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The Essex Bridge: Transportation and Politics in the Early Republic

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The Essex Bridge: Transportation and Politics in the Early Republic Butler University Digital Commons @ Butler University Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS College of Liberal Arts & Sciences 1972 The Essex Bridge: Transportation and Politics in the Early Republic George W. Geib Butler University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers Part of the Political History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Geib, George W., "The Essex Bridge: Transportation and Politics in the Early Republic" Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences Proceedings / (1972): 111-117. Available at https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers/802 This Conference Proceeding is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Digital Commons @ Butler University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Butler University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 110 Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences 10. The State of Indiana, ex rel. Corwin 11. Indiana and Ohio Oil, Gas & Mining Company, 120 Indiana 575 (1889). 11. "The State vs. Elwood Haynes," 1891, File No. 16, 125, Office of the Clerk of the Indiana Supreme Court, State House, Indianapolis. The Essex Bridge: Politics and Transportation 12. Egbert Jamieson v. The Indiana Narural Gas and Oil Company, and the Columbus Construction Company," 1891, File No. 16, 106, Archives Division, in the Early Republic Indiana State Library. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. These attorneys represented several narural gas companies in Indiana, including the Consumers' Gas Trust Company of Indianapolis, and as such GEIB filed an "intervenor's brief." GEORGE W. 15. Ibid. The Indianapolis News, June 16, 1891 is the authority for the statement Butler University that the charges created a "sensation." 16. Indianapolis News, June 16, 1891. 17. Ibid.; Kokomo Dispatch, June 25, 1891. The court's decision is at 128 Indiana 555. Judge Olds' dissent appears on pp. 584-91. 18. The state's peak production of natural gas came in 1900, but the decline in THE years that followed the War for Independence are commonly annual output was not precipitous until 1904 and afterwards. By 1920 the viewed as a period of rapid economic expansion. Deriving from such state had become "chiefly a consumer rather than a producer" of narural gas. Phillips, Indiana in Tramition, p. 197. elements as a growing population, new foreign markets, increased capital resources, and a confident public spirit, this expansion is known to include a variety of new business ventures, notably in manufacturing and in transportation. Such new ventures are normally pictured in their business context, showing few political overtones apart from sporadic opposition by rural legislators.1 This latter emphasis may be mistaken, however, because many of these early innovative business ventures faced challenges in the form of local political controversies whose dynamics are a neglected aspect of the affairs of the Confederation era. The Essex Bridge of Massa­ chusetts is an excellant case study in this regard. Shaped roughly like a diamond, Essex County stands in the north­ eastern corner of MassachusettS, extending along the Atlantic coast from New Hampshire south coward Boston. Comprising over twenty towns in the 1780s, the county then enjoyed an unusually varied economic base. Merchant trade characterized such larger towns as Salem and Marblehead; fishermen operated from half a dozen pores; commercial agriculture was found in the interior; and a widespread cottage textile industry was present. As a consequence, the county enjoyed a remarkably heavy flow of inland commerce, much of which moved to and from Boston.2 The economic position of Essex County was reflected in the wealth of its leading families and in the political power that these families enjoyed. Most notable in this regard was the Essex J unrcr--a group best remembered for its alleged high Federalist opposition to the Adams family, but a group that was in fact most influential in county affairs dur­ ing and just after the War for Independence. Numbering perhaps a 111 112 Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences Politics mzd Transportation i11 the Early Republic 113 dozen leaders of the pore towns,3 it was this group's members who in citizens, it argued, was "essentially necessary . co facilitate commerce, 1787 conceived the Essex Bridge. to encourage agriculture and the mechanic arts, and to accommodate The central figure in the project was George Cabot. Born in Salem individuals." "The populous county of Essex" would gain "by enabling in 1752, educated at Harvard, and employed by his brothers' merchant the country towns to carry their articles of produce to market, and also firm in Beverly in the early 1770s, Cabot served the usual apprenticeship