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AN ECOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE COASTAL COMMUNITIES OF SWANSEA AND SOMERSET
AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF FALL RIVER
BY
CARL HERZOG
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
IN
HISTORY
UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
2010
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MASTER OF ARTS, HISTORY
OF
CARL HERZOG
APPROVED:
Thesis Committee:
Major Professor__________________________________
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DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
2010
ABSTRACT
The history of the 19th century textile mills in New England has largely
focused on inland mill towns that experienced significant social and
environmental turmoil as a result of the development of the mills. This study
examines the experience of the coastal communities of Somerset, Swansea and
their surrounding areas in relationship to the development of the textile mill
industry in Fall River, and contrasts that experience with more widely studied
inland towns. The coastal geography and culture of Swansea and Somerset
promoted these towns' development much earlier than Fall River, but also allowed
them to remain an independent, diversified economic force that contributed to Fall
River’s nineteenth-century ascendance and benefited from it. These coastal
communities help redefine the economic powers behind New England
industrialization in the nineteenth century. By taking an environmental historical
perspective of coastal development, this study demonstrate the complex role that
environmental factors played in driving New England industrialization beyond the
more commonly studied inland examples.
i
Table of ContentsAbstract....................................................................................................i
Chapter One, Introduction.......................................................................1
Chapter Two, Geography and Early Development..................................18
Chapter Three, Economic Diversity........................................................35
Chapter Four, Farming and Fishing.........................................................56
Chapter Five, Conclusion........................................................................70
Maps........................................................................................................75
Bibliography............................................................................................80
ii
Chapter 1
Introduction
“To really appreciate Fall River, one should never approach nearer
than the opposite side of Mount Hope Bay." -- Edgar Mayhew Bacon,
19041
In 1904, Edward Mayhew Bacon, buoyed by the publishing success of his
travelogue of the Hudson River, came to Narragansett Bay to give it the same
treatment. He explored much of the area by small boat and canoe, traveling the
rivers that emptied into the Bay and examining its shorelines from the water. As
he worked his way in counter-clockwise fashion around Narragansett Bay he
eventually passed through the Bristol Narrows, under the shadow of Mount Hope
where the Indian chief King Phillip had once reigned, and into Mount Hope Bay.
Then, as now, this square-shaped body of water served as a border between
Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Four different rivers empty into the Bay and six
different towns in the two states share its shoreline.
Bacon's waterborne choice of travel gave him a unique perspective on the
diverse economies of the towns surrounding Mount Hope Bay. In particular, he
noted the boisterous mills of Fall River, which visually dominated the Bay's
1 Edgar Mayhew Bacon, Narragansett Bay: Its Historic and Romantic Associations and Picturesque Setting (Putnam, 1904), 132.
1
landscape. At that time, Fall River's textile industry was at its peak. Dozens of
huge mills producing vast amounts of cotton cloth and driven by steam crowded
the hillside overlooking the Taunton River and Mount Hope Bay. A pall of smoke
choked the air over the town, and Bacon recommended admiring its
accomplishments out of the range of its impacts. “By day smoke hangs heavy
over its chimneys, that are so thick as to suggest the idea that every building has
shouldered an inordinately long musket and is staggering with it to a general
rendezvous.”2
The environmental and social histories of New England's mill economies
suggest that Bacon was right to keep his distance. The mills and the towns that
sprung up around them have been largely depicted as undesirable locales that had
myriad negative impacts on their surrounding environment. Initially driven by
water power, mills were located along rivers, and their effluent and waste were
dumped downstream. In inland, freshwater ecosystems, this frequently killed off
pre-existing fishing economies. Dams to control water for millpower reduced
downstream flows and cut off natural access for fish.3 Mill jobs replaced
subsistence farming occupations, and the culture of neighboring towns was given
over to the factories. Relying upon a few high-profile examples, historians for a
long time tended to credit Boston elites with having founded, funded and
2 Ibid.
3 For a discussion of environmental impacts of the Lowell/Lawrence mills on the Merrimack River, see Theodore Steinberg, Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England (University of Massachusetts Press, 1994).
2
controlled these mill towns.4 Although mills were initially located in rural
settings as determined by water supply, local residents are largely perceived as
having had no sense of agency in creating these mills or benefiting from them as
investments.
Fall River's mill economy is occasionally lumped into this model of
development, and Fall River does provide some significant examples of the
eventual downsides of the mills.5 But returning to Bacon's marine perspective
shows how differently Fall River's neighbors fared compared to communities in
the more frequently studied northern mill towns. Bacon noted that along the north
shore of Mount Hope Bay and across the Taunton River from Fall River lay the
bucolic landscapes of Somerset and Swansea:
Each turn of the (Taunton River) presents a surprise, a picture to treasure always in the house of memory. The farmhouses near the shore are delightfully old-fashioned, nearly always trim and comfortable in appearance, and generally glorified by a setting of noble trees, among which elms predominate.... Who can forget the first glimpse of the three white spires of Somerset, rising from a little mosaic of roofs and tree tops and suggesting to the mind of the poet and the bosom of the river delightful, if conventional, reflections.6
Bacon's picturesque assessment of Somerset stands in stark contrast to his
description of Fall River, which sits just on the opposite side of the Taunton River.
4 Vera Shlakman, Economic History of a Factory Town: A Study of Chicopee, Massachusetts (The Department of History of Smith College, 1935); Robert F. Dalzell, Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates and the World They Made (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993).
5 Mary H. Blewett, Constant Turmoil: The Politics of Industrial Life in Nineteenth-Century New England (Univ of Massachusetts Press, 2000), 309.
6 Bacon, Narragansett Bay: Its Historic and Romantic Associations and Picturesque Setting, 134.
3
At its surface, Bacon seems to depict Fall River's western neighbors as having
escaped its grimy industrial fate, but at the price of being left out of modern
prosperity. The towns along the north shore were cast by Bacon as having been
uninvolved bystanders to the phenomenal industrial development taking place
across the river. While they may not have suffered the environmental, social and
economic trauma of other mill town regions, they did not benefit from it either –
except to the extent that suburban expansion allowed landowners to sell off
otherwise unproductive property and leave. This view was bolstered through the
twentieth century as interstate highways allowed the north shore of Mount Hope
Bay and the lower Taunton River to become suburbs of Providence and Boston.
But the path of cause and effect was not at all the one-way trip that these
interpretations would suggest. The economic fate of Somerset and Swansea was
not a collateral result of Fall River fortunes. The towns on the northern edge of
Mount Hope Bay prospered for more than a century before Fall River came into
being, and their prosperity contributed to the creation of Fall River. Their
residents leveraged the environmental conditions of the region to establish
diversified industries that included agriculture, fisheries, shipbuilding, pottery,
ironworks and coastal trade. This diversity gave them many more avenues to
economic success, which allowed them to survive and thrive through the changing
economic fortunes of the colonial era, new republic expansion and nineteenth-
century industrialization. With the profits from earlier enterprises, business
owners from Somerset and Swansea crossed the Taunton in the early nineteenth
4
century and provided the capital that started the mills of Fall River. But rarely in
this process did the residents west of the Taunton River abandon their original
enterprises. Instead, they worked to insure that the benefits of Fall River's growth
would accrue back to their other businesses along the north shore of Mount Hope
Bay. They made Fall River a market for industrial, agricultural and consumer
goods they were already producing, and produced new goods for the factories
there. They encouraged the construction of railroads passing through their towns
on the way to and from Fall River in order to move their own goods to other
metropolitan markets. They provided shipbuilding and shipping services to Fall
River. These towns were able to forge a dynamic relationship with Fall River's
industrial development in which they contributed to the growth of the Spindle
City and benefited in return, while still maintaining their own identity and a high
degree of economic independence.
Why did these towns successfully encourage and profit from industry when
the history of New England mills suggests that most towns abutting textile mills
suffered from the arrival of heavy industry in the early nineteenth century? This
paper argues that the coastal geography of Mount Hope Bay provided the
residents of Somerset and Swansea with the resources to craft a different
experience. While some of the benefits that they enjoyed were specifically unique
to Mount Hope Bay, much of the region's economic development reflected
advantages shared by other coastal communities in southern New England. The
characteristics of these communities have been frequently ignored in the
5
historiography of New England industrialization – which has tended to focus
more on inland communities and on northern New England communities.
Examining Somerset and Swansea shows that coastal communities contributed to
the diversity of the New England industrial experience in ways that have not been
fully recognized in previous histories. This paper will show that three elements of
the Mount Hope Bay experience distinguish it from the more commonly
recognized history of New England mill communities: First, coastal resources
helped create a diverse and flexible economic base prior to industrialization.
Secondly, the success of that economy created local capital that was used to build
the mills. And thirdly, the coastal geography helped mitigate the ecological
impacts of the mills on neighboring communities.
The historiography of New England industrialization has largely focused on
the experiences of Samuel Slater (first in Pawtucket, R.I. and later in Dudley,
Mass.) and of the Merrimack River mills. While these examples have offered two
different models of industrial development, they share inland characteristics that
have generated a deceptively homogenous view of New England mill
communities. Much of the study of how these mills affected their communities
has focused on the social changes wrought by the shift from largely self-sufficient
agrarian existence to a wage labor economy in which women played a new, more
6
significant role.7 The Waltham-Lowell system, as it has become known, is
credited with creating the formula for large scale production at the cost of
dehumanizing its massive workforce. Analysis of the brutally rigid work schedule
has demonstrated the dramatic shift that workers experienced going from a
subsistence farm that operated in harmony with the sun and seasons to a 12-hour,
six-day workweek governed by the sound of the factory whistle. Other studies
have looked at the harsh dormitory-style living conditions of the workers and the
tenement communities that sprung up around the mills. Shifting labor markets
have been depicted as having negatively impacted the agricultural landscapes of
the communities surrounding the mills. While they drew labor away from
traditional farming lifestyles and contributed to massive influxes of new
immigrants, the Lowell mills also had profoundly detrimental effects on the
Merrimack River. Damming of the river created water shortages and altered fish
habitats, while dumping of mill effluent, waste, and employee sewage polluted the
waters for miles downstream.8
The flow of capital that created the massive mills at Lowell, Lawrence and
Waltham has been largely perceived as having been inserted from the outside by
the “Boston Associates”, a loose-knit collaborative of elite investors from the city.
7 William Moran, The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove (New York: St Martin's Press, 2004); Thomas Dublin, Transforming women's work: New England lives in the industrial revolution (Cornell University Press, 1995); Thomas Dublin, Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).
8 Steinberg, Nature Incorporated, chap. 6,7.
7
Originally used as a term by historian Vera Shlakmen in the 1930s9 to refer to a
broad group of investors who may have been familiar with each other and
occasionally overlapped on projects, the term has since been mistakenly assumed
to be the name of a formal business partnership. This latter interpretation has
caused Boston capital to be credited with the formation of many mills throughout
New England that were actually largely locally developed.10
Towns where the textile industry maintained more of local shop-like
integration with its neighboring communities have been referred to as the “family
system.” Also frequently called the Rhode Island system, it was pioneered by
Samuel Slater with his first mill in Pawtucket, R.I. Slater attempted to duplicate it
in mills in Oxford, Dudley and Webster in southwestern Massachusetts. This
earlier form of mill development relied more strongly on a family home and
village structure as a basis for support. The operations of the mills themselves
tended to more closely resemble an artisan's shop and borrowed many of its
management styles from the shop environment.11 While the Waltham-Lowell
mills created large dormitory-style housing and employed temporary labor
brought in from other locations, the Rhode Island-style mill village more closely
resembled the rural New England village that predated the mills.12 By attempting
to incorporate the new mill environment into the existing social and civic
9 Shlakman, Economic history of a factory town.
10 Francois Weil, “Capitalism and Industrialization in New England, 1815-1845,” The Journal of American History 84, no. 4 (March 1998): 1338.
11 Barbara M. Tucker, Samuel Slater and the Origins of the American Textile Industry, 1790-1860 (Cornell University Press, 1984), 139, 147.
