years. After the licensing copyright. n 162 PRINTING IN THE COLONIES. The following year, the General Laws of Connecticut, previously existing only in manuscript, and publicly read from time to time in the seyeral towns, were printed at Cambridge. This first code was compiled by Roger Ludlow, and a copy was supplied by order of the Assembly, to each family in the twenty-four towns in the Colony. About the year 1614, John Poster, a graduate of Harvard, received permission to establish a second press at Boston. The same year, the General Court added to the former licensers, two additional ones. These were Increase Mather, and Thomas Tfcacher, both learned divines. The latter wrote and published in 167'!', a treatise on smallpox and measles, the first medical work published in Massachusetts, and probably in America. The first book known to have been printed in Boston, was issued by Foster, in 1676. He also calculated and printed Almanacs, and a few other small works. Sewall succeeded him in 1681. The printing was executed for hiin by James Glen, and Samuel Green, a son of the Cam- bridge prniter. He was a book-seller, and a magistrate, and subsequently filled the highest judicial offices in the Colony. About this period, controversy ran high in England, respecting the Succession. Tlie press which had formerly been controlled by the Court of Star Chamber, was on its removal from that jurisdiction by the Long Parliament placed, contrary to the pleadings of Milton for its freedom, under a board of censors, from whose guardianship it was, for a short time, emancipated in 1679. The Provincial Governors, felt it to be their duty — or were enjoined to control its freedom in the Colonies. Sir Wil- liam Berkeley, the Governor of Virginia, in 1671, in his answers to inqui- ries of a Committee of the Lords on Colonies, says, " I thank God we have no free schools, or printing ; and I hope we shall not have, these hundred years. For learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best Govern- ment. God defend us from both.'" Governor Dongan, of New York, on the renewal of his commission the same year, was instructed " to allow no Printing Press." The independent spirit manifested by the Colonies at this time, according to Evelyn, a member of the Board of Trade and Plantations, formed that year in London, caused some, fears that they would "break from their allegiance altogether." Berkeley's successor, in 1683, was instructed to prohibit the erection of a press in that Colony. James the Second, soon after came to the throne, and continued those encroachments upon the liberties of his subjects, which produced serious troubles in England and America. While he was engaged in prostrating (1) Chalmer's Political Annals, ii, 328, MASSACHUSETTS. THE FIEST NEWS-LETTER. 163 the boroagh immanities in England, his Courts were busy in vacating the charters of his Colonial subjects. His agents in America, were equally industrious, in arbitrarily levying imposts, executing writs of qao warranto, and controlling the freedom of expression through the press. Andros arrived in 1686, with authority to prohibit Printing. But before his arrival, Randolph, the Collector of Customs, either with or without au- thority, had interdicted the Printing of an Almanac at Boston, without his permission. The only other person who carried on Printing at Boston, previous to the establishment of the third Printing Press in the Colonies at Philadel- phia, in 1686, was Richard Pierce, who commenced about 1684. He is chiefly entitled to notice as the printer of the first newspaper American sheet cver published in the New World. It was started at Boston, in 1 690, and was suppressed by the Legislature, because, it was alleged, "it came out contrary to Law, and contained reflections of a very high nature." The first number of this sheet, and the only one known to exist, was recently found in the Colonial State Paper Office in London, bearing the following date and imprint: — "Boston, Thursday, September 25th, 1690, Printed by R. Pierce, for Benjamin Harris, at the London Coffee House, 1690." The Publisher promises that the country " shall be furnished once a moneth, (or, if a Grlut of Oc6urrences happen, oftener'), with an Account of such considerable things as have occurred unto our Notice ; to give a faithful relation of all such things ; to en- ■ lighten the public as to the dccurrentsof Divine Providence," the circum- staucee of public affairs at home and abroad ; to attempt the curing, or at least the charming of the spirit of -lying, then prevalent ; and to aid in tracing out and convicting the raisers of false reports. It gives a summary of current events, as the departure of about 2500 troops, and 32 sail of ships for Canada, under Sir William Phips, the ravages of the small pox and of a malignant fever in Boston. It informs us that a fire broke out between the 16th and ITth, which destroyed several houses ; and, that beside the loss of one life, the " best furnished PaiNTiNG Peess of those few that we know of in America, was lost ; a loss not presently to be repaired." It gives an account of the capture of St. Christopher from the French, and of the landing of King William in Ireland, with 140,000 foot and horse, as well as other veritable occur- .rences in Europe and America. It is, to all intents and purposes, a Newspaper, and, as such, the first of its kind in America. Thomas appears to have had no knowledge of this attempt to start a newspaper. He meutions Pierce as the fifth printer in Bostsn, several of whose books, printed for booksellers and on his own account, he had Been — the earliest dated in 1684, and the latest 1690. He supposes him IW PEINTINQ IN THE COLONIES. to have been from London, where there was a printer of that name in let 9, Harris, at the date of the above publication, kept a book-store "at the London coffee-house in King's street, but removed two or three years after to Cornhill, where he engaged in printing, chiefly for book- sellers. He had a commissiou from Governor Phips, in 1692, to print the Laws. He was from London, where he had been a printer and book- seller, and, as Dunton, the eccentric English bookseller, who was at this time in Boston, states, had, as "a brisk asserter of English liberties," in- e,urred by his publications the displeasure of the authorities in such a form as to induce him to travel to New England, " where he followed Bookselling, and then Coffee-selling, and then Printing, but continued Ben. Harris still, and is now both bookseller and printer in Grace Church street, as we find by his London Post ; so that his conversation is general (but never impertinent), and his Wit pliable to all inventions." Dunton adds that, in traveling with him, he found him to be the most ingenious and innocent companion he ever met with.' Harris's inventions appear not to have been sufficiently pliable, nor his innocence, in publicatioa at least, so great as to satisfy the authorities on either side of the water. Bartholomew Green, another son of the Cambridge printer, commenced in Boston in 1690, after the -death of his brother Samuel, who, as well as his wife, an active assistant in his business affairs, and a person greatly eulogized by Dunton, died in the small-pox epidemic of that year. B. Green was for about forty years printer for the Government and the lead- ing publisher in Boston. He was at first assisted by John Allen, another London printer, who commenced about the same time, and in 1701 es- tablished an independent business. In April, 1704, Green commenced the printing of The Boston News- Letter, the first successful attempt to establish a periodical in the Colo- Rrstsuc- ^^^^- I* ^^^ printed weekly, and published "by authority" Weekly fo^ John Campbell, Postmaster, who was the proprietor. It Hewspaper. jjggafne the property of Green eighteen years after, during fifteen of which it was the only one in the Colonies, From ITOT to Itll it was printed by Allen, whose premises being then burned in the great fire, it was again printed by Green. The publication continued in the family of Green until the year 1766. The contents of the first number, covering three pages of pot folio, were extremely meagre, and it contained but one advertisement, which was that of the proprietor. Indeed, the Newspaper, although it was then by no means the indis- (1) Dunton's Lifq and Errors, London, 1705; Thomas' History of Printing, i. 282, iVl, etc. THE PARENT OF THE MODERN NEWSPAPER. 165 jiensable thing it now is, may be considered a legitimate offspring of the Colonial mind and action in their due order of development. It seems to be, in some degree, a necessity with every people, when a spreading population and a succession of stirring events render other means of com- munication too slow or imperfect ; hence, in most populous and civilized ) nations, in ancient and modern times, some expedient of the kind has been found to exist. The Persians had their scribes for copying and their posts for transmitting the knowledge of remarkable occurrences. The Romans dispatched written accounts of victories and public events to distant provinces of the Empire. The Chinese have had their Gaz- ettes, from the earliest times, which were sent into the remotest parts of the country. Even the analogue to the Newspaper was found among the aboriginal Americans in their charts, and the picture-writings by which they transmitted information of a great battle or other event ; and of which Thomas, the able historiographer of American Printing, has preserved a beautiful specimen. And hence it is, that in our own age and country, when many "run to and fro in the earth, and knowledge is increased," when population is stretching over a vast continent, and every day is big with events, the Newspaper has become a first requisite, and the Printing-Press travels beside the wagon of the pioneer, and rests Only on the vanguard of the army of emigrants, that it may send back intelligence of their progress. The parent of the modern Newspaper, and of the right claimed by many governments to control it, is found in the Venetian Gazetta, a gov- ernment sheet sent out monthly in manuscript, and so named from a small coin called gazetta, for which they were sold. " A jealous government," says Chalmers, in his life of Rnddiman, " did not allow a printed news- paper ; and the Venetian Gazetta continued, long after the invention of printing, to the close of the sixteenth century, and even to onr own days, to be distributed in manuscript." In the Magliabecchian Library at Flor- ence, are thirty volumes of Venetian Gazettas, all in manuscript. " It may gratify national pride," continues the same writer, "to be told that mankind are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth 'and the prudence of Burleigh for the first newspaper in England." The first printed news- paper was the "English Mercuric," printed by authority, by the Queen's printer, in London, on the 23d July, 1588. It was intended by her min- ister Burleigh to arouse the pul;)lic mind, on account of the Spanish Ar- mada then threatening the nation. Although several papers, still pre- served in the British Museum, appeared during the year, they were only extraordinary gazettes, and were not regularly published. As other nations adopted the example, they retained the name and the control of 166 PRINTING IN THE COLONIES. tbe gazettes as government organs, according to the original custom.* The first regular newspaper appeared in 1622, and was, we believe, called The Weekly Courant. "When," says Hunt, "the reign of James I. was drawing to a close ; when Ben Jonson was poet-laureate ; and the personal friends of Shakspeare were lamenting his recent death ; when Cromwell was trading as a brewer at Huntingdon ; when Milton was a youth of sixteen, just trying his pen at Latin verse; and Hampden a quiet country gentleman in Buckinghamshire, London was first soli- cited to patronize its first newspaper." The great events in English and Colonial history then transpiring ; the abdication of James and the proclamation of his successor ; the imprison- ment of a Royal Governor in Boston ; the resumption of the Charters ; the invasion of Canada by the people of New England, to arrest the growing power of France ; and other exciting events, had caused the issue, as early as 1689, of a "news placard " in Boston, and the reprint, in the following year, by the order of Governor Fletcher of New York, of a number of the London Gazette. A means of public enlightenment on those momentous topics was an imperious necessity.* (1) London Mirror, vol. v. 198. (2) The following passages will show for- cibly the condition, as to freedom and activ- ity, of the English Press at this date (1686), and explain the source of its embarrassment in the Colonies, "No part of the load which the old mails carried out," says Macauley, " was more im- portant than the news-letters. In 1685, no- thing like the London daily paper of our time existed or could exist. Neither the necessary capital nor the necessary skill was to be found. Freedom, too, was wanting — a want as fatal as that of either capital or skill. The Press was not, indeed, at that moment under a general censorship. The Licensing Act, which had been passed since the Restoration, had expired in 1679. Any person might therefore print, at his own risk, a history, a sermon, or a poem, without the previous approbation of any public ofS- cer J but the judges were unanimously of the opinion that this liberty did not extend to gazettes, and that, by the Common Law of England, no man, not authorized by the Crown, had a right to _^publish political news. While the Whig party was still for- midable, the Government thought it expe- dient occasionally to connive at the viola- tion of this rule. During the great battle of the Exclusion Bill, many newspapers were suffered to appear — the Protestant Intelli- gence, the Current Intelligence, the Do- mestic Intelligence, the True News, the London Mercury. None of these were pub- lished oftener than twice a week. None exceeded in size a single small leaf. The quantity of matter which one of them con- tained in a year, was not more than is often found in two numbers of the " Times." After the defeat of the Whigs, it was no longer necessary for the King to be sparing in the use of that which all his Judges had pro- nounced to be his undoubted prerogative. At the close of his reign, no newspaper was suffered to appear without his allowance, and his allowance was given exclusively to the ' London Gazette.' . . But neither tbe ' Gazette ' nor any supplementary broad- side printed by authority, ever contained any intelligence which it did not suit the Court to publish. The most important Par- liamentary debates, the most important State trials recorded in our history were passed over in perfect silence. In the capi- tal, the coffee-houses supplied in some meas- ure the place of a journal. Thither the Londoners flocked, as the Athenians of old FIRST PRINTING PRESS IN PHILADELPHIA. 167 Notwithstanding the restraints upon its freedom, some of which were not of long continuance, the presses in Massachusetts continued to be fully occupied, and many manuscripts were sent to England for publica- tion, including the Magnolia of Dr. Mather, and other works of consider- able size. But, while schools and the press, their great educational ally, were deprecated in the South, and printing was prohibited, or jealously watched in the North, both found a welcome reception in the new Colony which Penn was founding on the banks of the Delaware. " Within four years from the time that our ancestors landed in the wil- derness, a Printing Press was at work in Philadelphia, sowing broadcast the seeds of knowledge and morality ; and only a few months after the arrival of William Penn, public education was attainable at a small ex- pense.''' flocked to the market-place, to hear whether there was any news. . . . But people who lived at a distance from the great theatre of political contention, could keep regularly informed of what was passing there only by means of news-letters. To prepare such letters became u, calling in London, as it now is among the natives of India. . . . Such were the sources from which the inhabitants of the largest pro- vincial cities, and the great body of the gen- try and clergy, learned almost all they knew of the history of their own time. . . That was a memorable daj' in which the first news-letter from London was laid on the table of the only coflFee-room in Cambridge. "At the seat of a man of fortune in the country, the news-letter was impatiently ex- pected. Within a week after it had arrived, it had been thumbed by twenty families. . . . It is scarcely necessary to say that there were then no provincial newspapers. Indeed, except in tte capital and at the two Universities, there was scarcely a printer in the kingdom. The only press in England, north of Trent, appears to have been at York." The supply of books, it would appear from the same author, was almost as meagre as that of news — a fact one would not be led to expect from the length of time England had enjoyed the benefits of the Press, and the long roll of illustrious authors that adorned her past and current annals. " Lite- (1) Memoirs Hist, rature which could be carried in a bag then formed the greater part of the intellectual nutriment ruminated by the country divines and country justices. The difficulty and ex- pense of conveying large packets from place to place was so great that an extensive work was longer in making its way from Paternoster Row to Devonshire or Lanca- shire, than it now is in reaching Kentucky. How scantily a rural parsonage was then furnished, even with books the most neces- sary to a theologian, has already been re- marked. The houses of the gentry were not more plentifully supplied. Few knights of the shire had libraries so good as may now be perpetually found in a servants* hall, or in the back parlor of a small shop-keeper. An esquire passed among his neighbors for a great scholar, if Hudibras and Baker's Chronicles, Tarlton's Jests, and the Seven Champions of Christendom, lay in his hall window among the fishing-rods and fowling pieces. No circulating library, no book so- ciety then existed, even in the capital; but in the capital those students who could not afford to purchase largely had a resource. The shops of the great booksellers near Saint Paul's Church-yard were crowded every day, and all day long, with readers ; and a known customer was often permitted to carry a volume home. In the country there was no such accommodation j and every man was under the necessity of buy ing whatever he wished to read." Soc. of Penn., i, 101. 168 PBINTING IN THE COLONIES. William Penn landed in his new territory, in October, 1682; and, in December following, a school was opened in Philadelphia. Six years after this, a public school, or seminary, was founded by the Friends, the charter of which declares — in pleasing contrast with the sentiments of Governor Berkeley — that " the prosperity and welfare of any people depended, in a great measure, upon the good education of their youth, etc., * * * * which cannot be effected in any manner so well as by erecting public schools for the purpose aforesaid." The third Printing Press in the Colonies, and the first outside of Massachusetts, erected thus early in Philadelphia, was set up by William First Print- BRADFoaD, at Shackamaxon, now Kensington, in the neighbor- Pe^nSyi-"" ^°°^ of the Celebrated Treaty ground, in the year 1686. His vama. earliest publication is stated by some authorities, to have been an Almanac for the year 1687, by Daniel Leeds, "student in Agriculture." A copy of that is extant in the Philadelphia Library. A recent biogra- j)her states, on the authority of Mr. Henry Stevens, that a small quarto tract of four or six leaves, printed in 1686, is the first work known to have been printed by him. The title is not mentioned. The following extract, however, from the Council Book, which we find in Hazard's Register, (Vol. i. p. 16), while it is an illustration of the petty annoy- ances to which the press was subject in that day, seems to indicate the issue of an Almanac as early as the beginning of January, 1686. " 1685, 9th, 11 mo The Secretary reporting to the Council, that in the Chrono- logie of the Almanack sett forth by Samuel Atkins, of Philadelphia, and printed by William Bradford, of the same place, there was these words; (the beginning of government here by the Lord Penn), the Council sent for Samuel Atkins, and ordered him to blot out the words Lord Penn; and likewise for William Bradford, the printer, and gave him charge not to print any thing but what shall have lycence from the Council." It was not unusual for a printer first to try his hand upon an ephemeris of that kind, to serve for a general introduction to the public, bnt religious controversy, which kept the rust from the New England mind in the first years of its history, also gave the first impulse to Literature and the Press in Pennsylvania. The first who entered this field, was G-eorge Keith, a clever but dis- putatious Scotch Quaker, afterward Surveyor-General of New Jersey. He was the first instructor in the Friends' School, previously mentioned, in which he was succeeded at the end of the first year, by Thomas Makin, the author of two Latin poems upon Pennsylvania. In 1689, Keith published against the New England Churches and Divines, by whom his sect was persecuted, a 4t.o. tract, which Thomas, who owned a; copy, states, was the oldest book he could find from Bradford's press. The >. NEW YORK. PENNSYLVANIA. BRADFORD'S PRESS. 1G9 following year, Keith threw the gauntlet to the learned Cotton Mather, of Boston, and published one or two more pamphlets in defense of the Quakers. But, having in 1691, quarreled with his own people, whom he charged with a departure from the pacific principles of the Society, by aiding in the capture of a privateer ; a feud arose, which is remarkable in the history of the Province for the excitement and bitterness of faction attending it. The zealous polemic was condemned by a large majority in the meetings, including the Lieutenant Governor and the Quaker magistrates, whom he attacked in print, in an " Appeal" to the people. Bradford, who was also a Quaker, in the controversy, took the side of Keith, against the stronger party, and was arrested for printing the sedi- tious and libelous pamphlets of Keith and others. His press, forms, and materials, with the offensive publications, were seized. Refusing to give security, Bradford, McComb the publisher, and others were imprisoned. After considerable delay, they were brought to an unsatisfactory form of trial, in which their judges were their leading opponents in the meetings. According to the accounts of the proceedings, which, however, were drawn up by the accused party, Bradford appears to have managed his cause with tact and judgment. The charge against him was, the print- ing a paper which was seditious and tended " to weaken the hands of the magistrates." The Court overruled his exception, to two of the jury- men, who had prejudged the subject of the pamphlet, on the ground that the jury had only to find as to the facts of the printing, and that the Court were judges of its tendency. Against this, Bradford strenuously contended that the jury were judges "of the law as well as of the fact," in which opinion some of the jurors co- incided. The Attorney, also, pleaded against him a Statute of Charles II., requiring every printer to attach his name to his books, to which Keith replied, that it was often violated by William Penn, and other Quakers, without complaint. Beyond the seizure of the books, upon the premises of Bradford, the only evidence against him was the frame containing some pages of the pamphlet in type, and this was not produced in Court as requested by the accused. It was sent to the jury-room, however, and a fortunate accident was the occasion of his release. The jury disagreed, and were discharged. But, it is said, that during the examination of the form, being unaccustomed to reading baclcward, they attempted to move it into a more favorable position, when the types fell from the chase, and in an instant destroyed the evidence of his offense. Having about this time received an invitation to remove to New York, he, in 1693, established in that city the first press in the Province, where rir»t Print- there had been none set up during the Dutch rule. In 1690, sf/york." Governor F'etcher is said to have caused a copy of the London 170 PRINTING IN THE COLONIES Gazette, coutaiuing the details of an engagement with the French, to be re-priuted. But, if done in the Colony, there does not appear to have been any regular prjinting house in New York, at that time. Bradford, soon after his removal thither, was appointed printer to the Government, with an annual allowance of fifty pounds from the public funds. He retained the situation for about thirty years. During the same period he was also public printer for the Province of New Jersey. His first labot in New York, was to print a small folio volume of the Laws of the Province, which was issued in 1693. In the imprint, he pro- claims his public functions as "printer to their Majesties, at the sign of the Bible." There was an additional printer in that city in 1726, whose place of business was on Smith (now South William) street. On leaving Philadelphia, where be was part owner of a paper-mill on the Wissahickon, he is supposed to have retained the ownership, or an interest in the press there. In 1699, it was under the management of Reinier Jansen, a Dutchman, who, published the same year, the first literary work upon any other than a religious subject which appeared ia the Province. The volume which is now very rare, was by Jonathan Dickinson, and was entitled " God's Protecting Providence, etc.," being a touching narrative of the author's deliverance, with others, from ship- wreck on the Coast of Florida. The typography is said to have been "wretchedly executed and disfigured by constant blunders." How long, before or after the publication of this book, Jansen was a printer in Philadelphia, or whether he was ever the owner of a press or not, Thomas, who could find no other book with his imprint — was unable to determine. Two other books from his press, however, are preserved in the Philadelphia Library, dated the years 1700, an.d 1705.' (1) Thomas supposes him to have heen bility that the descent was in the opposite the ancestor of Roeloflf Jansen, for whom a direction. Roeloff Jansen secured in 1636, creels in the manor Rensselaer in New York, a grant of sixty-two acres of land on Man- was named; and, that he had been an ap- hattan Island, near the present Canal street, prentice or workman, for Bradford, who a claim to which, has been so long litigated entrusted the press to his care, and suffered with the wealthy Corporation of Trinity him to manage it in his own name, in con- Churoh, in the famous "Aneke Jan's Suit" sequence of the difficulties of the proprietor The estate was conveyed in 1671, to Go- with the Friends. He may have been in vernor Lovelace, by his widow — who mar- Bradford's employment before the removal ried Dominie Bogardus, the first Dutch min- of the latter to New York. However this ister of the city — and three of her four sons may be, he could not have been the ancestor by Jansen. The fourth, Cornelius, not having ofRooloff Jansen, whowas oneoftheearliest signed the conveyance, his heirs, after it emigrants to the Colony on the Hudson, had become the property of Trinity Church, nearly seventy years before, being men- brought suit for one-eighth interest. Our tioned in the Account Books of Kiliaen Van printer may have been one of the sons, Rensselaer, the first Patroon, in 1630, among although there were many of the name the first Colonists. There is more proba- among the first settlers in New Amsterdam PENNSYLVANIA. THE SECOND NEWSPAPER. Ifl In ltl2, Jansen was succeeded in Philadelphia by Andrew Sonles Bradford, eldest son of the original proprietor, who, in 1108, on attaining his majority, was, as required by the laws of New York, admitted a free- man of the City ; and after a short business connection with his father, returned to Philadelphia, and resumed the management of his father's press. The Assembly of Pennsylvania, about this time, resolved to have the Laws printed ; and, on the 9th May, It 12, sent for Jacob Taylor, to treat with him on the subject ; and two weeks after appointed a Committee " to treat with Jacob Taylor and the other printers in the town," in reference to the cost, which Taylor had previously stated at £100, exclusive of paper. Whether Taylor and Jansen were both printers at that time, or "the others" refer to the Bradfords, who were seeking the contract, is uncertain. The printing was finally given to Andrew Bradford, who printed the laws in 180 pp. folio, the following year, and thenceforward was the leading or only printer in the city until Franklin arrived. In answer to a petition of Bradford in 1114, stating that the repeal by Her Majesty of the Laws printed for the Assembly had stopped their sale, £30 were ordered to be paid to him for fifty bound copies. Andrew Bradford was born in Philadelphia, and the family, like that of the Greens of Boston, furnished for over one hundred years a succession of native-born printers. His Printing-house was in Second-street, "at the sign of the Bible," where, in addition to Printing, he executed Book- binding, and sold books, tea, and nuTor.yUs other articles. A man's talent at that day was often estimated by his ability to carry on several independent callings. He was printer to the Government, and in 1132 was Postmaster of the Province. The first newspapers published in Philadelphia and New York were started by the Bradfords. Andrew commenced, in connection with John Copson, the publication, at Philadelphia, of the " American American Weekly Mcrcury," December 22d, 1719. The day previous, James Franklin, the brother of Benjamin, issued in Boston the " Boston Gazette," which was the second newspaper in the British Colo- nies. The Boston " News-Letter," by B. Green, was the first paper known to have gone beyond the first number ; and the " American Mer- and on the Hudson, as well as in West Jer- the second class, and valued at $1200. It eey and Pennsylvania. In 1674, when New is probahle, that he is the person who suc- York was finally ceded to the English, Roi- ceeded Bradford, of whom he may have re- nier Jansen was the owner of property on ceived some instructions in Printing in Kew the north side of Pearl street, hetween Old York, before his removal to Philadelphia. Slip and Broad street, which was ranked in 172 PRINTING IN THE COLONIES. cury was the third. The elder Bradford commenced the New York Gazette, October 16th, 1125.' When, in 1123, Benjamin Franklin, the greatest of American typographers, at the age of seventeen, made his first memorable visit to Franklin's Philadelphia, he found the Bradfords the only printers in the gmphT"!"' two cities, with the exception of Samuel Keimer, then about Efforts. establishing a second press in Philadelphia. With Keimer, a printer from London, of whom Franklin gives no flattering portraiture, he obtained employment, and subsequently constructed for him the first copper-plate printing-press seen in the Colonies. He also executed for him a variety of vignette and other engravings for a lot of New Jersey paper-money, which Keimer had contracted to print, and went with a press to Burlington to do the printing. Franklin found Keimer engaged in setting up in type his first piece, an elegy upon a young printer named Aquilla Rose, which he was mentally composing as he went along. He printed a number of pamphlets, almanacs, and small works, some of which were repudiated by those from whom they appeared to emanate, and thereby possibly contributed to his want of success. The first pub- lication bearing his imprint, of which we have any knowledge, is entitled " The Craftsman," and is to be found in the Philadelphia Library. As " a map of busy life," the Mercury conducted by Bradford was but a sorry representative of the modern newspaper. In December, 1128, nine years after its commencement, Keimer issued another, the second in the Province, with a title which would seem imposing even at the present day. It was called " The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, and Pennsylvania Gazette." During the first nine months, it sustained its title as an " Instructor," by occupying about two columns of each sheet with extracts from Chamber's Dictionary ; but its subscription list had not then reached one hundred subscribers. While Franklin was absent in England, after his first engagement with Keimer, the latter had increased his business, enlarged his establishment, and employed a number of journeymen ; and, like many of the early printers, dealt considerably in stationery and small wares. After being compelled to sell out his paper, he became inattentive to business and (1) Previous to 1758, all newspapers in bag on horseback. The exact issue of the New York went free of postage. On account Newspaper and . Periodical Press of New of their " great increase," they were then York City, in every form, was ascertained, ordered to pay 9d. a year for fifty miles, and in 1849, to be in numbers 158, which issued Is. &d. for one hundred miles. The mail yearly 69,24?,864 copies. The yearly con- was changed in 1765 from once in two weeks sumption of paper was 147,095 reams, or to once a week. Since the Revolution, a 6,600,000 pounds at a cost of $600,000.— boy has carried the whole mail in a saddle- Merch. Mag., xx. 103. PENNSYLVANIA. KEIMER AND FBANKLIN'S GAZETTE. 173 involved in debt. He then sold his apparatus to David Harry, a former apprentice, and removed to Barbadoes, whither he was soon followed by Harry. At Bridgewater, in that Island, Harry set up his press and em- ployed his former master as a journeyman, but soon resold the types and press to Keimer, who established there the first newspaper in the Carib- bee Islands. It was the " Barbadoes Gazette," which he ushered into the world with a poetical address ; and it was continued many years after his death in 1738. That it was not destitute of merit, seems probable from the fact that two quarto volumes, consisting chiefly of selections f;rom this Gazette, were published in London in 1741.' Pranklin, whose intentions Keimer appears to have anticipated in the issue of his paper, soon after commenced business in company with Hugh Meredith. Foreseeing the course of events, he for a time sustained Bradford's Mercury by his pen, at the expense of Keimer's paper, which .he ridiculed. After his return from England, where he acquired a lasting reputation for skill in his profession, the paper fell into Franklin's hands. He purchased it of Keimer for a trifling sum, and managed it success- fully, for a short time in connection with his partner, and during the next fifteen years by himself. An editorial in one of the numbers during the year 1736, shows how imperfect were the appliances for printing at that time. The outer form, as it was called, was printed reversely or upside down to the inner form, and was thus apologetically explained : " The printer hopes the irregular publication of this paper will be excused a few times by his town readers, in consideration of his being at Burlington with the press, laboring to make money more plentiful." After having been for a time issued semi-weekly, and undergone several changes in form, from folio to quarto and back to /olio, it became an influential journal, and was continued, under the abridged name of The Pennsyl- vania Gazette," to within about thirty-five years of the present time. "I possess," says Brissot DeWarville, "one of these Gazettes, composed by him and printed at his press. It is a precious relique, a monument which I wish to preserve with reverence, to teach men to blush at the prejudice which makes them despise the useful and important profession of the editor of daily papers. Men of this profession, among a free people, are their first preceptors and best friends.'"" On the 9th May, 1754, the Gazette appeared with the device of a snake divided into eight (1) For a list of several of the early Philadelphia, see "Philadelphia and Its publications from the presses of Jansea, Manufactures in 1857," by Edwin T. Freed- Keimer, Franklin, and others, previous to ley, Esq. : (B. Young, Publisher.) 