Radio Script #1191
Little Talks on Common Things
February 18, 1979
Last week I promised you that today I would have more to say about Maine’s largest city of Portland.
What assured that the place would become Maine’s largest inhabited community? First was its excellent harbor, not only as being safe anchorage, but being the American port on our entire coast that was nearest to the British shipping center of Southampton and Liverpool.
Secondly, it was a port situated near a bountiful supply of lumber from the forests of virgin pines, like what in Nova Scotia Longfellow described in Evangeline as “lithe forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks”. It was natural for Portland to become the largest of the New England mast ports, from which went across the Atlantic large numbers of masts for the King’s navy.
The British government designated Falmouth (the older name for the place) as the central colonial point for supply of masts. Annually the huge mast ships came to the harbor from English ports and returned loaded with the huge masts. It was a very important business for the town, not only furnishing labor in the woods and at the preparation and loading wharves, but giving effective stimulus to the development of shipbuilding, which next to lumber soon became Maine’s largest early industry, far exceeding its exports from agriculture.
Before the middle of the 19th century, Portland was already Maine’s largest municipality, though in 1832 it had lost the state capital to Augusta. Then in 1845 came an event that assured Portland’s supremacy far into the future. That was the opening of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence R.R. from Portland to Montreal. Under the leadership of Maine’s first railroad promoter, John Poor, Portland won over Boston as the Atlantic terminus for rail service to connect the commerce center of Canada with the Atlantic Ocean. The St. Lawrence was frozen solid during the winter, and Canada desperately needed an ice-free port in the United States. The great value of that new railroad was that it opened up easy access to an Atlantic port for the grain both of western U. S. and of the Canadian provinces. Throughout the remainder of the 19th century and well into the 20th, Portland became a port whose harbor was filled with ships. Henry W. Longfellow recorded that from the top of Munjoy Hill, where is now Fort Allen Park, he could as a boy often count fifty big ships in the harbor.
Returning for a moment to the early importance of the mast trade, let us note an item in the Boston newspaper, New England Weekly, in May 1727. It said: “The mast business, long predominant in Portsmouth, has been moved farther eastern to Falmouth. Captain Farley in one of the largest of the mast ships now lies in Casco Bay, and is highly pleased with the convenience of the fine harbor and the skilled workmen at the wharves. The government in Boston will now surely regard Falmouth a port worthy of their active support.”
Most of the masts were floated to Portland down either the Fore or the Presumpscot rivers, and together with small spars were placed in the mast ships. That was no easy task in the days before steam engines or other devices except hand-operated derricks. It often took as many as thirty men to get one of those huge masts aboard. They were often as much as three feet in diameter at the butt, and as long as 100 feet, making a huge weight to be managed and always with danger of breakage at the smaller end. The masts came from special trees which the surveyor General had earlier marked with the King’s broad arrow. If anyone privately cut one of these sacred trees, he was subject not merely to a large fine, but usually sentenced to a long term in prison. The price paid to the person given the government contract to cut, transfer to the wharves, and load those masts was one pound a ton, and that was the price for all such ship lumber – masts, spars and bowspits. Of course there were higher pines much larger than three feet at the butt, but early in the mast trade, three feet had been designated as the maximum size for a mast. Larger masts simply could not be used on the King’s ships.
The mast ships were vessels built especially for the purpose. They were of 400 tons burden, manned by a crew of 25, and seldom carried more than five of the giant masts in a single voyage. That made the price of a mast landed in England extremely high, often more than a hundred pounds. No wonder wealthy colonists like Sir William Pepperell were eager to be in the mast business.
By 1750 a number of enterprising men had become merchants on the Falmouth waterfront. The wealthiest of these was Captain Alexander Ross, who rapidly accumulated a fortune in trade with European and Caribbean ports. He owned a fleet of sailing vessels. Ross and others made Portland not only a center for trans-Atlantic commerce, but also for the expanding trade with the West Indies. From Portland Harbor to the islands of the Caribbean went enormous quantities of lumber and wood products, and returning ships brought to Portland cargoes of molasses, sugar and rum.