to carry goods from thence, at a much less expense that they now do," as supercargo and captain before earning his full partnership in 1 777. while the southern cities would gain "markets more plentifully supplied Originally engaged in a rum, fish, and iron trade with the southern with the produce of the country," thus gaining "new purchasers for colonies and Spain, the Cabots soon shifted most of their resources to their merchandise and more employment to their mechanics and la­ privateering and emerged in 1783 as the most successful wartime firm borers."7 in the county. These newly won riches in turn permitted George Cabot The forty-five subscribers then signed up for 194 of the 200 projected and his brothers to consider larger postwar investmenrs.4 Among such shares into which the anticipated $16,000 cost of the project was to be investments was a toll bridge connecting Beverly to its southern neighbor, divided. The roster of shareholders really was one listing the leading Salem. commercial families of Salem and Beverly, with the Derbys, Thorndikes, In the 1780s only two main roads linked northern and southern Saunderses, and the \XIoodbridges especially well represented. The largest Essex County, one passing inland and the other along the coast. The bloc of stock rested, however, with George Cabot and his Essex Junto latter route was shorter and perhaps smoother, but suffered from a associates, who accounted for forty-eight of the 194 shares. The Cabot lack of adequate transportation across the deep ocean inlet that separated family, moreover, was careful to obtain control of the corporation first Beverly from Salem. In I 787 the only available transport over this inlet by eleccing George Cabot president and later by having the family's firm was an old colonial ferry that was too small co carry bulk goods or to supply the construCtion materials.~> sail in bad weather. These considerations had forced much of the county's Five days after the agreement had been executed the subscribers peti­ commerce to travel the inland route that ran through the town of Danvers tioned the legislature for their charter. This petition went beyond just at the head of the inlet. Thus a bridge over the inlet would offer benefits a restatement of the general considerations set forth in the earlier one both to chose collecting tolls and those otherwise profiting from in­ by providing a more specific description of existing adverse travel condi­ creased trade on the coast road. 5 tions. Persons going co Salem, Marblehead, and Boston, it was noted, It is noteworthy that the Essex Bridge was not the first internal were "subjecced to the inconvenience of [taking] a long ferry or obliged improvement project in which Cabot had demonstrated an interest. to travel several miles out of their way, over a very bad and unpleasant In 17 86 his firm had petitioned the state legislature for a charter to road" in order to carry "any heavy goods or produce, the ferry being build a roll bridge from Boston to Cambridge--a projeCt rejected by entirely useless for that purposc."° Cabot had enough copies of the the legislature in favor of the famed Charles River Bridge which ran from petition printed so chat he simultaneously could send one to the General Boston to Charlestown. Most authors suggest that Cabot became interested Court and others to Essex County towns with a request for their sup­ in the Essex venture only after this defeat.0 However, if one considers port. On June 21 his home town of Beverly, obviously forewarned, the legislature's obvious dislike of the longer route to Cambridge, the was the first to do so and then was followed quickly by the northern Cabot petition also may have been designed, at least in pare, to publicize coastal towns of Ipswich and Gloucester. 1 0 the family's interest in bridge construction and thus to prepare the In Salem, however, the proposal was abruptly rejected during a rown legislators for the later Essex venture. meeting on June 25 that produced one of the largest tOtal voces ever The speed with which Cabot and his supporters completed con­ cast. Rev. \XTilliam Bentley, a local diarist who observed the contest, noted struction of the Essex Bridge suggests that the project had been carefully that "the parties were warm in their debates upon exchange, which was planned. It formally opened on June 13, 1787 with a meeting in the strongest & most numerous." From the stare the bridge forces asserted Salem of the prospective stockholders. There the forty-five men in that the propertied "interest of the town was on their side," but the attendance signed an agreement setting forth their official rationale for opponents proved to be the "first majority in numbers," and carried the the bridge. The "easiest, softest, and least expensive communication" of meeting, 187 co 164.11 114 Proceedings of the Indiana Academ.y of the Social Sciences Politics and Transportation in the Early Repttblic 115 Seeking to explain the unexpeCted defeat, Rev.
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