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CHAPTER XVI.
THE TRADES. TO
appreciate the
full effect which the great fire had upon the boot and
shoe trade of Boston, and to realize how great was the loss to the
commercial
world, it will be necessary in this, as in writing of the wool and the
dry-goods trades, to consider the time taken, and the capital used, in
establishing this feature of the city’s commerce. Neither Boston, nor
any
branch of its traffic, was built in a day. Especially true is this of
the boot
and shoe trade. From the smallest of beginnings, and from the hardest
of work,
did the shoe and leather trade begin; yet its growth was marvellous. In
a
half-century it arose from an unpretending retail bartering to such
importance,
that ships, steamboats, and railways found themselves almost
exclusively in its
employ. Manufactories arose in all the suburban towns, as the city
proper could
not contain them; and even into New Hampshire and Vermont went the
searchers
after favorable sites for the building of shoe-shops. Pearl Street with
its
millions of wealth, and High Street with its mountains of leather, were
only
the heads of the great trade whose body and limbs extended far back
into New
England, and to supply the demands of which thousands of men and women
were
paid their weekly wages. Fifty
years ago,
the shoe and leather trade was of such insignificance as to deserve no
mention.
There were no large manufacturing establishments; only one or two
Wholesale
houses, and a number of “custom boot and shoe makers.” In the
early
history of the shoe-trade, the out-of-town manufacturers used to drive
to town
with their wagonloads of boots, made by hand and with downright hard
work. They
always stopped at Wilde’s Hotel, in Elm Street, which was kept for many
years
by Enoch Patterson. There, about the door, the bar-room, or the parlor,
those
pioneers of this great traffic sold their shoes and boots, and
purchased their
new supplies of heather: and the visitor at Wilde’s on Wednesday Or
Saturday
would have seen those little squads of shoemakers and leather-dealers;
and he
could not fail to note how, day by day, the numbers increased, the
transactions
grew in magnitude, while news of shoe-factories and of tanneries being
constructed in the neighboring towns filled up the hours of gossip
about the
“office fireplace.” Wilde’s tavern was the shoe and leather exchange,
to all
intents and purposes, until the numbers and wealth of the traders led
them to
transfer their headquarters to the American House near by. The first
traders
were Quakers from Lynn, among whom Nathan Burd, Isaiah Burd, Micajah
Pratt, and
Samuel Boyce, are considered the earliest shoemakers for the wholesale
trade. About
forty years
ago, the first wholesale boot and shoe store was opened on South Market
Street
by Amasa Walker, who retired from business about twenty-five years ago,
and who
has been a member of Congress. Mr. Walker now resides in West
Brookfield. He
entered into a partnership, by which the firm became known as Walker,
Emerson,
and Co.; and still exists, after many changes, in the house of Potter,
White,
and Bailey. Soon after
Mr.
Walker’s venture, the manufacturers whose establishments were out of
the city
began to open offices and take stores for the exhibition and storage of
their
stock; and, in a surprisingly small space of time, these salesrooms
grew into
wholesale warehouses. These were nearly all situated about Quincy
Market, and
in Blackstone, Fulton, and Central Streets. It was not until about twenty years ago that the boot and shoe dealers began to move into Pearl Street, tending, like all the other branches of trade, to the southward. Fifteen years ago, there was a general stampede of the dry-goods dealers from Pearl Street into Franklin and Devonshire and Federal Streets; while the boot and shoe manufacturers followed close in their wake, and used the whole street, with several leading from it, exclusively for the wholesale boot, shoe, and leather trade. The last dry-goods firm to move away from Pearl Street was Houghton, Sawyer, and Co. About eight years ago, the leather-dealers, who are naturally closely allied with the boot and shoe traders, began to move into Congress and High Streets; the latter being used, at their advent, for dwellings by Irish families, they having been, a score of years before, the home of Boston’s most prominent men. It was made much wider; and magnificent stone buildings took the place of the tenement-houses, until it was one of the finest streets in the city. S. R. Spaulding was the first person who constructed a store on High Street. It was only a year before the fire that the last dwelling disappeared; and that was replaced by a granite structure, built also by Mr. Spaulding. FRANKLIN STREET, LOOKING UP FRANKLIN STREET, LOOKING DOWN Meantime
the
shoe-trade became so crowded in Pearl Street, that it began to move
into South
Street, where, at the time of the fire, considerable improvement had
already
been made. Pearl
Street was a
very fashionable dwelling-place forty years ago, before the dry-goods
trade
moved in; and at that time there were no business-hoses nearer than
Kilby
Street. Many
people now
living well remember the mansion of Mr. Pratt, known as “The
Pearl-street
House,” with its large garden, and the houses owned by the Perkins
family, one
of which was given by Col. Thomas H. Perkins to the Institution for the
Blind,
and another of which was presented to the Boston Athenæum by James
Perkins, and
which was occupied by that corpora ion for many years. The site of the
old
Athenæum was covered by Gov. Claflin’s wholesale store. They will also
recall
the stately mansion at the corner of Pearl and High Streets, so well
known as
“Harris’s Folly.” Some idea of the magnitude of this trade, which
brought in so
much wealth and supported so many great men (among whom were Henry
Wilson,
William Claflin, John B. Alley, and Amasa Walker), can be formed by the
amount
of freight it was obliged to send by the railways during each year. In 1871,
220,000,000
pounds of hides and leather, and 1,636,152 cases of boots and shoes,
were
transported on account of the manufacturers and dealers of New England.
