MMaarriittiimmee MMiillee ™™ commercial wharf and boston harbor from atlantic avenue Maritime Center of Commerce During the Age of Sail Iconic Wharf in “The Boston Granite Style” Designed by Isaiah Rogers Built by Gridley Bryant “The erection of the Commercial Wharf Building signaled the beginning of the intensive mid-nineteenth-century development of the Boston waterfront. The primary causes of this development during the 1830s and 1840s were the rapid expansion of Boston’s inland railroad connections, the development of the clipper ship (which reached its most advanced form during the 1850s in the East Boston shipyards of Donald McKay) and the establishment of Enoch Train’s Boston to Liverpool packets. These developments encouraged industrial growth in the Boston area and intensified its traditional maritime activity by making the city a point of transfer from sea to land transportation.” The Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783-1860 Samuel elioT moriSon front cover painting: Fitz Henry Lane, Clipper Ship Southern Cross (detail) Permanent collection, Peabody Essex Museum front cover photograph: from Portrait of a Port by W.H. Bunting Contents Center of Commerce During the Age of Sail 2 Skilled Workers Enabled Boston’s success 6 New American Architecture: Boston Granite Style 10 Architect, Isaiah Rogers 12 Builder, Gridley Bryant 13 Notable Architecture, Boston Granite Style 14 inside back cover Bibliography commercial wharf Boston’s Commercial Wharf the heart of maritime commerce during the golden age of sail At a special meeting of the Board of Directors of the Commercial Wharf Company the Building Committee: “Submitted to the board a plan of elevation of the warehouse proposed to be erected by the company on Commercial Wharf drawn by I. Rogers Arch. & dated Boston July 18th 1832. — said plan exhibits a view of the southerly front, & two ends — also the Basement on the northerly side: the board having examined this plan & no alterations proposed — thereupon voted: unanimously — that said plan of elevation be & it is hereby approved and adopted by the board.” Commercial Wharf Corporation Ledger, 1832 (collection of the Peabody Essex Museum. Salem Massachusetts.) Architect Isaiah Rogers’ drawings for Commercial Wharf were approved in 1832, contracts for stone signed two weeks later and twelve months after that, the building was in use, to become the bustling heart of Boston’s maritime commerce. Commercial or Granite Wharf as it was first known, included thirty-two new warehouses; in the words of historian W.H. Bunting, it housed “East Indian, South American, Mediterranean, West Indian, and Northern European merchants.” The new wharf was an immediate success. Original Stock Certificate, 1832. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 2 commercial wharf Shipping was the lifeblood of the American economy in the 1800s. Ships and sailors connected manu - facturers with customers, farmers with consumers, and immigrants with their new homes in America. These ships travelled across the oceans, but also up and down the coast and into the inland waterways. Built out into Boston’s original Town Cove, Commercial Wharf is the old - est structure of its kind along today’s North End waterfront. Its construc - tion began the intensive 19th cen - tury building out of the North End waterfront in the Boston Granite Style. This rapid new development was catalyzed by multiple factors: 1. The expansion of Boston’s inland Original key to the vault at Commercial Wharf. railway network. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 2. The development of the clipper ship . Donald MacKay’s East Boston shipyards were the birthplace of the fastest and most ad - vanced of these vessels. 3. The establishment of Enoch Train’s Boston- based White Diamond Line of weekly liverpool- to-Boston packet ships. Traditionally, ships sailed when they had loaded enough cargo to justify a voyage. Passengers could be delayed days or even weeks waiting for the holds to fill. The simple in - novation of sailing on a weekly schedule was a distinct improvement for travelers and perishable cargos alike. By enhancing and boosting the traditional activi - ties of sailing ships, these three facets were enor - mously encouraging to commercial and industrial growth in Boston and its environs. In the mid-nineteenth century, hundreds of thou - sands of English and Irish immigrants to the United States departed from Liverpool, England and sailed to Boston. Scandinavian settlers also sailed to America through the British port. Commercial Wharf remains a monument to Promotional Sailing card for Enoch Train’s Packet Line. Boston’s success as a premier American interna - Courtesy of the Bostonian Society. tional maritime trade center in the 1800s, and an active working port — one of the oldest continuously operated ports in the western hemisphere. commercial wharf 3 excerpted from Morison’s Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783-1860 “Never before or since had Boston Harbor been so crowded, or the waterfront so congested with Sailing ships... In the eighteen-thirties the yearly