Massachusetts History

The Song of the Shoemakers’ Strike.

‘ Ye ” bosses ” of the shoemaker, have you not heard the news?
Your workmen, they have dropp’d their tools, refus’d to make your shoes !

The ” best of jours ” are in the State, combining, rise and say,
That they cannot afford to work for Fifty Cents a day

The women bid them ne’er despair, and in the strike take part
They aid the men—the journeymen—and dauntless is each heart

Like those who beat en warm and true, while thousands did admire,
As Lawrence on a fatal day, wept for that dreadful fire

Wept for the young and blooming ones who perish’d on that clay
When down did fall the Pemberton, and spread around dismay!

Oh, if in such a scene as that the women win applause,
Be sure, ye Journeymen of Lynn, they’ll not desert your cause !

Too long, too willingly you’ve toil’d from sunrise till its set
Then labor’d by the midnight lamp your livelihoods to get

Too oft you knew your children want for raiment, meat and bread
And it was hard, and very hard, all was not right, you said

You would not be like Russian serfs, or like Circassian slaves,
Your father came their rights to seek, across Atlantic’s waves

And shall their sons be trodden on, and have to harder toil
Than the poor Afric daily does, on C’arolina’s soil?

Oh, not they shout, they rise in might, their rights to all maintain
They ” strike” as men had ought to do, who’ve just cause to complain,

And Marblehead and Haverhill add fuel to the floe
That can’t be querch’ci till Industry has what its sons desire

Ye ” bosses ” of the ” best of jours ” who fatten on their wrongs,
why wonder that they gather strength, and still arise in throngs?

Why wonder that the women now will not be in the van,
But foremost in the dauntless ranks to aid themselves and man?

Is it not hard to keep them from the battle-field when those who bear the name of lovers rush to meet Columbia’s foes ?

And be assured ye ” Loses ” now, they’ll be the last to yield
They’ll stand up for their children’s rights, for which they’ve took the field—

And he cannot a Christian be, but far beneath a Turk,
who would to-day dare come to Lynn, and say he’d underwork.

Ye journeymen have feathers near, and best of pitch and tar,
And ” Give him Jessie ” when he comes whore dauntless workmen are!

You’ve mark’d your ” Scale of Prices,” now, ye journeymen so true,
ear on and pray to IIim above that:He’ll he kind to you

:1lid as for what’s your due you “Strike” upon ” Our Father” trust, And if the ” boss,” will u. t yield, remember soon they must—

And even now diet they express their feelings at this day They’d tell around that you’ve received naught but starvation’s pay ;

Thank God there are a dauntless few among the bosses yet,
Who dare maintain the wages that the journeymen should get.

Then men of Lynn and Have, hill, and men of Marblehead, All ye who in the Bay State toil to earn your daily bread,

Oh let your banners kiss the breeze, and nevermore be furl’d,
For Lynn has an example set, should be follow’d by the world !

Ac et Caen in Lowell, oh how ‘oft the Factory bail is rung,
And how for scanty pay must toil the lads and maidens young—

And how the rich their cottons buy at prices very low,
Because the poor get little pay wherever they may go.

If Southern masters will make slaves of Afrie’s sable band,
And sit we expect the whites to be on Massachusetts land?

And must the eons of those who fought in Freedom’s sacred esuse, IT lost’ arise, their rights maiutaiu, be bidden then to pause?

A..d oh, from Burton’s classic town must the policemen start
To quell Industry’s fearless bents, who share the people’s heart?

D let them ever have their right, and you will find that they Will the Old Bay State still defend, and all just laws obey….

Nahant (Lynn) Massachusetts Sea Monster

Nahant was part of Lynn until the mid-1800′s.   Following is from an 1886 Lynn History.

This strange wanderer of the seas can scarcely be classed as an exclusively Lynn institution, but in the early part of the present century he created a tremendous sensation here and hereabouts. That there was such a visitor to our shores and bay in the early summer of 1819 and several seasons after, is true past question ; it was through attempts to describe him, and worse still, to estimate his length, that many reputations well established as to truth and veracity received a wrench from which they have never recovered.