1750, as well as an interesting and reliable (2) New Travels in the United States in sketch of the subsequent growth and present 1788 mRgnitude of the publishing business of 174 PRINTING IN THE COLONIES. parts, with the motto " Join or die," designed to represent New England and the seven other Colonies, and to arouse them to avenge the atroci- ties of the French and Indians upon the frontiers. The device was adopted by many other papers subsequently ; and, with the accompanying watchword, is believed to have had a good effect in a most critical period of our Colonial fortunes. Franklin's reputation was already great throughout the Colonies; and the Gazette, upon which he bestowed much of his attention, was the means of diffusing widely the wisdom of his counsels. At the Convention of Delegates from all the Colonies, which assembled at Albany the same year, to concert a plan of union against the pretensions of the French — who claimed all but a narrow strip of the continent on the seaboard, and had recently erected Fort Du Quesne and other strongholds in the rear of the Colonies — Franklin presented a scheme for general union and defense, which was adopted by all but the Connecticut delegates, who considered it too favorable to monarchy. The plan, however, was rejected by the Ministry, for the very opposite reason that it was too demo- (a-atical. On the 31st October, It 65, his paper was put into mourning for the passage of the Stamp Act, which was to go into effect the next day, and which Franklin, then in England, had labored vigorously to prevent. For three weeks its publication, like that of many other papers, was suspended, hand-bills being issued instead, headed, "Remarkable occur- rences" — "No stamped paper to be had," etc. It was renewed the following year, with the name D. Hall, as printer ; and, from the year 1766, was conducted by Hall & Sellers. On the approach of the British army in 1777, the publishers .retired from Philadelphia, and the paper was suspended, but revived on the evacuation by the army. In 1750, Hugh Gaine, who served his apprenticeship in the same es- tablishment in Belfast with Andrew Stewart, a cotemjiorary printer in Philadelphia, set up a press in New York, and commenced the Newspapers in New "New York Mercury." In 1764 and '65, he printed the Notes and Proceedings of the House of Assembly from 1691 to 1765, in two large volumes folio, of one thousand pages each, and continued to print to an advanced age. The largest business done in New York, ■from 1740 to 1770, was by James Parker, the publisher of the Gazette after Bradford's resignation, who had also a press at Woodbridge, New Jersey, where he resided, and was concerned in another at New Haven, conducted by his partner John Holt. Holt subsequently set up in New York, and, as the publisher of the New York Journal in the service of the revolutionary cause, was obliged to quit the city during the war, at NEW YORK AND CONNECTICUT 175 the sacrifice of his property, which was destroyed. He returned after the Peace, an^ resumed business in New York. James Rivington, a London Bookseller, who first settled in Philadel- phia in that business in 1160, the following year began business in New York, with a branch establishment at Philadelphia and Boston. But about the year ItTS, he began a newspaper — The Royal Gazette — which made no small stir for some years, the paper being in the Royal cause. He claimed to have at one time 3000 subscribers ; but as the paper acquired the title of Rivingtou's Lying Gazette, on account of the editor's misrepresentations, some doubt of the assertion was entertained. The first press in Albany, which was the second place in New York in which printing was done, was erected about the year 1111, by Alex- ander and James Robertson, in Barrack, now Chapel-street, it is said. In November of the same year, they commenced the Albany Gazette, which was not continued later than 1116, when the brothers joined the Royalists in New York. On the evacuation of the city, they took refuge in Nova Scotia, and at Port Roseway, in that Province, Alexander died in 1184. James died many years after in London. Having thus traced the commencement of the Art in the three Colonies which were the first to employ it, and which have ever since given it the fullest occupation, we shall more briefly state when and by whom, so far as it is known, Printing was introduced into the other original Colonies and Territories. Our limits do not permit us to follow it out into minute details in all sections of the country, and we shall be content with indi- cating the leading features of its progress, down to the commencement of our Constitutional history. A press was established in Connecticut, at New London, in 1109, by Thomas Short, recommended from Boston by B. Green. He printed the following year the celebrated Saybrook Platform of Church in Connecti- Discipline, and several religious tracts and sermons, but died cut, 1709. r ) a I within three or four years after his settlement. He was suc- ceeded by Timothy Green, the son of Samuel Green, Jr., of Boston, who became the Government printer, at a salary of £50 per annum. His descendants were printers in the Colony for nearly a century", and carried the art into some of the other Provinces. The first newspaper in the Colony, was the Connecticut Gazette, printed first by James Parker & Co., atN^ew Haven, January 1, 1155. Samuel, a grandson of Timothy Green, of New London, erected the first press in Hartford, in 1164, and co'ramenced the third paper in the Colony, the Connecticut Courant, the New London Summary having been the second. The art was introduced into Maryland, by William Parks, who set up 116 PRINTING IN THE COLONIES. a press at Annapolis, in 1726. The year after, he printed "a complete collection of the Laws of Maryland." The Printing for that Id Maryland, Colony had been previously done by Andrew Bradford, at Phi- "^' ladelphia. In 1727, or 1728, Parks began the publication of The Maryland Gazette. He was followed in 1740 by Jonas Green, the son of T. Green, of New London, who printed for the Government at an annual stipend of £500 currency. The first press at Baltimore, was erected by Nicholas Hasselboct, of Pennsylvania, who had been instructed by C. Sower. He printed in English and German, and contemplated, if he did not actually commence, an edition of the German Bible. The Maryland Journal, or Baltimore Advertiser, commenced in August, 1773, by William Goddard, the first Printer of Providence, K. L, was the first paper at Baltimore, and the third in the Province. While Goddard was engaged in public affairs, in which he was promi- nent, his sister, Mary Catharine Goddard, managed with ability the con- cerns of his printing-house. The paper and books were printed in her name, and she is said to have first printed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, or 1777. In 1729, William Parks, the first Maryland printer, also established a press at Williamsburg, in Virginia, which was the first regular Printing In Virginia, ^°^^ ^^ *^^t Colony.' He printed at that place the same year, ^'^'- Stith's History of Virginia, octavo, and the Colonial Laws. He was for some time public Printer to both Colonies, enjoying, it is said, an allowance of £200 a year from each. He commenced at the same place in 1736, the Virginia Gazette, the first public journal in the Province. The first press in South Carolina, was set up at Charleston, by Eleazer Phillips of Boston, in 1730. ■ The Government is said to have offered a liberal reward (£1000) to any printer who would settle in the ca,roUna, Province. Three printers arrived, in consequence of the offer in 1730, and the year following, Phillips was appointed printer to (1) Virginia appears to hare had a press laws of 1680, withouthis excellency's license as early as 1681, and to have been in point — and he and the printer ordered to enter of fact the second Province in which the art into bond in £100, not to print any thing was introduced, though it was immediately hereafter, until his Majesty's pleasure shall prohibited. W. W. Henning, Esq., of Eich- be known." ChalmeTs, also mentions, that mond, while engaged in 1810, in publishing Lord Culpepper, in 1682, prohibited print- the Statutes of Virginia, from the year 1619, ing"till his Majesty's pleasure should be found among the manuscripts in his posses- known ;" and, that Lord Effingham the fol- sion, the following minute of the GovernoT lowing year received instructions to disallow and Council, which had so long eluded the use of a press in Virginia. There is no search as to lead to doubts whether printing trace of the Art in the Colony from that was ever interdicted there. "Febrtiary 21st, time until the aiTival of Parks. (Thomas ii. 1682— John Buckner, called before the Lord 645, 546.) Culpeper and his Council, for printing the CAROLINA— R. ISLAND— NEWPORT. PROVIDENCE. 177 his Majesty, but died soon after. Thomas Whitmarsh, his successor/ commenced in January, 1731 or 1732, the first newspaper in the Carolinas, the South Carolina Gasette. He also died of the epidemic, there prevalent in 1733. He was followed in the business by Lewis Tiraothfee, a French Protestant Refugee, who had worked for Franklin in Philadelphia, and was the first Librarian of the Philadelphia Library Company, in 1713. The first press in Rhode Island, Was at Newport, and was established by James Franklin. He had learned the Art in England, and in 1718-14, In Khode brought thcncc a press and types, with which he commepced in Island, 1732. gogton, and printed for a time the Boston Gazette. In 1721, he established the New England Courant, the third paper in the Colony. The Courant gave offense to the Clergy and some members of the Government, who denounced and attempted to suppress it The Pro- prietor was imprisoned, and an order on the General Court obtained, forbidding its publication until its contents had been submitted to the Secretary of the Province. It continued to appear, nevertheless, without such censorship, but for some time was issued in the name of his brother Benjamin, even after his removal to Philadelphia. In that paper, ap- peared some of the future philosopher's fiwt essays at composition, whieh at once excited attention. Not succeeding to his satisfaction in Boston^ and unwilling to submit to the requirements of the Assembly, James removed to Newport, Rhode Island, then a place of considerable com- mercial importance, and the second city in New England, where he set up his press, "under the Town School House." In September, 1732, he commenced the Rhode Island Gazette. He died in 1735, after whieh the press was managed by his widow, Anne Franklin, assisted by her daughters as compositors. She printed for the Government, among other things, an edition of the Laws of the Colony, of 340 pages folio. She also printed linens, calicoes, and silks, as her husband had previously done at Boston. The press was worked by a servant of the family. Her son James, suc- ceeded about the year 1752, and in 1758, established the Newport Mer- cury, which is still published, and in the office of which is to be seen the original Franklin Press, at which Benjamin Franklin learned the business with his brother. A press was first set up at Providence, in 1762, by William Goddard, afterward a printer at Philadelphia, and later still at Baltimore. He commenced the same year the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, which was long continued, and became an influential journal. For about two years, it was managed by Sarah Goddard & Co., the former being his mother, and the Co., John Carter, who was subsequently the pro- prietor. I The. first resident printer in New Jersey, was James Parker, a native 1T8 PaiNfiNd In thjE doLON'iis. of Woodbridge, in that Proriiice, then a printer of New York, and at In New °"^ ti™6 of N^"^ Haven. He established a press in his native Jersey, 1751. borough in 1151, and the next year printed a folio edition of the Laws of the Province, edited by Judge Nevill, which sold for five dollars a volume. He also published a monthly Magazine, for about two years. In I'TGS, he removed his press to Burlington, the Capital, where, as already mentioned, Keimer, and Franklin of Philadelphia, had occa- sionally executed Government work. He returned to Woodbridge, after completing the printing of Smith's History of New Jersey, of five hun- dred and seventy pages, 8vo. New Hampshire received the art in 1756, from Daniel Fowle of Boston, who having incurred the displeasure of the Government of Mas- sachusetts, removed in July, to Portsmouth, the Capital of the former Province, where he the same year published a newspaper, — The New Hampshire Gazette. He printed the laws and other work for Government. North Carolina had two presses before the Revolution in 1775. The first was established at Newbern, in 1754, or 1755, by James Davis. In Noith The Public Printing had been previously done at Charleston. Ca,ioiioa. j„ December, 1755, he published first the North Carolina Gazette, and was appointed Postmaster by Franklin and Hunter. He completed in 1773, an edition of the Laws of the Province pp. 580, folio. In Delaware, a press was established in 1761, at Wilmington, by James Adams, who had learned the Art in Londonderry, Ireland. The Print- in Deia- •"? f*'!' the Province had previously been done at Philadelphia, ware, 1761. ^jjg^g Adams had the year before set up a press on his own account. He issued proposals for a newspaper. The Wilmington Conrant, in 1762. He was the only, printer in Delaware, before 1775. Georgia was the last of the old States in which the art was practiced. The Public Printing was done in Charleston, until 1762. In that year, James Johnson, a Scotchman, established a press at Savannah, In Georgia. and printed for Government, by whom he was handsomely re- warded. He published an edition of the laws, and in 1763, commenced a newspaper, the Georgia 'Gazette, the only one before the Revolution. A press was introduced into the present State of "Vermont in 1778, by J. P. Spooner, and Timothy Green, printers of Norwich, C'onnecticnt, In Vermont ^^^ ^'^t erected a press at Hanover, then claimed by Vermont, ^™' but now in Connecticut, where they began a newspaper, but that year removed to Westminster, at the request of the newly organized Government of that State. They published in February, 1781, the first newspaper in Vermont, " The Vermont Gazette, or Green Mountian Poat- boy." The press was removed in 1783, to Windsor, under new proprie- tors. IHE PRESS IN MAINE AND IN THE WESTERN STATES. 179 Printing is said to have been first practiced in what is now the State la Maine, "^ Maine, in I'ISO. In 1810, there were newspapers published "'"■ at six towns, now within that State, including three at Portland. The following facts, from an interesting monograph, by Mr. Moran, of Philadelphia, in a work already quoted, which we insert here for the Early sake of unity in a subject intimately connected with the progress il°the''we7t- ai^d prosperity of the country, will show concisely the dates ein states. .,yj,gjj ^^jjg n ^,.(; preservative of all arts" is believed to have been introduced into the other Territories and States down to the present year. The dates will, for the most part, correspond with the first issue of a news- paper in the several Territories. The first Press in tlie territory west of the Alleghanies was in Kentucky, in 1786 ; the second, in Knoxville, Tennessee, 1793 ; in Ohio, at Cincinnati, — then only a trading-post, — in 1795.' In 1811, the art was first practiced in what is now the State of Indiana ; in Louisiana, by the French, in 1704, but little was done there before 1803, when the territory was ceded to the United States, at which time there was but one press there. In 1810, there were about ten. Missouri had a Press in 1810 ;^ Michigan, in 1810 ; Mississippi, in 1809 ; Alabama, in 1812. There was one in Arkansas as early as 1825. The first in Illinois, was at Kaskaskia, established by Matthew Duncan, in 1815. Printing was introduced into Wisconsin, in 1827, by General Ellis, who, having no Press, used a planer and mallet. He procured a Press in 1833, and printed, the same year, at Green Bay, the first Newspaper in Wisconsin.' (1) It is stated in Hazard's Register of stated to have started, in July, 180S, the Pennsylvania (i. 181), that the first newspa- first paper in St. Louis, and the first west per west of the Alleghanies was the '* Pitts- of the Mississippi. It was the Missouri Ga- burg Gazette," issued by John Scull, Esq., zette, now continued in the Missouri Kepub- more than forty years before his death, lican of. that city. He had previously which was in 1828. That would give an worked for Matthew Carey, in Philadelphia, earlier date than that of the Press at Knox- on the first quarto Bihle published in the ville. An early Pittsburg Directory, gives United States, in the English language, as 1783 as the date of Scull's paper. Dr. he was accustomed to relate. The Laws of Drake, in his View of Cincinnati, gives No- Louisiana (Territory), printed in the same vember 9th, 179.3, as the date of the first year in St. Louis, was the first book printed publication of the Centinel of the North- west of the Mississippi. West Territory," by William Maxwell, in (3) The Milwaukie Sentinel gives the in that city ; which paper, he states, was names of one hundred and one newspapers the first published north of the Ohio, and English and German, now published in Wis- the third or fourth west of the mountains, consin. Their aggregate circulation is over It was a half sheet, royal quarto size, and, 80,000, and it said that the three or four in 1796, was purchased by Edward Freeman, million copies, that form the grand total who changed the name to the " Freeman's every year, are printed on material made in Journal." It was that year printed on the State, — four-fifths of all the paper being paper made in the vicinity. manufactured in Wisconsin. The circula- (2) In Edwards' " Great West, and her tion just mentioned, is about equal to the Metropolis, St. Louis," Joseph Charles, entire newspaper circulation of the whole whose son was lately shot by Thornton, is Union, as accurate||y estimated, in 1788, 180 PRINTING IN THE COLONIES. The art was practiced in Texas, by the Spaniards, as early as 1760 ; and by Americans, about 1829. In Iowa, printing was introduced by W. C. Connell, in 1836. In 1832, Iowa was nearly a wilderness, and the first bouse was that year built in that part of the State, near Davenport, which is now noted for its commerce, and no less than three daily papers. Printing was first executed in Minnesota, April 28th, 1849. A newspaper was started in that Territory the year before, when there was not a village in it ; but it was printed at Cincinnati, and published at St. Paul, April 27, 1849. Seven years afterward there were four printing offices in St. Paul alone, and three daily journals, while there were no less than thirty-one newspapers in the Territory. The Mexicans are believed to have attempted printing in California, prior to 1846 ; but there is no certain evidence of it. The first regular printing exe- cuted there seems to have been at Monterey, on August 15th, 1846.' The Mormons began printing at Salt Lake, in 1848. It was practiced in Oregon a year or two before that.^ Nebraska and Kansas each had a Press in 1854. Now (1859) there are no fewer than twenty different newspapers in that Terri- tory. Yet the whole territory west of the Alleghanies to the Pacific, was a dense impenetrable wilderness in 1780 ; and within the memory of living men, there was not a permanent white settlement north of the Ohio, from the Wa- bash to the Pacific."^ It will be seen, by the foregoing record, how closely, in this country, the Press has followed upon the track of the pioneer, and, in some cases, almost outstripped civilization in its westward march. More recently still, the Printing press has penetrated the defiles of the Rocky Mountains, and having established itself upon the very highest summit of that moun- tain barrier, now sends forth its weekly intelligence from the remote mining region of Pike's Peak. The Rocky Mountain Gold Reporter, published " at Mountain City, in the Rocky Mountains," was commenced iu August, of the present year (1859), by Mr. Thomas Gibson. This constant extension of the labors of the Press, with the rapid advance of of new settlements, compared with the slow introduction of the art in (1) The Editor of the New York Tribune (at Oregon City, from April to Dcoember, states, that there are now between ninety 1848), was presented by the Editor, Geo. L. and one hundred periodicals published in Corry, to the N. T. Hist. Boo., in June, California, of which, about one-third are 1851. It was printed on a wooden Press issued from San Francisco. Thirty-one of of home invention, and with a font of the forty-five counties iu the State have French type. The type was deficient in the each one or more journals. Three are print- letters A, lo and y, which were severally con- ed in French, two in Spanish, one in Ger- structed out of 6, m and x. The paper was man, and at least one in Chinese. Six are discontinued on the " breaking out" of the devoted to Beligion, two to Agriculture, mines, and had not, at that date, been re- nine or ten to Literature, Mining, Medi- newed. cine, etc. (3) Trnbner's Guide to American Litera- (2) A complete set of the "Oregon Free ture. Loiidon, 1859. Press," the first published in that Territory THE FIESX AMERICAN BIBLE. ISl some countries, is one of the most striking features of American progress. It illnstrates the close relationship that subsists between free institutions and the spread of intelligence, and especially the importance of the fullest legitimate freedom to the great instructor, the Printing press. Examples of the blighting influence of despotism, whether religious or secular, and of revolution, upon the growth of literature, and of the art which is its chief conservator and hand-maid, are numerous. We need only refer to the Spanish colonies on this Continent. In the provinces of Mexico and Peru, printing was introduced and practiced some years before there was a permanent English settlement upon this Continent ; but governmental restrictions, religious espionage, and revolutionary changes, effectually prevented any vigorous exercise of the art. It is only the present year, as we are informed, when this great civilizer has rested upon the farther confines of civilization upon this Continent, that the first Arab newspaper ever printed in the Turkish empire, outside of Constantinople, has been commenced at Beyrout. Seventy- five years have elapsed since printing was introduced into the Ottoman Capital, which, long before the time of its invention, — while European art and learning were buried in Gothic darkness, and a Western Continent was undreamed of, — was the magnifi- cent seat of every elegance in manners and the arts. We have already seen how its progress in our country compares with that of printing in England, the only country which has shown a commensurate appreciation of the art, and where the conditions have been comparatively favorable to its development. There are few names or enterprises connected with the Colonial Press, deserving of more honorable mention than that of the publisher of Lu- ther's German Bible, printed at Germantown, in Pennsylvania, German Bi- in 1143. It was the first Bible printed for the European popu- ciu'istopher latiou in the American Colonies, and was " a singular achieve- ment of the zeal, industry and perseverance, through good re- port and evil report, of Christopher Saur, who became a printer with the noble view of supplying his countrymen with copies of the Word of God." Saur (or Sower, as it is iu the German and English imprints respectively) was of that valuable class of German Protestants who, at different times since the arrival of Penn, have peopled Philadelphia, Ger- mantown, Lancaster, and other portions of Pennsylvania, and to a firm attachment to theii" religion, have added an amount of skill and industry in many of the arts, not exceeded by any class in the country. The first paper-mill erected in the Anglo-American Colonies was built by one of these, at a period nearly cj-eval with the first manufacture of white paper in England, and others were commenced not long after, which sup- plied the first printers of Philadelphia with much of the material used by 182 PRINTING IN THE COLONIES. thera. Like many of the early settlers of New England, a number of these, moreover, possessed scholastic attainments which were highly re- spectable, and they were not likely to overlook the educational advan- tages of the Press, But printing-types were then altogether imported from abroad. The expense and delay in procuring these for any considerable undertaking, induced Sower, in order to carry out his benevolent purpose of supplying the Scriptures to his countrymen, — many of whom, as he states in a letter to the Governor of Pennsylvania, were ill-supplied with Bibles, — to commence the manufacture of types and of printing-ink for liis own use. He cast several fonts of type for himself and others, and the anvil on which he forged the matrices is still shown at Germantown. The first "Jamb-stoves" made in America were, also, cast for him, and were still ip use fifty years ago. His manufactory, which produced types of the Gothic or German character, was the first type-foundry in America, it is believed, and has its lineal representative in Philadelphia at the pre- sent time. Sower had commenced printing about the year 1735, in which year he began the publication of a Quarterly Journal, in the German lan- guage, the first publication of the kind in a foreign tongue in this country. It was afterward changed to a monthly, and, after 1144, to a weekly paper, The Germantown Gazette, and was continued by his son, until the Revolutionary War. A complete file of the first German paper in this country, where they are now so numerous, is still preserved as a precious heirloom by one of the descendants of the publisher. Sower also pub- lished the first German Almanac in Pennsylvania, and extracts from the Laws of the founder, translated into German, for the use of his country- men. In 1743, after three years labor npon the work, the German Bible in quarto form, of 1272 pages, was completed and published by him. It was by fai" the heaviest publication which had yet been Issued from the press in Pennsylvania, and was not equaled for many years after. This undertaking was worthily concluded by offering the volumes at a moder- ate price, and by distributing them gratuitously, or at a merely nominal cost, to the poor. "The price of our newly-finished Bible," says the publisher, "in plain binding, with a clasp, will be eighteen shillings; but to the poor and needy we have no price." His son Christopher con- tinned and enlarged the business of his father in its several branches, and in 1762 issued a second edition of the quarto Bible of 2000 copies, and a third edition, of 3000, in 1776. The book manufactory of Christopher Sower the second, was for many years by far the most extensive in the British American Colonies. It employed several binderies, a paper-mill, an ink manufactory, and a foundry for German and English types. The exclusive privilege, long enjoyed by the Universities in Great THE FIRST REPRINT OF THE E.NGLISH BIBLE. 183 Britain — and we believe not yet annulled — of printing the English Scrip- The First tures, had probably deterred the American printers and pub- BibieTa" Hshers from engaging in their publication. About tlie year English. 1^52, intermediate between the first and second issues of Sow- er's Bible, an edition of the English Scriptures, in small 4to., was pri- vately carried through the press in Boston. It was printed by Kneeland and Green, the former the publisher of the New England Journal, the fourth newspaper in the Colony, and the second undertaken by a printer. Green was the son and afterward the successor- of Timothy Green, the second printer of Connecticut. This first American edition of the Bible in the English language was chiefly made for Daniel Henchman, of Bos- ton, the most enterprising bookseller of British America before the Revo- lution. His place of business was on Cornhill, at the corner of King- street, where he furnished much employment to the Boston printers, and even those of London. He built also the first paper-mill in New England. To avoid the risk of prosecution by those in England, who printed cum IJrimlegio, the book had the London imprint of the copy from which it was made, viz. : " London : Printed by Mark Baskett, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty." The edition consisted only of seven or eight hundred copies ; and, having a London imprint, and close resem- blance in typography to the English editions, the fact of its publication has been generally overlooked. But Thomas, who was an apprentice in Boston a few years after, heard the compositors of the work speak of it ; and Governor Hancock, a relative of Henchman, owned a copy of it, and related the circumstances. A duodecimo impression of the New Testament was soon after printed in like manner for the same parties, by Kogers & Fowle, and, like the Bible, was well executed. ' (1) la 1781, Eobert Aitkin, by order of authorize him to publish this recommenda- Congress, printed, in small duodecimo form t-ion in the manner he shall think proper." and brevier typo, what has-been called the The entire work was executed during the first American Bible in the English Ian- troublous times of the Kevolution; and, guage. The execution of the work having apart from the limited facilities for printing been approved by Doctors White and Duf- at that period, the printer is said, on one field, Chaplains, Congress passed the follow- occasion, in the midst of his work, to have ing resolution: " That the United States, in been obliged to remove his type and mate- Congress assembled, highly approve the rials out of the city, and to bury them under pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Ait- a barn, to save them from destruction by kin as subservient to the interests of reli- the British soldiers. "Under all these dis- gion, as well as an instance of the progress advantages," says the Philadelphia Frec- of arts in this country ; and being satisBed, man's Journal of that day, " a complete and from the above report, of his care and accu- accurate and an elegant edition oT the Bible racy in the execution of the work, they re- was published in this very city, in four commend this edition of the Bible to the in- yoars from the time of the evacuation by habitants of the United States, and hereby the British. The very p<.p«r that has re- 184 PRINTING IN THE COLONIES. Down to lt40, or about the time that Sower commenced the Quarto Bible, when eight of the older Provinces were in possession of a press, more printing was annually executed in Massachusetts than in all the others together. Massachusetts continued to lead in the publication of books for about twenty-five years longer. In 1T69, the publishing busi- ness of Philadelphia had become nearly equal to that of Boston ; and this equality was maintained until about the beginning of the War of the Revolution. These two cities, to which belong the credit of having thus led the enterprise of the country in one of the most important of the Arts, also divide the honor of having produced, during the period at which we have glanced, the greatest ornament of the profession in this or any other country. Born in Boston, and taught the first elements of the art in the establishment of his brother James, one of the early printers of that place, Franklin afterward conferred upon Philadelphia the benefits of his in- dustry, inventive talent, and matured wisdom, and founded several insti- tutions which have been a lasting blessing to her population. His own simple narrative of his early life and struggles has proved a most instruc- tive lesson to thousands of young mechanics in every department of business. His firmness, sagacity, and patriotism as a statesman have reflected honor upon his whole country ; while his discoveries in Science and his writings are the common inheritapce of the race. It has been suggested, by one who labored no less zealously to enlarge the area of popular knowledge, whether mankind at large has been more benefited by his services in any department than by the sententious wisdom of Poor Richard's maxims.' celved the impression of these sacred books seems to hare borne no further share in the was mannfaotnred in Pennsylvania. The enterprise than that of superintending the . whole work is therefore purely American, printing and recommending the volume to and has risen, like the fabled Phoenix, from public patronage, but manifested through- the ashes of that pile in which our enemies out its appreciation of the importance of the supposed they had consumed the liberties work. of America." (1) The incidents of his public career are The heavy importations of Bibles, among too well known to require repetition, and other things, which followed the peace, com- do not fall within our province to record, pelled the publisher to tell under eoai; and. As a printer, he labored sedulously for the in a memorial to Congress in 1789, in which improvement of the art; and had his ener- he asks for a patent giving him the excln- gies and ingenuity been exclusively devoted sive right for fourteen years of printing the to the profession, he would doubtless have Old and New Testament within the United greatly advanced its interests, and acquired States, but which was laid on the table, ne a fame equal to his achievements in other states that he lost by the publication " more departments. He retained a lively interest than three thousand pounds in specie." in the trade throughout life, and his regard Congress, which amid its many burdens had for the dignity of his profession is illustrated 60 promptly responded to the call for Bibles, by the following incident, which occurred THE STAMP ACT. CONTINENTAL C0NGR15SS. 185 By the Stamp Act, which received the Royal Assent in March, lt65, a duty of one half-penny was imposed on all pamphlets and newspapers, Tie Stamp which were required to be printed, after the first of November, on ■^'''' stamped paper. On a publication not exceeding six sheets, the tax was 2s. ; on all advertisements, 2s. ; on all almanacs, 2d. a year, if on one side of a sheet ; and id. on all others, etc. It was on the evening following the passage of this Act, that Dr. Franklin, then in London, as Colonial Agent, in view of the results, wrote with a sorrowful heart to Mr. Charles Thompson, "the sun of liberty is set, you must light up the lamps of industry and economy," to which Mr. Thompson is said to have responded: "Be assured we shall light torches of quite another sort." But the Act, in America, and particularly in Boston, was very generally disregarded, except by the most indignant protests from one end of the country to the other ; and not only newspapers continued to be printed, but legal documents were e'xecuted on common paper, as before its enact- ment. The Act was repealed in the following year; but another Act in ITSY, accompanied by an assertion of the parliamentary right to bind the Colonies in all cases, was passed, imposing a duty on paper and several other articles. ^This, notwithstanding considerable progress had been made in the manufacture, was calculated to embarrass the operations of the Press, which the non-importation agreement partially obviated, by stimulating the manufacture of that article for a time. In consequence of these manifestations of the designs of Parliament, the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, in September, l'r'74; and, among other measures for the public safety, forbade the printers to execute any printing for the adherents of the administration. During the progress of the Revolution, the Press shared in the general insecurity and depression which interrupted nearly every form of industry. It did its full share in arousing the spirit of resistance in the hearts of the Colonists, and in sustaining the fire of patriotism throughout the struggle. " Writers and printers," says Dr. Ramsay, "followed in the rear of the preachers, and next to them, had the greatest hand in animating their countrymen." The cause of the Americans, he farther observes, received such signal aid from at the outset of his career, and is worthy of water from the pump, made ray supperj I repetition : A person having brought a piece then wrapped myself up in my great-coat, for insertion in the Pennsylvania Gazette, and laid down on the floor and slept till I"ranklin desired that it might be left until morning, when on another loaf and a mug the next day for his consideration. Return- of water I made my breakfast. From this ing at the appointed time, the young printer regimen I find no inconvenience whatever, replied: "I have perused your piece, and Finding I can live in this manner, I have find it to be scurrilous and defamatory; to formed a determination never to prostitute determine whether I should publish it or my press to the purposes of corruption and not, I went home in the evening, purchased abuse of this kind, for the sake of gaining a twopenny loaf at the baker's, and, with a more comfortable subsistence." 