8
structure, Slater tried to ease the transition from agriculture to industry.13 The
impacts on existing towns were still significant, however, as large segments of the
population moved from farming into merchant trades and factory work, as
described by Jonathan Prude's study of the Slater mills in Dudley and Oxford.14
The impacts of the mill development in Fall River on the coastal towns of
Swansea and Somerset along the north shore of Mount Hope Bay fail to fit into
Prude's rural model either. In Prude's inland towns, there was an exclusive
reliance on agriculture prior to the arrival of the mills that impacted the ability of
successive generations of families to remain in the same towns. As landholdings
were diminished by inheritance, or as individual siblings were left out, new
generations were forced to move out of town.15 The development of mills brought
new workers to the towns, and created a market demand for local agriculture to
feed that population as well as a merchant class catering to the needs of the mills
and the larger population. In contrast, along the north shore of Mount Hope Bay
and up the Taunton River, there were options for family members to pursue
careers in fishing, shipping, shipbuilding and trade before the arrival of the mills.
12 Tucker, Samuel Slater and the Origins of the American Textile Industry, 1790-1860, 126; Kenneth Frazier Payne, “Early Rhode Island Textile Mill Villages: A Study of the Origins and Early Examples of a Community Form” (Kingston, R.I: University of Rhode Island, 1977), 53.
13 Jonathan Prude, The Coming of Industrial Order: Town and Factory Life in Rural Massachusetts, 1810-1860 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 37-38.
14 Ibid., xii.
15 Ibid., 6-7.
9
This pattern reflects in part the longstanding connection between agriculture
and commerce that Carl Bridenbaugh described in Fat Mutton and Liberty of
Conscience.16 Coastal farmers throughout colonial Narragansett Bay were able to
exploit markets for produce in the southern colonies and Caribbean islands in part
because they could easily develop the shipping infrastructure needed to get their
produce to market. Beginning in the late seventeenth century, farmers began
vertically integrating their businesses to be both growers and shippers. The
development of shipbuilding, shipping ports, and other commercial infrastructure
in the coastal region created new opportunities for the children of farmers who
were willing to pursue mercantile or maritime occupations – and many in Mount
Hope Bay did. This allowed a diverse, thriving and stable community to develop
long before the creation of the first local textile mills. Those communities
continued to provide a broader array of opportunities after the mills were
established.
Unlike other mill towns along inland river regions, the coastal environment
and unique geology of northern Mount Hope Bay helped shape a dynamic
relationship that has frequently been ignored in the historiography of the region.
Contrary to common history of New England textile mills, which focuses on the
investment by urban elites from Boston, evidence suggests that the early
development of Fall River was largely the result of local capital earned in other
pursuits – many of which were unique to the coastal environment. This pattern, in
16 Carl Bridenbaugh, Fat Mutton and Liberty of Conscience: Society in Rhode Island, 1636-1690 (Providence, R.I.: Brown University Press, 1974), 93-97.
10
turn, helped establish a sense of economic and social reciprocity between
neighboring rural and urban communities whereas traditional historiography of
the period has often asserted that industrialization yielded a largely one-way
transfer of benefits from rural communities to the cities.
The coastal nature of the towns along Mount Hope Bay gave them
advantages over inland communities in establishing a broader diversity of
industries such as shipbuilding and fishing, and allowed them to leverage their
maritime access for the benefit of traditional rural activities like farming. But
these same geographical features also buffered the towns from the environmental
impacts of nearby textile mill development. Whereas rural communities that
relied on the same rivers as mills suffered from the effects of industrial water
demands and polluted runoff, Mount Hope Bay's north shore towns were in a
completely different watershed from their industrial neighbor. While runoff from
Fall River's Quequechan River did affect Mount Hope Bay, the largest
environmental impacts of the river's mill development were on public health
within the city of Fall River. The coastal towns, however, did experience their
own unique environmental changes and impacts as a result of land uses that
differed from rural communities inland. In particular, the early cultivation of
regional forests for shipbuilding meant that the lower Narragansett Basin was
likely more actively cleared at an earlier time than Massachusetts inland forests,
which remained much more intact until the development of a market farming
economy made widespread clearing economically worthwhile.
11
Returning for a moment to Bacon's waterborne perspective helps paint a
clearer picture of the characteristics of Mount Hope Bay. Looking west from a
boat in the middle of Mount Hope Bay, one sees Mount Hope itself rising from
the Bay. But as the eye sweeps to the north, the horizon falls away to a series of
marshy river mouths. Four rivers enter Mount Hope Bay at its northern shore:
from west to east, the Kickamuit, the Cole, the Lee's and finally the Taunton. (See
Figure 4a & 4b) Across this landscape the elevation changes little. A long
shoreline runs north from Kickamuit mouth to the low-lying cove at the mouth of
the Cole. A rocky neck separates the Cole from another cove at the mouth of the
Lee, and low-lying marsh wraps from the Lee around Brayton Point to the
western shore of the Taunton. But as one's eye crosses the Taunton, that river's
eastern shoreline abruptly rises up to a long, steep hillside that runs nearly
unbroken from the mouth of the Taunton south along the bay to Tiverton at the
Bay's southeastern corner. This abrupt change in the horizon marks a geological
rift separating the biologically rich Narragansett Basin west of the Taunton and
the granite fault line under Fall River.
By Bacon's time at the turn of the twentieth century, one would have been
unable to see much of the Quequechan River from which Fall River took its
name. Prior to being covered over by mill construction and diverted for steam
power, the Quequechan was a series of waterfalls running down the granite cliff
face from two large ponds on the hilltop. At the base of the cliffs, the
Quequechan emptied into the Taunton River very near where the Taunton empties
12
into Mount Hope Bay. The Quequechan dropped more than 150 feet in less than
two miles. It was the power of this falling water that made Fall River perfect for
mill development in the pre-steam era. Numerous mills were built on both sides
of the river on the granite hillsides. But by 1904, the river had been completely
covered over by mill buildings and culverts that were now drawing water from the
river to feed steam turbines. Bacon makes no mention of seeing the Quequechan
in his travelogue, and it is unlikely he would have made out much more than a
trickle from the outfall pipe among the waterfront factories and mills.
The development of Fall River and the Quequechan defies the common
environmental history of New England textile mills in several ways. Other mills
located at falls along long, winding rivers still had to get their output to market.
In most places this meant building roads and, later, railroads. But the unusual
geography of the Quequechan provided the additional benefit of being
immediately accessible to a deepwater port. The development of Fall River as a
port not only assisted Fall River itself, but also contributed to the ongoing success
of the neighboring towns, whose business leaders leveraged Fall River's
infrastructure to serve themselves. Ships coming and going from Fall River with
textile goods also carried agricultural produce from Swansea and pottery from
Somerset. Shipyards in Somerset provided repairs for ships coming and going
from Fall River. Iron forges in Somerset fed by local ore provided equipment to
ships, mills and other industry on both sides of the Taunton.
13
When the railroads connecting Fall River to Providence were first
considered, business owners in Somerset and Swansea exerted their political
influence to ensure that the lines passed through their towns at the most beneficial
locations. Railroads intended to serve Fall River were made to serve Somerset
and Swansea as well, moving industrial and agricultural produce to markets in
Providence. Eventually, the layout of railroads also opened the door for property
owners in these towns to begin developing waterfront recreation and suburban
homes.
Agriculture and waterfront industries were continuing to operate successfully
in Bacon's time, but the north shore of Mount Hope Bay was also becoming an
early suburb for Fall River, a description that has tended to disenfranchise existing
residents. As suburbs, the towns were perceived as having no identity of their
own. They were perceived to serve only as bedroom communities for residents
whose public and business lives were far more grounded in Fall River. This took
longer to become the case in Somerset and Swansea. By virtue of the diverse
economy they had created and their contributions to the wealth of Fall River,
Somerset and Swansea at the end of the nineteenth century were still dominated
by families who could trace their local lineage back numerous generations. The
distinctly rural nature of Swansea and much of Somerset, abutting the highly
urbanized Fall River fails to fit the more common historiography of early suburbs
14
as empty land that was simply filled in with new residents.17 Like the flow of
capital, the early flow of suburbia was not solely one of people coming into
Somerset and Swansea, but also the settlement of people already there into new
jobs across the Taunton in Fall River.
The landscape contributed to opportunities that shaped industry and
economy along the north shore of Mount Hope Bay, but the pattern of
development was also heavily influenced by the cultural history of the region.
Although the north shore of Mount Hope Bay is largely within the boundaries of
Massachusetts, many of the area's earliest settlers came from Rhode Island and
had more in common with that colony's religious dissidents than with the puritans
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This too, was a product of the region's
geography. Crossing the Taunton River may not have constituted crossing the
Massachusetts Colony's border, but in many ways it was a crossing over to
another region outside the practical impacts, if not the legal reach, of Bay Colony
church leaders. Quakers were common residents of the Massachusetts towns of
Mount Hope Bay, and they pursued the same flexibility of enterprise
characteristic of the Quaker Grandees of Rhode Island. In his history of Rhode
Island, William G. McLoughlin describes the Quakers as having little use for the
sermons and dogma that dominated cultural life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
As a result, he suggests Rhode Islanders were less inclined to create colleges or
17 Henry C. Binford, The First Suburbs: Residential Communities on the Boston Periphery, 1815-1860 (University of Chicago Press, 1988); Sam Bass Warner, Streetcar Suburbs (Harvard University Press, 1978).
15
send their youth off to one for extended study of the scripture. Instead, they were
more focused on business, particularly as they rebuilt communities devastated by
King Phillip's War.18 McLoughlin's argument can be easily extended to the
residents of the north shore of Mount Hope Bay. From King Phillip's War through
the Civil War, the region was noted for its diversity of enterprise. Records of the
families that lived and worked in the area through those generations suggest a
focus, not just on business, but on a creative, flexible approach to business that
mirrors the characteristics McLoughlin imbues in Rhode Islanders. The Mount
Hope region residents took advantage of their geography as well as the changes in
the communities around them, notably Fall River, and adjusted their approaches
to business in ways that allowed them to continue to prosper through the
nineteenth century.
Recasting the development of these towns in this light returns some agency
and a sense of self-determination to people whom the historiography of
industrialization has tended to dismiss largely as victims. It also serves to
demonstrate some of the differences in responses to industrialization that were
available to coastal communities as compared to rural inland communities. The
resources of the waterfront in the form of shipping, shipbuilding and fishing gave
these communities opportunities that inland communities along industrial rivers
did not have. At the same time, the nature of the coastal geography shielded them
18 William Gerald McLoughlin, Rhode Island, a history (W. W. Norton & Company, 1986), 46.
16
to some degree from the environmental impacts that devastated many industrial
watersheds.
17
Chapter 2
Geography, Early Development and Environmental Impacts
The Taunton River, as wide as half a mile at some points, would seem an
obvious natural obstacle to transportation, buffering the communities on the
river's western shore from the industrial development of Fall River on the river's
eastern shore. While the river was a boundary that prevented urban sprawl from
crossing town borders, the river as merely an obstacle does not explain the
dramatic differences in the economic development of Fall River and the north
shore towns. For that, one must look to the river's underlying geology. The lower
Taunton River developed along a geological boundary separating two very
different environments – a widespread, fertile lowland on the western side of the
river and a largely barren granite ledge on the Fall River side. The differences in
these places affected where and how early Europeans settled the land, as well as
the type and extent of environmental impacts that their settlement had on the land
and its adjacent waters through the nineteenth century.
The economic opportunities afforded to residents of Somerset and Swansea
had their beginning in plate tectonics starting about 600 million years before the
first textile mills were built in Fall River. In the period geologists refer to as the
Precambrian era, a chain of volcanic islands formed off the coast of one continent
and over the eons moved to join with the Laurentian supercontinent, which would
eventually break up to form North America and Europe. The long stretch of
igneous rock left behind by the volcanoes created a formation geologists know as
18
the Avalon Terrane. This large block of the earth's crust is a complex of igneous
rock that, with the formation of the Atlantic Ocean, is now scattered from
Belgium to Massachusetts.19 In Massachusetts, the Avalon Terrane stretched
across the southeastern part of the state, from south of Boston to Mount Hope
Bay. There, about 315 million years before the first textile mills were built in Fall
River, a rift tore in the terrane, thrusting up a tall granite formation and leaving a
deep basin adjacent to it. The Assonet fault line, the demarcation between these
two features, runs along the eastern edge of Mount Hope Bay and up the Taunton
River. To the east, the high-rising crust of the Avalon Terrane formed the steep
hills of Fall River, whose granite would later provide the building blocks of the
massive textiles mills that fed off the water plummeting down the hillside into the
bay.