average almost attained fifteen hundred, and the average size of vessels was growing as well. Coastwise arrivals increased in the same propor - tion; and by 1844, when a new and ever greater era began, fifteen vessels entered and left the harbor every day in the year.” average annual arrivals from foreign ports at Boston, by decades 1790-1800 1800-10 1810-20 1820-30 1830-35 1835-41 569 789 610 787 1199 1473 annual arrivals of coasting vessels at Boston 1830 1840 1844 1849 1851 2,938 4,406 5,312 6,199 6,334 In 1857, Vessels from: trade with the world British East Indies, Philippines, Dutch East Indies, China, Africa, Azores, Cape Verde Islands, Canaries, Gibraltar and Malta, Spanish Mediterranean ports, French Mediterranean ports, Sardinia, Tuscany, Naples and Sicily, Smyrna, Black Sea, Portugal, Spain Atlantic ports, France Atlantic ports, Norway and Sweden, Russia, England and Scotland, Belgium and Holland, Canada, Maritime Provinces, S. Pierre & Miquelon, Cuba, Puerto Rico, British West Indies, Other West Indies, Haiti & San Domingo, British Honduras, Mexico & Central America, New Grenada & Venezuela, Surinam & Cayenne, Brazil, Argentine Republic, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Sandwich Islands. the table above illustrates the dominance of maritime activity in the port of Boston. Y Samuel Eliot Morison The Maritime History and local vessels returning of Massachusetts,1783-1860 (page 377) to port from whaling 4 commercial wharf in the final analysis, the power of Massachusetts as a commercial state lay in her ships and the men who built, owned, and sailed them. Samuel Eliot Morison docks and shipping, commercial wharf 175 years ago. stereoscope (detail) by John P. Soule commercial wharf 5 Thousands of Skilled Workers Enabled Boston’s Success Donald McKay’s shipyard in East Boston. Some of the many men employed in the building of ‘Glory of the Seas’ at her launching in October, 1869. Workers who powered Boston’s marine economy came from not only the city itself, but also from the Canadian Maritimes, Ireland, scotland, England, Norway, finland, and elsewhere, bringing diversity and an international feel to the shipyards and wharves. McKay himself is near the center wearing a top hat. He was a practical genius who had only a minimal formal eduction, but was considered the outstanding designer and builder of clipper ships. James Wallace Black, Glory of the Seas, October 1896. Photo courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum. The backbone of maritime Massachusetts, however, was its middle class; the captains and mates of vessels, the master builders and shipwrights, the ropemakers, sailmakers, and skilled mechanics of many different trades, without whom the merchants were nothing. Samuel Eliot Morison 6 commercial wharf Wharf Neighbors, Heroes, and Heroines Captain William T. Shorey, master of a Nantucket whaling fleet in 1886 with his wife, Julia (Shelton), and their daughters. Courtesy of the National Park Service, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Boston Courier (Boston, Massachusetts, Thursday, October 24, 1833) AT RIGHT : Mary Anne Brown Patten of East Boston joined her captain husband on Neptune’s Car , an East Boston-built clipper ship, on the New York to San Francisco route. Mary never had any intention of taking command, but when they were off the coast of South America, her husband fell gravely ill. Mary had accompanied her husband on previous voyages (including passages to China) and she had studied navigation and seamanship along the way. With her captain husband incapacitated, Mary took command of the ship. She successfully faced down a mutiny at gunpoint, saved her husband from death, and delivered the ship, crew, and cargo safely to port in San Francisco. Mary Patten Brown was 19 years old — and pregnant — at the time. Mary Ann Brown Patten, c. 1857, unidentified artist. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Dorthy Knouse Koepke. commercial wharf 7 In 1916 four ship chandlers operated out of busy Commercial Wharf. Absolutely vital to the operations of the port, they provided nearly everything a vessel required. Chandlers were valuable friends to shipmasters, frequently giving credit or lending money. The best were astute businessmen who often owned shares in the vessels of the port. photo courtesy Chelsea Clock Company. Offices and Shops at Commercial Wharf, 1916 G. J. Buchanan Co William J. Wilson C. D. Woodbury Cornice and sheetmetal workers Clerk Shipping office 87 Commercial Wharf 10 Commercial Wharf 7 Commercial Wharf (home in Roxbury) George W. Chadbourne Thomas A. Cromwell & Son Co. Teamster Harvard Brewing Co. Ship Chandlers 8 Commercial Wharf 45 to 48 Commercial Wharf 39 Commercial Wharf (home in Dorchester) “The beer that’s bought, Flitner-Atwood Co. When the best is sought” Commercial Towing Co. Ship Chandlers maritime Towing Service Gray, Aldrich Co., Inc. 8 Commercial Wharf Pumps, engines, lights end of Commercial Wharf Harrington, King & Co. and Farm Tractor s Dayton milling Co. Ship Chandlers 33-34 Commercial Wharf 39 Commercial Wharf 79 Commercial Wharf armour Glue Works H.