186 PRINTING IN THE COIiONIES. the press and the pulpit, that in 1115, " it was determined to employ these two powerful instruments of revolution, printing and preaching, to operate on the minds of the Canadians. A complete apparatus for printing, to- gether with a printer and a clergyman, were therefore sent into Canada."' The Boston Gazette, the third known by that name, since 1719, was regarded as the oracle of the disaffected party. Journals on both sides experienced the hostility of the parties to which they happened to be opposed, and nearly all literature, but that of a political character, was obscured in the gloom and ferment of the times. Bat the occasion de- veloped more remarkable qualities, and more numerous instances of energy, ability, and patriotism in spheres of private exertion, as well as in the Senate and the Camp, than any equal portion of our history.'' It was amid the exciting events which accompanied the proclamation of the Stamp Act in America, that Isaiah Thomas, whom an intelligent French traveler styled the Didot of America, the able and diligent his- torian of this department of American indu.stry, and for many years the most enterprising member of the trade, first entered upon life as an inde- pendent printer. His success in business was entirely the reward of his own exertions.' . The first journal published in the country, which possessed anything of a literary character, was the " General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for ail the British plantations in America," a duodecimo monthly Americiiu magazine, printed and edited by Benjamin Franklin, and first Magazines. published in January, 1741, at twelve shillings a year. It was continued only about six months.'' A few weeks after, another monthly of 48 pages 8vo., called the American Magazine, was started in opposi- tion by John Welbe, but did not survive. Another n\bntlily magazine, with the title of The American Magazine, was begun in 1769, in Philadelphia, by Lewis Nichola, containing forty- eight pages. To this magazine were subjoined the first published Trans- actions of the American Philosophical Society, founded chiefly by the agency of Franklin, and of which Nichola was a member. He was the (1) History of American Revolution. ventors. This was the forerunner of tho (2) A paper was established in Charleston, Act of 1790. South Carolina, in November, 1765, in ex- (3) A sketch of his life and career may bo press opposition to the Parliamentary Stamp found in the 2d vol. of his Hist, of Printing. Act for the Colonies, and was generally (4) The first periodical in England, bear- patronized. By an Act of Assembly in that ing the name of a Magazine, was published Province in 1784, for the encouragement of in London, in 17.S1, by Edward Cave. It the Arts and Sciences, the Copyright of was the Gentleman's Magazine, so long at Books was secured for the authors, as the the head of the periodical works of that benefits of novel machines were to tho in- country. FIRST DAILY JOURNALS IN 1115. 181 author of two or three treatises on the military art, published in Phila- delphia at the time of the Revolution. Only one volume of the magazine Vfas published. The fourth English newspaper established in Philadelphia, was tho Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal Advertiser, which was the first paper in the British Colonies with four columns to a page. The first daily paper in America, was the Pennsylvania Packet or General Advertiser, commenced in Philadelphia, November, 1111, by John Dunlap, as a weekly. It was sold in 118.3, to D. C. American Claypoolc, who, about a year after, converted it into a daily, and it became a profitable concern.' The year following F. Child & Co. published the New York Daily Advertiser, the first of the kind in that city. A daily evening paper, the Philadelphia Gazette was established in Philadelphia in 1788, by Samnel Eelf. In 1115, there were nine newspapers in Pennsylvania, of which six in English and one in German were published in Philadelphia, one in German at Germantown, and one in English and German at Lancaster. At. the beginning of that year, there were seven papers published in Massaclinsetts, of which five were at Boston, one at Salem, and one at Newburyport. There were four in Connecticut, at the same time, New London, New Haven, Hartford, and Norwich, having each, one. There were two in Rhode Island : one at Providence, and one at Newport. There was also a newspaper at Portsmouth, New Hampshire; making in all, thirteen in New England. In the Province of New York, there were then published four papers, three in the city, and one at Albany. In Maryland, there were two, at Annapolis and Baltimore respectively. There were also two in Virginia, both at Williarasburg : two in North Carolina, at Wilmington and New- bern ; three at Charleston, South Carolifta, and one at Savannah, in Geor- gia ; making thirty-seven newspapers in the Colonies now comprised in the United States. There was at the same time a newspaper at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and one at Quebec, in Canada. None of the other Pro- vinces, as yet, possessed a newspaper. The entire number of periodicals which had been commenced in the Colonies between 1704, and 1775, was something less than one hundred, of which about three-fourths were news- paper sheets, and the balance partook more of the character of Magazines. About twenty-two of these were begun in Massachusetts ; fourteen in the other New England States ; about twenty-two in Pennsylvania ; sixteen (1) To Mr. Claypoole, 'Washington, at a throHgh Messrs. Thomas iS: Sons, to Mr. later period, presented the original manu- Lennox of New York, for over $2000. (Pit- script copy of his Karewell Address, which ladelphia and its Mamtfacturet, by E. T. was lately sold in this city by bis executors; Freedloy, p. 168.) 18S PRINTING IN THE COLONIES. in New York ; and twenty-two in the other Provinces now within the Union. Many of these had but a brief existence, while others attained to a respectable age, and exerted considerable influence upon the popular mind, in literature and politics. Various causes contributed to render the publication of a newspaper one of doubtful remuneration. The scarcity and high cost of materials, such as presses, type, paper and ink, which were chiefly imported, and the high price of labor, were serious obstacles at a time when capital was far from abundant. The circulation which they could secure under the best management was limited, when popula- tion was sparse, and taste and leisure for reading, less general. And in regard to newspapers, the great source of present emolument from adver- tisements was for a long period scarcely depended upon. Its advantages were then neither apprehended by the business community, nor the art of attractive display at all understood by the compositor. The first advertisements were confusedly mingled with the reading matter, from which they were not even separated by lines. Nor were they so separated from one another. Some of the early papers continued to be published for years with the smallest possible advertising patronage. In September, ItlY, Congress ordered Major-General Armstrong to remove "all the printing-presses and types in the city and in Gerraantown to secure places in the country, excepting Mr. Bradford's press in this city, with English types." After its flight to Yorktown, in the same year. Congress ordered the speedy erection of a printing-press in that place, for the purpose of conveying to the public the intelligence received from time to time. Many of the printers were great sufl'erers in the gen- eral ruin which overtook such numbers during the contest. They were compelled to escape, with their effects and apparatus, to places of securjty in the country, where they either prosecuted their business at the greatest disadvantage, or abandoned it altogether. Those who were exposed to the hostilities of the two contending parties, were often visited with the resentment which could not reach the writers for whom they printed. Their estates were confiscated, and sometimes personal violence or insult was incurred. The number of printing-presses in the country before the Revolution is believed to have been about forty. The number of works printed up to that time cannot, probably, be now ascertained. The Philadelphia Li- brary contains as many as four hundred and fifty-nine works printed in that city previous to the Revolution : of these, four hundred and twenty- five are original books or pamphlets, and thirty-four are re-prints of foreign books and pamphlets. As many were, doubtless, printed which were not obtained for the Library, an addition of one-third, — making an NEWSPAPERS — M. CAREY — BOOKSELLERS. 189 aggregate of six hundred publications for the Prorinoe during the whole period, — has been considered a moderate estimate. ' After the establishment of Independence, when printing materials began to be manufactured more generally in this country, public journals were rapidly multiplied. A carefnl estimate, made in 1T88, placed the number of newspapers issued weekly at about seventy-seven thousand copies, or upward of four millions annually, worth, at four cents each, one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Of the weekly issues, upward of thirty thou- sand were supposed to be printed in New England.'' One of the most enterprising printers and booksellers in the country, after the Peace, was Matthew Carey, who — having incurred the dis- pleasure of persons in power, for some publication in Ireland — came to America, and established himself in Philadelphia. The American Mu- seum, a periodical conducted by him with much ability, was highly instru- mental in calling public attention to the subject of American Manufec- tures, as well as to literature and politics. Few men have labored with more zeal to promote the industrial interests of the country. He is entitled, also, to the credit of having been the publisher of the first quarto Bible, from standing type, issued in the United States, and it was principally through his agency that the system of annual book fairs, or Trade Sales, was introduced, in imitation of the periodical book fairs of Europe, which have done so much in enlarging the market area for surplus stock and facilitating auquaintance between publishers and booksellers. In the Colonial period of our history, the printers, very generally in- deed, combined with their business of printing, that also of book selling, Colonial ^^ ^^^ Caxton and other early printers, and often that also of Booksellers, jjog]^ binding. The small occupation, in many instances, fur- nished for the press, beyond the irregular supply of work for the local government, often compelled the printer to eke out a livelihood by other means, of which a booik and stationery shop was the most eligible. Many combined with the proper ^tock of such an establishment, a small assortment of groceries or fancy articles. Others were extensive dealers also in general merchandise, and imported books, as well as other Euro- pean goods. Many others, who commenced as booksellers and publishers, as their means enabled them, established Printing-presses in connection with their other business, and, in time, devoted their attention exclusively to printing. The business of the bookseller has ever been a profitable (1) Mem. Hist. Soc, Fenna., i. 150. cats amounted to 2800, with an average cir- (2) iSIorse's Univ, Geog., ed. 1VB6, vol. L oulation of 1785, and the aggregate of the p. 340. — The number of newspapers publish- copies printed annually, was 422,700,000. ed in the Union in 1810, was 358 ; in 1828, The newspaper establishments in England, 802. In 1850, the newspapers and periodi- in 1808, numbered 145, 190 raiNTINQ IN THE COLONIES. one in America, and many of the early dealers in books, in the principal cities, accumulated extensive stocks for the times in which they lived, and acquired wealth and station. The books imported were seldom of a costly or rare description, but were of the practical and useful class, which best suited the limited means and less profound inquiries of a young country compelled to turn its mental labor to immediate account. Books on law, medicine, history, and the less abstruse branches of science and on gen- eral knowledge, constituted the staple of Colonial book stores. The number of booksellers, whose names are recorded by Thomas as having carried on business in Boston before the year 1175, is ninety-two; and in other parts of New England, daring the same time, there were about eighteen engaged in the business. In New York, there were about a dozen whose names are given. In Philadelphia there were thirty-eight, and two at GermantowD, and two at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There was one at Annapolis, Maryland ; three at Charleston, South Carolina ; and one at Savannah, Georgia. His list of booksellers outside of Massa- chusetts, he states, however, was not complete. Of those enumerated in Boston and the other large towns, seldom more than two or three carried on the business at the same time. Among the most noted and enterpris- ing of the trade in Boston, was Samuel Phillips (1680), "At the Brick- Shop, at the west-end of the Town-House," who was a large dealer, and the publisher of several books for the Boston Press. Dunton, who acted as his factor in London, and consigned many books to him, says, he was " very just and very thriving — young and witty, and the most beautiful man in the town of Boston." His descendants were booksellers, ou Cornhill, until after the Revolution. We have stated that some of the early Colonial Printers, combined with their business that of Bookbinding. The earliest exercise of the art, of which we have seen any notice, was by John Ratliffe, who was em- Amerioan ployed as mentioned on a formar page, upon Eliot's Indian Bible, about the year 1663. He came from England for that purpose. In September, 1661, the Commissioners of the United Colonies wrote to Mr. Usher, who superintended the printing of that work, to demand and receive of Mr. Green, the whole impression of the New Testament in Indian, now finished ; " and take care for the binding of two hundred of them strongly and as speedily as may bee with leather, or as may bee most serviceable for the Indians, etc." In the bill of particulars, rendered by Green in the following year, £5 was accordingly charged for binding two hundred Testaments at 6 NEW JERSEY AND MASSACHUSETTS. THE MILTON MILL. 19T built at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, sometime previous to the year lYSS. The Second ^^ have bee'u unable to ascertain the precise date of its erection Paper-mill. ^^ jj^g original ownership. In the year mentioned, It was the property of William- Bradford, the Government Printer for that Province and New York, who for some time made the borough his place of resi- dence. About the same date, however, the manufacture was commenced in one or two other places. The next attempt appears to have been made in Massachusetts, under the patronage of the Legislature of the Colony. On the 13th September, 1T28, the General Court of Massachusetts, granted for the encouragement of a Paper-mill, to Daniel Henchman, Gillam Phillips, Benjamin Fanuell, Thomas Hancock, and Henry Bering, a privilege in the nature of a patent for ten years, upon the following conditions : In the first fifteen months, they were to make one hundred and forty reams of brown paper, and sixty reams of printing paper. The second year, to make fifty reams of printing paper. In addition to the first-mentioned quantity. The third and afterward, yearly they were to make twenty-five reams of a superior quality of writing-paper in addition to the quantities before- mentioned : the entire yearly product to be not less than five hundred reams. The mill was erected in Milton, seven miles south of Boston, on the Neponslt River, below the head of the tide, which during six hours out of the twenty-four suspended its operations. The proprietors Mill near employed an Englishman named Henry Woodman as their foreman. They furnished the Legislature a sample of their manufacture in ItSl, and the mill was probably built early in the previ- ous year. Henchman, who appears to have been a principal projector, was the leading bookseller and publisher in Boston at that time, and was a man of considerable wealth for the times. Another bookseller of Boston, whom Thomas supposes to have been concerned in this, the first and only Paper- mill in New England, at the time, was Klchard Fry, an Englishman, who, in May, 1132, issued the following advertisement in the weekly Re- hearsal, published by Thomas Fleet. "Richard Fry, Stationer, Bookseller, Paper Maker, and Rag, Merchant, from the City of London, keeps at Mr. Thomas Fleets, Printer at the Heart and Crown, in Cornhill, Boston, where said Fry is ready to accommodate all Gen- tlemen, Merchants, and Tradesmen, with Setts of Accompt books, after the neatest Manner. And, whereas, it has been the Common Method of the most Curious Merchants in Boston, to procure their Books from London, This is to acquaint those gentlemen, that I, the said Fry, will sell all sorts of Accompt 198 PAPEE-MILtS IN THE COLONIES. Books, done after the most acute Maimer for Twenty per Cent cheaper than they can have them from London. I return the Public Thanks for following the Directions of my former Advertisement for gathering Eags, and hope they will continue the like Method, having received upwards of Seven Thousand weight already.'" The Milton Paper-mill after having been managed a few years by the original proprietors, suspended operations. It was afterward sold to Jeremiah Smith, who was unable to obtain workmen to carry on the busi- ness, a difficulty experienced in many branches of manufacture at that time. In 1'760, James Boies, of Boston, procured a paper-maker, named Hazelton, from a British regiment, then in the town, from which soldiers were occasionally suffered to work on furlough, among the trades-people with whom labor was scarce. For him, Hazleton, aided by Abijah Smith, a native of Milton, who understood the business, set the mill once more in operation. The regiment was soon after ordered to Quebec. The Commander-in-Chief refused to allow Hazleton to remain behind, and like his brave Commander, the gallant Wolf, he received upon the plains of Abraham, a mortal wound, from which he died in a few weeks. After another short interruption, Richard Clarke, an Englishman, from New York, again set the mill at work. Clarke is said to have had a superior knowledge of the business, and to have made most of the moulds used -by him. He was assisted by Smith, who continued in the business to an advanced age, and after a few years by his son George Clarke, also a good workman. In lir96, the town of Milton, in addition to other manufactories, had three Paper-mills, and there were six on the same river, and twenty within the State. The Neponsit, on which this Paper-mill, and also the first water grist-mill in New England, was built at Dorches- (1) Fleet changed the name of his paper captured by an English Cruiser, during the to the Boston Evening Pott, and in Novam- war with France and Spain, in 17i8, of ber, 1748, made the following announcement, which Fleet pnrohased a large quantity at a which is a curious instance of the scarcity low price. He made use of them for print- of Paper in that day. " Choice PennByUania ing ballads, the back of each bull being suf- Tobaoco Paper, to be sold by the Publisher fieient for two songs like "Black-Eyed Su- of this Paper, at the Heart and Crown ; where san," etc. Thomas says he saw large quanta- may also be had the Bulls, or Indulgences ties of them thus worked up by Fleet. In the of the present Pope Urban VIII., either by early days of Boston, when the Legislature the single Bull, Quire, or Ream, at a much did not think it beneath their dignity to cheaper rate than they can be purchased of prescribe the out of ladies' sleeves, Mr. the French or Spanielt Priests." It appears Robert Saltonstall was fined five shillings that several bales of the Indulgences printed for presenting a petition on ao small and bad on the face of a small sheet of very good a piece of paper, paper, had been taken in a Spanish ship, MASSACHUSETTS. PENNSYLVANIA. 199 ter, furnishes excellent mill-sites which hare long been occupied by busy factories. This first attempt of the New England people to make their own Paper^ did not fail to attract the notice of the English Paper-manufacturers. Through the Lords of Trade and Plantations, the attention of the Govern- ment was called to the subject. The House of Commons, in 1731, directed the Board of Trade, to make a report with respect to the trade and manu- factures carried on in the Colonies, " detrimental to the trade, navigations, or manufactures of Great Britain." On 15th February, l'r31-2, a report was made i)n pursuance of this order on which it is said that among the complaints made to the Board against plantation laws was this, that " in Massachusetts, an Act was made to encourage the manufacture of Paper, which law interferes with the profit made by the British Merchants on foreign Paper sent thither." It was feared that, unless an early stop was put to these manufactures, they would in time be carried on to a much greater extent. It is added, that by later accounts from Massachusetts Bay, they were informed that Paper was made " by a mill set up tKree years ago, to the value of two hundred pounds Sterling yearly." About the same time that the Paper-mill was built at Milton, another was erected on Chester Creek in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, by Thomas Willcox, an early English settler.' Writing and printing-paper, and clothiers' pasteboard were manufactured there, and supplied Frank- lin with much of the paper used upon his press. At the same place was made by the old hand process, bank note paper, used in the old Conti- nental Paper Currency, at one time so abundant in the Colonies. The exact date of its erection is uncertain, but the establishment continued in operation under the original proprietor until his death, in ItM. It was subsequently continued by his son Mark, who improved the manufacture of bank note paper, and also carried on the business to an advanced age. The old mill was demolished in 1829. One of the earliest Paper-mills built in Pennsylvania, was established by the Bunkers, or German settlers at Ephrata, in Lancaster County, where they also had a German printing-press. During the scarcity of Paper, experienced after the commencement of the Revolution, and a few days before the Battle of Brandywine, messengers were dispatched to this mill for a supply for cartridges. The mill happening to be exhausted, the fraternity who held their property in common, generously placed at the disposal of their country, several two-horse loads of an edition of Fox's (1) In the Chronology and History of the first Paper-mill in the Colony. A later Paper and Paper-making, by Mr. Joel Mun- date is, however, given by several other sell, Albany, 1714 is assigned as the date of authorities, this erection, which the author considered 200 PAPER-MILLS IN THE COLONIES. Book of Martyrs, then ready for the bindery. Samples of this " literary ammunition," are still preserved in the neighborhood of the battle-ground. Nearly two hundred of the wounded in the fight lie buried in the village, whither they were sent, to the number of five hundred, to be cared for by the little community. In August, 1765, a large and complete Paper-mill, believed to have been the first in that place, and probably in the Province, was completed First Paper- ^^^ W^ '" operation, in or near Providence, Rhode Island. It Kiodeis- is supposed to have been at Olneysville.' It appears, a few '*"*" years later, however, to have fallen into neglect,— so confirmed was the habit of dependence upon English manufactures. In l'l&8, Colonel Christopher Leffingwell, of Norwich, in Connecticut, erected at that place the first Paper-mill in the Colony, under the promise of a bounty from the Legislature. Two years after, he was ac- First Paper- Jo j t miuiu coa- cordingly awarded two pence a quire on four thousand and twenty quires of writing paper, and one penny each on ten thousand six hundred quires of printing paper. The awards amounted in all to £81 16s. Sd. The Government patronage was soon afterward withdrawn. An official letter from Governor Moore, of New York, to Lord Hills- borough, dated May Tth, 1768, at Fort George, in answer to inquiries of la New ^^^ Board of Trade in relation to manufactures, states, that a ^°*' Paper-mill had begun to be erected within a few days, at a small distance from the town.^ This is the first of which we have seen any mention in that Province. A Paper-mill was, about this time^ erected at Hempstead, on Long Island, by Hendrick Onderdonk and his son Andrew, which is presumed to have been the first built in New York.' The precise date is not given. Hendrick Onderdonk, who was an an- cestor of Bishop Onderdonk, of that State, was born in 1724, and had, in his early years, built the first grist-mill on that part of the island. But as his son, and also Hugh Gaine, so prominent as a printer and booksel- ler in New York at this time, were connected with him in the business, it is probably the one referred to in the letter of Governor Moore. The manufacture has been carried on at that place from that day to the pre- sent. In 1769, the following announcement was made in the Boston News Letter : — " The bell-cart will go through Boston before the end of next month, to collect rags for the Paper-mill at Milton, when all people that will encourage the Paper manufactory may dispose of them." In a country so much less populous than Europe, and the climate of (1) Staple's An«ials of Providence, p. 626. (3) Thompson's Hist. Long Island, ii. 68. (2) Dooumentary Hist, of N. Toik, i. 736k IN NEW JERSEY AND PENNSYLVANIA. THE STAMP ACT. 201 which called for much woolen clothing, rags were necessarily scarce, and notwithstanding the amount of cotton now grown and manufactured, they still fall far short of the requirements of the Paper manufacturers. At this date, the Pape^-mills in the Provinces of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, had increased, to the number of forty. The value of their manufacture was estimated at one hundred thousand pounds an- nually. Six of these were in the county of Philadelphia.' The increase of the Paper-mills in those Provinces was, in a great mea- sure, due to the enterprise of the printers and publishers of Philadelphia which was then the literary metropolis of the country. But it was, also, in no small degree owing to the interest taken by Dr. Franklin in that branch of Colonial industry. De Warville, who visited the Province in 1788, says. Dr. Franklin informed him that he had established about eighteen Paper-mills. The same traveler observes, after having visited Boston and New York, " There is no town on the Continent where there is so much printing done as at Philadelphia. Gazettes and book-stores are numerous in the town, and Paper-mills in the State. ^ Franklin him- self informs us that one of the first books printed by him and Meredith was on pro patria paper. Ever ready to encourage domestic industry, he was particularly interested in the progress of printing and all its tributary arts. His metrical pleasantry on the subject of Paper is familiar to all ; but another less known but more important dissertation was enti- tled, " A Description of the Process to be observed in making large sheets of Paper, in the Chinese manner, with one smooth surface," which was read before the American Philosophical Society, in June, 1788, and pub- lished in the third volume of its Transactions, a year or two after his death. ■ Upon the conclusion of the war with France, in 1763, undertaken for the defense of the Anglo-American possessions, the purpose was openly avowed by Parliament of re-imbursing the enormous expense of Stamp Acts. 1 /~, , . -r. , that undertaking by a tax upon the Colonies. Resolutions in favor of a Stamp Act, similar to one which had long been in force in Eng- land, were passed in March, 1764. In the following year, Mr. Gren- ville introduced his famous bill declaring all instruments of writing used in the American .Colonies null and void, unless executed upon stamped Paper or parchment, charged with a duty by Parliament. The bill, which received the royal assent in March, 1765, at onoe aroused in the Colonies a storm of opposition, which was but the prelude to the revolt from impe- (1) 'William Wood, Fifth street, below principal conreyanoers, and was considered Walnut, in January, 1772, advertised parch- " equal or better than the imported." ment, as made and sold by him, which had (2) New Travels in TJ. States, in 1788, for some time previous been used by the 202 PAPEE-MILLS IN THE COLONIES. rial rule made a few years later. The resolutions of non-importation and non-intercourse, by which the Parliamentary legislation was met on the part of Provincial Assemblies, gave no slight impulse to the native industry of the Colonies, while they so materially affectfd the interests of British commerce and manufactures, that a fepeal of the ordinance was as loudly called for by the merchants of England as by all classes in America. The pressure of public sentiment, both in England and in the Colonies, forced upon Parliament the repeal of a statute so obnoxious, which was effected at the expiration of one year from its enactment, accompanied, however, by the assertion of the right of Parliament to tax or bind the Colonies in all cases whatever. In conformity with this alleged prerogative, a bill was, in 1167, introduced into Parliament, by Mr. Charles Townsend, im- posing duties in the Colonies upon glass, paper, pasteboard, painters' colors, and tea, which passed into a law, and once more aroused the op- position of the Colonists, in remonstrances, petitions, and non-intercourse Acts. The merchants of Boston, in October, passed resolutions, — in which they were followed by other towns, — not to import, or deal with those who should import, tea, glass, paper, or colors, so long as the duties on those articles remained unrepealed. Resolutions were, at the same time, formed to encourage, by all prudent ways and means, home manufactures ; and glass and Paper were especially recommended as deserving of en- couragement. The British exports to the Colonies at once fell off again, from £2,3*78,000, in 1T68, to £1,634,000, in 1769, and the repeal of the Act was loudly demanded. Public excitement was once more allayed, temporarily, by the reluctant withdrawal, in 1770, of five-sixths of the duties, leaving but a nominal tax of three pence per pound on tea, as a testimony of the asserted legislative authority of Parliament. Although a horror of taxation had ever possessed the Colonial mind, and this small impost was resisted on the principle that there could be no right to im- pose taxes without the consent of the taxed, it is difficult to conceive how it was more an infringement of Colonial rights than many other Acts which had been submitted to without complaint from the earliest period. It is not, perhaps, surprising that Parliament found it difficult to under- stand why a people, now prosperous and enriched, who had submitted to have their national industry crippled by statutes for th& aggrandizement of English commerce, should refuse their quota to the expense incurred in their protection, while their fellow-subjects at home sustained, without complaint, the heavy burdens incurred for the common benefit. The trade Acts were, in many respects, a manifest violation of the rights of the Colonists to make the most of their industry. Unless ex- emption were guaranteed by their charters, a right to exact from them a contingent for the general expenses of the empire, of which they were an THE STAMP ACT. LIST OP DUTIES. 203 integral part, seemed to rest upon the same prerogative by which the parent State assumed, in other cases, to legislate for its dependencies. The Legislatures of Massachusetts and New York had, indeed, ten years before, enacted a Provincial Stamp Act ; the former granting to his Ma- jesty several duties on vellum, parchment, and Paper, for two years, to- wards defraying the charge of this Government. That of New York, passed the following year, continued four years in operation. But the impost was now resisted upon the principle that the Colonists were not amenable to a statute which they had no voice in making ; and upon this question of prerogative, the empire was at length dismembered. The Stamp Act probably diminished somewhat the consumption of paper, by restricting the operations of the Colonial press, and by forcing the colonist to resort to arbitration and other non-juridical modes of settling disputes, whereby the use of legal instruments chargeable with the stamp duties was dispensed with.' (0 Apart from the question of preroga- tive, the stamp duties, which malce a formi- dable list, were calculated greatly to impede the usual forms of business, and the de- termined opposition was but natural. As our readers may not now be familiar with the details of this memorable Act, we may be excused for presenting the heads of it for their consideration. Zd. on all pleas in courts of law, 28. on bail-pieces and appearances on them. 1«. 6d. on all pleas, etc., in Chancery. • 6rf. on copies. £2 on all diplomas, certificates, etc., of colleges. 1». on pleas, etc., in Admiralty Courts. Gd. on copies. 10s. on a certiorari, writ of error, etc. 5». on fines, common recoveries, and at- tachments. is. on any record of Nisi Prius, as judg- ments,'' etc. Is. on all process, etc., not heretofore in- cluded. £10 upon licenses to practice as attorneys, etc. 4d. on all bills of lading. 208. on all letters of marque, etc. IDs. upon all grants of offices, except of the navy, army, und of the peace. 6d. on all Acts of incorporation. 20>. on retailing licenses to sell spirits. £4 on licenses to sell wine to persons not taking out licenses to sell spirits, etc. £3 upon those who do. 5s. upon guardianships, and letters of ad- ministration, above £2^ seamen and sol- diers excepted ; the duty extending to the Continent of America, its islands, etc., Ber- muda and Bahama. lOs. upon the same in other parts of Brit- ish America. &d. upon securities for £10. Is. upon securities for above £10, and not above £20. Is. 6d. upon securities for above £20, and not above £40. Gd. upon warrants of survey for 100 acres. Is. upon the same for more than 100, and not exceeding 200. Is. Gd. upon same for above 200, and not exceeding 320. Is. 6d. upon all grants, etc., of 100 acres; except leases up to 21 years. 2s. upon the same for above 100, and not exceeding 200. 2s. 6d. upon the same for above 200, and not exceeding 320. These confined to the Continent, its islands, Bermuda and Ba- hama. 3s. on the same for lands above 100, in all other parts of British America. 4s. on above 100, and not exceeding 200. 