As the glaciers settled and melted, the basin to the west of the Assonet fault
filled with sedimentary deposits pushed ahead by the glaciers. Modern geologists
believe this depression, known as the Narragansett Basin, was also “probably
actively subsiding as the surrounding mountains rose.”20 The phenomenon
fostered the development of coal deposits, allowed surrounding hills to drain into
the basin and eventually created a fertile ground for the development of low-lying
swamps and forests similar to the Mississippi River delta. Reports of early
European incursions suggest that a thick forest of white oak existed at the north
19 James W. Skehan, Roadside Geology of Massachusetts, 1st ed. (Mountain Press Publishing Company, 2001), 43.
20 Ibid., 140.
19
side of the present-day Somerset and extended down the interior of the neck
toward Brayton Point – a key factor in attracting shipyards to the Taunton and
Lee's River in the 1690s.21
The wet, low-lying interior lands of the Narragansett Basin22 were also
conducive to the formation of bog ore – a variety of iron ore created by the
oxidation of iron in the groundwater when it reached the surface of springs and
ponds. The most prevalent form of iron ore in Massachusetts, it was found loose
on the bottom of ponds in such abundance that “a man with a sort of oyster tongs
could get half a ton in a day.”23 Although bog iron is relatively common
throughout Massachusetts, it was particularly abundant in the Narragansett Basin.
The first ironworks in the colonies was established on a tributary of the Taunton
River near the town of Raynham in 1652.24
To drain off its excess water, the region fed into five different rivers that still
exist today: Taunton, Lee's, Cole, Kickamuit, Palmer and Warren (See Figure 4b).
Beginning southwest of Boston, the basin today occupies a region roughly
between the current Route 79 and I-95 or the Blackstone River (See Fig. 1). From
21 William A. Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts (Town of Somerse, 1940), 11.
22 Among geographers and policymakers today, the term “Narragansett Basin” is frequently used to refer to Narragansett Bay and all the watersheds that feed into it. Throughout this paper, I will use this term in its geological intent to refer to the low elevation lands bordered on the south by Mount Hope Bay.
23 John Abbot Goodwin, The Pilgrim Republic (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1888), 528.
24 Enoch Sanford, History of Raynham, Mass: from the first settlement to the present time (Hammond, Angell & Co., 1870), 5.
20
these northern reaches, the rivers wind slowly southwest toward Mount Hope Bay
and Narragansett Bay. Water managers today consider them divided into two
watersheds, one following along the Taunton River and its tributaries, and one to
the west, encompassing the other rivers that empty into Mount Hope and
Narragansett Bay. (See Fig. 2)
These split watersheds are caused by glacial deposits and larger rock
formations along the north shore of the Bay, which prevent it from still being
considered a river delta. On the eastern shore of the mouth of the Taunton River,
low-lying marshland stretches west to the Lee's River. From there the land rises
somewhat and reaches south in the form of Gardner's Neck25, which is bounded
on the west by the cove at the mouth of the Cole River. To the west of the Cole
River, the Touisset peninsula stretches south and west to the mouth of the
Kickamuit River, and then further south to the tip of Bristol neck and Mount Hope
itself.
The river mouths produced several fertile ecosystems that benefited early
settlers. Salt marshes and marsh grasses grew along the deltas of the rivers,
produced livestock feed in addition to the meadow grasses of the river's flood
plain. In the bay and the river mouths, the silty bottom provided an ideal habitat
for oysters, clams and other shellfish. A variety of fish existed in the brackish
25 Gardner's Neck is occasionally referred to as Gardiner's Neck in both historical literature and current usage. For purposes of clarity and consistency, I have chosen Gardner, the preferred spelling of the branch of the family that settled there in the mid-1600s. Another branch of the same family keeping the Gardiner spelling settled in southern Rhode Island about the same time.
21
waters of the bay and river mouths. All these resources contributed not only to
the ability of early settlers to survive, but to the ability of later residents to
continue farming and fishing in a market economy.
Early Settlement
The first to recognize and exploit the fertile area along the west shore of the
Taunton River and the north shore of Mount Hope Bay were the tribes of the
Wampanoag Indian federation. At the mouth of the Taunton River, on the
modern-day Brayton Point, they created the village Shawomet, a fishing and
farming community that was one of the major settlements of the Wampanoags.26
To the west the next major settlement was Pokanoket, believed to have been
located near the modern day town of Warren. To the north, the village of Pocasset
was located near modern day Taunton. It is uncertain when Shawomet or
Pokanoket or Pocasset villages were established, but archaeological evidence
suggests that the Wampanoags, or their predecessors occupied settlements along
the Taunton River at least as early as 1000 A.D.27
Settlement along the rivers and Bay of the Narragansett Basin gave the
Indians access to the salt marsh, fishing and shellfishing, and easily cleared lands
26 The term Shawomet has a variety of spellings and references to different places and people. In addition to the village at the mouth of the Taunton, the term Shawomet has been used to refer to the specific tribe of the Wampanoags who lived there. It is also commonly referenced as the name of a village that was located in modern day Warwick, Rhode Island – also called Sowams. For the purposes of the paper, the term Shawomet refers to the land and the village located at modern-day Somerset.
27 Edmund Burke Delabarre, “A Possible Pre-Algonkian Culture in Southeastern Massachusetts,” American Anthropologist 27, no. 3, New Series (July 1925): 359.
22
for agriculture. It also offered easy water access to other communities both up the
Taunton River and across Narragansett Bay. Despite indications that the Indians
at Shawomet ran a ferry across the Taunton and frequently transited through the
Fall River region, there is no record of the Indians attempting to settle on those
rocky shores.
Although there are records of French ships trading with the Wampanoag
tribes in upper Narragansettt Bay in the 1500s, the first popularly recorded
European incursions into the region occurred in 1621 when Edward Winslow and
Stephen Hopkins travelled west from the Plymouth settlement in search of the
Wampanoag leader, Massasoit. They reported crossing the Taunton River and
stopping in a field cultivated by Indians at Shawomet.28 Winslow made one other
trip past Mount Hope Bay to see Massasoit at Pokanoket, but colonial settlement
did not occur until the 1660s. A Dutch trading vessel stranded at the mouth of the
Taunton in 1623 and initiated trade with the Indians at Shawomet.29 While it is
likely the Dutch, who had also been trading with the Narragansett Indians further
down the bay, may have continued to trade with Shawomet, there is no evidence
the Dutch ever settled on Mount Hope Bay either.
The complex merging of rivers and fertile lands made the north shore of
Mount Hope Bay as attractive to the colonists as it was to the Indians. By the
28 Nathaniel Morton et al., New-England's Memorial (Boston: Congregational Board of Publication, 1855), 363.
29 Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland or, New York under the Dutch (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1846), 107.
23
time of King Phillip's War, the town of Swansea was actually composed of several
scattered settlements of homes and farms: one at Hundred Acre Cove on the
Palmer River, one at Metapoiset (present-day Gardner's Neck) and a larger
settlement of 18 homes on the east side of the Kickamuit River near the narrows
at Mount Hope Bay.30 The location of the largest settlement on the shore of
Mount Hope Bay suggests that the colonists, like the Indians, recognized the
value of the deepwater access that the Bay provided.
King Phillips War paved the way for the expansion of Swansea and the
development of Somerset. The Indians living on Mount Hope Bay had all either
been killed or fled. The Shawomet Lands were among many Indian sites that the
Plymouth Colony leaders chose to treat as conquered territory -- spoils of war.
Plymouth decided to parcel off the Shawomet property and sell it to help pay
debts associated with the war. The Shawomet Purchase, as it became known, sold
off all the Indian land along the west side of the lower Taunton between Dighton
and present-day Brayton Point. This was the rich timber and farmland with
deepwater access that colonists had wanted for decades but that the Indians had
never been willing to sell.31
Although many of the purchasers of these parcels were investors who never
set foot on the land, the division of the land into discrete lots established the
30 Eric B. Schultz and Michael J. Tougias, King Philip's War: The History and Legacy of America's Forgotten Conflict (Woodstock, Vt.: Countryman Press, 2000), 21.
31 Mary Ann McDonald, “The Shawomet Purchase,” in Somerset, Massachusetts: Portrait of the American Experience in a New England Town (Somerset, Mass.: Somerset Historical Commission, 1981), 29.
24
parameters and layout of what would become the town of Somerset. A map of the
allocation created in 1683 demonstrates the value of the access to water and helps
explain the significance of the Shawomet Lands as a settlement (See Figure 3).
Each lot is a long narrow strip from the waterline to a central axis. This
arrangement allowed each landowner to build their own wharf for shipping out
agricultural produce.32 A separate set of parcels was established to the west of the
axis, and the region around the point, including an island, was established as a
third set of lots. The lots were between 36 and 45 acres each.33
As noted earlier, the town of Swansea was spread over a large area and
consisted of numerous settlements. But even these settlements were fairly spread
out during the colonial era after King Phillip's War. Initially, the division of land
in Shawomet suggested a similar arrangement was likely, but the soon-to-be
Somerset developed into a more tightly knit center village. The difference in
these patterns is a product of the diverging nature of economies in the region.
While agriculture continued to disperse the population in the western reaches of
Swansea, the development of economies like shipping and shipbuilding
contributed to the creation of densely populated villages around the key docks and
shipyards. These diverse village forms and their relationship to their surrounding
geography are discussed at length by Joseph Wood in The New England Village.
Wood argues that the allocation of land for agriculture and cattle adapted to the
32 Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts, 35.
33 Ibid., 22.
25
geography of the region, creating a dispersed village form with no clearly defined
village center.34 Along a river or in a valley, for example, the village could
develop as a long, narrow strip with homes and public buildings scattered for
several miles in either direction. This form was quite different from the public
perception of the colonial village as a densely developed nucleus of public and
commercial structures that gave way to farms on the periphery. Wood's thesis
helps explain the nature of Swansea and the eventual development of Somerset as
a separate town. The rivers running through Swansea, their associated meadows
and floodplains, and the necks of land in between helped define the arrangement
of properties and long-term development. The early garrison houses, which
provided a sense of defense and the closest thing to a village meeting place, were
widely scattered and saw little “urban” development occur around them.35 No
discernible village center in the commercial sense developed for Swansea during
the colonial period.
Shawomet, on the other hand, developed several villages centered around the
most active waterfront shipyards and trading docks, and stretched along the
shoreline north and south from there. As the central business functions and
reputations of each village changed with time, so did their names, but several
retained their identities for more than a century. Bowers Shores was named for
34 Joseph S. Wood, The New England Village (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 20.
35 The Miles Garrison House was located at the Palmer River crossing near Hundred Acre Cove. The Bourne Garrison House was located at the head of Metapoiset (present-day Gardner's Neck). Both houses served as refuge for colonists from different Swansea settlements during King Phillip's War.
26
the family of shipbuilders whose yards were there; Slade's Ferry was named for
the region surrounding the ferry depot to Fall River; Pottersville was named for its
pottery factories; and, with a nod to the Old Testament, Egypt was the moniker
given to the docks of a merchant named Joseph Brown who specialized in
importing wheat.36 Even today, these names are familiar to many local residents.
Nautical charts produced of the region in 1776 provide a sense of the
maritime value of Mount Hope Bay and its northern rivers, but also indicate the
differences in development of the region. The charts produced for the Atlantic
Neptune atlas by Joseph des Barres include small squares to indicate buildings
along the shore. From these, the scattered settlements along the Cole and Lee's
river can be distinguished from the more clustered village of Somerset (labeled
Swansea) along the Taunton.(See Figure 4b).
As these commercial, industrial waterfront businesses continued to grow,
Shawomet's identity took greater shape and the community of Swansea seemed
further and further away both in terms of identity as well as physical proximity.
Numerous efforts to separate the towns had occurred before the Revolution, but
the issue finally came to a head in 1790. The division of the two towns and the
delineation of the boundaries separating them reflected the differences in the
towns' developing economies. Somerset managed to include within its borders all
the waterfront land on the Taunton River, down around the present-day Brayton
Point and back up the Lee's River, where another substantial shipyard had
36 Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts, 83.
