18th century AD

Magazine Antiques, May, 2003 by Kemble Widmer, II, Judy Anderson

Between 1740 and 1780, three towns on the North Shore of Massachusetts possessed sufficient population and economic prosperity to support the furniture-making trades: Salem, Ipswich and Marblehead. However, a review of current literature--including books, articles, auction catalogues, and dealers' advertisements--reveals that a disproportionately high percentage of furniture--mainly case pieces-has been attributed to Salem compared to the two other towns. (1) In fact, a number of pieces attributed to Salem were almost certainly made in Marblehead. No town in colonial America capable of supporting a cadre of furniture craftsmen has been less appreciated than Marblehead, and no Massachusetts town has a higher percentage of surviving pieces signed by its known cabinetmakers. The latter include Nathan Bowen, Francis Cook, Ebenezer Martin Sr., and Benjamin Tyler Reed. (2) This article will discuss the elements of design and construction that, taken together, point to an object's probable origin in Marblehead.

Marblehead was founded in 1629 as a commercial fishing enterprise, and its earliest settlers were rugged fishermen. Most had emigrated from England's west country. Their reputation for being tempestuous and fiercely nonconformist probably stems from the grueling conditions and dangers of their trade: fishing in the North Atlantic. (3) By 1660 an official report to Charles II (r. 1660-1685) acclaimed Marblehead "the greatest Towne for ffishing in New England." (4)

For years, the prodigious catch was processed-salted and dried-in Marblehead, but was then sold to merchants, primarily in Salem or Boston, who reaped the profits of the fishermen's hard and dangerous labor. But after 1713, which marked the end of two decades of Anglo-French wars, new trade opportunities began to develop, (5) and in 1715 John Barnard, a young minister, arrived in Marblehead on assignment from Boston's Brattle Street Church. He was to have a profound impact on the town's fortunes; the changes he helped bring about are best described in his own words:

When I came, there was not so much as one proper carpenter, nor mason, nor tailor, nor butcher in the town, nor anything of a market worth naming; but they had their houses built by country workmen, and their clothes made out of town, and supplied themselves with beef and pork from Boston, which drained the town of its money. But now, we abound in artificers, and some of the best, and our markets large, even to a full supply. And what above all I woulde remark, there was not so much as one foreign trading vessel belonging to the town, nor for several years after I came into it; though no town had really greater advantages in their hands. The people contented themselves to be slaves that digged in the mines, and left the merchants of Boston, Salem, and Europe to carry away the gains; by which means the town was always in dismally poor circumstances, involved in debt to the merchants more than they were worth; nor could I find twenty families in it that, upon the best examination;, could stand upon their own le gs; they were generally as rude, swearing, drunken and fighting a crew, as they were poor. Whereas, [now] not only are the public ways vastly mended, but the manners of the people greatly cultivated; and we have many gentlemenlike and polite families. (6)

Barnard had studied the fish markets and perceived that Marblehead could bypass outside middlemen. He convinced Joseph Swett Jr. (1689-1745), a local cordwainer, to send a small quantity of fish to Barbados for direct sale. The experiment was so successful that after reinvesting his profits from this and other early voyages, Swett was able to build or buy a number of vessels. (7) His and others' success attracted other accomplished mercantile families to Marblehead--from Salem, Manchester, and Boston. (8) The new families prospered, intermarried with the older established families, and gained wealth and influence throughout New England. (9) In the 1740s Robert "King" Hooper (1709-1790) of Marblehead was "perhaps the richest merchant of his time in New England." (10) Colonel Jeremiah Lee (1721-1775) built and furnished one of the largest and most opulent mansions in the colonies in 1768, which has been owned by the Marblehead Historical Society since 1909. By 1765 Marblehead was the sixth largest town in New E ngland, with a population of 4,954. By contrast, Salem had 4,254 and Ipswich, 3,642 people. (11)

The wealth of pre-Revolutionary Marblehead can be put in perspective by a comparison of the 1771 Massachusetts tax assessment for Colonel Lee with that for Richard Derby (1712-1783), the patriarch of the famous Salem mercantile family. Lee's taxes were assessed on the basis of his owning six houses, two warehouses, 2,112 feet of wharf, and merchandise worth [pounds sterling]26,430 sterling. His annual income was [pounds sterling]160. Derby owned one house, a distillery 51/2 warehouses, 5,300 feet of wharf, and merchandise valued at [pounds sterling]6,020, less than one-quarter of Lee's. His annual net income was [pounds sterling]159 10s. (12)