Local trade was mostly by barter. Very little cash changed hands. Coined money was scarce. Often a family in a rural area outside a settled town would see no money at all during an entire year. All through the 18th century and most of the 19th, paper money presented a problem. From one week to the next a person never knew what a particular paper bill would be worth. The first colonial paper money appeared in 1690 when the Massachusetts Legislature authorized an issue of 50,000 franc to pay for its expedition to Canada. That issue was not backed by any silver or gold in the province treasury. Its only value was the faith people had in the stability of Massachusetts government. As that faith wavered between good times and bad, the value of the silver fluctuated, sometimes dropping as low as twenty cents on the dollar. That is, it took five dollars in paper to get one dollar in silver. When a new issue of paper money was made while a former issue was still in circulation, the two would have different values. That’s why, in 18th century Maine documents we find the phrase “old tenor” or “new tenor” to describe a price paid for something. In 1748 Falmouth old tenor notes were valued at only 25 percent of new tenor. At that time, in fact, very little British specie came to Falmouth. The few coins the merchants ever saw were Spanish doubloons and Portuguese mildres.
How could a man accumulate a fortune if he saw little permanently valued money? The answer is the rising value of land in rapidly settling areas. All business was conducted by credit. As an enterprising merchant would make a profit on what he sold to individual customers, he would make another profit on the goods he took from them in payment when he accumulated a shipload of these goods and sent them to a foreign port. Those profits the merchant would often invest in land, again paying for the land in goods, not money, and often over a period of years in the form of a gradually reduced mortgage. Often he increased his wealth by taking mortgages on other people’s property. All that was, of course, before the establishment of banks. Maine’s wealthiest 18th century citizen, Sir William Pepperell, was a merchant long before he became predominantly a financier. One of his investments was stock in the King’s Highway, the privately built toll road from Kittery to Portland.
Many of my listeners are familiar with Portland’s modern streets, especially those in the business section: Congress Street, High Street and State Street that cross it, Free, Middle and Exchange streets, and many others. Some of these streets had ancient beginnings as crude lanes on the peninsula, but as the years passed and they were widened and improved, they received new names. Three very old streets were called Fore, Middle and Back. The first two still retain the old names, but Back Street became what is now the most important of all, Congress Street. In fact, the original Congress Street ran only from what is now Monument Square to Munjoy Hill. As years went by, it was gradually extended westward until it now goes all the way to Stroudwater.
During that time of expansion, different sections of it had different names, a custom that still prevails for the older streets of London. In 1750 Portland had both a King Street and a Queen Street. The latter was the older Back Street, and after the Revolution became Congress Street. That street, westward from Monument Square to the vicinity of the late Union Station was first called the Country Road, then Main Street, until it was finally incorporated into the older connector of Queen Street. A road nearer the waterfront had the early name of Broad Street. In the early 18th century it became King Street, and when the Revolution made both Kings and Queens unpopular the name was again changed to India Street.
Some of the early streets have lively colloquial names that were, decidedly uncomplimentary. We can easily understand why Fish Street became Exchange Street, why Mud Lane gave way, to Franklin Street, and Chub Street became Temple. Streets originally named for persons took other names. Greeley’s Lane became Hampshire Street; Jone’s Lane, Plum Street; Fiddle Street became Sumner Street; and Thomas Street became Commercial Street. Perhaps it was no improvement to change Love Lane to Center Street.
Just as most of the beautiful elms have given way to disease or industrial expansion in Waterville, the Elm City, so in the Forest City of Portland the beautiful trees that once lined all the streets have largely disappeared. It no longer affords the scene Longfellow described with busy wharves and white sails, but it retains many lovely spots like the Deering Oaks that Longfellow loved so well.
And with that we must say goodbye until next week.
Year: 1979