27
developed. By including the Lee's River and the land on its eastern shore in the
town borders, Somerset maintained the income from that river's shipyard. At the
same time, several farms on the southwest side of Shawomet remained in
Swansea. Somerset would become a coastal, maritime trading town, and Swansea
would remain an agricultural community.
Opposition from residents in Swansea reflected fears about debt and
duplication of services. In a petition to the legislature requesting that the towns
remain unified, they wrote: “We are much in debt already by being obliged to
keep a guard on our shores in the late unhappy war with Britain to prevent the
incursions of the Enemy when they occupied Rhode Island for if your Honors
should favour the proposed division we humbly conceive will be an addition to
our former burthens which we have not been able as yet to discharge.”37
The shipyard owners and waterfront industry of Somerset, on the other hand,
apparently felt they were in a better position to pay off debts from the Revolution,
and that continued association with Swansea would require them to effectually
subsidize the debts owed by the inland farms. Their desire to separate marked
their degree of confidence in the future of their maritime enterprises. In addition,
Somerset residents were apparently not swayed by arguments that separating the
two towns would require an unnecessary expense in terms of duplication of
services such as town clerks, etc. Although Swansea was substantially larger in
37 James Buffington, “Petition to Stop Separation from Swanzey,” February 10, 1790, 1, Transcribed By Diane Goodwin from original at Massachusetts Historical Society, Somerset Historical Society.
28
acreage than Somerset, when the legislature finally approved the petition, they
divided the debts based on the relative valuations of the two towns' property. As
the nineteenth century began, agriculture continued to be the primary land use in
the western and northern area, while maritime and other industries continued to
dominate the waterfront along the Taunton River and Mount Hope Bay. Across
the river, however, the not-yet-established town of Fall River, remained a largely
unused granite landscape that would not become attractive until the arrival of the
textile mills in 1813.
Environmental Impacts of the Mills
The geology of the region affected how the two sides of the Taunton River
developed, but it also guided the extent and nature of the environmental impacts
that resulted from that development. Farmers and towns along the north shore of
Mount Hope Bay relied on the Narragansett Basin wetlands, rivers and associated
groundwater to provide water for irrigation and public consumption. Across the
Taunton, as the population of the town of Fall River began booming with mill
workers in the 1820s and 1830s, the city was still forced to rely almost
exclusively on the two connected ponds that formed the headwaters of the
Quequechan River. Despite their proximity to Fall River, the towns of Somerset
and Swansea were buffered from the impacts of industrialization by virtue of
being located in what amounted to a different watershed.
Located at the top of the granite cliffs of Fall River, the north pond fed into
the south pond which in turn fed the Quequechan. The river slowly traversed the
29
highland plateau for about two miles before plummeting down the granite hillside
in a series of falls. There was farmland to the north and east of the ponds before
the first mills were built in the 1810s, but there were no inhabitants along the
steep sloping hillside that led down to the mouth of the Taunton and Mount Hope
Bay.
The first dam across the upper Quequechan at the ponds was constructed in
conjunction with the first mill in 1813, but in 1826, a consortium of mill-owners
established the Watuppa Reservoir Co. and through an act of the state legislature,
gained the water rights to both ponds. Competing demands for water do not
appear to have been a substantial issue until the rapid acceleration of development
along the river and in the town after the Civil War. At that point, steam power had
changed the mills' relationship with the river. The need for moving water that
could power turbines was gone; the mills now looked for ways to draw the huge
quantities of water used to feed boilers. In 1872, the City of Fall River, seeking
public water for the booming population of mill workers, took back rights to 1.5
million gallons of the water in the North Watuppa Pond by condemnation, and
was forced to enter an ongoing process of paying the Reservoir Co. for the
industrial value of the water being taken for city purposes.38 In 1886, when the
city sought to double its take, it decided to appeal to the state for an exemption
from the costly payments by essentially eliminating the mills' rights to the water
by act of the state legislature. The act managed to pass in a last-minute rush by
38 William Rotch (civil engineer.), Report on the Case of the Watuppa Reservoir Co. Vs. the City of Fall River, Dec.1880 (Fiske & Munroe, 1881).
30
lawmakers at the end of one of the seasonal sessions. The Reservoir Co.
immediately sued, but the courts declared that under the 1641 colonial charter,
which was an incorporated element of common law, no “great pond” could be
deeded to an individual owner.39 The ruling was overturned in 1889, but lawsuits
and debates continued through the remainder of the century with the city
eventually being allowed to take water from the North pond, but only as long as
they were certain to maintain the level of the North Pond in line with the South
Pond, from which the mills were drawing.
Although mill waste and human sewage were almost certainly being dumped
into the river from the opening of the first mill, there appear few indications that
the issue of pollution in the river became substantial until Fall River's
development peak in the 1870s and 1880s. The booming use of river water for
steam generators and the sheer number of employees working in the mills by the
late 1800s led to a substantial decline in water quality in the river at the same time
that public demand for water was on the rise. Between 1850 and 1880, Fall
River's population increased by more than 400 percent, rising from 11,170 to
47,883.40 By the beginning of the 1900s, Fall River was facing a significant
public health crisis as a result of the competing water demands from industry and
the public, as well as issues of pollution from a wide variety of mill discharges:
workers' sewage, printing inks and dyes and the superheated water that ran
39 Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, “The Watuppa Pond Cases,” Harvard Law Review 2, no. 5 (December 15, 1888): 197.
40 Henry Fenner, History of Fall River (New York: F.T. Smiley Publishing Co., 1906), 23, 33.
31
through the boilers. In the 1910s, the city embarked on a major project to
redesign the ponds, the river, and their storage and release mechanisms.
The environmental issues that faced Fall River were not unlike those shared
by mill towns along the Merrimack River or the Blackstone Valley rivers of
Rhode Island. In all these locales, competing demands for water pitted mill
owners against residents, but the impacts were far more widespread than in Fall
River. In northern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, residents, freshwater
fishermen and farmers living ten to 20 miles downstream from mills could still be
adversely impacted by reductions in the supply of freshwater as well as pollution
flowing into the streams. The Quequechan River watershed is virtually self
contained, and although it was wrought with significant issues, they had nowhere
near the wide-ranging consequences of pollution that occurred in other towns.41
Fall River's neighboring communities across the Taunton River benefited the
most from the mill town's self-contained environmental problems. Farming on a
completely different watershed only a couple miles away, Somerset, Swansea and
its northern neighbors sold their produce to Fall River without being particularly
adversely affected by its water consumption and pollution. Fisheries were
eventually affected by the pollution flowing from the Quequechan and Taunton
into Mount Hope Bay, but the size and tidal flushing of the bay appear to have
41 In addition to the Quequechan River, the Watuppa Ponds also drained south into Stafford Pond on the Rhode Island border. Some disputes were lodged in the 1880s against the Watuppa Reservoir Co. for its impacts on Stafford Pond, but even considering these the watershed and its area of effect were still dramatically smaller than most other New England textile mill rivers.
32
mitigated the impacts for substantially longer than would have been the case in a
more constrained ecosystem. (See fisheries discussion beginning on page 64.)
The towns of the lower Narragansett Basin likely had their own effects on
the environment as a result of their diverse industrial and agricultural pursuits,
however. Chief among these were the impacts from forest clearing for
shipbuilding and farming. In general, early settlers to New England only cleared
the land they needed to create a subsistence farm – which was limited by the
amount of food needed as well as the labor capacity of the farm family. Because
land grants in New England could often exceed the acreage capable of being
cleared and farmed, overall rates of deforestation were lower than in other areas
of the country.42 But in regions such as the lower Narragansett Basin, where thick
forests coincided with coastal shipyards, it is reasonable to assume that forest land
was cleared at a higher rate in a much earlier period than in areas that waited for
the development of market agriculture. The impacts of this likely accrued to the
silting of the rivers leading into Mount Hope Bay.
While the Taunton River was not dammed in the same way as the
Quequechan for mills, the construction of the railroad bridge in 1875 over the
river at Somerset Village was considered responsible for ending the herring runs
up to Broad Cove.43 Additionally, by the end of the nineteenth century, dumping
42 Gordon G. Whitney, From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain: A History of Environmental Change in Temperate North America from 1500 to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 154.
43 Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts, 88.
33
by industry on both shores of the Taunton River had begun to impact the shellfish
beds that had been a staple fishery along the north shore of Mount Hope Bay for
two centuries. However, because most of the rivers leading into Mount Hope Bay
were very slow-moving and lacked the kind of waterfalls and steep runs attractive
to mill development, the Narragansett Basin failed to experience the type of
widespread industrial waterway development that caused so many issues in Fall
River and other mill regions.
“So close and yet so far” summed up the relationship between the east and
west shores of the Taunton River. It was their proximity that led to the initial
development of Fall River by residents of Somerset and Swansea, and that
closeness allowed the western towns to continue to take economic advantage of
Fall River's development. But the ecological and physical boundary that the river
represented also allowed the western towns to remain largely separate from the
social and environmental consequences of the massive mill development in Fall
River; they continued to prosper from their own maritime and agricultural
industries.
34
Chapter 3
Economic Diversity
The ecology of the lower Narragansett Basin provided a diverse wealth of
natural resources within easy access of a coastline that was highly conducive to
maritime trade. Mount Hope Bay and the Taunton River served as safe harbors
that provided excellent protection with deep draft access for ships of all sizes.
And, just as significantly, they were within easy sailing of numerous New
England ports. As a result, European settlers established a variety of profitable
industries along the shore, some of which were able to operate continuously from
the mid-seventeenth century through the end of the nineteenth century. Other
industries rose and fell as a result of political and economic influences, but
throughout the time period, the residents of the region always seemed to be able
to shift from one occupation to another – frequently ending up in better economic
shape as a result and without ever being forced to leave the region. This stable
population base allowed capital to grow and remain in the region, which in turn
contributed to the local investments that helped create the early Fall River mill
economy. This pattern of events was the consequence of a coastal geography and
contrasts sharply with the economic experiences of inland towns abutting textile
mills. In this way, the economic development of Somerset and Swansea
demonstrate a different experience of New England industrialization than that
35
commonly depicted by the histories of northern and inland New England mill
towns.
The unusual lack of an economic diaspora from the lower Narragansett Basin
is partially attributable to the variety of opportunities that the landscape of the
region provided. But the creative and cooperative business enterprises that sprung
up there also reflected the cultural and religious nature of the people who initially
settled the area. Many of the early settlers to the region were Quakers, who had
come to this western edge of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in lieu of Rhode
Island, or crossed back over the Massachusetts border after banishment to Rhode
Island in the early 1600s. They were the second most common religious group in
Somerset and Swansea through the eighteenth century, and even by the late
nineteenth century Quakers remained one of the region's dominant religious
groups.44 As a result, many residents of the north shore of Mount Hope Bay held
more in common with the Quaker grandees of Rhode Island than with the
descendents of puritan forefathers from the old Plymouth Colony.
As noted earlier, the ingenuity and economic adaptability attributed to the
Rhode Islanders also seems to have served as a philosophical backbone for the
residents of Swansea and Somerset.45 The Mount Hope communities took
advantage of their physical geography to establish a diverse range of businesses,
but they made those businesses prosper by continuing to exploit and adapt to the
44 Ibid., 47.
45 For a discussion of Rhode Island's early economic adaptability, see William G. McLoughlin, Rhode Island: A History (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1978).
36
changing conditions around them. Farms were adjacent to deepwater shipping
access, which allowed farmers to easily transport goods to urban markets.
Similarly, the coastal location allowed the easy import of raw materials for
manufacturing, as in the case of pottery that was produced with clay bought from
Indians on Martha's Vineyard. Ironworks near shipyards were able to supply ship
parts and shipbuilding materials. When the first textile mill opened in Pawtucket
in 1793, residents of Somerset and Swansea were among the first to seize on the
new business opportunity that textile mills presented. The first textile mill built in
Fall River was owned by a consortium of businessmen from the western side of
the Taunton River, and by the mid-nineteenth century, many of the leading
business figures in Swansea/Somerset had leveraged the equity and income they
had earned in other industries to invest in the development of Fall River and its
textiles. Many of the investors continued to pursue their original businesses in the
“Old Homestead,” as the region on the west side of the Taunton River became
known.