Estimating the average weight of hides at twenty pounds, of leather at
fifteen
pounds a side, and of boots and shoes at eighty pounds a case, and the
distance
carried at a hundred and seventy-five miles for hides and leather, and
a
thousand miles for boots and shoes, the aggregate number of tons
carried one
mile was 84,696,080. After the
abandonment of Wilde’s Tavern (for neither hotel nor street could hold
them
all), the American House was made the general rendezvous of the trade
until the
recent organization of the Shoe and Leather Association, and the
opening of an
“exchange” in Pearl Street. In “The
Shoe and
Leather Reporter” of a recent date. we find the following statement
with regard
to the losses sustained by the merchants engaged in this traffic:— “There were for hundred and fifty-five firms
and individuals burned out by the great fire. of these a hundred and
ninety-nine were wholesale boot and shoe dealers and manufacturers, a
hundred
and fifty-nine leather-dealers, fourteen hide-dealers, and the rest
engaged in
collateral branches, such as findings, last-makers, &c. It is
estimated
that there were destroyed three hundred thousand sides of sole-leather,
worth a
million two hundred thousand dollars; a million dollars’ worth of
sheep-skins
and linings; five hundred thousand sides of finished leather, wax, kip,
&c., worth two million dollars; forty thousand hides, dry and
green, of
upper-leather; and fifteen thousand barrels of tanners’ oils, worth
three
hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, besides large quantities of
other
goods pertaining to the trade. We append some individual statistics:
Coon,
Crocker, and Hobart, loss a hundred and thirty thousand dollars;
Milton, Gale,
and Co., loss forty-five thousand dollars; James A. Roberts, loss
sixteen
thousand dollars; Warren Mallard and Son, loss twenty thousand dollars;
L. and
M. Faxon, loss ten thousand dollars; Claflin and Thayer, loss sixty
thousand
dollars; Albert Thompson and Co., loss two hundred thousand dollars;
Horace
Billings and Son, loss fifty-five thousand dollars; Henry Poor and
Sons, loss
some four hundred and fifty thousand dollars; James O. Safford, loss
fifty
thousand dollars on building, besides some fifty thousand hides; Way,
Hewins,
and Reed, loss a hundred and forty thousand dollars; F. Upton and Co.,
loss
twenty thousand sides sole-leather; Marsh Brothers, loss twenty
thousand dollars;
E. B. Phillips, loss a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars;
Leonard,
Bundy, and Co., loss fifty thousand dollars; J. and H. K. Osborn, loss
twenty-two thousand dollars; B. G. Boardman and Co., loss ninety
thousand
dollars on buildings, besides ten thousand hides; Bucking and Brown,
loss
forty-four thousand dollars; Edward Spaulding and Bumstead, loss twenty
thousand dollars (their store was worth sixty-five thousand dollars,
and was
owned by the special partner, S. R. Spaulding); A. L. White and Co.,
loss
thirty-three thousand dollars; Sears and Warner, loss sixty thousand
dollars;
Moseley and Dunn, loss sixty thousand dollars; L. Beebe, loss
seventy-five
thousand dollars; Hubbard and Blake, loss twenty-nine thousand dollars;
Shaw,
Taylor, and Co., loss five thousand dollars; Skilton and Dole, loss
fifty
thousand dollars; W. and E. Sawyer, loss nine thousand dollars;
Johnson, Eaton,
and Brackett, loss a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The principal
dealers
in sole-leather, whose names follow, lost an aggregate of two hundred
and fifty
thousand sides: F. Shaw and Brothers; Atherton, Stetson, and Co.; Henry
Poor
and Son; H. Billings and Son; Low, Hersey, and Co.; Spaulding and
Bumstead; N.
W. Rice and Co.; Healey, Farnam, and Co.; A. L. White and Co.; Albert
Thompson
and Co.; Thomas E. Proctor and Co.; F. Upton and Co.; Henry Bond; J. W.
Low; E.
and M. Faxon; J. P. Rogers and Co.; McConnell and Gardner; B. G.
