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WBZ: New England’s First Commercial Radio Station

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WBZ-AM became the first commercial radio station in New England in 1921.  Since its on-air debut, its formats have featured original programming, news, weather, music, sports presentations and talk shows.

Radio broadcasting in New England began on Dec. 24, 1906 when Reginald Fessenden transmitted his voice and a violin solo from an experimental station in Marshfield, Mass. (Brant Rock), to Atlantic coastal vessels.  In 1921 the American Radio and Research Corporation (AMRAD), using the call letters 1XE, began experimental music and information broadcasts during certain evenings from Tufts University in Medford, Mass.  By May 21, it was broadcasting on a daily basis, shortly before the arrival of WBZ.  AMRAD was granted a “Limited Commercial” (i.e., privately owned broadcaster) license, as WGI, by the U. S. Commerce Department on Feb. 7, 1922.  However, it ceased operating on April 7, 1925, after filing for bankruptcy.


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Postcard image, from around 1910, of the 420-foot-tall (128 m) Brant Rock radio tower

The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company (1886) received the first “Limited Commercial” broadcasting license from the U.S. Commerce Department in October 1920.  However, after transmitting the Harding-Cox presidential results that November on station KDKA in Pittsburgh, it saw the benefit of expanded public broadcasting for news and entertainment.  Thus, it applied for more licenses, starting with what would become WBZ.

WBZ Gets Licensed

On Sept. 15, 1921, the Commerce Department granted a “Limited Commercial” license to Westinghouse for station WBZ, located in East Springfield, Mass.  It came under a new category for broadcasting “news, concerts, lectures, and like matter.”  It was affirmed in 1923 as the “first broadcasting license” issued by the department.

WBZ-AM began its first broadcast from the Eastern States Exposition, an annual agricultural fair, in West Springfield, Mass., on Sept. 19, 1921.  It featured speeches by the Massachusetts and Connecticut governors, news and music.  Initially, it broadcast from 7:30-9:30 p.m. weekdays and only aired church services on Sunday.  As its hours of broadcasting expanded, the station notably treated its audience on October 16 to the first game of the 1923 World Series at Yankee Stadium. It featured the home team and the New York Giants.   Later that same year, it teamed up with the Massachusetts Department of Education to offer adult education courses.

On Feb. 24, 1924, a sister station opened in Boston (WBZA) that extended its broadcasting range.  It later secured affiliation agreements with the Boston Herald-Traveler newspapers for more local news coverage.  Near the end of 1924, Thornton Burgess began offering his Radio Nature League for child listeners.  For sports fans, the first broadcast of a Boston Bruins hockey game came on December 1.  On April 14, 1925, the station began broadcasting the first Major League Baseball game in Boston, featuring the Boston Braves and the New York Giants, with the comedian Joe E. Brown as the announcer.  The following October, the station started broadcasting Harvard football games.  A year later, on Oct. 9, 1926, the first broadcast of the Boston Symphony Orchestra was heard.  Significantly, on November 15, WBZ joined NBC, the first radio network.

Joe E. Brown announced the first radio broadcast of a baseball game in Boston.

The First Ads

It was not until Jan. 1, 1927 that both WBZ and WBZA began airing advertising promotions through the NBC radio network.  Before that, they relied on funds from the sale of radio receivers sold by Westinghouse.  Three weeks later, it began transmitting scheduled programming on a daily basis. This included weekly programming by a group of station volunteers, the “WBZ Players” who performed radio dramas with sound effects.

The RCA/Westinghouse Aeriola Senior radio, introduced at the very start of AM broadcasting, 1922-1923

On Feb. 21,1931 WBZ in Springfield and WBZA in Boston switched call letters as Boston became the main market for its listening audience; WBZA stopped relaying WBZ programs in 1962.  On April 19, WBZ carried the first broadcast of the Boston Marathon. Then on April 29 a wild incident occurred.  A tame lion, brought to the Hotel Bradford station to utter a roar on command, suddenly became extremely agitated, destroyed property and frightened onlookers before police finally overpowered the animal.

Up until the late 1920s, radio announcers used their initials instead of their real names. WBZ wanted the listening audience to focus on the station and not on its announcers. By the early 1930s, the station realized the listeners wanted to identify with its personalities. This became evident when Bradley Kincaid , a noted country and western singer , joined the station in 1935 and used his real name.