Shipbuilding
The low-lying forests of the Narragansett Basin provided a bounty of white
oak, fir and pine. Combined with Mount Hope Bay's deepwater access, the region
was perfectly suited to shipbuilding. The first shipyards on the Taunton River and
adjacent Mount Hope Bay were established in the 1690s, and by the turn of the
nineteenth century Somerset (and Dighton, further upstream on the Taunton
River) had become significant ports for shipping out timber, iron and agricultural
37
produce – particularly livestock headed to the West Indies. By the 1850s, this
status had positioned the shipping and shipbuilding industries to take advantage of
the booming mill industry in Fall River, while not being solely reliant on it.
Somerset ships brought raw cotton from the southern states to Fall River's mills
and carried the resulting cloth to market, but other customers and cargo allowed
the shipyards to weather the economic downturns and retain an independence
from Fall River. Shipbuilding declined during the second half of the nineteenth
century, as Fall River was on its most dramatic rise, but there appears to be little
correlation between shipbuilding's decline and the neighboring textiles' ascension.
A particularly bad shipyard fire in 1854 destroyed one of the region's most
important shipyards, but the depression of 1857, the Civil War and the advent of
larger steam vessels seem to have been the primary factors ending Somerset's
shipbuilding industry. Other small shipbuilding communities on Narragansett Bay
like Bristol, Newport and North Kingstown experienced similar declines in the
1850s.46
The first evidence of shipyards on the north shore of Mount Hope Bay and
the lower Taunton River began within a few years after the Shawomet Purchase.
In 1693, Samuel Lee came to the region from New York, representing an English
shipbuilding firm and set up a yard on the mouth of what has since become Lee's
River. Two years later, Jonathan Bowers, an English shipbuilder in Newport, set
up a shipyard on the Taunton River at the south end of what would become
46 Peter J. Coleman, The Transformation of Rhode Island, 1790-1860 (Providence, R.I.: Brown University Press, 1963), 35.
38
Somerset village in an area that was known as Bowers Shore into the 20th century.
In 1697, English shipwright Thomas Coram arrived in the village of Dighton, just
up the Taunton River from Shawomet. Coram had been building ships in Boston,
but was paying much more for timber in the city, than shipbuilders in the outlying
areas. “The convenience of the vast great planks of oak and fir timber, and iron
ore I find abounding at a place call'd Taunton... encouraged me to take some of
my English shipwrights from Boston,” he later wrote.47
Coram's, Bowers', and Lee's yards established a pattern of shipbuilding on
the Taunton River that helped shape waterfront development and commerce on
the Taunton River through the Revolution. As described by Somerset historian
James Bradbury, there were two types of yards: “commercial yards” that produced
ships primarily for sale, and “family yards” that produced ships largely for their
own business use.48 Larger ships tended to be built on commission for owners
throughout New England and south to New York, but myriad smaller ships were
produced by family yards that put them to work trading goods locally around New
England and along the Eastern Seaboard. The protected waters and shallow
sloping shorelines of Mount Hope Bay and the Taunton River were ideal for
producing ships at the water's edge, but the immediate access to agricultural
produce and manufactured goods made shipping an attractive business as well.
47 Joseph A. Goldenberg, Shipbuilding in Colonial America, 1st ed. (University of Virginia Press, 1976), 37.
48 James Bradbury, Seafarers of Somerset (J.E. Bradbury, 1996), 7. It is unclear whether these were historically used labels or ones that Bradbury created.
39
Jerathmel Bowers, in particular, seems to have specialized in this vertical
integration of business functions. Bowers, a descendant of Jonathan Bowers, was
a Quaker, but a notoriously harsh businessman. At a town meeting in 1775, after
the Battle of Bunker Hill, Bowers argued strongly against plans to raise a town
company of minutemen, claiming it would cost too much and be unnecessary. He
apparently intimidated enough of his fellow representatives into agreeing with
him and the plans for a militia were rejected. But after the meeting disbanded and
Bowers left, a number of the other town leaders felt so put off by Bowers, they
attempted to have him brought up on charges of treason. Bowers responded to the
accusations, claiming that it was only his religious convictions that prevented him
from supporting the militia.49 Although he opposed raising a militia, Bowers
made a good deal of money during the Revolution by buying up the mortgage
foreclosures of soldiers who had gone to war and selling off their property.50
Bowers had built a shipyard in Somerset, but built few ships for sale.
Beginning about 1760, he maintained ownership of his ships and established a
bustling trade with the West Indies until the Revolution. Livestock from regional
farms was shipped out of Somerset to the West Indies, and sugar and other
imports came back. The level of his business interests and his aggressive
reputation suggest that there may have been more to Bowers' loyalist tendencies
49 Hermann Wellenreuther, Maria Gehrke, and Marion Stange, The Revolution of the People: Thoughts and documents on the revolutionary process in North America 1774-1776 (Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2006), 228.
50 Mary Ann McDonald, ed., Somerset, Massachusetts: Portrait of the American Experience in a New England Town (Somerset, Mass.: Somerset Historical Commission, 1981), 51.
40
than religious convictions. The British blockade during the Revolution brought a
temporary halt to both shipbuilding and shipping efforts on Mount Hope Bay, but
immediately following the Revolution, the industries rebounded in response to the
pent-up demand for New England foodstuffs and commodities in other regions on
both the British and colonial sides that had been subject to embargo during the
war. The Bowers business continued to expand in the early years of the Republic,
eventually extending to the China trade. Once again, the coastal yet agricultural
nature of the lower Narragansett Basin allowed local businesses to exploit
opportunities. It is likely the Bowers business could have continued successfully
through the first half of the nineteenth century, but upon his death, Jerathmel
passed the business onto his son, Jonathan – a playboy who secretly squandered
the family fortune and bankrupted the business in 1804. Bowers' investors were
said to have been shocked at how quickly the firm had collapsed.
Despite Bowers' collapse, the shipbuilding industry continued to grow along
the Taunton River until the embargos and ensuing war of 1812. Numerous
Somerset ships were lost to the war, either having been captured and burned by
the British or sold off in foreign ports. Although the war had a devastating effect
on Somerset's commerce and associated maritime industries for its duration, the
return of peace re-invigorated business much as it had done after the Revolution.
In addition to renewed trade relations with British colonies in the Caribbean,
westward expansion in the U.S. helped fuel the region's shipbuilding and shipping
industries after the war. In the 40-year period following the war, 196 ships of
41
more than 20 tons were built in Somerset, making it a significant shipbuilding
port. As mills and foundries began to develop across the river in Fall River, the
shipbuilding and repair infrastructure of Somerset began serving Fall River
shipping interests as well. In 1818, the sloop Industry arrived at the port of Fall
River desperately in need of repairs that could only be provided at the larger
shipyards of Somerset. With the ship unable to be moved up the icy river,
sailmakers and caulkers were brought over and put up in a Fall River boarding
house for the winter while they completed the repairs.51
While many of the earlier vessels were coastal schooners and smaller boats
built for conducting trade along the eastern seaboard, the most famous of
Somerset's vessels were the clipper ships built for running to San Francisco after
the 1849 gold rush. In 1825, Nathan Davis and Joseph Simmons opened a
shipyard at the north end of town, and in 1849, the site was bought by Captain
James Madison Hood. A native of Somerset born in 1815, Hood spent his early
years sailing a small sloop owned by his father. The ship, the Rose Bud, ran along
the Eastern Seaboard trading a variety of goods, and eventually under James'
command began a regular run to the West Indies. He delivered salt cod, salt beef
and pork, and returned with molasses as well as cotton and rice from the southern
states.52 With the Taunton River frequently iced in in the winter months, Hood
spent his winters establishing a trading store in Wilmington, N.C. In 1849, after
51 Alice. Brayton, Life on the Stream, vol. 1 (Wilkinson Press,, 1962), 13.
52 J.H. Beers & Co, Representative men and old families of southeastern Massachusetts: containing historical sketches of prominent and representative citizens and genealogical records of many of the old families (J.H. Beers, 1912), 591.
42
being shipwrecked in Mexico during the Mexican-American War, Hood returned
home to Somerset to enter the shipbuilding business, having seen firsthand the
demand for vessels in the Central and South American trades as well as San
Francisco.53
Over the next five years, Hood's yard built some of the most famous ships of
clipper era. The 712-ton Raven, launched from the Hood yard in 1851,
participated in one of the most famous of the clipper races. On a passage of 106
days from New York to San Francisco, she beat the Sea Witch and the Typhoon by
one day. Though many of Hood's ships were built for New York owners, the
1,430-ton Gov. Morton, launched in 1852, was half-owned by local interests,
including Hood himself. The Morton recorded a 104-day run from New York to
San Francisco the next year and remained in service until 1877. During the late
1860s she sailed in the South Pacific, running from Australia to Peru.54 Although
Hood became famous for its clippers, the yard also produced a large number of
smaller vessels under federal government contracts, including four revenue cutters
and five lightships that took up duty across Massachusetts and New York.
In 1854, a ship under construction in the Hood yard caught fire and the fire
spread to the rest of the yard, destroying everything. Hood had suffered another
devastating fire in 1851, but the second fire was too much for the yard to recover
from and it was never reopened. The cause of the fire was considered suspicious,
53 Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts, 93.
54 Ibid., 100.
43
and an insurance company investigation tentatively accused a company's chief
clerk, though never by name. The clerk in question was later cleared, but rarely
ever mentioned by name. He was William P. Hood, James M. Hood's nephew,
who returned to his father's property years later to begin an ironworks there.55 In
the wake of the fire, James Hood sold the property and moved to Illinois for the
remainder of his life. There he pursued a variety of industries and government
posts, including a stint as the U.S. Consul to Siam.
Shipping
Construction of large ships in Somerset dropped off dramatically after the
1850s, but the role of the town as a port and entrepot only increased in the second
half of the nineteenth century. In part this was attributable to the volume of
industrial and agricultural products created in Somerset and Swansea that were
being shipped out from the docks along the Taunton River, but the region also
developed into an intermodal shipping hub for cargo and passengers moving
through the region to other locales. The community's coastal location with a
protected harbor in Mount Hope Bay and along the lower Taunton River had
helped facilitate it as a shipping hub, but it was made truly successful by its
proximity to the growing industrial centers of Fall River, Providence and Boston.
In addition to the commerce derived from ships that were built on the
Taunton River, numerous merchants were shipping goods in and out of Somerset
throughout the nineteenth century. The town participated in an active trading
55 Co, Representative men and old families of southeastern Massachusetts, 591.
44
relationship with southern states in the years before the Civil War. This
relationship was particularly strong with South Carolina, which had been
receiving Mount Hope Bay vessels since Jerathmel Bowers ships began stopping
there on the way back from the West Indies in the mid-1700s. By the the mid-
nineteenth century, Somerset pottery was sold extensively in South Carolina, and
James Hood had established a store there before entering the shipbuilding
business. In 1833, Joseph G. Marble started a packet service with one vessel,
running shipments of manufactured goods to Charleston, S.C. and returning with
southern-grown commodities. It is uncertain how much of Marble's cargo from
the south was cotton for the Fall River mills, but considering Marble owned stores
in both Somerset and Charleston, it is possible he was also bringing back other
materials to sell in Somerset. Eventually, Marble added a second ship to his
service and began accommodating passengers on the route.56
New York shipping services included not just goods from New York City, but
agricultural commodities from upstate New York. In1801, Joseph Brown began a
shipping route from Somerset to Albany, N.Y. with the sloop Harriet. He shipped
out hoop-poles, wooden battens cut from local hardwood saplings that were used
for making barrel hoops. In return, he brought grain from upstate New York and
dairy products which he traded along the way. Because his docks became a
popular place to go buy grain, the village around Joseph Brown's became known
56 Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts, 110.
45
as Egypt.57 Egypt was located at the south end of town, and the docks there
brought in a wide variety of goods for the region. In the pre-railroad days of the
early nineteenth century, much of this was transported via wagon on the roads to
Swansea, Taunton, Rehoboth and other neighboring communities. In 1853, a
steamer packet service opened between Somerset and Albany, making stops in
Fall River, Tiverton, Newport and New York.