5s. on above 200, and not exceeding 320. £4 upon all offices not before mentioned, 204 PAPER-MULS IN THE COLONIES, On the other hand,. the impulse given to domestic manufactures by the determination not to import or use articles of English merchandise, was a means of increasing the production of paper into the country. Mills were in consequence erected in various parts of the country, and increased from that time more rapidly than they had previously done. At the commencement of the Revolution, however, there were but three small paper-mills in Massachusetts. There was one in Rhode Island out of repair. In New Hampshire, there were as yet none. The supply of Paper from these mills was far short of the demand. The scarcity of workmen experienced in the business, and the high price of all labor, caused what was made to be prepared very indifferently. The practice of saving rags had not become habitual with the people, and everything of that kind was employed in the manufacture, without the proper care in assorting the qualities. This gave to much of the paper made, while the knowledge of the bleaching process was yet unknown, a peculiarly dark, and often mottled hue, by which the product of that period is characterized. It was about this time, or in the year l'r74, that the eminent chemist, Scheele, made the valuable discovery of Chlorine, the remarkable bleach- ing properties of which, in combination with water or certain salts, were afterward through the researches of Berthollet and others, rendered so practically useful, as to mark an era in the history of Art, as employed upon the manufacture of vegetable substances. This application of chlo- rine did not, however, become immediately available in Europe, and was not introduced into the Paper manufactories in this country, until after the beginning of the present century.' except the army, navy, and justices of the 2». on all advertisements. poaoe. 2d. on all almanacs, etc., on one side of £6 upon all exemplifications of the same, one sheet. 2s. 6d. on all contracts, charters, bills of id. on all others. These for one year. If sale, etc. for more years, to be multiplied by the 5s. on warrants to audit accounts, pass- number.' porta, policies of insurance, etc. 6d. on every 200, In sums not exceeding 2». Sd. on all bonds, letters of attorney, £50, as consideration for apprenticeships, notarial acts, etc. 1,. on 20, if the sum exceeds £50. 3d. on all registers of deeds, etc., before Double duties on all papers, etc., in other mentioned. than the English language. 2». on all register's of deeds, etc., not be- (1) In a communication addressed by Mr. fore mentioned. j. cist, of Wilkesbarre, iu March, 1813, to 1». on playing cards. Professor Cooper, of Dickinson College, ] 0«. on dice. Pennsylvania, the Editor of the Emporium Jrf. on all pamphlets and newspapers. of Arts and Sciences, it is stated, that the Id. if larger than a half sheet, and under oxygenated muriatic acid^as it was then de- a whole sheet. nominated, had not at that time come into 2.. not exceeding six sheets. use among the paper-makers in America, BLEACHING OF PTJLP — MILLS IN CONNECTICUT AND VERMONT. 205 In 1'776, "Watson & Ledyard, who had a Paper-mill at East Hartford, Connecticut, were able to supply paper for a weekly issue of eight thou- sand papers from the Hartford press, in addition to the greater part of the writing-paper used in that Colony, and by the Continental Army. One of the earliest Paper-mills built in Western Massaichusetts, was near the town of Pittsfield, in Berkshire County. In 1779, about twenty-seven years after its settlement, the town instructed its representatives to the General Court, to use their " best endeavors, that any petition which may be preferred from this town, or from any individual of it, respecting the erecting a Paper-mill in this town, be attended to, and espoused by you in the General Court." Paper was made some years later in the adjoin- ing town of Dalton, by Zenas Crane and others. The county now main- tains about forty Paper-mills, far outnumbering any other in the State. Ljjp, where the business began still later, has alone above twenty mills, and is the largest Paper-making town in the Union. A Paper-mill was, we believe, built at Bennington, Vermont, during the Revolution. So scarce was the supply of raw material, however, that advertisements were sent to Albany that rags were wanted at the printing- office and Paper-mill in Bennington ; and the mill is said to have been chiefly dependent upon the cast-off clothing of the Indians for a supply of stock. ' Paper was brought from the mill through the forests upon althongli two or three patents had already was again given to the public in the paper been granted in England for its application above referred to. A patent was granted in to that purpose. England, in 1792, to a Mr. Campbell, for A formula prepared by an English manu- bleaching rags j and, three years after, John faoturer, for making a bleaching liquor for Bigg, obtained a patent for bleaching rags paper pulp, was sent by Mr. Cist, and with and also the pulp in the vats, by the use of engravings of the apparatus used in its pre- manganese, sea salt, oil of vitriol, and water paration, and remarks, by Dr. Cooper was distilled together. Dr. Cooper appears to published in the first volume of the Second have used the gas which is noxious to the Series of the Emporium. In his observa- workmen, in place of a solution of the oxy- tions, Professor Cooper, states, that about muriate or chloride of lime, afterward em- the year 1790, he, with a Mr. Baker, of Man- ployed, and hence his method did not Chester, devised a modification of Berthol- prevail. let's method of producing oxymuriatic acid, (1) A commentary on the altered circum- by substituting minium, or red lead, for stances of the present population of these manganese, and by a direct combination of States, in regard to clothing and the Arts, is the materials, produced the acid without furnished in a statement in the California distillation, and with considerable saving of State Register, for 1859, where the existence expense. He says, he employed it continu- of a Paper-mill in Marin County is men- ously for three years previous to his removal tioned, as turning out six tons of paper per to America, in bleaching cotton goods to the week. And one of the great benefits as- extent of from 800 to 1200 pieces of calico cribed to it, is the "clearing out of the weekly in Manchester. The process was cast-off garments, which for years have not published in England, but was inserted carpeted the streets of San Francisco, and by Dr. Mease, in his edition of the Ency- every city and town in the State." clopedia, without attracting attention, and 206 PAPER-BHIiLS IN THE COLOJOES. horseback, and was so valued, notwithstanding its poor quality, that imperfect sheets were carefully repaired with paste, that none might be lost. Some copies of the Albany Register, printed on paper from the Bennington mill, the nearest to that city, exhibit when held up to the light, this reparative process so dexterously done, as otherwise to elude obser- vation. So scarce indeed, was paper in New York, in 1181, that the Journal of the Second Session of the Assembly was not printed, on account of the inability of the printer to procure paper. ' A Paper-mill was erected in the northern part of that State, at Troy, by Messrs. Webster, Ensign, and Seymour, in 1793, which made from five to ten reams of paper daily. It is said by Mr. Munsell, to have been the first in that part of the State. In lt85, the Legislature of Massachusetts, notwithstanding the odium attached to the very name of a stamp duty, since the excitement growing out of the Parliamentary Statute of 1165, re-enacted an ordinance which thirty years before, had passed the same body imposing duties on licensed vellum, parchment, and paper, and a tax of two-thirds of a penny on newspapers, and of one penny on almanacs, which were required to be stamped. The law was, however, repealed, before it had become opera- tive. But it was followed soon after'by a duty on advertisements, which continued two years in force. In 1786, a Society at Philadelphia, offered a premium for the best means of protecting Paper against the attacks of insects ; and another for the best method of making paper for the St. Domingo Market, capable of resisting the insects of that region. Several plans were offered, ac- companied by samples of paper prepared with sizing, mixed with various sharp, bitter or other ingredients fatal to insect life, none of which, how- ever, were deemed worthy of acceptance. An improvement was made in the following year in London, by a person of the name of Hooper, who received a patent for a new method of making printing-paper, particularly adapted to copper-plate printing. It was about the year 1790, that the practice of blueing* paper in the vat, originated in England, in an accident it is said. A paper-maker's wife chanced to drop her bag of powdered blue into a quantity of paper- pulp, and the article when finished, being offered in the London market as an improved paper, commanded an advance of four shillings in the (1) In the library of the N. T. Hist. Soo., officer of the American Army, on account of there are 16 folio volumes of the manuscript the scarcity of paper, while in winter quar- Journals of the British House of Commons, ters at Morristuwn, N. J., in 1776, or 1777. in Cromwell's time, whose ample margins, — Wataon'a N. Y. in the Olden Time. bad been partially used by a commanding PAPEB OF ASBESTOS — MILLS IN THE SOUTH. 201 price. Out of the increased profits of his sales, her husband rewarded her discovery with a costly cloalj. The Paper manufacture flourished in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, particularly the first-named, to a much greater extent than in any other sections of the Union. In 1181, according to M. De Warville, there were in those three States, sixty-three paper-mills, of which forty- eight were in Pennsylvania. They manufactured, annually, about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of paper. Connecticut made in that year five thousand reams, worth about nine thousand dollars. Maryland, had also a Paper- mill at that time, and there was one in North Carolina. In It 92, a Mr. Beach, of Dantaury, in Connecticnt, made samples of paper from the Asbes- tos, of which fossil, a Jesuit in Europe, named Kircher, had, in ] 646, produced paper and other articles, indestructible by fire. De Warville, mentions a Paper-paiU on the Brandywine, a mile from Wilmington, Delaware, belonging to Mr. Gilpin and Myers Fisher, in which the process for'grinding the rags, was much more simple than the French, and the specimens of their paper which he had seen both for writing and printing, equal to the finest made in France. The Paper-mills had at this time greatly increased in number, in New England, and four years later, the Paper made in Massachusetts, was estimated to be worth twenty thousand pounds annually. It was then a yearly increasing production in the State, which in another four years, numbered twenty Paper-mills, where at the Revolution, there were but three. Six of these were on the Neponset, and seven on the Charles' River. There was a very large one at Worcester, and at Sutton, in the same county, was another belonging to the Messrs. Burbank, situated on Mill Brook. There was one at Springfield, and one at Andover. The Paper-mills of Massachusetts, at that time, had usually two vats each, and employed ten men, and as many boys and girls ; and their annual product was about seventy thousand reams of writing, printing, and wrapping paper. A mill with two vats, required a capital of about ten thousand dollars, and was capable of producing from two to three thousand reams annually, of different descriptions of paper. The price of printing-paper, was from three to three and a half dollars per ream. Some of the mills in Pennsylvania were of greater capacity, and had three or four vats each. Among the first Paper-mills built in the Southern Provinces, was one at Salem, in North Carolina, three hundred miles in the interior, settled in 1766, by a company of Moravians, most of whom were trades-people. The manufacture was, after the War, encouraged by a loan from the State. In South Carolina, some time after, an associatioh for the aid 208 PAPEK-MILLS IN THE COLONIES. and instruction of emigrants recommended the establishment of Paper- mills, as a branch of industry likely to be remunerative. In 1T89, Congress, on motion of Mr. Clymer, of Pennsylvania, laid a duty of seven and a half per cent, on Paper, pasteboard, and blank-books imported. Mr. Clymer stated, that the Paper-mills of Pennsylvania then produced, annually, seventy-thousand reams of various kinds of Paper, which was sold as cheap as it could be imported, and that there were already fifty-three mills within the range of the Philadelphia market. The compiler of the Bibliotheca Americana, published in London, in 1789, states that the people of North America manufactured their own papa- in sufficient quantities for home consumption. The Report of Secretary Hamilton, in the following year, represents it as one of the branches of manufacture which had arrived at the greatest perfection, and was "most adequate to national supply." Yet Citizen De Warville, a few years pre- vious, believed that, on account of the scarcity and dearness of labor and of rags, the Americans could not, for many years to come, furnish sufficient paper for the prodigious consumption caused by the increase of know- ledge and the freedom of their press. 2. Paper-hangings. — The manufacture of Paper-hangings was a de- partment of the business in which, according to Hamilton's Report, respectable progress had also been made. The use of this elegant and infexpensive substitute for the costly and elaborate arras and tapestries of former times, was introduced into France and England early in the seventeenth century, — about the same time with that of leather-hangings, which it soon almost entirely displaced. The manufacture was carried on in England, in 1748 ; and, at a later period, the establishment of the Messrs. Potter, at Manchester, became cele- brated, making from eight to ten thousand rolls in a single day. The cylindrical machine was first introduced for the manufacture of long sheets for Paper-hangings. But it was not until after this, that the article began to be generally used in America. The first advertisement of Paper- hangings for sale in this country appeared about the year 1737.' (1) In the first settlement of the Continent couraged the use of paini;, as a useless lux- the people were generally compelled to forego nry. The Kev. Thomas Allen, of Charles- the ornamental, and content themselves with town, was called to account, it is said, in the essentials of domestic comfort. Their 1639, for haring paint about his dwelling, dwellings, mostly of wood, were usually guilt- but was discharged upon his showing that less of paint throughout, which was not felt, it was done before his time, and wa« disap- however, to be a great deprivation, when a. proved of by him. The first church erected in well-scoured and .wnded floor was the pride of Boston was never painted within or without respectable housewives. The early rulers of while it stood. Indeed, a list of meehaniea Massachusetts, indeed, appear to have dis- made out by the General Court of Massa- PAPER-HANQINGfi. FIRST USE AND MANUFACTURE OF. 209 The Swedish Traveler, Professor Kalm, remarks of New York, which he visited in 1748 : — " The walls of the houses are whitewashed within, and I did not any where see haagings, with which the people in this country seem, in general, to be little acquainted. The walls are quite covered with all sorts of drawings and pictures, in small frames. On each side of the chimneys they usually have a sort of alcove, and the wall under the window is wainscoted, with benches near the window. The alcoves, as well as all of the wood- work, are painted with a blueish-gray color." Hangings of rich cloth, however, imported from Holland or from India, were, from an early period, to be occasionally seen on the wall of a wealthy merchant, in the principal cities. Paper-hangings, along with carpets, began to come into use in the middle of the last century; They were advertised for sale, in New York, by Garret Noel, the bookseller, and by J. Desbrosses, in great variety of patterns for walls and for window cur- tains, in lt60. They appear to have been manufactured also in the coun- try, within a year or two of that time. Paper-hangings of domestic manufacture are said to have been pre- sented, in 1763, to the Society of Arts, Manufactures, "and Commerce, instituted in New York, on the plan of the London Society of Arts, which were highly approved and, when offered for sale, were rapidly bought up. Additional samples of several varieties of the same manufacture were produced before the same Society, iu 1766, approved and recommended.' From this time forward, the use of wall Paper increased throughout the country with great rapidity. The importations of the article were very large from England, and, after the War, from France : so much so, that, iu 1787, the French Government removed the export duty upon Paper- hangings, on account of the great consumption of its manufacture in the United States. At that tipie there were several manufactories of the arti- cle in Boston, and others in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. ' The manufacture of Paper-hangings increased in the same rapid ratio, and when the first Secretary of the Treasury made his report, was among the well-established branches of home production. Three years after, the manufactories of stained Paper, in Boston, were sufficient, not cbusetta, in 1670, does not contain the name just previous to the War, painted one of hia of a painter. In 1705, the Coat-of-arms of rooms. The report soon spread. Several Queen Anne, in the Court-House, at Salem, acquaintances of the man having met on a Massachusetts, was ordered to receive " a wharf, one of them announced the event in colored covering," which was the first men- these terms : — " Well, Archer has set a fine tion of the art in that quarter. Painters' example.; he has laid one of his rooms iu colors were for sale in Boston, in 1714. But oil." The use of paint increased rapidly paint was not generally used before the after the War. Revolution. An anecdote is related of a (1) Dodsley's Annual BegiBter, vol. vUi. thriving cooper who, to excel his neighbors, p. 65, and vol. ix. p. 62. 14 210 PAPEU-MILLS IN THE COLONIES. only to supply the State, but fnrnish.ed considerable quantities to other States.' Boston produced, annually, twenty-four thousand pieces of Paper-hangings. At that time there were also two or three manufacto- ries in Boston, and its vicinity, for making cards, at one of which large quantities were made. Pasteboard, fullers' paper, sheathing, wrapping, cartridge-paper, cardboard, and all other descriptions, were made to a con- siderable extent. A number of patents were taken out, within a few years after the or- ganization of the Patent Office, for inventions and improvements in ma- chinery, and the use of new processes and materials in this branch of manufacture, by John Carnes, of Delaware, John Biddis, of Pennsylva- nia, Robert E.. Livingston, of New York, J. Condict and Charles Kinsey, of New Jersey, and S. Greene, of Connecticut. Although, for the manufacture of white Paper, none but white rags were used in the early history of the art, the product, as will be evident upon the inspection of books or newspapers printed seventy-five years ago, was coarse, dark-colored, and unsightly, compared with that/made from the most refuse materials by modern contrivances. The trituration of the rags for the pulp was performed by beating them in stone or iron mortars, by the aid of a trip-hammer ; there was no means of discharging the coloring matter, either before or after the formation of the sheet, and the Paper was sent to market unbleached and uncalendered. By the old process of manufacture, several days were required to produce a sample of dry, finished Paper. At the present time, by the aid of cutting and comminuting machinery, the pulp is prepared in a superior manner in a few hours, having been thoroughly bleached during the preparation ; and the whole of the subsequent stages of the manufacture, until the finished article is ready for use, is accomplished in as many minutes. Some idea may be formed of the slow and expensive nature of the early manufacture of Paper, as well as of the effect of the introduction of chemical aids in bleaching, of the Fourdrinier and other machines in moulding and finish- ing, from the following comparison of the practical results of the methods : — " Formerly the process was slow and laborious. Each slieet was made sepa- rately, and four and a half reams of newspaper, of the size of twenty by thirty inches, was technically termed 'a day's work,' and required the constant labor of three men, with the occasional assistance of two more. These four and a half reams contained two thousand one hundred and sixty sheets, which, if placed close together in a line, would measure five thousand four hundred feet, — a little more than one mile. (1) Mass. Hist. CoU. iii. 276-277. MAGICAI, EFFECTS OF MACHINERY. TYPE-FOUNDING. 211 " By the introduction of machinery, this part of the process of Paper-making has been entirely changed. The Paper is now run off in one continuous sheet, and, on our best machines, at the rate of forty-five feet per minute. Some of the machines in use being of the width of eighty-four inches, tlie attention of two men and four girls is required to form paper of the size before mentioned, twenty by thirty inches. Such a machine, working the same amount of time as the old-fashioned variety (twelve hours), will make thirty-two thousand,d four hundred feet of Paper eighty inches wide. " But this is not all. When the the three men with their assistants, under the old plan, had finished their day's work, and made their one mile of paper, it was wet, and it became necessary to dry it upon poles. If the weather proved favorable, this might be done, taken down, and finished in Jive days — ten times longer than the time occupied in making it. Now, when the two men and four girls have, in twelve hours, made their twenty-four miles of paper, it is dry, and when cut into sheets, is ready for the printer ; and this without regard to the weather, be it rain or shine. " Thus it is evident that formerly it took ten times as long to prepare the Paper for market, after it was moulded into sheets, as is now required to con- vert it from the pulp — and that the labor of five persons in one day produced for the market only one twenty-fourth part now obtained by the use of labor- saving machines.'" Over two thousand engines are now employed in producing Paper upon a scale and of a quality at least equal to that of any other country. 3. Type-Fodnderies. — The earliest of all printing is said to have been made from wooden blocks, engraved with letters in imitation of the chi- rography of the scribes, who constituted a numerous and skillfal pro- fession throughout Europe and the East before the discovery of print- ing. The impressions from these plates bore so near a resemblance to the written copies, as to be with difficulty distinguished from them. Types of a moveable kind, dexterously cut upon the same material, after a time began to be used, and were followed by metallic types, with faces cut in a similar manner to the wooden ones. The first book printed from cut metal types was the Bible, on six hundred and thirty-seven leaves. It was the Vulgate edition, printed on vellum, between 1450 and 1455. The magical rapidity with which Faust — who became soon after the owner of the types, and kept the secret by which they were produced — multi- plied copies of the Bible with exact uniformity, and sold them for sixty, and then for thirty crowns, while the scribes charged five hundred, gave rise to the traditional association in the vulgar mind between "the Devil and Dr. Faustus." Bat if the effect of moveable types seemed thus magical, the result of the discovery of the method of casting types in metal, which (1) Transactions of Am. Institute, 1849, p. 412. 212 TTPE-FOUNDERIES IN THE COLONIES. was the next step in tlie improvement in printing, must be deemed still more extraordinary. The merit of this discovery belongs to Schoeffer, the partner of Paustus, after the separation of the latter from Guttenburg. He engraved matrices in copper, from which he cast th6 solid types, and preserved the improvement until the sacking of Mentz, in 1462, dispersed the knowledge of the valuable art throughout Europ.e. He afterward employed steel punches for the purpose. The next great improvement was that of casting whole pages in metal, a return in form to the original method. This stereotyping process was invented by John Muller, at Leyden, in 1690. The principal part of the types used in this country before the Revolu- tion was imported from England. There were several Type-founderies, on a small scale, established in the Colonies, however, during that time. The earliest of these, beyond doubt, was that already mentioned, established by Christopher Sower, at Germantown, in Pennsylvania, about the year 1740. He cast the types for a quarto edition of the German Bible, which he completed in 1143, and other valuable books, for the use of the many German people who had already settled in the Province. At this foun- dery he cast a number of fonts of type, in German and English character, for the use of himself and others, and after his death, the business was extended by his son, Christopher Sower, Jr. The latter conducted the largest book-making establishment in the country for many years. He made his own types and printing-ink, and gave employment to a paper- mill and several binderies. The business afterward descended to the jIusbis. Binney & Konaldson, of Philadelphia, who, about the begin- ning of this century, cast all the types made in the TJnited States, and introduced a very important improvement, that of the type-mould. In the hands of their successors the business is still conducted on a vast scale. About the years 1763-66, an attempt was made in New York to print an edition of the Book of Common Prayer, in the Mohawk language, prepared by Messrs. Andrews, Barclay, and Ogilvie, which was said to have been attended with almost insurmountable difiQculties, because there was not at the time " a Letter-maker's founding House" in the Colonies. Nine sheets, or seventy-four pages, were completed by Wm. Weyman, the printer, who, in 1768, died bankrupt. Two or three years after, it was completed by Hugh Gaine, another conspicuous printer in that city, and four or five hundred copies were printed.' In 1768,- a Type-foundery was commenced in Boston by a Mr. Michel- son, from Scotland, who produced types wliich were said to be equal to (1) Documentary Hist. N. York, vol. iii. p. 1162. buell'b, franklin's, and baine's xype-founderies. 213 any imported from Great Britaia. But he does not appear to have suc- ceeded in establishing a permanent business. In the following year, Abel Buell, of Killingsworth, in Connecticut, a gold and silver smith, and ingenious mechanic, who had been engaged in lapidary work and in map engraving, and had recently been pardoned for counterfeiting a Colony note, petitioned the Council to aid him in construct- ing a foundery for casting printing type, by a new process which he claimed to have discovered. His application was granted, and he afterward erected, at New Haven, a Type-foundry, in the Sandemanian Meeting House, in Gregson street, where he employed fifteen or twenty boys in the business. He received encouragement in the undertaking on account of the difficulty experienced, during the early stage of the War, in procuring types for printing, except occasionally at much risk, from Trance. The enterprise appears not to have survived the protracted contest. After the war Buell was employed by the State in coining copper money, for which he constructed all the necessary apparatus in such perfection as to be able to make one hundred and twenty coins per minute. He subsequently went to England, where his advice was sought in the construction of iron bridges. His ostensible reason for going to England was to, procure a supply of copper, but really, it is said, to obtain a knowledge of the im- proved cloth-making machinery, which was not allowed to be exported. He died in the almshouse, at New Haven, about 1825.' In 1*1*15, Dr. Franklin brought with him, from Europe, the materials for a complete Type-founding establishment, which he had purchased in France. He erected a house near the site of his first landing, and in a portion of it, fitted up his Type-foundery, and a valuable printing apparatus, procured in London, and employed a portion of his advanced years in the occupation of his early life. The type-making branch was particularly designed for the benefit of his grandson, Mr. Bache, whose future career as a printer he spared no opportunity of advancing. Bache, having en- gaged in the publication of the Aurora newspaper, made, however, little use of the founding apparatus. Soon after the War, John Baine, an aged type-founder of Edinburg, sent to Philadelphia, in charge of a relative, the materials for a Type-man- ufactory. He not long after arrived in person, and established the first permanent Type-f6undery in the country. He cast the types for a portion of an edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which was republished in Philadelphia, by Thomas Dobson, in eighteen volumes, quarto, the first volume of which consisting of one thousand impressions, was published (1) Barber's Hist. Coll. of Connecticut. 214 PRINTING-PRESSES IN THE COLONIES. in 1'790. Baine died in 1190, at the age of seventy-seven, and the con- cern, we believe, was closed. About two years after, David Bruce came from Edinburg to New York, and established the Type-founding business in that city. The firm, D. & G. Bruce, in 1813, commenced the first stereotype fonndery in the TJuited States. G. Bruce was the inventor of the type called secretary or ronde, and the family were the originators of several valuable improve- ments in these branches. The same ship which brought D. Bruce to America, came from Leith, in Scotland, the following year, with Richard Ronaldson, Adam Ramage, the inventor of the press which bears his name, and the now aged Grant Thorburu, of New York. Ron- aldson, in connection with Mr. Binney, revived the type-making business in Philadelphia, devoting themselves exclusively to that branch. They introduced some important improvements, particularly the American type-mould, and conducted the business with enterprise. ■ 4. Printing Presses. — The earliest form of the .Printing-press, is said to have been constructed in imitation of the wine-press, in familiar use in the parent country of the art, and to have been ill-adapted for the pur- pose of printing. The only valuable modification it received until long after Printing was introduced into America, was given it in 1620, by Jansen Blaew, a joiner of Amsterdam, and afterward a printer, who made' several improvements, which were adopted in Holland and soon after in England. Some additional changes were made upon Blaew's models by Baskerville, the ingenious type-founder and printer of Birmingham, about the middle of the' last century, — and presses of that kind, imported from England, chiefly, supplied American printers previous to the Revolution. The Rolling-press for Copper-plate Printing, introduced into England in the reign of James the First, from Antwerp, by one Speed, is supposed to have been first brought to America, about the beginning of the eighteenth century. M. Amissou, superintendent of the Royal Printing House, in the Louvre, at Paris, made some further improvements in print- ing machinery, late in the same century, and published a treatise descrip- tive of a new press, and its mode of construction. Still later, the ingenious Charles Earl Stanhope, of England, becoming interested in the new process of stereotyping, turned his attention to the improvement of that art, and by the aid of a skillful mechanic, completed with much labor and expense, the powerful Stereotype Printing-press, which bears his name. The Stanhope Press, more automatic'than any before constructed, and capable of nearly a hundred-fold,-the power with the same labor as the common press, was constructed on more scientific principles than any previously in use, and a portion of its mechanism, was applied to the ordinary press. dearbokne's and Kinsley's presses, etc. 215 But these presses, and the cylindrical ones of Nicholson, of London, patented in 1Y90, were not introduced into this country during the period now under review. The old wooden presses used before the Revolution, were worked by hand, and the ink was also applied by a manual process called beating, by means of leathern balls, which gave place to the roller only about thirty-five years ago. About the period of the Revolution, Benjamin Dearborne, who in 11*16, became the publisher of the New Hampshire GaSiette, established at Ports- mouth, in 1756, by Daniel Fowle, with whom he had learned the printing business, — and at this time the oldest paper in the United States,-=invented a wheel press, as it was called, which was used for a time at Newbury- port. It impressed the whole side of a sheet at one pull of the lever. " The platten turned with the tympan, having a counterpoise to balance it, and the power of the lever had the additional force of a wheel and axle." As in the old hand-presses, two persons could work upon it at the same time. Dearborne, who subsequently removed to Boston, and became extensively known as the inventor of the Dearborne patent steel- yards and balances, still in considerable repute with many, some time previous to 1810, devised another press, on an entirely new plan with greater simplicity of contrivance than any then in use, and designed to secure greater power and dispatch in printing. This ingenious mecha- nician, we believe, was the only one who attempted any innovation in the _Printing-press, which it is proper to notice in this place. A modification of the cylinder-press of Nicholson, which was patented by Dr. Kinsley, of Connecticut, in It 96; the patent circular press of Sawin, the inventions of Adams, Ramage, Dow, and otHers, and the splendid achievement of Hoe, belong to a ater period, and will receive in another place such notice as their merits bhall seem to demand. CHAPTER IX. BEICKS, AND THE MANUFACTTJaKS OF CLAY. One of the earliest evidences of an improved social condition in any community is an increased attention to the convenience, elegance, and permanence of the dwellings of the people. Hence, Mr. Hallam has justly observed, that "No chapter in the history of national manners would illustrate so vrell, if duly executed, the progress . of social life, as that dedicated to domestic architecture. " • iProm the extremely rude cabin, first constructed by the emigrant of round or roughly hewn or squared logs or planks, riven from the trees upon the spot where they had fallen, to let in the sunlight upon the nu- cleus of a rising village, the change to houses constructed with a view to elegance and the highest amount of domestic comfort, in, a new country, is usually a slow one. The first habitations of our forefathers, aspired to little^ superiority over the primitive wigwam of the native, and, in many instances, were constructed, temporarily, in imitation of the aboriginal bark hut of the savage. The tenement of the Colonist was possibly, in some instances, a less comfortable one, by far, than that of his Indian neighbor, with its closely wattled and thatched roof and walls, its plenti- ful hangings of mats, constructed of flags or reeds stitched with Indian hemp, and its stock of warm furs and skins, which effectually repelled the most inclement cold. ' (1) Whether we regard it as a primordial arts. Some tribes, particularly the Pera- art, transferred at some remote time from vians and Mexicans, were accustomed, be- the eastern to the western Continent, by the fore the Spanish conquest, to manufacture race which first peopled these shores, or bricks, like the Babylonians and Egyptians, as an example of the manner in which the of clay and stubble, which they dried in the human mind, under similar circumstances, sun, and cemented by a kind of mortar, works out tlie same ends by similar devices, made sometimes of tempered clay and lime, the fact is alike interesting, that, as the use and sometimes by means of asphaltum. of clay in the different fictile manufactures These adobes, or sun-dried bricks are exten- belonge to the infancy of all nations, so sively made by some of the modern tribes among the American red races, it was one of New Mexico, California, and other of the mostgeneral and perfect of aboriginal parts. (216) DWELLINGS or EARLY SETTLERS — PIRSX BRICK-KILN. 217 The dwelling of the European settler for many years was but "A rude habitation, Solid, substantial, of timber rougb-hewn from the firs of the forest, ' Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof was covered with rushes. Latticed the windows were, and the window panes were of paper. Oiled to admit the light, while wind and tain were excluded." From a dwelling of this description, with its wooden chimney and floor of clay, with one or two apartments only scantily supplied with furniture, •wherein the housewife plied her domestic employments by the light of a blazing log-fire, or a light-wood candle, Urit odoratam noctuma in lurrnna cedrum, the transition to the neat and capacious frame house, or one of brick and Btone, is only accomplished by years of toil and patience. The substitu- tion, for those materials, of bricks or hewn stone, slates, tiles, sawed and planed boards, sash and glazed windows, plastered and painted or papered walls, with corresponding improvements in the interior decoration and appointments, involves the introduction of many forms of industry, and the appropriation of many valuable materials by processes of art from the great store-house of nature. The enterprise which, in point of comfort and appearance, most speedily modified the primitive architecture of the Colonies, was the introduction of the saw-mill ; which not only supplied materials in an improved form, but also furnished valuable articles of export for the infant commerce of the Colonies. But until a people begin to build for the future, to con- struct for other generations than their own, architecture can hardly be said to have an existence. The more enduring forms of Brick prompt the inquiry — " What the temple we would build Now the massive kiln is risen ?" The first Brick-kiln of which we have any account in New England, was erected in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1629, the year following that in which First Brick- Francis Webb was commended to the patronage of the Governor IngUnd'in °" account of his saw-mill, as mentioned in a previous chapter. 