 When Col, T. H. Perkins, a well-known resident of Boston, was asked by an English friend whether he had heard of the sea serpent, he replied : ” Unfortunately I have seen it.” He felt that a shadow had somehow closed in upon him from which he was unable to emerge.

His snakeship’s comings were as unannounced as his departures were unceremonious, and he was frequently seen taking his morning swim along the shores, his head elevated at a good sight-seeing distance above the waves.

 
Whether the people he saw were too inquisitive, or the country not to his liking, is not known, but he declined to fix his residence here, though no doubt he could have made very advantageous terms as a permanent summer attraction.
A recently published letter by a fellow townsman gives as good a description of him as any we have seen.

Lynn, Mass., June 26, 1881.
Mr. C. F. Holder.

Dear Sir: — Yours of the 34th inst. came duly to hand, and, in reply
to that part of it relating to the account given by myself of a strange fish, serpent, or some other marine animal called a sea serpent, I have to say that I saw him on a pleasant, calm summer morning of August, 1S19, from Long Beach, Lynn, now Nahant. At this time he was about a quarter of a mile away ; but the water was so smooththat I could plainly see his head and the motion of his body, but not distinctly enough to give a good description of him. Later in the day I saw him again off ‘ Red Rock.’ He then passed along about one hundred feet from where I stood, withhead about two feet out of the water, and his speed was about the ordinary of a common steamer. What I saw of his length was from fifty to sixty feet.

It was very difficult to count the bunches or humps (not fins) upon his back, as, by the undulating motion, they did not all appear at once. This accounts, in part, for the varied descriptions given of him by different parties.

His appearance upon the surface of the water was occasional and but for a short time. The color of his skin was dark, differing but little from the water, or the back of any common fish.

This is the best description I can give of him from my own observation, and I saw the monster just as truly, although not quite so clearly, as I ever saw anything.

This matter has been treated by many as a hoax, fish story, or a seaside phenomenon to bring trade and profit to the watering-places ; but, nothwithstanding all this, there is no doubt in my mind that some kind of an uncommon or strange rover in the form of a snake or a serpent, called an ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, or some other long-named marine animal, has been seen by hundreds of men and boys in our own, if not in other waters. And five jDersons beside myself — Amos Lawrence, Samuel Cabot and James Prince, of Boston, Benjamin F. Newhall, of Saugus, and John Marston, of Swampscott — bore public testimony of having seen him at the time.

Yours Truly,

Nathan D. Chase.”

The gentlemen named were all interviewed at the time, and their testimony, to make it, if possible, more conclusive, was sworn to before a magistrate, and differed only in detail from that of JSIr. Chase, except that Mr. Marston thought he might have been a hundred feet long. At various times and in various places, from Nahant to Nova Scotia, his serpentine majesty has suddenly raised his head above the waves, carrying wonder and affright to the hearts of all beholders.

All tell about the same story of him with the exception of the crew of the bark “Pauline,” of London. Their testimony, taken before a magistrate at Liverpool, was :

“Borough of Liverpool, in the County Palatine of Lancaster, to wit:
We, the undersigned, captain, officers and crew of the bark Pauline of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, do solemnly and sincerely declare that on July 8th, 1S75, in latitute5 deg. S. and longitude 35 deg. W., we observed three large sperm whales, and one of them was gripped round the body withtwo turns of what appeared to be a huge serpent. The head and tail appeared to have a lengthbeyond the coils of about thirty feet, and its girth eight or nine feet. The serpent whirled its victim round and round for about fifteen minutes, and then suddenly dragged the whale to the bottom head first. George Drevar, Master; Horatio Thompson, John Henderson Landells, Owen Baker, William Lewarn.”