With the advent of the steam locomotive, Somerset businesses wasted no
time pursuing a rail line that would connect Mount Hope Bay to Boston. In 1832,
at the request of Somerset, the state authorized a railroad bridge across the
Taunton at Broad Cove, with the city agreeing to pay half the maintenance costs.58
The plan was similar to many plans and right-of-ways being purchased in the
early days of railroads, and did not become a reality. The first railroad along the
north shore of Mount Hope Bay was the Providence, Warren and Bristol Railroad.
Its extension from Warren to Somerset in 1864 terminated at Brayton Point. There
a steamship connection took passengers to Fall River. This connection was the
first to encourage Fall River residents to visit Somerset for recreation. Visitors
came by steamship for the day, and wandered the rural landscape of Brayton
Point, which overlooked Mount Hope Bay.59 The first railroad bridge over the
Taunton came in 1875, built by the Old Colony Railroad and connected with
57 A reference to the biblical story of people coming to Joseph in Egypt for grain. Genesis 41:55-57.
58 Ibid., 109.
59 Ibid., 118.
46
another line in Somerset.60 The bridge included a highway level for horses and
pedestrians below the railroad level.
With the arrival of a railroad in Somerset, the town became a significant
entrepot for coal. It arrived from ports all along the Eastern Seaboard and was
transferred to train at the depot near where the Hood Shipyard had been located.
Railroad networks connected Somerset to Providence, Boston, Fall River and out
to western Massachusetts. According to the monthly records kept in a personal
notebook by an unidentified agent of the Old Colony Railroad, 121,000 tons of
coal were discharged from Somerset in the year ending Sept. 30, 1874. By 1883,
it had risen to 196,000 tons.61
Pottery
The Quaker connection to the region contributed to the development of a
pottery industry that also made use of Somerset's access to shipping. The first
earthenware potters in the region were Quakers who settled on the upper Taunton
River in the early 1700s. The business migrated with a couple of its key
practitioners to Shawomet and grew dramatically in the nineteenth century. By
the start of the Fall River boom in the mid-1800s, there were as many as nine
different pottery factories operating in an area of Somerset that became known as
60 Charles Eben Fisher, The story of the Old Colony railroad (C.A. Hack & son, inc., printers, 1919), 29; Henry Hilliard Earl, A Centennial History of Fall River, Mass. (Atlantic Pub. and Engraving Co., 1877), 191.
61 “Old Colony Railroad Agent's notebook,” n.d., uncatalogued archives of the Somerset Historical Society, Somerset Historical Society.
47
Pottersville. The locations of these potteries adjacent to deepwater shipping
wharves allowed goods to be easily shipped to markets throughout the east coast.
Although earthenware pottery manufacturing began in New England as early
as the 1620s, the earliest record of pottery on Mount Hope Bay was in 1753 when
the Quaker Clark Purington set up shop in Shawomet, then still a part of Swansea.
Purington came from a family of potters in Danvers and went into a partnership
with other Plymouth colony potters, George Shove and William Boyce. During
the Revolution, the trio invested in a sloop which they used to transport their
wares to markets around Narragansett Bay. Their ship was taken by the British
during the war, and the trio -- all Quakers ostensibly with non-combatant status --
appealed to the Crown for damages after the vessel was left stripped and beached
with its cargo badly damaged.62 The incident reinforces the role of the Quaker
merchants in building the pottery trade in Swansea/Somerset, and the value of the
Shawomet waterfront in facilitating access to regional markets early on. During
the reign of Pottersville, Somerset potters supplied household earthenware and
stoneware goods throughout the region, but they also shared the same relationship
with the Carolinas that other Somerset merchants had helped establish. Collectors
of Somerset pottery have found large caches of pots and jars that were used in
South Carolina.63
62 Lura Woodside Watkins, Early New England Potters And Their Wares (Archon Books, 1968), 77.
63 Pottery collection and display at the Somerset Historical Society.
48
Purington passed the business onto his son, who in turn passed it on to
another generation in 1817. Estate records for both individuals suggest that they
passed on both pottery and farming equipment, and the original Purington also
passed on shoemaker's tools.64 Although the pottery business was still growing at
the time, the breadth of artisan interests suggested by the shoemaker's tools
indicates the diversification that continued to characterize Swansea residents well
into the nineteenth century.
The most notable of the Somerset pottery businesses was run by the Chace
family for several generations, beginning with Asa Chace, who likely apprenticed
with Clark Purington. Chace, like Purington, was both a farmer and potter, and
passed his equipment and supplies on to his son. One record of potters of
Somerset suggests that as many as 30 different named artisans produced
individually recognizable pottery in Somerset in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Twelve of those were from the Chace family.65 The Chaces continued
in the pottery business until 1882, when the lead brothers retired from the
business. They sold the business to another firm who renovated the facilities and
increased the stoneware production. The new Somerset Pottery continued
traditional lines of household pottery, but also leveraged the presence of Fall
River as a customer and began producing a variety of pieces for industrial use –
including acid resistant baskets used in jewelry making, and large dye vats for the
64 Ibid.
65 Gerald Simons and Michael Alexander, “Potteries of Somerset,” in Somerset, Massachusetts: Portrait of the American Experience in a New England Town, by Mary Ann McDonald (Somerset, Mass.: Somerset Historical Commission, 1981), 111.
49
Fall River Bleachery.66 The Chace firm also developed contracts with the
Lorillard Tobacco Company to provide snuff jars which were shipped out by a
local schooner that also brought the raw clay in from New Jersey. By the 1890s,
the firm was producing about 85,000 jars annually.67
The artisan nature of the early pottery firms lent themselves to a local
workforce that could also maintain other business interests. In this way, pottery
was another of the industries that gave work to local residents at a time when the
more regimented labor environment of the mills was attracting immigrant
workforces to Fall River.
Ironwork
In addition to fostering hardwood growth for shipbuilding, the low-lying
geology of the Narragansett Basin provided a wealth of iron ore deposits in the
form of “bog iron”. As a result, the region developed a significant iron industry
very early and retained a reputation as a center for iron manufacturing up to the
twentieth century. The first ironworks in the region were developed along
tributaries of the Taunton River in the present-day towns of Taunton and Raynham
in the mid-1650s by the brothers, Henry and James Leonard. The Leonards
traded their iron products with the Indians, and local legend claims that during
King Phillip's War, the Indian leader ordered that the Leonard family not be
66 United States. Army. Corps of Engineers, Report of the Chief of Engineers United States Army (U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1900), 109.
67 Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts, 147.
50
harmed. By 1700, there were five different ironworks located in and around the
Taunton area.
The Leonard family stayed in the ironworks business in the lower
Narragansett and Taunton region for the next 250 years, and were involved in
most of Somerset's iron businesses in the late nineteenth century. Ore from
throughout the lower Narragansett Basin fed into the Old Colony Iron Works and
the Mount Hope Iron Works, both of which were located along the river in
Somerset and both of which were owned at one point by Henry Leonard's
descendent, Job Leonard. As production capacity exceeded local supply, raw
materials were able to be brought in by ship and rail. By 1884, the Mount Hope
Ironworks had a capacity of 4,500 tons a years, and the Old Colony was
producing 5,000 tons a year.68
The Mount Hope Iron Works began as the Somerset Iron Works, established
in 1853. Initially the business focused on forging ship anchors and other
specialized cast iron fittings for ships, but the decline in shipbuilding put the yard
out of business in 1855. Job Leonard purchased the firm and refitted it for the
production of plate iron, nails and shovels. The Iron Works' location immediately
along the waterfront gave Leonard the advantage of access to shipping.
Schooners owned by the ironworks brought in the ore, scrap iron, and coal that
was used in the production, and the same schooners hauled out the finished iron
68 James Moore Swank, Directory to the Iron and Steel Works of the United States, 1884, 85.
51
plate for delivery to markets.69 Both Mount Hope and Old Colony advertised
themselves as being in the business of making iron plate for nails, tacks and
shovels, but extant accounting records from the Old Colony Iron Works paint a
picture of a business with a diverse set of local customers that included several of
the textile mills across the river.70
While Mount Hope was using the schooners on the Taunton River to ship
goods in and out, the Old Colony's records suggest that a great deal of product
was being transported via the Old Colony Railroad terminal in Somerset, which
took the firm's products to manufacturers in Boston, Providence and Pittsfield
among others. The combination of waterfront and railroad access also allowed
Old Colony to bring in coal for its operations from Maryland, West Virginia, and
Ohio.71
In 1855, at the site of the Hood Shipyard, another iron works opened
specializing in cast iron stove construction. The Boston Stove Foundry would
later become a collective, owned by its employees – a development that
contributed to the stability of the workforce and the ability of workers to invest in
the community.72
69 James Bradbury, Somerset (Arcadia Publishing, 1996), 34.
70 Ledger B, Old Colony Iron Works Records, Somerset Historical Society.
71 Ledger E, Old Colony Iron Works Records, Somerset Historical Society.
72 Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts, 140-141.
52
The First Textile Mills
Many of the families that became wealthy in Fall River in the mid-nineteenth
century were intermarried with families from Swansea and Somerset and in many
cases, it was the western relatives who were instrumental in developing Fall
River's textile industry. Although Fall River's heyday was considered to be the
1870s and 1880s, the earliest mill development occurred in the 1810s as a result
of early mill entrepeneurs from Somerset, Swansea and Rehoboth desiring to
move to a locale with more water power.
Dexter Wheeler and his cousin, David Anthony, the two founders of Fall
River's first mill were both from the west side of the river, having started their
careers in other pursuits. Dexter Wheeler was born in Rehoboth in 1777 (possibly
1770 – sources differ). Following an apprenticeship in Pawtucket, he returned to
Rehoboth and started his career as a blacksmith producing tools for farming –
shovels, rakes, hoes, etc. In 1804, Wheeler and his brother Nathaniel (who had
become a blacksmith in Swansea) bought a 43-acre farm in Swansea and two
years later built a small cotton mill on the site that was initially horse driven.
Wheeler had designed the horse-driven mill but was also apparently looking for
new ways to harness the water power along the coastline. In 1811, he received a
patent for a tide mill.73
David Anthony was born in Somerset and began work as a clerk for John
Bowers, later becoming a bookkeeper. When Bowers went bankrupt in 1804, 73 George Derby and James Terry White, The National cyclopedia of American biography ... v.1-
(J. T. White, 1904), 98.
53
Anthony was kept on as the receiver for the business. He later took a job as a
buyer for a Providence pottery retailer, purchasing goods from the Somerset
pottery firms and transporting them to Providence for resale.74 Anthony's
involvement in a variety of the businesses that built the region's capital speaks to
the diversity of opportunities that were available and helps explain why ambitious
young local would-be businessmen did not feel the need to leave the region for
larger cities in order to make their fortunes.
Wheeler came to Fall River in the winter of 1812-1813 scouting out sites for
a new mill. He formed the Fall River Manufacturing Company on March 8, 1813
and hired Israel Pearse, a builder from Swansea, to build his company store. It
was to be the same as had been built for the Swansea Manufacturing Company.75
A year later (March 1, 1814), the directors of the company met and chose
Abraham Bowen, Dexter Wheeler and David Anthony to run the company for the
coming year. About half of the $40,000 in start-up capital that Wheeler and
Anthony solicited for the project came from subscribers outside of Fall River, but
within its neighboring towns: Somerset, Swansea, Rehoboth, Tiverton, and
Warren.76 Thus the first textile mill built in Fall River relied on management,
capital and skilled labor that had been cultivated in the neighboring Narragansett
Basin. The energy to develop Fall River may not have come solely from Fall
74 Earl, A Centennial History of Fall River, Mass., 12.
75 Brayton, Life on the Stream, 1:11-12.
76 Earl, A Centennial History of Fall River, Mass., 11.
54
River itself, but it also did not come from an urban elite in Boston or Providence,
as the popular history of New England's textile mills suggests.
The diversity of business interests that were sustained along the north shore
of Mount Hope Bay and up the Taunton River demonstrate the advantages the
region's coastal environment offered to its entrepreneurial population. By
doggedly pursuing a wide range of businesses in addition to and in conjunction
with the textile industry, residents on Mount Hope Bay created an experience of
New England industrialization that ensured their own economic independence.