1629. > ceived a charter from the Legislature of the State, with the exclusive right of manufacturing Glass for fifteen years. A penalty of £500 was attached to any infringement of their right by making glass in the town, to be levied for each offense. The capital stock was ex- empted from taxes for five years, and the workmen employed, from all military duties. A pyramidal factory of brick was erected on a large scale at the foot of Essex street. Being found ill adapted to the pur- pose, it was afterward taken down, and a wooden one, lined with brick, differently constructed, was put up in its place. Its dimensions were 100 feet in length by 60 in width. On account of difficulties in procur- ing workmen, and other embarrassments, operations were not fully com- menced until November, 1'792. The corporation commenced with tha- manufacture of crown window-glass, which they produced of a qnaliby equal or superior to any imported. Materials were found to be abna- dant; and some six years later, they produced about 900 sheets per week, worth $1.75 per sheet, or $76,000 per annum. Some hints to manufacturers, communicated to the first volume of the American Mu- seum, the same year that the Glass Works in Boston were commenced by Mark Leavenworth of Connecticut, stale that labor was twelve to (1) Munsell's Annah of Albany. Morse's Univ. Geog. 16 242 COLONIAL GLASS-WORKS. twenty per cent, higher in Connecticut than iu England. He conceived it to be a great error in the glass-makers to attempt the production of crown window-glass, which was the most difficult of all, and only under- stood by a few in Europe. It could, moreover, be purchased in his State for a little more than in Bristol, while other kinds were double the European price. A box of window-glass worth three or four pounds paid but 3s. or 3s. id. freight, and there was little loss by breakage com- pared with other kinds. As many quart bottles as would amount to £4, would cost in freight fifteen or twenty dollars. The expense of making the latter description of glass was also much less, and workmen more easily obtained. All descriptions of white glass, as decanters, tumblers, chandeliers, sconces, phials, and wine glasses, paid a freight beyond all proportion greater than window-glass, and were more liable to fracture in the transportation, and any of them could be attempted with better prospect of success than it. Junk bottles, moreover, were a desirable manufacture for the exportation of their cider to the West Indies and Southern States, where it was more highly esteemed than British cider. They could be made, it was probable, for 2s. id. (Connecticut currency) per dozen ; their cost in Bristol was Is. id. sterling per dozen, the excise duty, though drawn back on exportation, increasing the cost. The want of a sufficiency of black bottles was represented by Tench Coxe, Go- vernor Bowdoin, and others, at this time, as obstructing the manufacture of malt liquors for exportation. A Glass-house was in operation in Hart- ford, Connecticut, a few years after. There was also a manufactory of Glass at Alexandria, in Yirginia, which, according to M. De Warville, who visited the State in the autumn of lt88, exported, the previous year, glass to the amount often thousand pounds, and employed five hundred hands. In the work by that writer and M. Clayiere, on the Commerce of America with Europe, the importance of the glass manufacture to these States was strongly insisted upon, as a means of clearing the wood from the soil, which at the same time supplied cheap materials in the process. The discouragement of such manufactures in France was regarded as of national importance, on account of the scarcity of fuel, in which America possessed advantages in her forests, and England, — whose glass, with the exception of bottle glass, was superior to their own, — in the fossil wealth of her coal mines. The General Government, at its outset under the present Constitution, in 1789, manifested a disposition to give special encouragement to certain branches of manufacture, by the imposition of higher duties than on others. In adjusting the tariff, therefore, in July of that year, window- glass was one of the objects thus discriminated. On motion of Mr. Car- roll, of Maryland, who stated that a manufactory of glass had been sac- GLASS-WORKS IN MARYLAND — IN PITTSBURG 243 cessfully commenced in his State, a duty of ten per cent, ad valorem was laid on window and other glass, with the exception of black qnart bottles imported from foreign countries. The Legislature of Maryland had previously encouraged the manufacture of glass in that State by a con- siderable loan. The works were established at Tuscarora Creek, four miles above Fredericktown, and were known as the Etna Glass Works. Like most of the glass-factories heretofore established, it was the property of an ingenious and enterprising German, John Frederick Amelung. It was equal to any in the country. The manufacture of window-glass was first commenced west of the Alleghanies, we believe, by Albert Gallatin, Mr. Nicholson, and the Messrs. Kramers, Germans, at New Geneva, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, where Mr. Gallatin purchased lands in 1785, and named the place after his native city in Switzerland. The works were on a large scale. The first glass-factory in Pittsburg, which has since acquired so much eminence in the manufacture, was not commenced until about the year 1795. In January, 1784, the first sale of lots was made on the In Pittsburg. •' , . . ^ , ,, present site of the city by the Proprietaries of the Manor, John Penn, Jr., and John Penn, to Isaac Craig and Stephen Bayard. The laying out of the town was finished in June. In 1795, a small win- dow-glass manufactory had been set up and was in operation, having one eight-pot furnace. It was situated on the west side of the Mononga- hela, at " Scott's," now called Glass-house Hippie. "Wood fuel was employed, and three boxes were made at a blowing. But Pittsburg is chiefly indebted for this valuable branch of its industry to the enterprise and perseverence of Gen'l JamA O'Hara, who, with Mr. Craig, made preparations the following year for the manufacture, and employed Mr. Peter Wm. Eichbaura, of Philadelphia, to erect the works. The first furnace of the same capacity as the one above mentioned, was below Jones' Ferry, nearly opposite the Point, where other glass-houses now stand. Green glass was made at this factory, which went into oper- ation in 1797. A memorandum was found among Gen'l O'Hara's papers, after his death, to this efifect : " To-day we made the first bottle at the cost of thirty thousand dollars." Flint-glass and window-glass were soon after added to the manufactures, and the proprietor and others were induced by his example to engage in the business, which soon became a principal industry in that place. The abundance of coal, which was mined at the very doors of the furnaces, gave it uneqnaled advantages, which were increased by the facilities for obtaining other materials by water, either from above or below the town. The substitution of soda for potash in the Glass manufacture, has more recently much reduced the cost of manufacture and increased the con- sumption of that article. CHAPTER XI BREWING AND THE MANUEACTTJEE OE BEER. Wine and Beer were among the early products of industry in the colo- nial period of our history. At the time of the settlement of the Ameri- can Colonies, tea, coffee, and chocolate were almost unknown in England, their place being supplied by fermented liquors. From the earliest Anglo-Saxon times, whence we hare probably deriyed the names of our malt liquors. Ale and Beer, or Wine, had been the principal beverages in England, as Mead had been with the ancient Britons and the Irish. According to an ancient Saxon dialogue, wine was with them the drink of the "elders and the wise," while the common people drank "ale if they had it, water if they had it not." The brewer of bad ale was by them consigned to the ducking-chair or mulcted for his neglect. iN^earer the times of which we write, a quart of Beer and a quart of wine always formed a part of the breakfast of my lord and lady of Northum- berland. Ale and Beer were first made without hops, which were not raised in England until about 1524. An old writer says : Baps, reformation, ISays, and beer, Came into England all in one year The price of Beer in the thirteenth century was regulated according to that of corn and wine, and its cheapness in the sixteenth favored an enor- mous consumption. The extent may be inferred from the fact that it was then seldom absent on any occasion, from the courtly banquet to the humble repast of the cottager. No less than twenty-three thousand gal- lons were drunk at a single entertainment given to Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth. English beer was reputed to be the best in Europe. It was brewed in March, and by persons of consequence was not used until a year old. The monasteries in early times brewed the best ale, as they made the best wine. Even the halls of science were not less celebrated for their ale than for their learning. As late as the year 1748, when in England and America tea began to displace the use of malt liquors, the laureate Warton, in his Ode to Oxford Ale, laments the declining popu- larity of a beverage which he is not alone in representing to be the salva- tion of the British nation. (244) FIRST BREWERY IN IHj; COLONIES. 245 Thus initiated, the brewery became au early requisite with our ancestors in America. The Court of Assistants, in 1629, were not unmindful of the hereditary tastes and habits of the emigrants to Massachusetts Bay, who coGld not readily forego their accustomed beverage. Among the outfits to Xew England, in that year, in addition to four hundred-weight of hops, were forty-five tuns of Beer, to go in the Talbot, provided she had one hundred passengers and eighty-five mariners. Soon after, in the Lyons Whelp, were sent thirty quarters of malt, at a cost of £25 15s. Less generous beverages, however, appear to have fallen to the lot of their pre- decessors at Plymouth, where, in 1623, the best they had to offer their friends lately arrived from England was " a cup of faire spring water." But if there were none among them who had " Learned the noWe secret how to brew," they were not without expedients, and tradition says they were accustomed to sing with commendable fortitude, " If barley be wanting to make into malt, We must be content, and think it no fault, For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips, Of pumpkins, and parsnips, and walnut-tree chips.'" John Jenny, who came to Plymouth in 1623, was a brewer by trade. He has been elsewhere mentioned as the proprietor of a corn mill, and was an enterprising person in other pursuits, but we have seen no evidence that he ever followed the business of Brewing at Plymouth. The early hardships of their first settlement compelled the Pilgrims to forego all .but the most needful provisions for-comfort. The business appears, however, to have been commenced soon after the settlement of Boston. In November 1637; the General Conrt, for the protection of common brewers, who seem already to have constituted a trade there, ordered that " No person shall brewe any beare, or malt, or other drinke, or sell in gross or by retaile, but only such as eryin the shall be licensed by this Courte, on paine of £100 ; and where- Coloales. i /» . as Capt. Sedgwick hath before this time set up a brewe-house at his greate charge, and very comodious for this part of of the countrey, hee is freely licensed to brewe beare to sell according to the size before licensed dureing the pleasure of the Courte." The "size" was before ordered to be not stronger than could be sold at eight shillings the barrel, under penalty of £20. This seems to be the earliest mention of a brew- house in the Colonies. Ten years later, however, they had six public brew-houses in Virginia. (1) The Forefathers' Song. 246 BREWING IN THE COLONIES. Among the trades in New England, at the same date, mentioned as naving " fallen into their ranks and places to their great advantage," are " brewers, besides divers sorts of shopkeepers, and some who have a mys- tery beyond others, as have the vintners.'" In 1641, John Appleton, one of the first settlers at Watertown, Massachusetts, who was frequently elected a representative to the General Court, and was distinguished by the respectable title of " Mr.," received permission to set up a malt-house in that place. He is said also to have been a cultivator of hops. Samuel Livermore followed the same business there in ] 66T. Many years elapsed, in some parts of the country, before barley was raised in sufficient quantity for the production of malt and Beer, and a consider- able importation of malt annually took place for the use of the brewers. This was subject, in Massachusetts, to a duty on importation. Whether an increased supply of the article was deemed important, or the domestic manufacture of it had diminished the profits, the principal importers of malt, and other merchants of Boston, in 1655, petitioned the Assembly for a reduction or a repeal of the tariff, as " piuditiall to this comon- welth and also ' a discoridgm' to marchants." One of the petitions of those early Boston advocates of free trade in the handwriting of Thomas Broughton, and signed only by him and Robert Pateshall, repre- sents that "the well-known advantage accrueing by fjeedome of ports and hindrance of trade proportionally according to largeness of customs im- posed, that this seeming good may not bring upon this countrey a reall evell, and from customs upon one thing grow to custome on another, till, step by step, under specious pretences, we are insensiblie brought under taxes for everything, as the woful experience of other nations well known unto us showeth," therefore "for the good of the present, and to prevent this evell in future ages, we are become your humble petitioners to remove the customs upon malt, that after ages may remind you as fathers of their freedome, and the present may bow before you for their expe- rience of your care of theire wellfare," &c.^ Ten years before this, the' Brewers of New Amsterdam, with whom New England had now held commercial intercourse for over thirty years, had vigorously resisted a tax on malt, justifying their recusancy on the ground that the taxed were not represented in the enactment of the law. These examples show how early manifested was the spirit of resistance to every form of taxation, and the " specious pretences" of indirect subsidies levied through the customs were clearly seen. They little apprehended, while deprecating so (1) Wonder-Working Providence. settlement (1630) refused to pay the first (2) Drake's Antiquities of Boston. The tax levied upon them, alleging it was with- people of Watertown, in the first year of its out authority, 4o. MALTING OF INDIAN CORN. INDIAN BREWING. 247 dangerous a precedent, that a persistent opposition to tax.ition would become the ostensible cause of a dismemberment of the empire. This first free-trade movement, however, seems not to have been successful, as the Court, instead of repealing the duty, merely referred the petitioners to a former order of the Court on the subject. During the year 1662, the younger Win throp, of Connecticut, read several papers of a practical character before the Royal Society, in Lon- don. In December of that year, the first of its corporate existence, he was requested by the society to institute some experiments in the manu- facture of Beer from barley and maize. In the following March, he ac- cordingly presented to the society some bottles of Beer brewed from lu- Beer from *^'^" corn. Two years previous to that, a duty of 2s. Qd. a Indian Corn, ^j^irel ou stroug beer, and of 6d. a barrel on small beer, had been imposed for the first time in England. The increased price of Beer which, as the favorite beverage, was consumed in enormous quantities, may have suggested the possibility of finding a cheaper article than barley in the new American staple, and thus, through the well-known ingenuity of Mr. Winthrop, of leading to results valuable both to England and her colonies. It is more probable, however, that Mr. Winthrop or others had communicated to members of the society a knowledge of the custom which had long obtained in America of brewing Beer from Indian corn ; and not without a practical aim, doubtless, he was solicited to furnish an illustration of its feasibility. Most of the cereals possess the property of being malted. Campanius, in his'-description of New Sweden, cites a passage from Sir Kichard Grenville's relation of his voyage to Yirginia in 1585, in which he states that very good bread may be made out of the maize when ground ; " the English have prepared it in the same manner as corn, and have brewed with it a kind of small beer. " He gives also the testimony of Peter Lindstrom, an engineer of New Sweden, about the year 1654, who observes that "Maize, or Indian Corn, grows there of various colors, white, red, blue, brown, yellow, and pied .... out of the white and yellow maize they make bread, but the blue, brown, black, and pied, is brewed into Beer which is very strong but not remarkably clear.'' The women, he tells us, brewed excellent drink," as in Sweden, and a very cooling beverage was made from water-melons. This practice of malting Indian corn was doubtless of American origin, and may have been derived from the Indians, who made artificial drinks from several native products, including maize. Von Humboldt remarks that a chemist would have some difficulty in preparing the great variety of spirituous, acid, or sugary beverages made from the maize by the natives. The ancient Peruvians made sweet syrups from the stalks of the plant. They also understood the effect of germination in developing the 248 BREWING IN THE COLONIES. saccharine priiiciples of the grain, which they iufused in water, after which it was mashed and boiled in the same water, and in due time it was drawn off and set aside to ferment. This drink, which was called vinapri, possessed intoxicating qualities, and was in consequence forbidden by the Incas. The juice of the maize, mingled with that of other fruits, chewed and then deposited in a vessel and left to ferment, constituted another disgnsting drink of the natires of the southern continent, called chiea, and by the Indians of the same countries, by whom it is still prepared, kawa. In its preparation, it is said, that made from materials ground between the molars of withered and half-toothless crones was preferred, for no other reason, we may suppose, than that the difficult and pro- tracted labor of mastication excited a more copious effusion of the sali- vary ingredients in the nauseous compound. These, like the former, were highly intoxicating.' The North American tribes, however, are be- lieved to have had no knowledge of any intoxicating beverages previous to the arrival of Europeans." A paper by Mr. Winthrop, on the culture and uses of maize in Ame- rica, where its employment in Brewing was thus ancient and aboriginal, was published in the twelfth volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society A. D. 16T8, two years after his death. It describes the Indian mode of raising the plant, and the use by the Indians of the stalks and leaves in making baskets, and also the great improvements made in itsjcultivation by the use of the plow. The method of making malt and Beer from the grain is there described. Good malt, it is stated, could (1) Humboldt's Essays. McCuUoch's offered them brandy to elicit more of their Aboriginal Researches. character and designs by the artifice. (2) According to Heokewelder, there is no Mainly through the consequence of that act tradition of the race better supported than ''e see the whole race now rapidly melting that which ascribes a scene of intoxication f™m *« fi^oe of the earth. It reoals the to the first interriew between the Dutch and words of Horice, who finds a parallel to the the Indians on Manhattan Island, of which wickedness of the first navigator in the sin he received a curious account from the Dela- "^ Prometheus and its dire consequences to wares. The name of the island, he says, is the human family. Upon the natives of this but an abbreviation of that given it on the Continent the act of the first voyager to their occasion, and commemorates and suhstanti- shores, with his metaphorical "fire water," ates the story, meaning " Ihe place where we ^'^^ hem, in its fatal effects, almost aliteral all got drunk." The Iroquois are said to realization of the Roman poet's description, hold a similar tradition as to what occurred Audax Japeti genus when they were first made acquainted with Ignem/i-a«de maid gentibns intullt: the use of gunpowder. In the Pandora's Post ignem sethere^ dome box of varied and swift-destroying evils Subductum maoies, et nova febrium brought by the Europeans to the Indian race, Terris incubuit cohors ; uono has been more baneful than the fatal Semotique prius tarda neoessitas gift of "fire water." Hudson is said, on the Lethi, eorripuit gradum. ' occasion above referred to, to have first BEER FROM CORN BREAD. PRICES OF BEER. MALT DUTY. 249 only be made from maize by peculiar management, and the barley malt- masters had in vain employed their skill to make it in the ordinary way. It was found by experience that the corn, before it was fully malted, must be more completely germinated, both as to the root and blade, to the extent of a finger-length at least. The plan found most effectual was to remove the surface soil to the depth of two or three inches, throwing it up each way ; then to spread the corn thickly over. the ground thus exca- vated, and cover it with the earth previously removed. Left thus until the plot looked like a green field with the sprouting corn, which would require ten to fourteen days, according to the season, it was then taken np, the earth shaken from it, and dried. The Beer made from it after this management was wholesome, pleasant, and of a good brown color. Another mode of making Beer from maize, more practiced, he says, because better understood, was from the corn bread. This was broken into large lumps the size of the fist, then mashed and treated as malt. The bread, thus treated, yielded a beer fine-colored, wholesome, and which kept better than that made from the grain. Hops were added or not, as desired. A syrup, made from the juice of the jointed stalks of the kind cultivated by the natives north of New England, is also mentioned by him. A Paper by Dr. Murray, in the same volume, states that Barley alone was used in Scotland for malting at that time. ' The price at which the best quality of Beer was sold in New England, in 1661, was l^d. per quart. The General Court had previously ordered that 'Beer should be made with four bushels of good barley malt at least to a hogshead, and that it should not be sold above 2d. the quart. It was now ordered that Beer should be made only of good barley malt, without " any mixture of molasses, coarse sugar, or other materials in- stead of mault, on penalty of five pounds for every offence." The prices of Barley, Barley-malt, and rye were fixed for that year at 4s. the bushel ; wheat, at 5s., and Indian corn, at 2s. 8d. the bushel. The value of silver was then about 6s. Sd. sterling the ounce. In May, 1Q1B, the Court, taking into serious consideration "the neces- sity of upholding the staple commodities of this country, for, supply and support of the inhabitants thereof, and finding, by experience, the bring- ing of malt, which is a principal commodity ot this country, from foreign parts, to be exceedingly prejudicial to the inhabitants of this Colony," imposed a duty of 6d. a bushel on malt imported from Europe, in addi- tion to the rate of one penny previously laid. The protectionists appear to have been still the most numerous class in the Assembly." (1) A patent was granted, in 1801, to tion of unmalted grain in the process which Alexander Anderson for a method of Brew- was then considered a valuable discovery. ing with Indian corn, by employing a por- (2) Records of the .Col., vol. iv. 344. 652. 250 BBEWINfl AND THE MANUFACTURE OP BEEE. The shipping business of Boston, and several other of the maritime towns of New England, promoted the manufacture of Beer, which, in Colonial times, was always a considerable item in the provisioning of vessels. Beer and distilled spirits were made and exported from these parts early in the last century. It was sent to the West Indies, New- foundland, and other of the continental Colonies. Among the imports of the Island of Barbadoes, with which the Colonies had much trade, in the first eight weeks of the year 1T31, are mentioned seventy-five tuns of Beer and Ale ; one hundred and fifty casks, mostly hogsheads, of bottled Beer and Ale, and nine and a half tuns of Cider, much of which was pro- bably from the continental ports. The Assembly of Rhode Island, during the year, passed an Act, levying a duty on Strong Beer, Ale, etc^, imported into that Colony from neighboring governments. New York and Pennsylvania, as well as Massachusetts, at this time, were exporting beer to that and other Provinces, as well as to foreign ports. The enormous importations of molasses from the sugar Colonies, and the extensive distillations of rum from it, in which business Khode Island was very active, interfered with the less harmful business of Malting and Brewing. A high prohibitive duty upon molasses was consequently recommended about this time as a desirable measure. The Province raised and exported barley in considerable quantity. It produced at a later period very superior cider for exportation. Connecticut was also celebrated for the amount and quality of its cider, and at Middleton, a few years after the peace, porter was made at an extensive brewery, which was considered equal to Loudon porter. A small village near Boston, of forty houses, made, in 1721, nearly 3,000 barrels of cider. Some of -the western counties also produced much cider. The art of Brewing was indigenous as well to Holland as to Eng- land, for the German nations made Beer as early as the days of Tacitus. It was very soon carried over to the Dutch possessions in America. In First Brew- 1633, the Wcst India Company, through their Director, Van uueriesS'^' Twiller, caused the erection of mills and other buildings, in- NewTork. gluding a Brewery upon Farm No. 1, extending from the pres- ent Wall street westward to Hudson street. Its site was the north side of what is now Bridge street, between Broad and WhitehalJ. From that time forth the place continued well supplied with the national drink. The distillation of Brandy commenced there as early as 1640, which was probably the first instance of that manufacture in the Colonies. In the following year, drunkenness had become so alarmingly prevalent that, to abate the disorders arising from it, and to secure a better observance of the Sabbath, the municipal authorities of the town, in April of that year, SUNDAY LIQUOR LAW — FIRST EXCISE ON LIQUORS. 251 prohibited the tapping of Beer during divine service, or after ten o'cloc at night, under a penalty of tveenty-five guilders, or ten dollars, for each offense, beside the forfeiture of the Beer for the use of the " Schout Fiscaal," or Attorney General. The offender was not allowed to tap Beer again for three months. The preamble to this early ordinance for restraining the sale of spirituous liquor, shows the sense then entertained of the magnitude of an evil which still bafBes the wisdom of the succes- sors of the Burgomasters and Sohepens of that day. " Whereas," they Bay, " complaints are made that some of our inhabitants have commenced to tap Beer during divine service and use a small kind of measure, which is in contempt of our religion and must ruin the State, &c." The first tavern on the Island for the accommodation of strangers, of whom there were many already from New England, was erected in 1642 near the head of Coentics' Slip. Although the administration of its affairs by a privileged commercial company, whose object was the prosecution of trade and its own emolu- ment, was unfavorable to private enterprise in many departments of in- dustry, on account of numerous monopolies established, and the onerous and arbitrary taxation resorted to, many prominent citizens early engaged in the manufacture of Beer in the Dutch Province. A tax on Beer be- came at a very early day a source of much trouble in the Colony. In 1644, when it was much harassed and impoverished by wars with the Indians, when the Treasury was empty, and the West India Company was already verging toward bankruptcy, and therefore unable to assist, the Director General Kieft and his Council determined, contrary to the advice of the people's representatives, to resort to taxation, as a tempo- rary! expedient for the clothing and maintenance of the soldiers. In June, therefore, proclamation was made that there should be paid "on each half vat (or barrel) of Beer tapt by the tavern keepers, two guilders, half to be paid by the Brewer and half by the tapster — the burgher who does not retail it to pay half as much ; on each quart of Spanish wine, fonr stuyvers ; French wine, two stuyvers, to be paid by the tapsters ; on each beaver hide brought to the port and purchased within our limits, one guilder, triplets and halves in proportion. All on pain of forfeiting the goods — one-third for the informer, one-third for the officer, and the remainder for the Company. All this provisionally, until the good God shall grant us peace, or that we shall be sufficiently aided from Holland " This scheme, combining an excise and additional export duties on certain articles, but especially the liquor tax " establishing for the first time in this country an excise on wine, beer, and other liquors," produced much dissatisfaction, especially among the traders. Later in the year, some Dutch soldiers, destitute of clothing, arrived from Curacoa to the great 352 BREWING AND THE MANUEACTURE OF BEER, relief of the Province. But as these had to be clothed, the Director re- newed the impost on Beer by ordering that every tun should pay three guilders ($1.25). Every brewer was at the same time to make a return of the quantity made by him before he could make any sale. A receiver was appointed to collect the revenue from this source, and was entitled to five per cent, for his trouble. This indefinite renewal of a tax imposed for a temporary purpose produced intense excitement, and was firmly re- sisted by the Brewers, both on account of its object and the mode of its enactment. It was the duty, they urged, of the Company to maintain its troops and defend its subjects from foreign and domestic enemies. The duty was not imposed by the eight men who represented the commonalty, and who, as well as their constituents, would be offended should they submit to the imposition, but it was levied by the Company's paid ser- vants, who had no such prerogatives. They were therefore determined to resist. The " Schout Fiscaal," on the other hand, was directed to enforce the payment by the strong arm of the law. Numerous prosecu- tions followed. This early invasion of the popular rights and determined opposition to it, produced much recrimination and ill feeling between parties, and added greatly to the troubles with which the Province was afflicted. It contributed to the ultimate recall of an arbitrary Grov- ernor.' Several of the first Brewers in New Amsterdam were men of consider- able note, and filled some of the highest civic offices in the community. Their establishments were chiefly situated in the vicinity of the Fort, within which t\ie first was built. The street occupied by them was from that circumstance called the "Brouwer Straat," or the Brewers' street, and corresponded with the present Stone street between Broad and Whitehall. It was one of the first streets occupied in the future com- mercial capital, and received its present name from being the first paved with stones, which was done by an ordinance made in the year 165T. One of the principal brewers in this locality was Isaac De Foreest, who came to the country in 1636, and in 1645 received a grant upon the above street, then one of the best in the town. He was also the owner of a farm at Harlaem, and of the " Old Kirk" or church on Pearl street, and for many years a magistrate. In acknowledgment of his services in improving the town and in public office, he was privileged with " the great citizenship." Jacob Wolfertsen Van Couwenhoven erected a large stone brewery on the north side of the same street, on land granted him also in 1645, at the corner of Stone and Broad street. He was not successful in business, (1) O'Callaghan's New Netherlanda. EAEIT BREWERS OF NEW TORK. 253 and entailed mortgages upon his property, of which, however, he held possession until his death in 1670. The same premiss were occupied as a brewery subsequently by John Yan Couwenhoven. Peter, a younger brother of Jacob just referred to, was also a promi- nent person at that day, and carried on business as a brewer and trader. He was six years a " Sehepen" of the city. He was unpopular both with the English after they came in possession and with his Dutch neigh- bors. Having been arraigned on a charge of extortion, he refused to give bail, and was imprisoned and iined. He left the city and resided awhile at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, of which he was one of the earliest settlers; but in 1665 was still 'a resident of the city at the north-west corner of Pearl and Whitehall streets. His brewery at the head of the present Broad street became, in 1610, the property of Isaac Van Vleck, who, for the remainder of his life there conducted a prosperous business in Brewing. He was several years an alderman, and died in 1695. The Bayards, also, Nicholas and Balthazar, step-sons of Governor Stayvesant, were among the most conspicuous and opulent citizens at that time. They were both engaged in the manufacture of Beer. An extensive district of the city, long afterward and, to old residents of New York, still known as the "Bayard Farm," was the property of their wealthy descendants. It extended along each side of Broadway, north of Canal street for the distance of many blocks, and from the Bowery to beyond McDougal street, on the west side of the city. Another wealthy Burgomaster, who was one of the early brewers of the rising Dutch metropolis, was Oloff Stevensen Van Cortlandt He came to the city in 1637, on military service, which he quit the same year for a civil ofiSce as Commissary of Cargoes, at a salary of thirty guilders ($12.00) per month. He resigned his office to the Company in 1648, to engage in the Brewing business. His premises were on " De Brouwer Straat," now Stone, adjoining those of Isaac De Poreest, where his property was one of the first class, and valued, on the final cession of the city to the English, in 1674, at $30,000. He was an influential poli- tician, and, in 1650, the President of the citizens' representatives called the " Nine Men," who were opposed to the administration of the last governor, Stuyvesant, and were by him turned out of their pews in church, and their seats torn up. He had a valuable property on the west side of Broadway, adjacent to Cortlandt street, which still perpetuates his name. He held several prominent offices. His son, Stephanus, was the first native-born Mayor of New York, to which he was appointed at the age of thirty-four. Another son, Jacobus, was, like the last-mentioned, a wealthy merchant and a Mayor of the city. Jacob Kip, a son of one of the oldest settlers, in 1658 resigned the secretary-ship of the city 254 BREWING AND THE MANUFAOTUEE OF BEER. magistracy, to which he was appointed five years before, while quite a youth, on the first organization of the city, and engaged in the Brewing business. He afterward resigned it for mercantile pursuits. His prop- erty on Broad street, partly acquired in the business, and partly by mar- riage with the wealthy widow of Guleyn Verplanck, was estimated in 1674 at $8,000. Daniel Verveelen, a Brewer, who originally settled at Fort Orange, resided about this time on "De Prince Straat," now Beaver, east of Broad. There are many of the name now in the State. On the same street lived also Jan Jausen Van Bresteede, a cooper, who was appointed in 1658 the marker of beer barrels, and in 1661 inspector of pipe staves. Jan Vinj6 is mentioned as a Brewer in the town in 1653i He was one of the heirs to the property between Wall street and Maiden Lane, and extending from river to river, known as the Damen Farm. In 1654, Thomas Hall, an Englishman, who had joined the New Eng- landers some years before in the attack upon the Dutch Colony on the Delaware, where he was taken prisoner and sent to Manhattan, became the purchaser of a farm on what is now Beekman street. He there es- tablished a Brewery, which, after his death in 1670, with the farm, a large and valuable tract from Pearl street to Park Row, was purchased of his widow by William Beekman. Beekman, who came to the Province in 1647, and was the first of that name, carried on for many years the Brewing business at the corner of Beekman and William streets, which conjointly still bear his name. Mr. Beekman was at an early age a Schepen of the city, and held other municipal offices at different times. He was Sub-Director of the Colony on the South River from 1658 to 1663, and after that was Sheriff of Esopus. He was held in high es- .eem until his death in 1707, at the age of eighty-five. His property m the present Pearl street, between Franklin Square and Ann street, ivas in 1674 valued at ten thousand dollars. It was long known as Beekman's Swamp, and is still spoken of among the leather manufac- turers, to whose use it has been for a great while appropriated, as "the Bwamp." In 1630, a settlement was made at Rensselaerwyck, in the neighbor- hood of Albany, under the charter of Patroons. Among the first persona Breweries ^^^^ ^0 coloulze the placc was Rutgcr Hendrickson Van Soest, near Albany, gg superintendent of the Brewery, for which capacity he had been engaged in Holland by the proprietor, receiving in advance of his earnings sixty florins, including five florins as a present from the Patroon. The Brewery was built for the use of the Colony sometime 'previous to 1637. An addition was made to the settlement in 1642 by the Company of the Rev. Mr. Megapolensis, among whom was Eveert Pels, a brewer, who afterward erected a Brewery in the Colony. Between two and FOKT ORANGE — PAIKOON'S BEEWEEIES. 