Boardman and
Co.; John B. Alley and Co.; Johnson, Eaton, and Brackett.” By “The
Commercial
Bulletin” of Sept. 2, we find that Pearl Street, during the previous
Week, had
been “literally crowded with heavy teams of all kinds, loading up
shoe-boxes to
be taken to the various shipping-points; and Pearl Street has been one
of the
busiest localities in Boston. The California trade is gradually
dropping off as
new factories spring up in that State. One Boston firm, who has two
factories
in San Francisco, turned out last year over two million dollars’ worth
of
goods. One of these factories is operated by Chinese labor.” The
officers of the
New-England Shoe and Leather Association at the date of the fire
deserve a
place in history; and we give them accordingly: John Cummings,
president;
Edward P. Bond, secretary; and E. W. Bumstead, treasurer. At the
earliest
possible moment, land was leased of the city on the Fort-hill clearing
for
temporary stores while the burned district was being rebuilt; and,
within a few
days, iron buildings of imposing size and shape sheltered many of the
energetic
firms connected with that trade. The
wool-trade was
an important branch of the city’s commercial interests: it was nearly
all
located on Devonshire, Franklin, and adjoining streets; and its
warehouses and
stock on hand were, consequently, destroyed. It had long been of
considerable
importance, but was largely on the increase at the date of that great
misfortune. The amount of wool imported during the ten preceding years
sums up
as follows: 1863, 14,147,278 pounds; 1864, 19,783,599 pounds; 1865,
11,821,280
pounds; 1866, 17,993,826 pounds; 1867, 11,480,507 pounds; 1868,
7,080,855
pounds; 1869, 14,629,743 pounds; 1870, 12,244,293 pounds; 1871,
28,144,159
pounds; 1872, 39,691,990 pounds. These amounts, together with large
quantities
of native wool, were used in the manufacture of fabrics for the
American
markets; and the destruction of such quantities seriously retarded the
factories in the vicinity of Boston. The
quantity of
wool destroyed was given by the best authorities as follows: Say a
hundred and
fifty thousand pounds fine scoured, forty-five thousand pounds tub,
four
million pounds fleece, a million pounds pulled, a hundred thousand
pounds Cape,
a million eight hundred thousand pounds California, two hundred
thousand pounds
South American, a million five hundred thousand pounds Australian, five
hundred
thousand pounds sundries; the total value being about four million five
hundred
thousand dollars. There were fourteen million seven hundred thousand
pounds in
the United-States bonded warehouse; which, fortunately, were not
destroyed. The losses
of those
engaged in the paper interest were large. More than three-fourths of
all the
paper warehouses and firms in the city were completely burned out.
Every one of
the large houses was destroyed. Rice, Kendall, and Co.; H. M. Clarke
and Co.;
Cutter, Tower,. and Co.; S. D. Warren and Co.; George W. Wheelwright
and Co.;
Wilder and Co.; Lyman Hollingsworth and Co.; B. H. Thayer and Co., —
suffered
more or less severely. These houses were mostly situated on Milk,
Congress, and
Federal Streets, in the section where the fire Was hottest; and,
consequently,
but little of the stock they contained could be saved. The total loss
was put
in round figures, by a member of one of the most prominent of the
burned-out
houses, at three and a quarter millions in stock. The stock in store at
the
time of the fire was not very large. of the leading houses, Rice,
Kendall, and
Co. probably had the largest stock on hand. This they valued at from
seventy to
seventy-five thousand dollars. The effect
on the
trade by the fire was not of a disastrous nature. The progress of
business was
of course checked; but that was all. There were no failures, and no
suspensions: there were hardships and “put-backs.” But the men who
suffered
here, like those in other branches of trade, put on a brave look, and
pushed
ahead out of their difficulties speedily and grandly. When the fire
came,
business was opening up good. The mills outside of the city were
working on
full time, and orders were plentiful. After it, in less than a week,
orders
came in; and the report from the trade generally was, “We’re looking
up, and
will soon be out of the woods.” The
dry-goods trade
and its branches affected by the fire was so extensive, and its numbers
so
great, that its very magnitude prevents any extended notice. It will be
a long
time before any accurate estimate of it can be made; and even then
there must
be much more searching and calculating than will be made by busy
Bostonians.