55
Chapter 4
Farming and Fishing
“The men who ran the factories ran the farms, often these were the 'Old
Homestead' in Somerset or Swansea.” 77
As noted earlier, the fertile ground of the Narragansett Basin and the rich
waters of Mount Hope Bay and its rivers attracted early settlers to the region, but
it was the ability of both farmers and fishermen to successfully convert from a
largely subsistence occupation to a market-based model that allowed farming and
fishing to remain a viable option for residents along the north shore of Mount
Hope Bay during the nineteenth century. Farmers in the region tapped into the
growing population of Fall River as a market for their produce, but also took
advantage of their proximity to shipping to access other markets throughout New
England and along the Eastern Seaboard. Fishermen on Mount Hope Bay
similarly took advantage of their proximity to urban markets in Fall River and
Providence. These strategies contributed to stabilizing farm businesses and land
ownership over generations of families.
Doing so was not without its challenges. The shift from a market-based farm
economy in New England accelerated dramatically at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. The growth of labor-intensive industries such as the textile
mills and the growth of cities caused the population to skyrocket, creating intense
77 Brayton, Life on the Stream, 1:71.
56
demand for food. The economic impact of the changes on farming communities
occurred in a variety of ways. As demand increased, larger areas were cleared for
farming. Although productivity increased as a result, the growing food supply
lowered prices. As real wages paid to farm labor declined in turn, more laborers
left the farms for jobs in the mills, shipping, and merchant businesses.78 While the
development of larger cities created the markets, improvements in transportation
networks and westward expansion also exposed local New England farmers to
competition from cheaper and often better farm produce from other regions.79
To some extent, farmers in Somerset and Swansea were able to overcome
some of these challenges more easily than inland farms because they leveraged
the advantages of their coastal location. They relied on the water for resources
such as seaweed that was used for fertilizer in the fields and salt hay for feeding
cattle. Their easy access to shipping allowed them to sell more easily to a wider
range of markets than inland farmers who had to bring crops overland to market.
High value crops that thrived in the longer growing seasons of the temperate
coastal environment also gave farmers an edge. Strawberries and celery became
big crops in the region during the mid- to late-nineteenth century. The railroad in
Somerset and the Fall River Line boats shipped out the crops throughout New
England and to New York. According to the personal notebook of one of the
78 Robert E. Rothenberg, “The Produtivity Consequences of Market Integration: Agriculture in Massachusetts: 1771-1801,” in American economic growth and standards of living before the Civil War (University of Chicago Press, 1992), 311-312.
79 Percy W. Bidwell, “The Agricultural Revolution in New England,” The American Historical Review 26, no. 4 (July 1921): 692.
57
railroad agents for Old Colony, the top six growers of strawberries in Somerset
and Swansea shipped out nearly 377,000 cases of berries in 1880 by rail.80
Although the size of the average farm declined as generations of landholders
divided property among their heirs, the variety of other occupations available to
locals as well as the comparative success of farming prevented some of the
transience that seems to have occurred in other communities. In the towns of
Dudley and Oxford, located in central Massachusetts near the border of western
Rhode Island and later home to the Slater mills, half of the heads of households in
1810 had not been born in that community.81 In Somerset and Swansea however,
farmers on land that had been held by family members for generations were able
to continue farming while at the same time pursuing other occupations in the
maritime, mercantile and mill trades. Frequently, members of farming families
would leave the “old homestead” to pursue some other career, but eventually
return to the farm. The careers of numerous farm family members attest to this
trend.
For example, Daniel Chace, born in 1821, was raised on the farm that had
been in his family for at least three generations. Although he was trained as a
farmer, he left the farm and went into the meat business in Fall River “when he
came of age” – presumably about 16. In 1855, Daniel's father Nathan died, and
Daniel, then 34, returned to the family farm to take over. He operated the farm
80 “Old Colony Railroad Agent's notebook.” Located among the uncatalogued archives of the Somerset Historical Society.
81 Prude, The Coming of Industrial Order, 21.
58
for the remainder of his life. His son, Frank Clinton Chace was born on the farm
in 1867 and continued working it after Daniel's death.82
While a wealth of farming occurred well north of the bay, the lands on the
bay and along the Taunton River display the advantage of farming along
navigable water. As noted earlier, when this land was divided by the Shawomet
Purchase, it was split into long narrow strips designed to assure that each
landowner had access to the water. The town was noted for its pattern of parallel
stone walls leading to the water, and each property owner had a private dock from
which to ship out his farm's produce.83 How many of these farmers may have
owned and operated their own vessels is uncertain, but the pattern points to the
early vertical integration that farming on the coast offered, and its value to the
farmers. Moving a crop directly from the field to a boat that could take it to
markets throughout Narragansett Bay was substantially more cost-effective than
transporting by wagon over roads. The development of a market farming
economy in coastal Massachusetts developed in the early 1700s largely in
response to demands for foodstuffs both in the growing urban areas as well as for
the West Indies colonies. But it was not until the nineteenth century, that
agricultural methods began being changed to reflect the scientific approach to
improving efficiency and yields per acre.84
82 Co, Representative men and old families of southeastern Massachusetts, 1220.
83 Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts, 35.
59
In 1831, Henry Gardner, 28 at the time, was operating 40 acres on Gardner's
Neck. His father Henry Sr. had been a ship captain, but Henry Jr. returned to the
family land and the farming business of his grandfather. Henry Jr. is
representative of the options that were available to the long-time local families
who continued to maintain farmland through successive generations. From his 40
acres, he produced 15 tons of English hay, 100 bushels of Indian corn, 100
bushels of rye, 700 bushels of onions, 800 bushels of potatoes and 500 bushels of
turnips. In addition he produced cider, apples, pears, peaches and culinary
vegetables for family use.85
The English hay was apparently feeding his livestock. He was producing
about 4,000 pounds of beef and 1,800 pounds of pork each year. Cultivating
English hay took more effort than grazing livestock on pastures, and Gardner told
New England Farmer magazine that he heavily fertilized his fields. But for
fertilizer he was relying on about 300 loads of locally harvested seaweed (about
11,458 cubic feet86) in addition to what he got from animal manure in the
stables.87 On average, Massachusetts farms during the period were laying between
84 The history of agricultural reform suggests that Britain developed and adopted scientific methods of improving crop yields earlier than America. With little land but cheap labor, Britain was prone to finding more labor-intensive ways to improve the yield per acre. Americans, by contrast, had abundant land but a shortage of labor. This distinction inclined American farmers to graze cattle over wider areas of land, and move to find new fields when soil in an existing field was exhausted. Whitney, From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain, 235.
85 Roland Green, “Bristol Agricultural Society,” New England Farmer, October 26, 1831, 114.
86 A “load” is considered 30 bushels. A U.S. bushel is 2,150.42 cubic inches. This unit has not substantially changed since Gardner's era.
87 Roland Green, “Bristol Agricultural Society,” New England Farmer, October 26, 1831, 114.
60
10 and 20 loads of manure per acre as fertilizer.88 If Gardner had relied solely on
manure to fertilize his fields, he would have required between 400 and 800 loads.
His livestock consisted of “four oxen, 2 cows, 4 young creatures, 1 horse, 20
sheep and 6 hogs.”89 At best, this herd would only have allowed him to fertilize a
few acres.90 By utilizing the locally accessible seaweed, Gardner was able to
heavily fertilize fields otherwise likely left as pasture. The locally available,
coastal resource helped Gardner cut his fertilizer costs, allowing him to generate a
higher yield of English hay and consequently more efficient yields of beef than if
he had been purchasing manure or had been relying solely on the manure
produced by his animals.
Details of Gardner's farm were featured in an October, 1831 issue of New
England Farmer magazine. Gardner had specifically invited representatives of the
Bristol County Agricultural Society to inspect his operation and publish their
assessment in the magazine.91 This circumstance suggests Gardner's own
sophistication and commitment to the science of agriculture. The Bristol County
Agricultural Society, which included the coastal communities from Rhode Island
to New Bedford, was established in 1820, and is representative of the trend
toward such societies that started in Boston in the 1790s with the creation of the
88 Whitney, From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain, 234.
89 Green, “Bristol Agricultural Society,” 114.
90 Whitney, From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain, 234.
91 Green, “Bristol Agricultural Society,” 114.
61
Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture(MSPA).92 The MSPA was
largely the creation of Boston elites for whom farming was as much a symbol of
their wealthy style of estate living as it was a means of income. However,
through societies such as the MSPA these elites fostered a sense of improving
agricultural output for the benefit of their own mercantile enterprises.93 This
pattern appears to have been passed on to societies such as that in Bristol County,
which had a tradition of shipping and trade with other communities along the
Eastern Seaboard.
This mercantile tendency among local farmers helps explain how they made
the shift to becoming textile investors. Families that had been involved in a mix
of farming and shipping for several generations had become elites in their own
right, eager for new opportunities. The Wilbur family of Somerset was among the
earliest farming families of the community, who not only made it into the market
era, but eventually utilized the income from the farm to invest in the development
of Fall River. Samuel Wilbur was a Quaker who had been exiled from the
Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637 and fled to Rhode Island. He was one of the
five original investors who purchased portions of Aquidneck Island from the
Indians. He also purchased land in the portion of Swansea that would later
become Somerset, and in 1680, his son Daniel settled there. The next seven
generations of the Wilbur family farmed in Somerset, although various branches
92 Duane Hamilton Hurd, History of Bristol County, Massachusetts: with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men (J. W. Lewis & Co., 1883), 912.
93 Tamara Plakins Thornton, Cultivating Gentlemen: The Meaning of Country Life Amongthe Boston Elite, 1785-1860 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 57, 75.
62
also became involved in shipping. Daniel Wilbur the fifth, born in 1818, had
continued in the family tradition, but also took an active role in Fall River. Wilbur
was on the board of directors of the Slate Mills and the Wampanaug Mills and
served as President of the National Union Bank in Fall River.94
Throughout the mid-nineteenth century, Daniel the Fifth epitomized the role
of Narragansett Basin agriculture in the development of Fall River. Longtime
farmers were able to continue farming while using their farm income as
investment in Fall River. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, it is
uncertain how much of the wealth possessed by farmers such as Wilbur was still
being generated by agriculture as opposed to industry investment. In the Wilburs'
case, the latter may have been true, as indicated by the slow sell-off of Wilbur
farmland for suburban housing that occurred in the first decade of the 20th century.
However, the Gardners appear to have continued making a living farming into the
twentieth century. Henry Gardner's grandson, Francis Leland Gardner continued
the family tradition, but further adapted to the market era. In 1892, he built a
huge greenhouse on Gardner's Neck and began growing crops through the winter
for the New York and Providence markets. His operation was particularly well
known for its celery, which was shipped to hotels in New York.95
The ongoing operation of these farms across the Taunton River from Fall
River provided a rural contrast to the urban industrial lifestyle of the mills and
94 Co, Representative men and old families of southeastern Massachusetts, 1273.
95 Ibid., 1212.
63
their workers. By maintaining profitable, operational farms through the industrial
era, the patriarchs of the Mount Hope Bay area farm families created the
conditions that allowed their children to pursue other careers in the mercantile and
mill trades while always being able to return to the “old homestead.” At the same
time, profits from the farm operations allowed farmers to take leadership roles in
the ongoing development of Fall River's industry.
Fishing
Despite existing in the shadow of the textile mills, fishing remained a
substantial industry on Mount Hope Bay throughout the nineteenth century. The
tidal nature of the fishing ground, along with easy access to markets, allowed
fisheries to continue in these coastal communities during industrialization,
whereas freshwater fisheries located in such close proximity to inland mill towns
were more quickly strangled by water rights and pollution. While the heart of the
fishing industry on the bay was in Tiverton, R.I., south of Fall River, the towns
along the north shore and on the Taunton River also boasted some fishing
economies. The primary fisheries based out of Somerset and Swansea were
menhaden and shellfish. Smaller catches of herring also appear to have been
successful for some time. By the early twentieth century, however, the fisheries
on Mount Hope Bay were becoming extinct due to a combination of overfishing
and pollution from Fall River outfalls that tides could not flush out.96
96 While it is outside the scope of this paper to delve into the broad issue of overfishing in inland waters during the nineteenth century, it is worth considering the impacts of industrial water control and pollution in Mount Hope Bay compared to freshwater fisheries around other mill towns.