255 three hundred bushels of malt for his use were sent in the ship with him.' Joan La Battle was, after the building of Port Orange, per- mitted to build a house in the fort and to use it as a Brewery, and re- main in possession of the soil so long as the Company shall retain pos- session of the fort, provided- the Company's affairs and interests were not neglected by him, and that he annually paid six merchantable beavers for the privilege.' In erecting a Brewery, however, for the use of his little feudal do- minion, the Patroon reserved to himself the right of manufacturing Beer for the retail dealers, but permitted private persons the privilege of brew- ing for the use of their own families. This seems to have been some- limes unlawfully invaded. In December, 1646, a peremptory order, under the hand of the Secretary of the Colony, Antonie De Hooges— whose name is perpetuated in that prominent feature of the Highlands known as Anthony's Nose — was served by the magistrates upon one of the offenders. " Whereas their Honors of the Court of this Colonie find that Cornells Segersz, notwithstanding former placards and prohibitions, has still presumed to meddle with what is not his business — with Beer- brewing — directly contrary to the grant and authorization given to the brewery of this Colonie ; Therefore, their Honors expressly forbid the said Cornells Segersz, to brew or cause to be brewed, or otherwise to manufacture any Beer, except so much as shall be required by him for his own housekeeping, on pain of forfeiting twenty-five Carolus guilders, besides the brewed Beer. The said Cornells Segersz is further warned that no cloak or idle excuse shall hereafter avail, but that this ordinance shall be maintained and executed on the spot without Court process, if he shall make any mistake. Let him therefore prevent his loss. Actum Eensselaerwyck, 26 Oct., 1646." The Patroon's Brewery was rented in 1649 to Rutger Jacobson, in partnership with Goosen Grerri.ttsen Yan Schaik, both magistrates of the Colony, at 450 guilders per annum, with an additional duty of one guilder on every tun of Beer brewed by them. This duty amounted in the first year to 330 guilders, which therefore represents the quantity of Beer made. The next year they consumed fifteen hundred schepels (about 1120 bushels) of malt. Jacobson rose by industry to wealth and respect- ability. His daughter was the maternal ancestor of the respectable family of Bleeckers. Wolfert Gerritsen, probably a near relative of his partner, was the superintendent of the Patroon's farms, and the step- father of the two eminent New Amsterdam brewers, Jacob and Peter Van Couwenhoven. (1) O'Callaghan's New Netherlands. (2) MuneeU'e Annals of Albany, iv. 56. 256 BREWING AND THE MANUFACTURE OF BEER. Another early official of Rensselaerwyck, Arendt Van Curler, was ia 1661 the proprietor of a Brewery at Beveryck, the present site of Albany. He was held in high esteem both by the English and French Governors, who sought his friendship and counsel. He was prominent in the affairs of the Dutch Province. Daniel Verveelen, an early settler at Fort Orange, afterward carried on his business of Brewing at Man- hattan. Some years previous to this, there were fears of hostilities with New England, and certain persons at Fort Orange were warned not to waste grain in brewing strong Beer at so critical a period. The City Records of Albany contain an order of the Common Council, made in August, 1695, that, for the payment of £10 13s,, current money, due for charges and expenses, " care shall be taken that y° County shall procure corn so much to brew three pipes of table Beer, and Benn. V. Corlaer and Albert Ryckman are to brew it, thinking it will amount to y° com- plement." Kalm mentions, in his account of the Province in l'?4T, that he noticed large fields of barley near New York City, but that in the vicinity of Albany they did not think it a profitable crop, and were ac- customed to make malt of wheat. One of the most prosperous brewers of Albany during the last century was Harman Gansevoort, who died in 1801, having acquired a large fortune in the business. His Brewery stood at the corner of Maiden Lane and Dean street, and was demolished in 1S01. He found large profits in the manufacture of Beer, and as late as 1833, w^hen the dome of Stanwix Hall was raised, the aged Dutchmen of the city compared it to the capacious brew kettle of old Harme Ganse- voort, whose fame was fresh in their memories. ' The general neglect in New Netherlands 6f every branch of agricultnrei except the cultivation of Tobacco, in the pursuit of the for trade, caused a frequent scarcity of breadstuffs. It rendered the Colony, at times, depend- ent upon the husbandry and charity of the Indians for the means of sub- sistence. The prospect of a deficiency from this cause, and the great influx of emigrants then taking place, in addition to a war between Eng- land and the States General, caused, in 1653, a prohibition of the ex- portation of bread-corn, and an order that equal attention should be given to the cultivation of corn as of Tobacco, by planting a hill of the former for every one of the latter. As a conservative measure, at the same time, the consumption of grain by brewing and distilling was strictly forbidden. The distillation of grain was again forbidden in 16T6, and on numerous other occasions, in that and in other Provinces, as well for » (1) Munaoll's Annals of Albany. Pleas- this wealthy Brewer, that when he wished antries at the expense of Albany Ale and its to give a special flavor to a good brewing Brewers are not a recent thing. It was re- he would wash his old leathern breeches in lated by the old people sixty years ago of it. EAELY LAWS RELATING TO BEER. 257 the preservation of bread-stuffs as to abate the growing evils of intem- perance among Indians and European settlers. Among the Laws established by the Duke of York, in 1664, for the Government of the Province after its surrender to the English, was one relating to the manufacture of Beer. It was ordered, " That no person whatsoever shall henceforth undertake the calling or work of Brewing Beere for sale, but only such as are known to have sufficient skill and knowledge in the Art or Mistery of a Brewer. That if any undertake for victualling of ships or other vessels, or master or owner of any such vessels, or any other person within this Government, do prove unfit> unwholesome and useless for their supply, either through the insufficiency of the Mault or Brewing or unwholesome cask, the person wronged thereby shall be and is enabled to recover equal and sufficient damage by action against that person that put the Beer to sale." By the altera- tions and amendments of the laws confirmed by the General Assizes in the following year, "Inn-keepers and ordinary-keepers are not to be obliged to put any particular quantity of malt in their Beer, but are not to sell Beer above two pence per quart, nor any liquors above 12s. the gallon, under penalty of 20s. for each gallon sold."" The importance of Beer for victualing ships in all the seaport towns, as well as for export, rendered an attention to its quality a matter of public interest. Such were a few of the first attempts to manufacture Beer in the earty years of the Colopy, near the place where it has ever since been an im- portant industry, and where some of the largest establishments of the kind on this continent now combine the skill, machinery, and enterprise which the last fifty years have developed in the business. In New Jersey, barley was very early raised in quantities sufficient for exportation. Its price was, in 1668, 4s. per bushel, and in 16t8, it was Brewing in ^s. 6d. In 1684, Deputy Governor Lawrie states -the price of New Jersey. \y^j.\g.j ^q have been only 2s. currency ; which price, as the cur reney was one-fifth more than sterling, was highly favorable to the manu- facturers of Beer. There appear, however, to have been none, as yet, in the eastern Province, as letters from the early settlers of East Jersey, of the same year, to their friends in England and Scotland, state that a malt- house was set up that year at Perth Amboy, but there was no Brewer in the place. A Brewer and Baker were much needed. Tradesmen of all kinds were scarce. As an inducement to emigrants, it was represented (1) We are largely indebted for the fore- lands, by Br. E. B. O'Callaghan ; and to going facts to the valuable Histories of New Munsell's Annals of Albany. York, by D. T. Valentine; of New Nether- (2) Docn!nent.%ry History of New York. 17 258 BUEWING AND THE MANUFACTUKE OE BEER. that laborers had not above one-third the, work to do that was re'qtiii'ed in England, while they fated much better, living on beef, pork, bacon, pudding, milk, butter, with good beer and cider for drink. Their wages were 2s. to 2s. 6d. per day. The cider of New Jersey was, in Colonial times, said to be the best in the world. Large quantities of it are men- tioned, thus early, as the produce of the Province, of which, that made " at one town called Newark," surpassed in quality the cider of New Eng- land. At Burlington, in West Jersey, brew-houses, malt-houses and bakeries are mentioned in 1698. A large house and lot on the main or High street in the town, with Malt-house, Brew-house, Mill-house, brew- ing-vessels, kiln, a large copper which would boil ten barrels, coolers, tuns, backs, malt-mill and mill-stones, etc., were offered for sale, in 1730, by William Bartoft, of Philadelphia. ' Beer, as well as Barley and other grain, is named among the exports from Amboy, in 1750. An early law of the Province (in 1668) required each town, under penalty of 40s. for each neglect, to provide an ordinary for the enter- tainment of strangers. It did not permit the retail of liquors in less quantity than two gallons, which was afterward reduced to one gallon. In 1683, ordinary-keepers were debarred from collecting debts for liquor sold. Notwithstanding these and other safeguards of the public morals, . made at different times in reference to the retail of liquors, stringent laws were often found necessary. The Fairs held for the free sale of goods in Burlington, Salem, and other towns, in May and October, be- came occasions for much disorder, and it was found necessary to prohibit visitors from the neighboring provinces from retailing liquors in Salem, and at length to do away with the Pairs. The Swedes, who were the first permanent settlers in Pennsylvania and Delaware, made tea from the sassafras, and beer and brandy from the Brewing in persimmou. They also brewed small beer from Indian corn, as nUand'Se- ^^efore mentioned. The brewing, according their countryman, laware. Kalm, was doue by the women, as in Sweden and other parts (1) The County Eeoords of Salem contain half a. pint of rum in tlie same, nine peno? ; the following Rule of the Court, made in for each pint of wine, one shilling; for each 1729: " That each respective public-house gill of rum, three-pence; for each quart ot keeper within this county talse for their se- strong Beer, four pence : for each gill of reral measures of liquors hereafter named, brandy, or cordial dram, sixpence; for each asfulloweth, andnomore,Tij. : Foreaohnib quart of metheglin, nine pence; for each of punch, made with double-refined sugarand quart of cider, four pence. Eatables for one gill and a half of rum, nine pence ; for men — For a hot dinner, eight pence ; for each nibmade with single-refined sugar, and breakfast or supper, six pence. For horses one gill and a half of rum, eight pence; for — Two quarts oats, three pence ; stabling each nib made of Muscovado sugar, etc., and good hay, each night, six pence ; pas- geven penoo; for each quart of tiff made with ture, six pence." PENNSTIVANIA. PENN'S MAiT-HOUSE. FIRST EXCISE ON LIQOTJRS. 259 of Europe. The Dutch had several breweries in the settlement about the year 1662. In the deliberations of the first Assembly held under the Proprietary Government, about the year 1682, the question was debated whether Malt Beer should be rated at 2d. per quart and molasses beer at one penny, which it was decided in the affirmative should be the selling prices. The new settlers reaped their first crop of barley in May, of the following year. At his manor of Penusbury, a few miles above Bristol, in Bucks County, Penn soon after caused the erection of a splendid mansion house, attached to which was a Malt-house, Brew-house and Bakery, all under one roof. The dwelling fell into early decay, and -was demolished before the Revo- lution ; but the ancient frame Brew-house, of which a cut is given in Day's Historical Collections of Pennsylvania, was standing a few years ago near the farm-house of Mr. Crozer, the sole memorial of the departed wealth and power of its original owner. The cash-book of the establish- ment shows the cellar to have been well supplied with beer, cider and wines, all of which he sought to produce himself. Those liquors were, at that day, especially to one obliged to entertain, relatively more im- portant than at present. Coffee, tea, and chocolate, were then comparatively little used. Penn'a accounts show that coffee, in the berry, was sometimes procured from New York, at the cost of 18s. dd. the pound. Tea is supposed to have been procured direct from England, as none is charged, though a tea-pot is upon the inventory of his goods. Good Bohea tea is advertised, in 1719, by the printer, Bradford, and others, at from 22 to 50 shillings per pound, Pennsylvania currency. ' In 1684, a tax for the support of the Governor was proposed in the Assembly, by Samuel Carpenter, to be laid on different liquors, including Beer, Mum, and Spanish Wines, on which bd. per gallon was proposed. It was decided that strong Beer and cider should pay 2d. per gallon. Penn generously remitted the revenue from this excise, which act he after- ward regretted. During his absence in England, in 1687, he proposed that the custom on liquors should be revived, as the mo^ equitable way of sustaining the government. But he did not afterward find the Assem- bly so well-disposed on the subject of taxation for that purpose. Several Acts were passed, at the same session, to restrain the inordinate use of intoxicating liquors. "Three or four spaacious malt-houses, as many (I) The first Coffee House in London was Warville says that, in 1788, there was no not opened until about the year 1657, and Coffee House in Boston, New York, or Phi- out of that originated the house in St. Mi- ladelphia. One house in each, colled by chael's Church-yard, known, until a late that name, served as an lizchange. day, as the "Virginia Coffee Honse." De 260 SKEWING AND THE MAUrFACTTJRE OF BEER. large brew-houses, and many handsome bake-houses for pnblic use," in Philadelphia, are spoken of by Thomas, in 1698. The brewers sold ale equal in, strength to the London lialf-and-half,' for fifteen shillings per barrel. It was in more esteem, he tells us, and brought a higher price in Barbadoes than English Beer. If this writer is to be credited, the reputation and exportation of Philadelphia malt liquors were very early established. One of the brewers of the town at that time, .and pro- bably one of the first to practice the art there, was Anthony Morris. His brew-house was near the draw-bridge, at Dock Creek, and was, for several years previous to ItOT, the place of worship of the first Society of Bap- tists in this city. The family was prominent in the business for several generations. In IT 04, some of the inhabitants of Philadelphia, less anti-tariff than those of Boston a few years before, petitioned the General Court to impose a duty on all foreign hops imported. A bill was ordered accord- ingly, and the impost laid, with a view, probably, of promoting the culti- vation of the hop plant, which had, as early as 1651, been made the ob- ject of legislative encouragement in Virginia. In December, of the following year, the vintners of the city presented a petition praying for a bill to restrain the abuses committed against them by the Brewers in their measures. Leave was granted them to bring in a bill for the purpose. The price of malt that year was 4s. Gd." The duty. on hops was renewed in 1121, when the impost on liquors was also extended. Hops were, at this time, imported from Massachusetts. Beer was shipped, previous to this date, from Philadelphia to Georgia, and other ^southern provinces, by George Campion, a brewer of the city. A brew-house was, at this time, for sale at Marcus Hook. Samuel Carpenter, another principal Brewer, probably the person before mentioned as a member of Assembly, (1) Porter is quite a modern beverage, quired to sell Beer and ale bj wine-measure having been first brewed since 1730. Pre- to those who drank it on the premises, and vious to that, ale, beer, and twopenny, were by beer-measure to those who carried it the malt liquors in use, and persons were away. The seller of adulterated rum, brandy accustomed to call for " half and half," thai or spirits, forfeited the same and three times is, half of ale and 'half of beer, or of beer its value. An Act of May .SI, 1718, made in and twopenny ; " three threads" was next consequence of the excessive rates charged used, which was a third of each ; and to by tavern keepers, etc., for wine, beer; cider avoid the inconvenience and waste of draw- and other liquors, empowered the justices ing from three casks, a brewer named Har- throughout the province, four times in the wood invented a liquor with the united fla- year, to fix the prices of such liquors, which vor of the three combined, which he called were to be proclaimed by the crier at the " entire butt." As it was strengthening, close of the sessions, and to be affixed to the and much used by porters and working peo- Court-house doors ; and twenty shillings pie, it received the name of porter. was the penalty for exceeding the rate. For (2) By an Act of the Assembly of that the third offense, five pounds, and loss of year, licensed tavern keepers, etc., were re- the privilege of selling for three years. PENNSYLVANIA. QUALITY Of PHILADELPHIA BEER. 261 and a highly influential citizen, apprised the public, in April, 1'732, that he sold strong Beer for 24s. the barrel, or 12d. the gallon ; good ale for 16s. the barrel, or 8d. the gallon ; and middling Beer for 8s. the barrel, and id. the gallon. Those who would send " clean bottles, with good corks," could have the best beer for 4s. the dozen, and middling Beer for 2s, Another Brewer of the city, at that time, was Mr. Badcock. The manufacture of barley into malt, and of malt into Beer for ex- portation; is named by Dr. Douglass as one of the established branches of Pennsylvania production in ItSO. The exportation of strong Beer from Philadelphia, in 1Y66, amounted to 1288 barrels, worth £1 10s. per bar- rel. The shipments of Beer, in 1772, were 1236 ; in 1773, 1798, and in 1774, 1394 barrels.' After the Peace, considerable quantities of English Beer were poured into Philadelphia and other ports with the flood of British manufactures. Mr. Tench Coxe, in an address to the Friends of American Manufactures, in August, 1787, stated that the breweries of Philadelphia, nevertheless, in their infant state, required forty thousand bushels of barley annually, and predicted an increase when the foreign stock was consumed. The consumption of Beer was much diminished by the general use of distilled spirits, which was made and imported in great quantities. In addition to its more pernicious effects, a thousand hogs- heads of rum, worth £20,000, mixed with water, would make as muc^ strong drink as wonld require one hundred and twenty thousand bushels of grain to make its equivalent in Beer. The loss to the country. In ad- dition to that on other articles employed in brewing, was great in propor- tion. The importation of ardent spirits, in Philadelphia alone, was ten times the above sum. In March, 1788, the Assembly of Pennsylvania laid a duty on foreign barley and malt iinported into the State. The Barley grown in the State was, however, insufifloient for the support of the breweries, and nearly one-half the quantity consumed was derived from the Chesapeake. Malt was also imported from New England. In the following May, it was found that the manufacture of Beer and porter at Philadelphia, had been more than doubled within a year. The Brew- ers were only circumscribed in their business by the want of B&,rley. The attention of the farmers was, in consequence, strongly turned to the cul- tivation of that grain. The quality of Philadelphia Beer was still equal to its early reputation. The porter made in the city was considered scarcely inferior to the English, and was in repute throughout the country*. A sample of Beer from Philadelphia is said, about this time, to have made (1) On the manifest of the ship Astrea, of which it is said in the letter of Instrnc- of Salem, Massachusetts, by B. H. Derby, tions, "The Philadelphia Beer is put up so with an assorted cargo for Canton, in 1789, strong that it will not be approved of until are 24 hhds. of 2 barrels each, and 24 bar- it is made weaker. Tou had best try some rels of 40 gallons each, of Philadelphia Beer, of it first." 262 BREWING AND THE MAST'JFACTUEE OF BEEB. the voyage to China and back without detriment to its quality. The price, in Philadelphia, of American Beer was, in 1790, 30g. the barrel, and bottled, 8s. 4^d. per dozen. It was shipped to all parts of the world from that and other domestic ports. The shipping of the city took oflf considerable quantities, and the domestic consumption, favored by several ordinances designed to promote its use in preference to distilled liquors, was large. The exports of Beer, cider, and porter from Philadelphia was, in 1791, only 18,510 gallons, and 249 dozen bottles. But much went abroad under the general name of liquors, and other portions through the ports of Maryland. A year or two later, Mr. Coxe, Com- missioner of the Kevenue, stated that the breweries of Philadelphia ex- ceeded, in' the quantity of their manufactured liquors, those of all the seaports in the United States.' The importation of malt had then (1793) ceased. About 16,500 bushels of barley were imported that year. The exportation of Beer, Porter, and Cider was much limited by the scarcity of black glass bottles, the manufacture of which was yet inconsi- derable, and the importation expensive. Lancaster had, in 1786, three Breweries, and Pittsburg, Washington, and Brownsville were provided soon after. In Plantagenet's description of New Albion, which corresponded with portions of Delaware and Maryland, a letter from Master Evelin, who Brewing ia ^ad lived there, says the people had (1648) more choice drinks alTd vi^gt than in England for " punipion drink, hopped, is good beer ; and "'*• ale we have for you and Mault for you, and in summer rock cold water, with an eighth of good Peach Yinegar, is the best beaverage." The peach vinegar and brandy here mentioned, was a considerable article of domestic production in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the more southern provinces, both for home use and for exportation. MaryMnd and Virginia produced good crops of barley at a later period, much of which was sent to Philadelphia. An Act of the Assembly, in 1699, em- powered commissioners to grant licenses for the retail of liquors, for which were to be paid within the port of Annapolis, or two miles of it, or at any County Court House, 1200 pounds of tobacco, and in other parts 400 pounds, and no more. By the same Act, the County Commis- sioners and the Mayor of the City of St. Marys were, in January and August of each year, to fix the rates or prices of liquors, and 500 pounds of Tobacco was the fine for exceeding those rates. The price of small Beer (1) Yiew of the U. States. The Federal cans ;"" Home-brewed ia best," etc. The procession, in 1789, numbered ten master census of 1810 returned forty-eight brew- brewers, headed by Reuben Haines, and ers in the State, of which eleven were in followed by seventy-two journeymen. The Philadelphia City, and seventeen in the mottoes weie — " Proper Drink for Ameri- county. IN MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA. HOME-BREWING. 263 was then eatablishpd at 10 pouads of tobacco, and of strong beer, 20 pqunds per gallon. Breweries were erected in Baltimore soon after it was laid out. About the first in that place was set up in 1744, by Messrs. Leonard and Dapiel Barnetz, from York, Pennsylvania, who built a brewery at the southwest corner of Baltimore and Hanover streets. They were among the first of the German settlers in the town, which benefited by the capital and industry of that thrifty people. Several other branches of the arts were carried thither by them. William Smith and James Sterret, from Lancas- ter, in Pennsylvania, removed to Baltimore in 1761, where Sterret erected another Brewery, on the corner of Gay and Water streets. It ■jjas afterward burned and re-built, and burned again after the Revolu- tion. A distillery was erected, about the same time, on the southeast corner of Water and Commerce streets, by Samuel Purviance, from Phi- ladelphia. Only about fifteen hundred gallons and a few dozens of bot- tled beer were exported in 1791. Virginia had, in 1649, six public Brew-houses ; but, it was said, "Most brew their own beer strong and good." Hops were large and fair, and thrived well. " The Maize or Virginia corne," says a tract of that date, " manlts well for Beer, and ripe in five moneths, set in April or May." Good metheglin, or mead, — a very ancient beverage, and formerly in Great Britain double the price of the best beer, — was made from honey. By one planter, at this time, twenty butts of cider, and, by another, forty or fifty of perry, were made in a year from the produce of their own orchards, some of which were very large. Another account of the Province, of the same period, speaks of the maize as not less commendable for bread than for malting, and of an " extraordinary and pleasing strong drink" made from the West India (sweet) potato. The malting of Indian corn thus appears to have been common then. Hops were then cultivated with success, and eight years after, received legislative patronage. It was an early and pretty general custom in some places for families to brew their own Beer. This practicti in Europe, and particularly in England, was almost universal, until late in the last century, when the exorbitant tax on barley, malt, and hops, and the increased use, of tea and coffee, changed the habits of the people in that respect. In those parts of Virginia where this custom prevailed, beer was the common drink. In others, it was said, in 1656, nothing could be obtained but water, or milk and water, or "beverige." This was laid to the negligence of the " good wives" of Virginia, who were admonished that they would be judged by their drink what kind of house- wives they were." (1) Hammond's Leah and Eachel. 264 BREWING AND THE MANUFACTURE OF BEER. The old English custom of leaving the brewing to the women of .the household appears also to have been brought over by the colonists. The practice was, however, never very general in America, and for domestic use, various fermented liquors, from fruits and saccharine substances, sup- plied the place, of small Beer. Peach brandy, of an excellent quality, was, during Colonial times, a household manufacture of considerable value, and more or less of it was regularly exported. It was, after sim- ple fermentation, distilled into strong spirit. The cultivation of tobacco and a few other crops, employed the planters of Virginia and the other southern Provinces, rather than barley or wheat, and constituted the cur- rency of the Province. Three hundred and fifty pounds of that article, including the cask, was, by an Act passed in 1662, the price of a licendfe, to sell liquors by retail, a bond being given not to sell above the rates fixed by the Commissioners in each county twice a year. The number of ordinaries or tippling-houses was, six years after, limited to " one or two near the Court-house, unless in public places and great Roads for the accommodation of travellers." The manufacture of Beer was proba- bly never very great in Virginia. " The habit of the Carolinians," says Dr. Ramsey, in 1808, " is in favour of grog (a mixture of ardent spirits and water) when water is not deemed satisfactory. * * Hence breweries are rare, while distilleries are com- mon." There was, however, a growing fondness for Beer at that time. A Brewery was erected at Camdgn, in that Province, by Mr. Kershaw, about the year 1760, which proved useful. Fayetteville, in North Carolina, thirty years after, had more trade than any town in the Province, and had one or two large distilleries and Brewe- ries, long situated in the midst of a Scotch settlement. Wine was more an object of domesticproduction in these Provinces ; Beer, cider, etc., being imported from the northern Colonies to the Carolinas and Georgia^ From the little attention paid to the production of malt liquors, strict temperance was not one of the distinguishing features of the inhabitants in early times. A large Brewery was established by Oglethorpe, in Geor- gia, about the year 1140, which furnished Beer for all the troops in great abundance. His efforts to keep out the use of ardent spirits were found impracticable, and, it said, his Scotch settlers and oflftcers would withdraw from his presence to quaff their favorite whisky, at the smell of which he would denounce woe to the liquor, and which, if it came to his sight, he always destroyed. Several circumstances stood in the way of a more extended manufac- ture of malt liquors in the American Colonies. Malting was not gene- rally conducted as a separate business, as in Europe. The household brewing of small Beer was consequently not favored, and the taste for such IMPEDIMENTS TO THE MANUEAOTUEE OF MALT LIQUORS. 265 liquors was not formed. The heat of the summers, and the great scarcity and high cost of strong bottles for preserving good effervescing Beer, was another impediment to its manufacture, particularly for exportation. But the large quantities of vinous liquors of a pleasant quality made in families from native fruits, such as cider, perry, apple and peach brandy, currant wine, etc., of metheglin and mead from honey, of molasses and spruce beer, of distilled spirits from molasses and grain, in addition to the large importations of rum, brandy, and wine, from the West Indies and wine countries, rather formedthe popular taste to these beverages, than to the more wholesome onqg of Beer, ale, and porter. Pale ale and por- ter were first made in this country about the year 177 4. CHAPTER XII. ESSATS IN THE MANUrACTtIKE OF WINE IN THE COLONIES. The attempts made during our Colonial history to introduce the cul- ture of the grape for the manufacture of Wine, were far more numerous aud expensive than they were successful or encouraging. That strong efforts were made to render it a principal industry in several of the Colo- nies, is not surprising. Since the day when Noah " began to be a hus- bandman, and planted a vineyard, and drank of the wine, and was drunken," it is doubtful if any gift of the Creator has been more esteemed than the grape, or any device of man more abused, than the beverages extracted from it. The cultivation of the vine has been an object with every civilized nation of ancient or modern times. The first explorers of this Continent found vines growing. wild in the woods, and climbing upon the loftiest trees. Even the Gothlandic nar- ratives of ante-Columbian adventures had bestowed the name of "Wine- land the Good" upon some portion of the North American Continent, or its islands, which they are supposed to have visited. A large propor- tion of the first Colonists were familiar, in their own country, both with the use and the manufacture of Wine. Even in England the culture of the grape had existed from the earliest times, and long before the intro- duction of foreign Wines. Though few vineyards are now to be found . in that country, they once covered large tracts of land, and furnished abundance of Wine. Although the importation of French Wines, after the Norman conquest had caused the vine to be neglected in England, the use of Wine in the beginning of the seventeenth century, was proba- bly far more general with its population, relatively, than at present. The hopes of profit from the manufacture in America were great, as well with the English as with the German, French, and other emigrants from Continental Europe, in proportion to the glowing descriptions given by the early writers of the abundance and luxuriance of the native vines, of the fertility of the soil, and the favorable temper of the climate. The several associations and private adventurers who at different times made settlements upon American soil, with scarcely an exception, there- (266) nRST VINEYARDS IN VIRGINIA. 