The wholesale dry-goods business represented a capital of fifty
millions; and
it was nearly all destroyed in the fire. The names and losses would
fill an
entire book. How three
hundred
large establishments could be consumed, with nearly all the stock on
hand, and
yet the trade move on, and there be so few bankrupts, is a study for
those who
have not been made acquainted with the reserve capital and energy which
Boston
ever holds. Within twelve hours after the fire, hundreds of dry-goods
merchants
were on their way to New York to purchase new stocks while their
partners
selected new rooms. It was said by cautious calculators, that there was
more
merchandise destroyed which belonged to the dry-goods trade than to all
the
others combined. It was enormous, but just how much no one can ever
tell. The
clothing-business
was second only to the dry-goods trade in its effects upon the general
traffic
of Boston. The thousands of working-girls thrown out of employment, the
estimation of capital lost, and the time which it was necessary to take
for the
securing of other quarters, served to disturb the community more than
any other
one thing that happened in that week of horrors. The
hardware-trade
also suffered severely, and a hundred other branches of mercantile life
lost
more or less. The commerce of the whole land was injured by it; and who
shall
say that the loss to the world, and the pain it entailed, were not
greater than
it would have been had a territory of the same size been burned over
among the
dwellings? At least two hundred and fifty acres of business-territory,
if we
reckon the different flats of the buildings destroyed, were taken away
from the
trade of Boston; yet her business prospered, and jokes were far more
frequent
than tears. The number
of firms
burned out, according to estimates, on Summer Street, was a hundred and
twelve;
on Washington Street, thirty-nine; on Federal Street, ninety-two; on
Devonshire
Street, forty-one; on Otis Street, seventeen; on Franklin Street,
forty; on
High Street, eighteen; on Arch Street, seven; on Bussey Place, four; on
Congress
Street, ninety-seven; on Milk Street, seventy-four; on Pearl Street, a
hundred
and eighty-five; on Channing Street, three; on Kingston Street, three;
on Broad
Street, ten; on Winthrop Square, six; on Water Street, twenty-three; on
Bath
Street, three; on Liberty Square, eleven; on Lindall Street, five; on
Hawley
Street, fifteen; on Morton Place, five; on Kilby Street, thirty-six; on
Purchase Street, six; on Chauncey Street, two. We also
give the
number of firms by trades: Ale and beer, two; auctioneers, five;
bagging, two;
billiards, one; builders, two; books, two; boots and shoes, two hundred
and
twelve; blacksmith, one; bookbinders, three; bankers and brokers, six;
belting,
for; brushes, three; carpets, three; clothing, twenty-four;
cloth-finishing, one;
coopers, two; carpenters, nine; cotton, six; curriers, four;
commission,
forty-five; coal, six; corsets, one; cigars, four; confectioner, one;
cutlery,
two; carriages, three; crockery, eight; dry-goods, sixty-six;
drain-pipe, one;
drugs and medicines, chemicals and dye-stuffs, eleven; express-office,
one;
engraver, one; furniture, one; findings (boots and shoe), thirty-three;
flour,
one; furnishing-goods, eleven; fancy goods, twelve; furs, five;
grocers, five;
gas-fitting, one; gloves, two; glassware, four; glue, two; hides,
eight;
harness, one; hosiery, two; hats and caps, ten; hat-blocks, one;
hardware,
fourteen; hotels and eating-houses, six; hoop-skirts, two; hair, six;
ivory,
one; ink, three; importer, one; jewelry, plated ware, and clocks,
thirteen;
junk and waste, four; leather, a hundred and forty-five; lithographing,
two;
linens, three; locks, one; leather-binder, one; liquors, one; metals,
steel,
iron, and brass, nine; machinery and steam-engines, fourteen;
millinery, eight;
mercantile agency, one; needles, one; nails, one; oil, six;
oil-carpeting, one;
paper-boxes, three; photograph, one; paper-hangings, two; paper,
paper-stock,
and twines, twenty-six; patterns, one; paper-rulers, three; produce,
one;
palm-leaf, two; painters, two; publishers, six; patent-rights, one;
printers
and printers’ materials, twenty-three; plumbers, three; platers, two;
periodicals, twenty-four; railroad-supplies, three; railroad-dépôt,
one;
ruffling, one; rubber-goods, five; roofer, one; sewing-machines, two;
small wares,
ten; shirts, cuffs, and collars, ten; stationery, six; soda-water
apparatus,
one; saddlery, five; straw-goods, six; saws, one; shoe-machinery, four;
shoddy,
one; sponges, One; spool-cotton, two; scales, two; screws, one; straps,
one;
suspenders, one; silk-goods, five; stoves, one; stable, one; storage,
one;
teamster, one; type-founders, three; trunks, one; tailors and tailors’
goods,
eight; trimmings, seven; upholsterers, four; umbrellas, one; varnish,
one;
wool, twenty-one; woollens, twenty-two; wringers, one; wax-works, one;
tags,
one; yeast and essences, one: total, nine hundred and ninety-eight. To
which
may be added boarding-hoses, six; dwelling-houses, forty-three;
lodging-houses,
fourteen; tenement-houses, four: total, sixty-seven. |