64
That fishing on these inshore waters was able to continue for as long as it did
in the shadow of Fall River's industry points again to the benefits of the
geography of the region. Mount Hope Bay seems to have been less affected by
neighboring industrial development than were similar fisheries in communities
along industrial rivers such as the Merrimack. At the same time the growing
middle and upper classes in Fall River and Providence provided a market for
high-end shellfish, and transportation networks allowed catches to be easily and
quickly sent to market.
In contrast, the Lowell mills on the Merrimack River devastated the region's
fish fairly quickly. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a combination of
dams and pollution had eliminated several species. The impacts of the mill
development on river fisheries reflected both the delicate nature of freshwater
river fish ecology as well as the enclosed nature of the river system. Construction
of the Lawrence dam in 1848 to provide power for the Waltham-Lowell mills
stopped fish from being able to go upstream to spawn.97 In 1865, a state
committee investigating the issue of fish depletion on the Merrimack, Connecticut
and Saco Rivers hired renowned naturalist Louis Agassiz to assess the problem.
Agassiz blamed industrial waste disposal in the river, rather than the millpower
dams.98 Dyes and chemicals from the Pacific Mills had killed off the shad fishery
completely within a year of the mill's opening.99
97 Steinberg, Nature Incorporated, 167.
98 Ibid., 189.
99 Ibid., 191.
65
From Lowell, the waters of the Merrimack flowed for more than 35 miles
before reaching open tidal water. Neither the fish nor the fishermen along that
watershed could be exempt from the impacts of the mills. Fall River's
Quequechan, however, ran less than three miles before dumping into Mount Hope
Bay's 12 square miles of tidal water. The ability of the bay to withstand the
pollution was clearly greater than that of the riverine systems where other mills
were located.
Although the impacts of dams and pollution were mitigated by the
geography of the region, bridges continued to impact the movement of fish along
the rivers that led into Mount Hope Bay. George P. Hood, James Madison Hood's
nephew, was in the herring fishery setting seine nets at high tide in Broad Cove at
the north end of Somerset on the Taunton River and retrieving the nets at low tide.
The herring fishery continued until the railroad bridge over the Taunton south of
Broad Cove cut off the herring runs in the 1870s.100
One of Somerset and Swansea's biggest fisheries was oysters. Early
statistics on oyster productivity in the region are difficult to come by, but the
significance of the oyster fishery to the towns of Somerset and Swansea is seen in
political debates and regulations that erupted over the fisheries. In 1834,
Somerset attempted to regulate the business but ran afoul of local fishermen. A
special meeting called on April 30, 1834, was set up to protest the town selectmen
who had wanted to tax oysters 5 cents per bushel; give exclusive privileges for
100Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts, 88.
66
taking oysters and charge permits for shipping oysters out of town. A
compromise was reached that allowed residents to take oysters within a certain
distance from shore.101 In 1867, Swansea passed a law that regulated the taking of
oysters on the Cole and Lee's Rivers. Residents were limited to two bushels a
month for personal use, and the town retained the exclusive right to license any
oyster taking for profit.102
By 1860, however, oysters from Somerset had begun to acquire a green
coloring and copper taste, which was commonly blamed on the pollution from the
mills of Fall River and other industry further upstream on the Taunton River. It
remained debatable whether this was the cause, but the declining taste of the
oysters relegated the beds in the region to providing seed stock that was then
transplanted to other beds throughout Narragansett Bay and Buzzards Bay where
they would grow to full-size. The Somerset seed stock became highly prized,
prompting bidding wars among buyers, and sending a regular fleet of sloops and
schooners to Somerset to ship out the stock.103 Locals took pride and some
amusement in the oysters that were replanted on the nearby Providence River and
then sold to the Providence markets as being the “famous Providence River
oysters” in the 1870s and 1880s.104 In 1880, the Taunton River and Mount Hope
101Ibid., 110.
102Ernest Ingersoll, History and Present Condition of the Fisher Industries: The Oyster-Industry (Washington: Department of Interior, 1881), 46.
103Ibid., 45-46.
104Hurd, History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, 645.
67
Bay region generated about 51,000 bushels of seed oysters, according to a report
that year by the U.S. Department of the Interior. “During the months of April and
May, about 60 persons are employed in Somerset alone, and in other towns in
proportion – perhaps 400 along the whole river – who, as a rule, live along the
bank, and often own the boats they operate,” the report said.105
By 1900, more than 3,000 acres of submerged land in the Providence River
were leased for oyster beds,106 but the sewage outfall from the City of Providence
had begun noticeably contaminating the oysters. Similarly, sewage outfalls at Fall
River appear to have impacted the Somerset beds by that time, but a growing
number of beds were still being cultivated on the other side of the Bay near the
mouths of the Kickamuit River.107 According to a 1904 report by the U.S.
Commissioner of Fisheries, oysters in those beds showed no sign of
contamination.108
Despite threats from industrial pollution and sewage in the mid- to late-
nineteenth century, the resilient oyster industry continued to offer Mount Hope
Bay residents alternatives to mill work that kept people connected to their coastal
identity and tradition. In establishing a wide reputation for the value of its catch,
105Ingersoll, History and Present Condition of the Fisher Industries: The Oyster-Industry, 45.
106Caleb Allen Fuller, The Distribution of Sewage in the Waters of Narragansett Bay; Appendix to the Report of the Commissioner of Fisheries to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for the Year Ending June 30, 1904 (Govt. Print. Off., 1905), 202.
107United States Fish Commission, Report of the Commissioner for Fish (G.P.O., 1901), 376.
108Fuller, The Distribution of Sewage in the Waters of Narragansett Bay; Appendix to the Report of the Commissioner of Fisheries to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for the Year Ending June 30, 1904, 217.
68
the industry helped instill a sense of local pride that allowed Somerset and
Swansea to retain a sense of independent identity rather than becoming merely a
hinterland of Fall River.
69
Chapter 5
Conclusion
The railroads that had helped Somerset and Swansea serve as shipping hubs
and access regional markets for their own agricultural goods also brought people
to their shores. The rural attraction that Edgar Mayhew Bacon had found so
compelling in his 1904 account was not lost of the booming population of Fall
River. Beginning in the 1890s, railroads and trolley lines began connecting Fall
River with recreational as well as residential opportunities in the countryside
environment across the Taunton River. Ferries had begun to bring people over
from Fall River for afternoon jaunts on Brayton Point in 1864,109 but quick,
inexpensive trolleys opened the opportunities for a broader range of the
population. The establishment of commercial bayside recreation areas
encouraged millworkers and the middle class to get out of the city.
In 1895 the first electric trolley connected Fall River to Somerset. The
Dighton, Somerset and Swansea Street Railway Company picked up passengers
on the Fall River side of the Slade's Ferry Bridge and took them along the western
shore of the Taunton River to Somerset village. The railway continued up to
Dighton where a commercial park owned by the railway company had been built.
109Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts, 118.
70
According to a 1898 travel guide, Dighton Rock Park110 included much than a
picnic lawn overlooking the river: “Inside the Park are bowling alleys, a dancing
hall, billiard rooms, an immense dining hall and merry-go-rounds, while on the
river are wharves with a fleet of steam launches and row-boats. Band concerts
and entertainments are given here on summer afternoons, and in the evening the
park is brilliantly illuminated by thousands of electric lights.”111
The “snake line” of the Providence and Fall River railway company opened
in 1901 and extended directly westward across the Taunton River to Swansea and
the Ocean Grove beach park, another shoreside amusement area. Ocean Grove
became more than a day visit though. Middle class in Fall River and Providence
began seeking out homes along the snake line route, which could take them to
work and back each day. The Wilbur farm family, which owned extensive
property on the northern end of Gardner's neck, became the Wilbur Land
Development Corporation. Hundreds of acres of farmland were split off into lots
and the suburbanization of Swansea began in the first decade of the 20th century.
One summer, the Wilbur company hosted an advertising promotion for its
suburban dream by dispersing balloons over the crowded beach at nearby Ocean
Grove. Select balloons contained deeds to property lots. The rail line stayed open
until 1917 when it gave way to an automobile road.112 Similarly, the waterfront
110The current Massachusetts state park of the same name is located on the opposite side of the Taunton River.
111Robert Derrah, Derrahs Street Railway Guide for Eastern Massachusetts (Boston: Keeden Press, 1898), 141.
112Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts, 162.
71
village of Somerset that had been home to shipbuilding, pottery and ironworks
developed into a suburb on the Dighton to Fall River streetcar route.
Environment, Industry and Local History
The story of Somerset and Swansea from their establishment through
suburbanization is a local history with wider implications for the understanding of
New England industrialization in the nineteenth century and for understanding the
broader role of environmental features in driving economic history. While the
shift in land use to suburban housing developments and recreational centers
changed much of the economic basis of Somerset and Swansea, the fate of the
region continued to be heavily influenced by the value of its environmental
features. Where the water, woods and meadows had once been seen as natural
resources to be exploited for shipping, agriculture and industry, these landscapes
became just as highly prized for their scenic value by tourists and residents
seeking an escape from urban stress. This study of the roles of environmental
features in the early economic development of Somerset and Swansea widens our
understanding of the role of coastal communities on industrialization, and
imposes a sense of agency on people who have been largely dismissed as mere
victims of industrialization.
Somerset and Swansea show that the textiles mills did not produce the
uniform effects that frequently studied mill towns would lead us to believe. The
unique geography and rich resources of Mount Hope Bay's northern shore and
72
rivers offered a wide range of economic opportunities that the Quakers and other
early settlers were quick to take advantage of. Through a mix of farming,
shipbuilding, trade and heavy industry, they generated an diversified economy
well before the establishment of the mills in neighboring Fall River. The diversity
of this economy enabled land-owning families to stay in the community over
numerous generations despite fluctuations in individual industries. That pattern
of stability was not necessarily available to inland communities where
opportunities were not as widespread. As a result the coastal experience of towns
abutting industrialization was quite different from that of the more commonly
studied inland communties.
By profiting from their coastal geography over numerous generations,
residents in Somerset and Swansea were able to amass capital that they then
invested in the development of the textile mill industry in neighboring Fall River.
This local involvement in industrialization by farmers and small independent
merchants suggests that the economic power behind New England's nineteenth-
century textile mills was much more complex than the history of the Boston
Associates and other big-city financiers suggests.
At the same time, they remained physically separated from Fall River by the
Taunton River and the Assonet faultline. By occupying a separate watershed that
fed into a large tidal bay, they were buffered from the environmental and social
impacts of the textile industry in ways that inland towns were not. Their fisheries
were less affected, their water supply remained cleaner, and residents were able to
73
remain in occupations that did not exist in strictly rural inland communities.
Examining the experience of Somerset and Swansea in this environmental context
suggests the complex role that geography and ecology play in economic
development beyond merely access to natural resources. The same features that
buffered Somerset and Swansea from the impacts of industrialization and
urbanization enabled them to retain recreational and residential value in the next
century. The towns that Edgar Mayhew Bacon saw as having been left behind
had not only played a leading role in shaping the industrial development around
them, but had translated their bucolic character to economic benefit throughout
the entire process.
74
Maps
Figure 1: General region of Narragansett Basin. Created from Google Earth
image.
75
Figure 2: Taunton River Watershed. U.S. Geological Survey
76
Figure 3: Partial map of the original Shawomet Purchase. As reproduced in William A. Hart, History of the Town of Somerset, Massachusetts (Town of Somerset, 1940).
77
Figure 4a: Taunton River, showing Fall River and the village of Swansea (Somerset). Joseph des Barres, “A Chart of the Harbour of Rhode Island and Narragansett Bay,” The Atlantic Neptune (London, 1776).
78
Figure 4b: Mount Hope Bay, showing the rivers leading into the bay, and the area of the Shawomet Purchase. Joseph des Barres, “A Chart of the Harbour of Rhode Island and Narragansett Bay,” The Atlantic Neptune (London, 1776).
79
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