That was quite a fish story, but it by no means measured their capacity in that line, for five days later three of the same ship’s crew made affidavit that they had seen the serpent, his head “elevated some sixty feet in the air.” What length of body and tail would be required to enable the serpent to elevate his head sixty feet in the air, we leave for others to figure out ; but it seems a pitv that they could not have been contented to let a good enough storv alone. At intervals during these later years this strange wanderer of the seas has put in an appearance now here, now there ; but those across whose path he has swum ha\e l)e- come verv guarded in their references to him, owing, possibly, to sundrv unkind references to the unaqueous condition of their ship stores. But the local descriptions given of this king of the serpents have attracted wide attention in scientific circles, and even inspired one poet’s muse :

” Welter upon the waters, mighty one,

And stretch thee in the ocean’s trough of brine;
Turn thy wet scales up to the wind and sun.

And toss the billows from thy flashing fin;

Heave thy deep breathings to the ocean’s din,
And bound upon its ridges in thy pride;

Or dive down to its lowest depths, and in
The caverns where its unknown monsters hide.
Measure thy length beneath the gulf stream tide;

Dr rest thee on the navel of that sea
Where, floating on the maelstrom, abide

The Krakens, sheltering under Norway’s lee —
But go not to Nahant, lest men should swear
You are a great deal bigger than you are.”

— J. G. Brainerd

Drawing of an empty shop during the Lynn Mass. Shoemakers strike

The Lynn Massachusetts Great Shoemakers Strike of 1860

Wow.. The artist really outdid himself with this gem. Riots and protests going on in the streets of Lynn and he chooses to draw……

An empty shop….

Fire in Lynn, Massachusetts – Thursday, November 28th

“About an hour after the fire broke out the Stevens Building in Central square went down with a crash. With this building the National Security Bank, F. M. Breer’s tailor establishment, the insurance office of Baker, Marshman & Baker, the law offices of Niles & Carr and B. A. Ward and the office of Deputy Sheriff E. J. Medbury were swept away, The wooden three-story block occupied by Tucker’s cigar store next succumbed. The Currier Building, just finished at a cost of $65,000, was soon destroyed. The conflagration swept on until it reached the corner of Mulberry street, sweeping out W. M. Currier’s spacious clothing house and B. F. Spinney’s great shoe factory. Three great brick blocks, with a frontage of five hundred feet on Union street, all were lost.

Mulberry street gave the firemen a vantage ground. Six steamers were stationed at this point, and an heroic fight was made upon the historic old Sagamore Hotel, a large brick building four stories in height. Many times the building was on fire, but after a stubborn struggle the firemen won, and the flames spread no farther in that direction. On the opposite side of Central avenue and Central square the flames made short work of the fine Fuller Block, a four-story brick structure two hundred feet long, in which was C.W.. Pecker’s shoe factory. This factory employed 200 I hands. In this building were the offices of I Sprague & Breed, coal dealers, and the Western Union Telegraph. Following the railroad track, the fire swept out the entire square to Washington street, destroying the Beverly House, a large wooden boarding-house, the Salem House, Edward Heffernan’s wholesale and retail liquor store, Hoitt Brothers’ wholesale liquor establishment, Milton Griffin’s liquor store, and the “Corner Drug Store.” The “Whitechapel district” was entirely cleaned out.

It was hoped that the open space of the Eastern Division of the Boston & Maine Railroad would serve to check the flames, but not long after two o’clock they swept over it, catching first the wooden buildings and then leaping to the big brick ones almost in a moment. Buildings were blown up here and there, but sufficient explosives were not at hand-to do effective work and the flames still swept toward the water. As fast as the steamers from neighboring cities arrived they were put in place along the skirts of the now widening V, while others took up posts in the very front of the advancing flames, and fought until driven back. Hardly had the flames leaped the track below the Central station then the station itself was found to be on fire, while back of that position. by the side of the inward track, Goldthwaite’s big stable burned furiously. The flames swept down Exchange street, taking both sides of it.”

Action packed tidbit of Lynn history

The caption reads “Nathaniel Wallis and His Family At Gravesend, Lynn, Massachusetts, Waiting For The ‘Bosses’ To Give In”

They still have a while to wait. This was week one of a 5 week strike.