26T fcre, either attempted, recommended, or encouraged the cultivation of the vine. In some instances the attempts involved a considerable amount of unrequited expense. It is only in our own day that a prospect has arisen of making this a Wine-producing country. The first abortive efforts to cultivate the vine with profit arose from no failure of nature to fulfill her early pledges, for her indications are seldom delusive. Late experience has shown that both soil and climate are fitted for its successful propa- gation. The plants, moreover, whose cultivation is now becoming a pro- fitable business in several States of the Union, are those indigenous varieties that first trailed their rich clusters in wild luxuriance along the valleys and fertile bottoms, or clasped with fruitful embrace the tree-trunks on every sunny hill-side throughout the land. These are nearly the only ones that have been found on trial to be altogether suitable to the soil and climate of the country, and their assiduous cultivation would proba- bly have better rewarded the attempts of the early vine-growers, than the foreign kinds which they endeavored to acclimate. This appears to have been a principal error with the first cultivators. To this may be added a want of experience on the part of many, which was imperfectly supplied in the hireling assistance of foreign vine-dress- ers ; ignorance of the peculiarities of American soil and climate, as well ^s of the habits of the native grape ; and, more than all, the premature nature of the attempt. However alluring in the prospect to the Colonists two hundred years ago. Wine-making is only adapted to an advanced state of society, with accumulated capital. Asearly asl610, soon after colonization had got an effective foot-hold in Virginia, mention is made of the French, sent over for that purpose, making preparation to plant vines, which were as common as brambles yards in vir- in the woods. A Sample of Wine from native grapes was sent *''"*' home in 1612. A vineyard, as mentioned in a former chapter, W3,s planted in that Colony by the London Company before the year 1620. In the following year the Company also sent thither a number of French vine-dressers, with a supply of plants or cuttings from European vines. Their favorable report of the climate and productions of the country, it is said, was highly advantageous to the cause of emigration. They repre- sented that it "far excelled their own country of Languedoc, the vines growing in great abundance and variety all over the laud ; that some of the grapes were of that unusual bigness that they did not believe them to be grapes, until, by opening them, they had seen their kernels; that they had planted the cuttings of their vines at Michaelmas, and had grapes from those very cuttings the spring following ; adding, in the conclusion, that they had not heard of the like in any other country.'" The state- (1) Beverley's History of Virginia. 268 COLONIAL WINE-MAKING. ment of the Frenchmen as to the early maturity of the vines, is vindicated by the historian whom we have quoted, who avers that he had seen the experiment made both with foreign and native vines. Their want of suc- cess — for they are said to have ruined the project — renders questionable the fidelity either of their report or of their services. They had, however, succeeded in making, previous to the massacre in 1622, a small quantity of Wine, of which a sample was sent to England that year. The atten- tion of the Virginia settlers to that industry was enjoined by the terms of their grants of land,' by which means it was vainly hoped to divert them from the all-absorbing cultivation of tobacco. Wine of good quality was made in Virginia in 1649, or earlier, by Captain Brocas, a member of the Council, who had traveled much, and pronounced ■ the country as well adapted to Wine-making " as any in Chrissendome." But capital and skilled labor were wanting. A Tract, already quoted, was published in London, in 1650,' in which the author, E. Williams, elaborately argues in favor of " the dressing of vines for the rich trade of making Wines in Virginia." He states that Wiire had already been made there from the wild grapes, and with his customary enthusiasm, declares that if the Candian, Calabrian, or other European grapes of the same latitude were cultivated in Virginia, it would enrich the province, excite the envy of France and Spain, and afford the finest Wiaesfor the markets of northern Europe, China, and the West India islands. He advises that every planter be required at once to plant a nursery, and, as soon as possible, a vineyard ; that European vine-dressers be employed, and encouraged by a participation in the profits of the vintage ; and that, for their security, written contracts should be made whereby the planter might be prevented from violating his engagement, and compelling the vignerons to labor in the capacity of slaves, which had been a cause of previous failures in Wine-making ; that well-digested instructions in all parts of the business should be prepared and printed for circulation among the planters, to give " competent knowledge in the mystery." Had all this been done, as intended, the "country had not hung down its desolate head as of late, nor had the poor planter (who usually spends all the pro- fits of his labor in forraigne wines) been impoverished by the want of it." In the following year premiums were offered in the Colony to encourage renewed attempts in the vine culture. The more rugged but virgin soil of New England was found, teeming with a like abundance of native grapes ; and Governor Winthrop was vineyaidsin thence induced, almost as soon as he landed, to begin the cul- N. Bugiand. tjyation. "Excellent vines are here up and down in the woods," it was said, in 1630 ; " Our Governor hath already planted a vineyard, (I) Force's Collection, vol. iii. No. 11. ATTEMPTS IN NEW ENGLAND. IMPOSTS RESISTED. 269 with great hope of increase."' Master Grrayes, " Engynere," declared the grapes were the largest he had ever seen, some of them " foure inches about." Mr. Winthrop seems so far to have succeeded as to look for an annual yield, however small, from his vineyard. The rental of Governors Island, in Boston Harbor, granted to him in 1632, on condition that he should plant thereon a vineyard or an orchard, was, in 1634, a hogshead of Wine yearly. It is not probable that attempts to manufacture Wine in New England were long persevered in. Within a very few years its increasing foreign commerce afforded a cheaper and readier means of supply. Its exports of fish, lumber, pipe-staves, bread-stuffs, and other produce, to the West Indies, to Portugal and Spain and the Wine Islands, had, by the year 1645, become so considerable as to fnrnish the principal. supplies to some of them, and to enable the traders to be amply supplied with the peculiar products of those countries as profitable return cargoes. The importation of Wine, in particular, had recently become excessive, and the General Court of Massachusetts, in that year, deemed it proper to impose a duty of ten shillings upon every bu,tt of Spanish Wine landed there. The revenue was'' for the support of government, fortifications, and the harbor defenses. Iji the following spring several ships arrived, bringing eight hundred butts of Wine. Having lost much by leakage, and meeting with a bad market, they refused either to pay the impost, or to give an account of a portion which had been already landed ; in consequence of which, the latter was forfeited. As the importation had been made in ignorance of the tariff, the Court, on petition, remitted the forfeiture and one-half the duty. But the merchants still refused to submit to the im- post, and their best Wines werfe seized to satisfy the demands of the law. This act they conceived to be a gross wrong, as the balance of the invoice became unsaleable by the withdrawal of the better qualities, and they threatened to obtain redress in some other way, but with what success we are not informed. "But too much indulgence in that way," says the historian, "opened a door to encouragement to Wine merchants, who have since filled the coun- try with that commodity, to the overflowing of luxury and other evils ; whereas, had there been a greater impost laid thereon, it might have turned the stream of traffic into another channel, that might have been much more beneficial to the place."'' (1) Higginson. rors of the Puritan Code, which decreed that (2) Hubbard's New England. — The evils f drunkenness, as transforming God's image Lere hinted at very early disturbed the good into a beast, is to be punished with the pun- order and.enfeebled the industry of all the ishment of beasts ; a whip for the horse, and colonies. It was not repressed by the ter- arod'for the foole's backe." It was greatly 270 COLONIAL WINE-MAKING. Yines were sent in 1642, to New Netherlands, by Van Rensselaer, for the use of his Colony on the Hudson, where he wished to introduce the cultivation of that plant and of madder. The vines, as his commissary wrote him, were all killed by the frost, " like others brought to the coun- try." The propagation of the grape-vine was also enjoined upon Colonel John Printz, who arrived the same year, with a commission from Queen Christina, as Governor of the Swedish Colony on the east side of the Delaware, for the support of which she made large appropriations out of her revenue from tobacco. Campanins mentions a number of places in that Colony where native grapes, white, red, brown, blue, and black, grew in great profusion, and that the inhabitants only needed to be informed how to press them.' A letter in Plantagenet's Description of New Albion (in Delaware), from Robert Evelin, who had resided several years in the country, de- scribes (1648) a valley, called TJvedale, where the vines ran upon the mulberry and sassafras trees, and bore four sorts of grapes, which he quaintly describes as follows ; — " The first is the Thoulouse Muscat, sweet-scented ; the second, the great Poxe and thick grape, after 5 moneths reaped, being boyled and salted, and well fined, it- is a strong increased by the peculiar nature of their first thickness had not been found in a grape vino commercial pursuits. The Indian and Afri- any where else. Among the gigantic vege- can trade, on the one band, required, as table growths of California, however, a vine they were conducted, large quantities of is said to exist near Santa Barbara, in Los Bum. The commerce with the West India Angelos, the main stock of which is ten feet islands and the Wine countries, on the other, in diameter. Seven thousand clusters of gave them facilities for obtaining rum, bran, grapes were counted upon it. That State dy and Wine, and molasses, which they con- promises soon to be the most productive in verted into rum. Many efforts were made Winesof any other in the Union, and to equal to circumscribe the use of these articles by her gold mines in the value of the product confining their sale to licensed dealers, re- ofhervineyards. Theincreaseof vines,forthe Btrioted by certain limitations. Inl639,John last few years, has been over fifty per cent. Charles, of Norwich, Connecticut, was for- annually, and at its present rate, wiU, in bidden to draw Wine, "because there hath twenty years, produce Wines of the value of been much disorder by it." The present fifty millions of dollars a year. The largest arts of adulteration seem to have been quite vineyards are in the county above mention- early known. Johnson, in 1646, numbers ed, where some already contain over forty among the trades of New England " divers acres. Los Angelos produced, in 1857, shop-keepers, and some who have a mystery 350,000 gallons of Wine. I The number of beyond others, as have the vintners." grape vines in the State, in 1866, was (1) Campanius is believed to have had no 1,640,134,- in 1858, 3,954,548, of which personal knowledge of the country, and is 1,660,000 were in Los Angelos alone. The prone to relate extraordinary things. He aggregate, this year will exceed, it is enp- says, the Swedes found, at Christina, a posed, six millions. grape vine two ells in thickness, which ATTEMPTS IN CAROLINA BY THE rUENCII REFTjaEES. 271 red Xeres ; the third, a light claret ; the fourth, a white grape, creeps OQ the land, maketh a pure, gold-color white Wine. Tenis Pale, the Frenchman, of these four made eight sorts of excellent Wine ; and of the Muscat, acute-boyled, that the second draught will fox a reasonable pate four moneths old, and here may be gathered and made two hundred tun in the vintage moneth, and replanted will mend." He speaks of two other valleys above Uvedale, likewise abounding iu the same grapes. A duty of 3d. per gallon was, in It 15, laid on Wine and rum imported into Maryland, except from England, and such as was imported in vessels built and owned in the colony. The cultivation of the Wine-grape was a prominent object in the set- tlement of Carolina, about the year 1670, under the grant from Charles the Second to the Earl of Clarendon and others. The proprie- in the caio- taries, tour years after, sent over vines and other plants, with persons qualified to manage them. But there are few records preserved of the first settlement in the province. In 1679, a second unsuccessful, because — like all others at that period . — a premature attempt was made by the King to introduce into that pro- vince the manufacture of wine, oil, silk, and other southern produc- tions. Two vessels were fitted out, in which were sent a number of French Protestant Refugees. The present city of Charleston was founded the following year. The commencement of the attempt to make Wine seems to have been encouraging. " Some of the Wine," says a^ writer in 1682, in reference to it, " has been transported for England, which, by the best palates, was vi'ell approved of, and more is daily expected. It is not doubted, if the planters as industriously prosecute the propagation of vineyards as they have begun, but Carolina will, in a little time", prove a magazine and staple for Wine to the whole West Indies." The vines sent by the pro- prietors, he states, embraced the Rhenish, Claret, Muscadel, Canary, and other kinds. Additional emigrations of Dutch, French, and other Euro- pean people, some of whom were skilled in the grape culture, engrafted their industry upon the Colony. Sir Nathaniel Johnson, who settled in the Province in 1689, made an essay in vine-growing, and succeeded in making some snfall quantities of Wine. About the year 1690, King William sent large numbers of the persecuted French refugees into Vir- ginia. Others of the same class, possessing both property and industry, purchased land of the proprietors of Carolina, and settled, some on the Santee river, and others, who were mechanics, in Charleston. Renewed efforts were made by them to manufacture Wine, in which they were par- tially successful. In 1696, they were naturalized by an Act of the Caro- lina Legislature, as were those of Virginia by a law passed in 1680. In 2^S COLONIAL WINE-MAKING. t intelligence, industry, and good conduct, these exiles were among the most valuable accessions ftiade to the population of the Province. But Carolina i^ow bears, in her family names, ampler traces of the Huguenot race and lineage, than she does in the richness or the antiquity of her vintage. Her fertile savannahs were destined, ere long, to furnish a more valuable staple than even Wine and oil for the food of mankind, and her uplands, in process of time, to whiten with a richer product than silk for its cloth- ing. Had success attended the early efforts to cover the country with vineyards, to the extent which the present shows to be practicable, it is impossible to say how far it might have affected the economical condition, not only of Carolina and the South, but of the world, by retarding the introduction of rice and cotfton, which were then considered of little value in comparison. Wherever the Huguenots settled in America they bore along with them their country's vine, and sought to clothe the fertile bottoms and sunny slopes of their wilderness-home with the purple of their ancestral vales. Between eleven and twelve thousand acres, in the township of Oxford in Massachusetts, was, in the year 1684, set apart for the use of thirty families Of that people, who had escaped from the persecutions of Louis XIV. Here they set up mills, planted vineyards and orchards, of which traces still remain, and were invested with the elective franchise by an Act of the Legislature. But the settlement was broken up in 1696, by the Indians, and some of them settled in Boston. The names of Boudi- not and Fanueil appear among the number, and rank with those of Lau- rens, in South Carolina, and Jay, in New York, as public benefactors ; while not a few among the less distinguished are still recognized through- out the country. The tribute of Mrs. Sigourney, a name of the same respectable origin, to thfe memory of the Huguenots of Oxford, on visit- ing a vine of their planting, was merited by the virtues of a people to whom " Full many a son Among the noblest of our land looks back Through time's long vista, and exulting claims These as their sires." r r William Penn, the hope of successfully introducing the manufac- tpre of Wine, appears to have been warmly cherished. The following Penn's at- extracts from his description of the Proyince, addressed to the Sa&chire" ^'ee Society of Traders," in London, dated 16th of 8th mo., ■wme. 1683, and from his other correspondence, will show his ideas on the subject : — "The great red grape (now ripe) called by ignorance the fox grape, because of the relish it hath with unskilful palates, is in itself an extraordinary grape, MNNSTLVANIA. PENN ATTEMPTS THE WINE OUITTJ&E. 3l3 and, by art, doubtless may be cultivated to an excellent Wine, if not so sweet, yet little inferior to the Frontinao, as it is not much unlike in taste, ruddiness set aside, which in such things, as well as mankind, differs the case much> There is a white kind of Muscadel, and a little black grape, like the cluster- grape of England, not yet so ripe as the other, but they tell me, when ripe, sweeter, and that they only want skilful vignnrons to make good use of them. I intend to venture on it with my Frenchman, this season, who shows some knowledge in these things It is disputable with me, whether it be best to fall to fining the fruits of this country, especially the grape, by the care and skill of art, or send for foreign stems and sets already good and ap- proved. It seems most reasonable to believe that not only a thing groweth best where it naturally grows, but will hardly be equalled by another species of the same kind that doth not naturally grow there. But, to solve the doubt, I intend, if God give me life, to try both, and hope the consequences will be as good Wine as any of the European countries of the same latitude do yield." * » ♦ * " Whatever tends to the promotion of the Wine, and to the manufacture of linen in these parts, I cannot but wish you to promote ; and the French people are most likely, in both respects, to ensure that design. To that end I would advise you to send for some thousands of plants out of France, with some able vignerons, and people of the other vocation." The French, of whom he speaks, were probably from Caroh'na, where they had long been bitterly perseeated by the Anglican population. It was not until 1696, that their singular forbearance and worth to that Colony, procured, from the Assembly, in answer to their petition, the tardy justice of an Act of incorporation with the freemen of the province. The soundness of Penn's reasoning upon the habitudes of plants, and the doubtful expediency of attempting to supplant the indigenous vine by the acclimation of foreign species, has been almost uniformly attested by the subsequent experience of vine-growers in different parts of- the coun- try. French, German, and other experienced and skillful cultivators of the vine, have repeatedly failed to introduce, on any extensive scale, the culture of the European plant ; and the conclusion to which science and observation seem equally to have led is, that American vines only can be profitably cultivated on American soils. To the Marquis of Halifax he writes, 9th, 12th mo., 1683,— "The Ger- mans are fallen ugon flax and hemp ; the French, on vineyards. Here grow wilde an incredible number of vines, that tho' savage, and ,so not so excellent, besides that much wood and shade sower them, they yield a pleasant grape, and I have drunk a good clarett, though small and green- ish, of Capt. Rappe's vintage of the savage grape." His intentions were afterward carried into execution upon his Spring- etsbury estate, in Penn Township, in the northwestern part of the present City of Philadelphia, toward the Schuylkill, where a vineyard was planted 18 274 COLONIAL WlNE-MAKlNa. by his direction, upon an eminence afterward known as " Vineyard Hill." To conduct the business, he sent to France for a person qualified, and sustained him at considerable expense. He subsequently wrote, in refer- ence to it, as follows : — " I writ that regard should be had to Andrew Doze about the vineyard. I know it is a charge, but if Wine can be made, it will be worth the Province thousands by the year, for many Frenchmen are disheartened by the Carolinians. In seven years there •would be hundreds of vineyards, if the experiment takes ; and I under- stand, by Patrick Lloyd and Dr. More, that he produced ripe grapes the 28"" of the 5"" month, '86, when the roots were but fifteen or sixteen months planted. 'Tis an high character of the country, and Andrew Doze, I am told, say'd he dest3rved the place, paying me only an acknow- ledgement in Wine." He afterward writes, " All the vines sent in this vessel are intended for Andrew, on the Schuylkill, for the vineyard. I could have been glad of a taste last year, as I hear he made some." It is not known how long he persevered in the enterprise ; but it is believed not to have been rewarded by any success, and to have been abandoned as early as his second visit, in 1695. The vintage probably never war- ranted the advice of Pastorius, who, in view of the attempt, wrote his friends that they had better send along a supply of Wine-barrels and vata of various sizes. In the absence of the proprietor from the country, it is not very sur- prising that an undertaking beset with difficulties should have failed not- withstanding the pecuniary ability of the projector to sustain it. An English writer, sometime resident in the Province after this time, speaks of several excellent native grapes, from which good Wine had been frequently produced by skillful vignerons, and of the encouraging prospects of ample supplies of Wine, for their own use and for exportation. The Wines, as being more pure, were more wholesome,a;nd the trade of sophis- ticating liquors, as practiced in England and Holland, he vainly believed, would, from the native honesty of the people, long remain, as it then was, unknown in the Province. The excellent cider of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which then sold at from ten to fifteen shillings per barrel, is also mentioned. Peach brandy and perry were made in both Provinces. The amount of Wine and spirituous liquors consumed in the Province, within twenty-five years after Penn's arrival, may be inferred from the importation of those articles. In the first ten months of the year ITll upwards of 68,000 gallons of Wine, — of which 59,000 gallons were direct from the Wine countries, and 383,000 gallons of rum w6re imported into Philadelphia. The rum was chiefly from the West Indies, and was mainly for the support of the contraband trade with the Indians, and shows the GBORGIA. PALATINES ATTEMPT WINE. 275 extent to which the Province was already engaged in both species of traffic. On the settlement of Georgia, the last colonized of the original thirteen States, in 1732, similar attempts were made to produce, at the outset, Wine, silk, and oil. Foreign vine-dressers were sent thither by the trus- tees of the Province, who attempted the cultivation of vines and other southern products. The injudicious restrictions imposed by its humane founder upon the industry and trade of the Colony, long operated unfa- vorably to the progress of improvement, notwithstanding the liberal ap- propriations of the British Parliament in aid of their enterprise. The spot selected for the experiment, near Savannah, called the Trustees' Garden, was also unwisely chosen. The soil proved too dry and sterile, and notwithstanding the care of an experienced cultivator, Thomas West, both vines and mulberry trees proved a failure. The project was aban- doned, and the settlers sought homes nnder fewer restraints in neighboring Provinces. Abraham De Leon, a Jew, who had acquired experience in the busi- ness in Portugal, cultivated grapes in his garden, in Savannah, where he was a freeholder. The Oporto and Malaga grapes were raised with great success by him. He solicited a loan from the trustees in England of two hundred pounds sterling, without interest, for three years, pledging himself to employ it and an additional sum of his own in bringing from Por- tugal vines and vignerons, and to return the money within the time men- tioned, and to have growing in the Colony forty thousand vines, which he would supply to the freeholders at a moderate rate. The proposal was accepted, but the remittances were never made, and the project was aban- doned. In 1764, two ship-loads of Palatines were sent to America by George III., and were landed at Charleston. The Assembly of the Province voted five hundred pounds to be distributed among them, and assigned them lands adapted to the culture of silk and Wine, with which they were acquainted, and, it was hoped, would attempt. The efforts to introduce successfully the Wine-mannfactnre in the Colo- nies was, at this period, when her dependencies had become of immense value to Great Britain, regarded with much interest. It was a favorite policy of the nation to become, by means of the Colonies, as independent as possible of all foreign countries in regard to articles she was compelled to import. The vast sums yearly paid to France for Wines and liquors, were paid reluctantly. All the valuable staples of the American Pro- vinces were, moreover, secured to her markets by the provisions of her Commercial Code. The Navigation Act gave England the exclusive right of supplying Wines, among other articles, to the Colonies. But the 276 COLONIAL WINE-MAKING. right of exporting non-ennmerated articles to ports south of Cape Pinis- terre, enabled them to obtain Wines from the place of growth, in contra- vention of the trade Acts. The heary duty on Wines imported direct from England, only a part of which was drawn back, still further dimin- ished the trade in Wines between England and her Colonies. On the termination, in 1763, of the old French War, during which the officers found an almost unlrersal taste for Madeira Wine in the Provinces, all the duties were allowed to be drawn back, except £3. 10s. per tun, — on all but French Wines, which it was not advisable to encourage, — on expor- tation to the Colonies. Madeira, Fayal, and Lisbon, TenerifiFe and Sherry, were the kinds principally in use, therefore, before the Revolution. lu 1T66, the Society instituted at London for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, offered a list of premiums for the advantage of the North American Colonies, upon such articles as it was hoped might be produced there. Among these, were premiums of £300 sterling to the person who should be in possession of a vineyard or plan- tation in any of the Colonies on the Continent of ^North America, south- ward of the Delaware, consisting of the greatest number of vines (not less than fifty) actually producing the true Malaga grape for raisins ; and £50 for a vineyard of not less than twenty-five of the same kind of plants. The Society, at the same time, offered a premium of £200 for the greatest number (not less than five hundred) of the plants of the vines which pro- duced those sorts of Wines then consumed in Great Britain ; and £50 for the next greatest number, not less than one hundred plants. These last were offered to any of the Colonies north of the Delaware considered as one district, or south of the Delaware considered as one district, and to the Bermuda islands. Whether these bounties had the effect which often followed the Socie- ty's announcements of rewards in other branches, we are not aware. We have seen no account of any awards made in that branch. The attention of many intelligent persons was, however, called to the subject, among whom were some of the American Philosophical Society. Hon. Edward Antill, a member, and one of His Majesty's Council for the Province of New Jersey, prepared an essay on the cultivation of the vine and the making and preserving of Wines, suitedr to the different climates of North America. It embraced full, practical details on the subject of the vineyard, and the manufacture of Wines, and, after his death, it was communicated by Mr. C. Thompson to the Society, and published in the first volume of its Transactions, in Ittl. The same volume contains a memoir on the distillation of Persimmons, by Isaac Bartram, and a letter from Bethle- hem, Pennsylvania, on the manufacture of currant Wines, which had been for some years carried on at that place, quite successfully, by the Mora- CTRRANT WINE — WINE IN ILLINOIS, VIRGINIA, PENNSYLVANIA. 27 T vians. Its cost was about 6d. the quart. Red currants were considered preferable to the white. In the domestic manufacture of currant Wine from the red, white, and black currant, which was made to a considerable extent, Mr. Coxe, in 1810, considered each family in the United States could on an average, easily make two barrels, or sixty-three gallons, annually, which would yield sixty-three millions of gallons, or nearly twelve times the quantity of wine imported, and twenty-three times the amount con- sumed in the country. It was recommended as a more profitable busi- ness, to be pursued on a large scale north of, the Chesapeake, than the cultivation of the Europeaq Wine-grape. The early French writers gave exaggerated accounts of the vines of Louisiana, and two valuable varieties, the Vitis cestivalis and V. riparia, are indigenous to the banks of the Ohio and the Mississippi. In 1'769, the French on the Illinois river made one hundred and ten hogsheads of well-tasted and strong Wine from the native grape of that region. In the same year, Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, sent a cask of Wine of the last year's vintage, with a few bottles of older Wine, " from our native grape," as a present to Dr. Fothergill of London. Some of the French people who had settled in Virginia and Carolina at an earlier period, kept up the manufacture of Wine on a small scale, until the Revolution put an end to the business, which gave promise of becoming Increasingly valu- able. A red Wine, little inferior to Burgundy, was mentioned by a writer, in 1774, as the product of Carolina. The first overt act of the revolutionary drama was the seizure, in June, 1768, of the sloop Liberty, belonging to Mr. Hancock, in the Harbor of Newport, Rhode Island, for a violation of the revenue laws, in landing a cargo of Wines from Ma- deira without having entered the whole. A large part of the Wines consumed in the Colonies — except those from Madeira, which for a long time came free, but paid about £7 per tun duty — had been thus obtained by evasion of the customs. But Government was now vigorously enforc- ing the Trade Acts, and American merchants deemed it their duty as resolutely to resist them. A few years after the Peace, a joint-stock company was formed in Pennsylvania to cultivate the grape, for Wine, on a more extended scale than had been done before. The society was'incorporated in 1802, with a president, treasurer, and secretary, and five managers, and a stock of one thousand shares of twenty dollars each. They purchased land aiid planted a vineyard at Spring Mill, on the Schuylkill, thirteen miles from Philadelphia, where, in 1811, they had thirty thousand vines growing with good prospect of success. CHAPTER XIII. THE MANUFACTURE OF SALT IN THE COLONIES. As common Salt, like iron, is an article of prime necessity, being, in its various dietetic and economical relations, almost as indispensable, and one as widely diffused throngbout nature, its production was very prp- perly an object of attention with the first colonizers in different parts of the country, as it has been with all nations ancient and modern. The object for which this industry was mainly undertaken and prose- cuted was to supply the fisheries which it was designed, to carry on in the bays and on the coasts of America. The deep-sea fishery on the coast of Newfoundland had been commenced as early as 1517, by French and Spanish ships from Biscay and the coast of Normandy. In 1578, the former nation had one hundred and fifty ves- sels there ; .the Spanish, about one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty, and the English from thirty to fifty sail. The first Act of the British Parliament which had any reference to America, was made in 1548, for the protection of English fishermen on that coast from the exac- tions of the Admiralty. At the time of the New England colonization, the British fisheries were rising into some importance. In 1622, about thirty-five English ships sailed for the coast of New England, to engage in the fishery ; and in 1624, about fifty sail. In 1675, about twenty-five thousand six hundred tons of cod were obtained from the American fishery. The early voyagers to the new territories also reported the rivers, harbors, and bays to abound in fish of every description, and of remarkable excel- lence, inviting the line and the net of the emigrant, and promising ample returns for his labor. Tiie' first voyage of Captain Smith on the coast of New England, in 1614, was converted from an abortive search for gold into an essay in the fishing business, in boats constructed on those shores for the purpose. He then recorded the observation : " Salt upon Salt may assuredly be made, if not at the first in ponds, yet, till they be pro- vided, this may be used," — by which he probably meant the making it by boiling of sea water. The fisheries thus first commenced in our waters were a principal resource in the feeble years of the Colonies, and that branch of (278) FIRST SALT-WOHKS. TISIE OF SALT BY THE NATIVES. 279 the national industry lias steadily growrt to the present day. Plymouth early engaged in the business, so far as the limited means of the Colony would permit. Isaac Allerton, one of the original emigrants, and after- ward a merchant among the Dutch at Manhattan, is commended by the early historians for his enterprise in the fishing business at Marblehead, which has ever since been a nursery for that hardy and useful class. The business, however, is represented by Governor Bradford, as " a thing fatal to that Colony." The Assembly of Massachusetts, in 1639, exempted from all duties and public taxes men and property employed in catching, caring, or transporting fish. As an auxiliary to the fisheries, therefore, the Plymouth Colony, and about the same time, a fishing settlement on the site of the present city First Salt- ^^ Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, commenced the first manu- ''»*'• facture of Salt in the Northern Colonies. ' This business was first begun at Cstpe Charles, in Virginia, sometime previous to the year 1620. But having, from some reason, been suffered to fall into decay, the works were that year, under the new hopes inspired by the grant of a Constitution, ordered to be restored upon a scale which it was hoped would not only serve the Colony, but, in a short time, the " great fishings" on the American coast. It was ordered to be made " in abundance, and after the manner of those hotter climates which may prove a great helpe to enrich the plantation." In 1633, Salt appears to have been exported from Virginia to Massachusetts. Under a grant, made by the Council of Plymouth, iu 1621, to Captain John Mason, the partial colonization of New Hampshire was two years after commenced, for the purpose of prosecuting the fur trade and the fisheries. Salt-works were accordingly erected by a company which settled at the (1) Notwithgtanding its universal nse as made and ate Salt prepared from Salt-springs a condiment and an antiseptic. Salt appears near the ancient city of Cuzco. The Florida to have been little, if at all, used in either Indians made Salt neartbe banks of the Ar- way by the Korth American Indians until kansas, from the waters of saline springs they were taught by the Europeans. The which they evaporated in earthen pans mnde tribes of South America, with a few ezcep- for that purpose. Th6 faistorinns of De lions, it is said, on the authority of Herrera, Soto's expedition frequently allude to the Humboldt and other travelers, preserved Salt thus made and moulded in eartheu their meat and fish without its aid, by slicing moulds, into small square cakes, which they and drying the flesh in the smoke and heat exchanged for skins and mantles. Salt was of their fires. I'rom them is derived th^ brought by the Indians of Western New method, still employed in South America, York from the Salines of Onondaga to Alba- of preparing the Jerked beef of that country, ny and Quebec, with their furs, long before The pemmican of the northern Indians is pfo- the manufacture was commenced by the pared in a similar way : sometimes without white settlers in 1788. Beverly relates that the use of fire. Salt was, however, made by in place of salt for seasoning, the Indians several tribes of the natives, and was an ar- used the ashes of hickory, stickweed, and tide of trade among them. The Peravians other plants yielding a sapid ash. 280 COLONIAL SALT-MANUFAOTTJKE mouth of the river Piscataqua, on its soathern bank, which was the com- mencement of the present city of Portsmouth. In the following year Salt-making was attempted in the Colony of Plymouth, whither a Salt- maker was sent from England for that purpose. A letter, of which he was the bearer, from one of the company, says : " The saltman is a skilful and industrious man ; put some to him that may quickly apprebende y' raisterie of it." He seems, however, to have scarcely possessed the qualities or the knowledge of the " misterie" with which he was accredited, for Governor Bradford says of him : "But he whom they sent to make salte was an ignorante, foolish, self-willed fellow ; he bore them in hand he could doe great matters in making salt works, so he was sent to seeke out fitte ground for his purpose ; and after some serche he tould y' Governor that he had found a sufficiente place, with a good bottome to hold water, and .otherwise very conveniente, which he doubted not but in a short time to bring to good perfection and to yeeld them great profit, but he must have eight or ten men to be constantly imployed But he was after some triall so confidente as he caused them to send car- penters to rear a great frame for a large house to receive y" salte and such other uses. But in y" ende all proved vaine For he could not doe any thing but boyle salte in pans, and yet made them y" were joyned with him beleeve there was so grat a misterie in it, as was not easie to be attained, and made them doe many unnecessary things to blind their eys till they discovered his subltie. The next year be was sent to Cape Ann, and y" pans were set up there, where the fishery was, but before somer was out he burnte the house, and the fire was so vehemente as it spoyld the pans, at least some of them, and this was the end of that chargeable business.'" In the more extended and efiScient scheme formed in 1629 for the settlement of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, a judicious intermixture of the most needful classes of trades-people was secured, by the attention of its managers. Among these were a number of fishermen, furnished with a supply of salt aud outfits for the business, and several whose business had an especial relation to that industry. '^ The company after- (1) Bradford's History of Plymouth. at oharges withal." A regard for the good (2) Among these may be mentioned, as order and industry of the community of being some of the earliest at their trades, ^rhich they were the guardians, caused them James Edwards, who united the callings of to dismiss two fishermen for immorality he- sailor, cooper, and cleaver, whose wages were fore the sailing of the ship. In their letter to be, for three years' service at Salem, ten, of,instructions to Governor Endicott, they fifteen, and twenty pounds respectively, direct semi-annual reports to he made of Sydrach Miller, in the same business, was the labor of each person ; and for the pre- engaged with his man for £45 the first year, vention of idleness and irregularity, it was and £60 the second and third years, " to be recommended that a house of correction be ANCIENT IMPORTANCE 01" SALT WORKS. 281 ward sent out Thomas Graves, an engineer, as one skilled in salt works. The action of the Court of Assistants, at their meeting in March, 1628-29, was as follows : " Touching making of salt, it was conseued ffytt that commodetty should be reserued for the general Stocks benefitt, yeet with this proviso that every planter or brother of the company should haue as much as he might aney way haue occasyon to make use of, at as cheape rate as themselves could make it : provided, if the company bee not sufficiently provided for themselffs, their particular men may haue liberty to make for their own expence and use aney way, but not to transport nor sell."' The manufacture of Salt has now become, through the aid of modem science and skill, so much improved and extended, and its supply so constant, abundant, and cheap, that we are scarcely prepared to understand why so much importance was then attached to it, and its manufacture and sale inhibited to private enterprise. But in the fiscal and commercial regulations of most nations of ancient and modern times, Salt has held a very prominent place. In many it has been the subject of monopolies, duties, and taxation, often of a most injurious kind. The salt works of Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, were established about 130 years after the founding of Rome ; and a hundred years later, on account of the high price demanded for salt, the right of vending it was transferred from private hands to the Roman State.' The manufacture and the duty levied upon salt is supposed to have been an important source of the revenue and commercial power of Rome. Much of the maritime influence of Venice, in more recent times, has been ascribed to her salt works. One cause of the revolution in Prance, in the last cen- tury, is believed to have been the oppressive nature and enforcement of the salt code formerly existing in France. The commercial prosperity of both England and France has been stated to bear a constant relation to their salt-producing capabilities. In the last named country, in Austria, and some other countries, the manufacture of Salt is at this day a govern- ment monopoly, as are the Saline Springs of the State of New York. The amount annually paid by the United States for imported salt — which, notwithstanding its constantly increasing production for many years past, and the ample facilities which exist for meeting the entire home demand, get up. They afterward renew their coun- to one calling or other, and noe idle drones gels against idleness, in these prudent terms : be permitted to live among us ; which if "We may not omitt, out of zeal for the you take care now at the first to establish, generall good, once more to putt you in it will bo an undoubted means to prevent a minde to bee very circumspect in the in- world of disorder, and many grievous sinns fancie of the Plantation, to settle some and sinners." good order whereby all persons resident -(1) Felt's Annals of Salem, 162. upon our Plantation may apply themselTes (2) Livy, lib. i. 33, ii. 9. 282 COLONIAL SALT-MANUFACTURE. and a large export trade in addition, still amounts to more than half the total consumption of the country — renders it deserving of more attention than it receives. The manufacture, moreover, offers an inviting field for the employment of capital and of invention. Exigencies have repeatedly arisen, in the history of this country, through the constraints of trade and the privations of new settlements, when the want of this great essential has been severely felt. Its price has occasionally risen to three, five, and even twelve dollars per bushel. Any general interruption of -the foreign trade of the country would even now cause much distress, by suddenly arresting the suppfy of Salt. Cob- siderably more than one-half of that imported into the United States is derived from Great Britain, where the Salt manufacture and trade is very extensive. At the time of which we are writing, mines of rock salt had not been discovered in that country. The principal supply of salt was obtained by boiling sea-water, which was commenced at Lyme over 800 years before ; bat the product was, until a comparatively late period, quite impure. A better article was obtained from France, where the making of salt by solar evaporation was earlier practiced. This process, as conducted on the opposite coast of France, enabled the manufacturers, about the middle of the last century — according to Dr. Campbell' — to make, in two weeks of a dry summer, a sufficiency of salt for the supply of the home and foreign markets of the kingdom. In England the article was subject to a duty, which formed a branch of the Royal revenue. The amount of this duty in 1694 was 3s. 4d. per bushel of 56 lbs. But by numerous statutes regulating its manufacture, sale, and taxation, it was increased in l'?98 to 5s., and eventually to 15s. a bushel, or forty times its original cost. This exorbitant tax at length, in 1823, procured its total repeal.^ This branch of industry which the government of Massachusetts reserved for the future emolument of the Company, appears to have been placed, after the transfer, of authority from London to the Colony, upon the same footing as others. It was commenced in the town of Salem, in 1636, apparently by private enterprise, under leave from the General Court. In June, 1631, some French people arrived, as mentioned in Prince's Chronology, in an English ship, at Piscataway, to carry on the salt-making. This we suppose to have been at the mouth of the Raritan, in New Jersey, although there was a place anciently of the same name in Mary- land. Samuel Winslow, in June, 1641, obtained from the General Court of (I) Campbell's Political Survey of Great (2) McCuUooh's Commercial Dictionary. Britain. PRIVILEGES FOR SALT-MAKING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 283 Massachusetts, the exclusive right for ten years of making salt by a new method, provided he set it up within a year. The same year John Jenny, an enterprising citizen of Plymouth, was allowed, at Clark's Island, " the first land that received the footsteps of the Pilgrims," certain privileges to make salt, which he was to sell to the inhabitants at two shillings per bushel. With him were associated four partners, and the grant embraced thirty acres of laud and the sole privilege for twenty-one years. These attempts were inadequate to the supply of the community, and the scarcity of salt in Massachusetts, and the outlying settlements a few years later, was a cause of much anxiety. It could scarcely be otherwise, so long as the country was dependent upon distant and foreign sources for the supply of an article so important, and liable to all the contingencies of mercantile speculation and uncertain navigation. Hence we find Governor Winthrop writing in November 16th, 1646, to his son at Fisher's Island, near Pequod River: "Here arrived yesterday a Dutch ship of three hundred tons, with two hundred and fifty tons of salt, sent by Mr. Onge, from Lisbon, so as salt was abated in a few hours from thirty-six to sixteen a hogshead. We look to it as a singular providence and testimony of the Lord's care of us.'" The importance of an increased domestic production of salt, induced the younger Winthrop, soon after to come forward with a proposition to manufacture the article by a new method. It was therefore enacted by the General Court, in March, 1647-8, that "upon treaty with Mr. Win- throp, touching the making of salt out of meer salt water, for the use of the country, it is apprehended and assented by both parties, that for incouragment of the said worke, being of so general concernment, it is enacted by authority of this Court, that for so many families or house- holds as are resident within this jurisdiction, Mr. Winthrop shall be paid after the next harvest, so many bushels of wheate or of other corne and wheate to the value of wheate, yet so as the one half of it be in wheate certaine upon the delivery of so many bushels of good white salt at Boston, Charles Towne, Salem, Ipswich,, and Salsbury, to be received and paid for by the Commissioners for public rates upon two months' notice given by Mr. Winthrop— the constables shall have power to levy it. The second year the commission shall receive and pay for two bushels of salt for each family, at the price of 3s. a bushel, and foi' other two years, the commission shall take of, and make payment for two hun- dred tons of salt at 2s. per bushel, at such Salt worke as said Mr. Winthrop shall appoint, and he shall have leave to erect works in any place or places in the jurisdiction not appropriated, etc." In the following May, the Court gran£ed Mr. Winthrop three thousand acres of land at Paquatuck, the (1) Savage's Winthrop Appendix. 284 COLONIAL SALT-MANUFACTtTBE. gvant to be void,' " provided that he set not up a considerable salte worke, we raeane to malje one hundred tun per annum of salt between the Capes of Massachusetts Bay, within three years next coming.'" We are not informed what success attended this enterprise. It was probably encouraging, since the same authorities in May, 1656, granted the proprietor for twenty-one years, the exclusive privilege of making ^alt "after his new way." Again, in May, 1652, Salt-works were ordered to be set up at Cape Ann, which had been, included in the grant to Mason, but was now reunited to Massachusetts. A proposition was made by Edward Burt, to manufacture Salt at that place by a new method, for which he asked and received permission of the Court, "provided he make it only after his own new way." His grant was made for ten years. He was at the same time refused the use of two islands near Salem for that purpose, "as prejudicial to the town in divers regards."' It was about this date that the rich Salt Springs of Western New ■ York, one of the principal sources of domestic supply at the present time, were first brought to the knowledge of European settlers through Salt Springs the Frcuch Jesuits, who were prosecuting their perilous missions in N. York. .^ ^^^ country of the Onondagoes and the Iroquois. Father Lal- lemont is believed to have been the first to mention them. But, on the 16th August, 1654, ten days after his arrival among the Onondagoes, they were observed by Pere Le Moyne, who carried back to the Governor of Canada, a sample of the curious product of the Springs. His dis- covery is thus recorded in his journal of that date : " Le 16, Nous arriuons a I'entree d'vn petit lac, dans vn grand bassin a demy sfeche ; nous gons- tons de I'eau d'vne demon qui la rend puante ; en ayant gouste ie trouvay, que c'estoit vne fontaine d'eau salee, et en effet nous en fismes du sel anssi naturel que celuy de la mer dont nous portons une raontre a Quebec. Ce lac est tres poissonneaus en truites saulmonnees et autres poissons." Father Le Moyne, four years after, communicated a knowledge of the existence of these salines to the Rev. Mr. Megapolonsis at New Amster- dam, who, in conveying the intelligence of so strange a discovery to his classis at Amsterdam, reservedly adds, " whether this b'e true, or whether it be a Jesuit lie, I do not determine.'" Though previously used by the Indians, to a small extent, the springs were not turned to any account in the manufacture of Salt by the white population until near a century and a half after they were first noticed by the, French. About the time of this discovery also (1651), during the Directorship of Stuyvesaut, Salt- (1) Colony Records, ii. 229. (3) O'Callaghan'a New Netherlahds, ii, (2) Colony Records, lli. 275. 303. SALT-MAKING IN NEW YORK. 285 works are mentioned as existing in the Dutch Province within a day's sail of New Amstel (New Castle), on the Delaware, at which ships stopped to complete their lading. As early indeed as 1649, it was charged against the West India Company's servants, by delegates sent to the States General, that they had made useless expenditures of the public money, by the erection of Salt works and in other manufacturing enterprises in the Province. In 1661, Dirck de Wolff, an Amsterdam merchant, obtained for seven years the exclusive right of making Salt in New Netherlands. In aid of the undertaking, he received a grant of Conyen (now Coney) Island from the Dutch authorities. But the islanjj being claimed by the English inhabitants of Gravesend, on Long Island, who were then in rebellion against tlie Dutch sovereignty, the agents of De Wolff had no sooner erected their pans and commenced operations, than all their im- provements were laid waste by the Yankees. Their threats of as summary punishment of the intruders in case they attempted to restore them, were only silenced by the presence of a military force. The outlays of the proprietor were lost, and his project was not revived.'' Salt was in 1654, subject to a duty in New Netherlands of twenty stivers (forty cents) per bushel, but the duties on imports were the next year reduced to ten per cent. Its price between the years 1630, and 1646, in the patroonery of Van Rensselaer on the Hudson, as shown by the account books, was seven florins thirteen stivers per ton for imported white Salt, or two florins twelve stivers per half barrel, the florin of twenty stivers being equal to forty cents. In 1660, William Beekman, Vice- Director on the Delaware, in a letter to Stnyvesant, complains of the price of Salt being "exceedingly tough, asking three to four guilders for a single schepel," (three pecks.)' The year following was one of great scarcity in New Netherlands, and Salt was sold at twelve guilders (four dollars and eighty cents) the bushel at New Amsterdam. The high price of the article was probably the inducement which De Wolff found to attempt the manufacture in that year. In the Navigation Act of 1663, which prohibited the importation into the Colonies of any of the manufactures of Europe, except through the I ports of Great Britain, an exception was made in favor of Salt intended for the fisheries of New England and some other places, and of wines from Madeira and the Azores. These might be carried direct in ships navigated according to the laws of trade. The provisions of this clause were afterward, by an Act of Parliament, in l'12'l, extended also to Penn- sylvania, and subsequently to New York. (1 ) Hazard's Annals of Pennsylvania, 239. (3) Hazard's Annals of Fennsylrania. (2) O'Callaghan's New Netherlands, ii. 462. i^J COLONIAL BALT-MAKUFACTURE. The General Court of Virginia, in 1662, enacted that, after the first September, 1683, no Salt should 'be imported into the county of North- ampton, " under penalty of confiscation of ship and goods, to the end that E. S., who hath erected a Salt-work in those parts, may be encouraged in his endeavours to promote the good of the country." The worljs were the property of Colonel Scarborough, and were situated at Accomack-, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, where the manufacture of Salt had been commenced over forty years before. But not answering the public expectation, the Act was repealed four years after, and the free importa- tion of Salt permitted. The climate of the United States, from its warmth and dryness, and the clearness of the atmosphere, is peculiarly adapted to the manufacture of Salt by solar evaporation. This hygrometric adaptation was early infer- red and stated, from the fact that the fishermen of Cape Cod, in 1629, brought back from the sea-shore portions of good Salt spontaneously pro- duced by the evaporation of water left by the tide upon the rocks and in the marshes. The latter were so encrusted that the salt adhered to the shoes of the fishermen as they crossed them.' "Here," writes Plantage- net, in 1648, "the glorious ripening Sunne, as warm as Italy or Spain, will bring rare fruits, wines, and such store of Aniseed and Licoras, as well as Bay Salt, made without boiling, only in pans with the Sun, that each laborer may make six bushels a day, worth in these three, twelve shillings a day." The Swedish Government, which, in 1642, resuscitated its expiring colony on the Delaware, instructed Governor Printz to engage in the manufacture of Salt by evaporation. In 1671, a Committee, appointed in October of the previous year, by the Court of Massachusetts, to confer with Richard Wharton, of Boston, respecting his mode of making Salt by the sun, reported favorably, and advised the Court " to encourage a Company for that purpose, which return the Court approved." Salt was, in early times, made by the solar method on the shores of Long Island, by exposing sea-water in shallow vats to the action of the sun and wind. Mines of Rock Salt, of which valuable fossil deposits have of late years been found in some of our western States, were about this time (1670) first discovered in England. The following description, based on the Papers of the Royal Society, will enable us to judge of the state of this manufacture in England about the period of the revolution of 1688 :— " The first bed of Rock Salt had been discovered not long after the (!) Higginaon'a Now England Plantation, SALT BT SOLAE EVAPOKATION. 287 Restoration, in Cheshire, but does not appear to have been worked in that age. The Salt, which was obtained by a rude process from brine- pits, was held in no high estimation. The pans in which the manufacture was carried on exhaled a sulphurous stench ; and when the evaporation was complete, the substance which was left was scarcely fit to be used with food. Physicians attributed the scorbutic and pulmonary complaints which were common among the English, to this unwholesome condiment. It was therefore seldom used by the upper and middle classes ; and there was a regular and considerable importation from France. At present, our springs and mines not only supply our own immense demand, but send, annually, seven hundred millions of pounds of excellent Salt to foreign countries.'*' The several grants which we have mentioned of exclusive privileges for Salt-making in Massachusetts, emanating from the same legislative body, and covering the same periods, must be supposed— although the specifi- cations have not come down to us — to r^fer to processes sufficiently dis- tinct from each other and from that of Mr. Winthrop, as not to confiict. They are, at the same timC) an evidence that a spirit of enterprise and of improvement was already awake in regard to the supply of an important commodity. Mr. Winthrop, at least, may be supposed to have been acquainted with all the latest improvements in the Salt manufacture, both in England and on the Continent, where he had traveled much. He was a man of learn- ing and genius, of an active and inquisitive mind, and beside being himself ti chemist, was the intimate friend and correspondent of Robert Boyle — then engaged in investigating the properties of sea water and kindred subjects — and of many of the first chemists, naturalists, and philosophers of the age. With several of these he was associated, in 1660, in the formation of the Royal Society, of which, the published Transactions contain several of his contributions. His enterprise and love of experi- ment, as well as many other considerations, would lead him to adopt, in the new home of himself and family, such recent improvements as be- longed to a manufacture in which he was interested. The encouragement given him by the local authorities was a judicious one. But of the nature of those improvements we have now no means of judging. About the year 1689, Sir Nathaniel Johnson, who had been several years Governor of the Leeward Lslands, "being fond of projects," as we are informed, took up his residence in South Carolina, as having in soml " a climate favorable to his views. In addition to the cultivation Carolina. ^^ ^.^j^^ ^^^^ ^.^^^ ^^^ ^ ^^ ^-^^^^ turned his attention, also, to the (1) Hacauley's Hist. England, ch, iii. 288 COLONIAL SALT-MANUFACTURE. manufacture of Salt. He named the place selected for his experiments on the Sewee Bay, the " Salt Ponds." But what success attended his efforts is not known. The Legislature of that Province, in 1725, enacted two laws to encourage the making of Salt in the Colony." In lt46, John Jerom and Stephen Jeroni, Jr., proposed to set up "evaporating pans for the making of Salt in Connecticut.'' Similar attempts continued to be made in different parts of the country, with more or less encouragement from local authorities, to produce a sup-, ply of this great essential, until after the Revolution. Small Salt-works were erected, and existed for a time, along the seaboard, for boiling sea water, which the cheapness of fuel rendered more common than that of evaporation by solar heat. The consumption of Salt was always large in the country. The extent of the fisheries, the large amount of salted provisions consumed and exported, and the practice of dispensing it to (tattle, created a large demand. The principal supply of Salt, before the Revolution was obtained by the numerous lumber, provision, and tobacco ships, which traded to Spain, Portugal, France, the Wine Islands, and other Salt-producing countries in Europe, and to the West Indies. The provincial exports being bulky, and the return cargoes much less so. Salt, for the fisheries, was usually taken in as ballast, or as a part lading. Although the article did not pay as a full cargo, its high price, and its supposed benefit to the ship timbers, rendered it acceptable and profitable as part freight. Pine Salt, of a higher price, for culinary use, was obtained in small quantities from England, but was not well suited to the fisheries. For some time pre- ceding the War much was brought from Liverpool in sacks of four bush- els each. Some of that obtained from the American islands appears to have been of a very inferior quality. The Legislature of Massachusetts found it necessary, in order to sustain the character of the fish sent from the Province, to decree, in May, 1610, that "fishing, being advantageous and likely to be impaired by using Tortudas Salt, which leaves spots on fish by reason of shells and trash in it, that no fish salted with Tortudas Salt, and thereby spotted, shall be accounted merchantable fish." Much of the Salt obtained from these islands was the product of spontaneous crystallization, and was gathered and sold in its impnre state at a low price by the inhabitants, or was collected by American crews without other expense. Nor had the domestic manufacture, at this date, made any progress toward supplying a better article, at least by the solar me- thod. Randolph, the Collector of Customs in 1613, reported that in (1) Ramsay's Hist. S. Carolina. FIRST ATTEMPT AT MAKING SOLAK SALT. 289 New England there was "no Allam, nor Copperas nor Salt made by their sun." The interruption of the foreign trade by the War of Independence occasioned a distressing scarcity of Salt, and called into existence many small establishments along our shores from Cape Cod to Georgia. In these the water was pumped from the sea by hand or by the aid of wind- mills, and was boiled in large kettles, often in the open air, yielding an inferior article of Salt, imperfectly purified from the lime and other foreign constituents of the brine. The apparatus was ill-constructed for its purpose, and two hundred and fifty gallons of water were required to make a bushel of Salt. The expense of labor, time and fael, was great, and the product crys- tallized in fine grains, was small and defectire in quality. About the year 1774, or 1775, an observation similar to that which has been mentioned, of saline particles left by the sun and air in the clam shells, lying upon the beach, was made by the salt-boilers at Harwich, on the Peninsula of Cape Cod, where one of the first essays in Salt-making in Massachusetts had long before been attempted. This hint, led to some experiments, and soon after to the first attempt, in this country, on any extended scale, to make Salt by solar evaporation. Mr. Ammiel Weeks, of Harwich, succeeded in making a sufficiency for his own use, and about the same time the manufacture was attempted without success at the Isle of Shoals. A year or two after, John Sears, a mariner, conceived the idea of making Salt more economically than by the boiling process, and in association with Edward Sears, Christopher and Edward Crowell, erected Salt-works on Quivet Neck, in the town of Dennis, in Barnstable County. They constructed a vat one hundred feet in length and ten in width, with a flooring of white pine on oaken sleepers, with planked sides and ends, and a curiously constructed roof. The " bottom," originally all on the same level, was afterward divided to obtain a crystallizing vat. For two years, all the water was conveyed to the works in buckets from the sea shore. Toward the close of the war, Mr. Sears obtained from the British ship of war, Somerset, stranded on the Cape, a pump, which he set up and used until 1790, when he erected a wind-mill for the purpose. This mill he is said to have constructed in secret, upon the plan then in use, on account of the ridicule with which he was assailed. The manufactory of tt^e ingenious and enterprising owner, which was the original of those now ppnerally in use, was denominated " John Sear's Folly," so often does the fancied wisdom of his cotemporaries withhold from its author, the full credit or the benefit of a sagacious innovation. At this time there were many small manufactories in that and other parts of Massachusetts for making Salt by artificial heat. It was carried 19 290 COLONIAL SALT-MANUFACTURE. on in Harwich, for about twenty years, by Messrs. Obed E. Smith and Job Chase, and throughout the Revolution. In Falmouth, Barnstable, and other parts of the Peninsula-, were similar establishments. The example of Mr. Sears, however, induced others to construct works upon his plan. At Broad Point, in Brewster, Mr. Scott Clark, and Rev. Mr. Dunster before the termination of the war, erected works of that kind with three vats. They had no pump for several years, but were afterward provided with a hand-pump. In the same town, Nathaniel Freeman had Salt-works about the same time; and in 17f9, the first on the new plan were built in Barnstable, by Messrs. Hinckly & Gorham. Salt at that time sold for six dollars per bushel. Its high price, and the proximity to the fisheries, led many others into the manufacture upon Mr. Sears' method ; but on the revival of foreign trade, after the peace, a large number of the works were abandoned. The business has ever since been conducted upon the shores of the bay, and the numerous wind-mills for raising the brine, which thickly lined the beach in almost every town on the Peninsula, twenty years ago, gave it quite a unique appearance. In 1199, John Seal's took out a patent for a machine for manufacturing Salt, and the following year another was given to Hattil Killey for a method of covering Salt-vats from the weather by the plan adopted on the Cape. This contrivance, by which the roofs of two vats were connected by a strong beam turning upon a upright post in the centre, enabling them to be easily removed and replaced, was an essential improvement upon the old system of making Salt in uncovered boilers or vats. The Salt made by this system was of a good quality, white and pure, and weighed from seventy to seventy-five pounds per bushel. The process being conducted by the use of three or four rooms on dififerent planes effected the separa- tion of the various sulphates and other contaminating impurities of the bittern, and was more economical, by yielding Epsom and Glauber's Salts, as residual products of the operation — the latter being crystallized during the winter. An abortive effort to make Salt by the sun was made by General Pal- mer, on the Marshes in Boston Neck, about this time. The manufacture of Salt was also carried on, in small establishments, in many places along the shores of New Jersey, Delaware, and the more southern States, dur- ing the Revolution. A number of those in New Jersey were bnrned or demolished by the British troops during the war. Several Salt-works on the south side of Squam Inlet, in Monmouth County, were thus destroyed in 1118. A large Salt-making establishment was owned by a Dr. Harris, near Townsend's Sound, in Cape May County, which was threatened with a like fate, because the proprietor was in the habit of selling gun- SCARCITY OP SALT. ANECDOTE OF WASHINGTON. 291 powder.' The manufacture being carried on near tlie seashore was more exposed to hostile attacks than operations conducted in the interior. So insecure were the owners of such works that, in September, 1111, David Forman and partners memorialized Congress for a guard of one hundred men to protect a Salt-works they proposed erecting. The extreme scarcity of this article induced the Continental Congress, on June 3d, of the same year, to appoint a committee of three to devise ways and means of supplying the United States with Salt ; and, ten days after, acting upon their report, passed a resolution advising the several States to offer such liberal encouragement to persons importing Salt for the use of the said Slate, as should be effectual. Each State was also recommended to employ, at the public charge, one or more vessels to import Salt for its own immediate use. The agents of the United States in Europe and the West Indies were to be directed by the Secret Committee to effect the impor- tation of Salt in all vessels bound to America on account of the United States ; all masters of vessels taking in cargoes for America on account of the United States, were to be instructed, if possible, to ballast with Salt ; and the several States were recomtoended to erect, and encourage in the most liberal and effectual manner, proper works for the making of Salt.' But the scarcity and high cost of Salt, produced in the Atlantic towns by the suspension of foreign trade ; by the absorption of labor into the army ; and the insecurity of capital invested in such works, was rendered the normal condition of the frontier settlements, by the imperfect means of communication between them and the seaports. After the termination of the old French war, in 1763, emigration took up its march toward the fertile regions of the West, and, in different directions from the principal (1) The following is related in Thatcher's the aids gave the order, and the next day Military Journal, 1st January, 17S0, during his Excellency's table was amply prorided. the cantonment at Morristown, New Jersey, Mrs. Thompson was sent for, and told that the darkest period of the conflict, when the she had done very wrong to expend her own army seldom had six days' provisions on money, for it was not known when she could hand, and the Continental money was so do- be repaid : " I owe you," said his Exoel- preciated that "four months' pay of a pri- lency, "too much already, to permit the vate would not procure for his family a sin- debt to be increased, and our situation is gle bushel of wheat." "We have nothing not, at this moment, such as to induce very but the rations to cook, sir," said Mrs. strong hopes." " Dear sir," said the good Thompson, a very worthy Irish woman and old lady, " It is always darkest just before housekeeper, to General Washington, daylight; and I hope your Excellency will " Well, Mrs. Thompson, you must then cook forgive me for bartering the salt for other the rations, for I have not a farthing to give necessaries which are now on the table." you." " If you please,i sir, let one of the Salt was eight dollars a bushel, and could gentlemen give me an order for six bushels always be exchanged with the country-peo- ofsalt." " Six bushels of salt ! — for what?" pie for articles of provisions. — Barber