After WBZ ended its affiliation with NBC radio in 1956, the station shifted to a music, news and weather format for several decades.  Long-time personalities included Carl de Suze, Dave Maynard, Norm Prescott and John Bassett as long-time disc jockeys; Gary La Pierre and Diane Stern as newscasters; and Don Kent and Norman J. MacDonald as weather forecasters.  Although the early radio announcers were men, Mildred Carlson had a popular show, Home Forum.  It began in October 1930 and continued up to 1960.  Her show offered advice on topics tailored to women, especially recipes.

Gary LaPierre

WBZ Gives Up Music

On March 4, 1991, WBZ-AM vowed it would not play music again and would shift to a news-talk format.  However, it also continued to broadcast Boston Bruins games from 1995 to 2009 and sports talk shows up to 2001.  On Aug. 13, 2009, a reincarnated version of WBZ-FM came into being.  Since then, it has broadcast Bruins, Patriots, Celtics and Revolution (soccer) games, when not featuring sports talk programming.

The Westinghouse Electric Corporation (as of 1945) bought CBS on Nov. 24, 1995 and put WBZ under the control of CBS Radio.  On Nov. 17, 2017, WBZ-AM was sold to iHeart Media, while WBZ-FM was sold on Dec. 20, 2017 to the Beasley Broadcast Group.

 

Edward T. Howe, Ph.D. is Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Siena University near Albany, N.Y.

Images: Westinghouse radio receiver By Sergio Moises Panei Pitrau – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67025895. Gary LaPierre By unknown – Original publication: unknownImmediate source: http://www.massbroadcastershof.org/hall-of-fame/hall-of-fame-2010/gary-lapierre/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61631233. Featured image by ChatGPT.

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How the South Hadley Canal Launched America’s Commercial Waterway Era

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South Hadley, Mass., about 90 miles west of Boston on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River, was once the site of the first commercially navigable canal in the United States.  Built in the late 18th century, the South Hadley Canal stimulated the expansion of the western Massachusetts economy in the early decades of the 19th century.

Westward Expansion

After English settlers arrived in Plymouth Colony in 1620  and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629/30), further arrivals from both areas began to migrate to Windsor (1633) and Hartford (1638) in Connecticut Colony.  Motivated by a desire for fertile land and the fur trade, settlers then continued to push northward along the Connecticut River.  Along the way they established several agricultural communities in the 17th and  18th centuries that included South Hadley and Montague in Massachusetts.

View of South Hadley from Mt. Holyoke

By 1790 these settlements had established trading relationships with regional and international markets as they moved away from subsistence economies.  The principal exports of the settlers included agricultural goods (e.g., corn, grains), lumber, potash (e.g., for soap), and locally manufactured goods (e.g., brooms and tools). The settlers mainly sent their products to Hartford for transshipment to New York, Boston and Caribbean ports.  In exchange the settlers received manufactured goods (e.g., textiles), some Hudson River goods (e.g., bricks) and West Indies commodities (e.g., molasses and coffee).  However, as these exports moved down the southward flowing river by flatboat they encountered the Enfield Rapids above Hartford.  This required goods to be unloaded and carried overland around the rapids and reloaded again.  Not until 1829 did the Enfield Canal /Windsor Locks canal open to remove this obstacle.

Map of South Hadley and environs, with the canal circled in green

Meanwhile, as goods moved upriver the flatboats had to confront a series of falls, beginning around South Hadley. That required a similar offloading of goods before resuming river travel.  A group of investors, named “The Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on the Connecticut River,” sensed the area above South Hadley was sufficiently developed for further commercial gain. They therefore obtained a charter in 1792 to build canals at South Hadley and Turners Falls.  Stock shares to local and Dutch investors would privately finance both canals.

Building the South Hadley Canal

Builders of the South Hadley Canal faced the daunting task of getting through hard rock terrain to bypass a 53- to 58-foot drop in the falls and its rapids over a 2.5 mile distance.  They created a dam in the upstream end of the canal that allowed water to flow from the river into the canal to ensure navigation.  To get the flatboats into the canal at the downstream (southern) end, they constructed an ingenious incline plane.  Chains powered by two large waterwheels hauled the flatboats in a specialized cart up its ramp, 275 feet long and 20 feet wide.  In less than 20 minutes, the cart discharged the flatboats into the canal.  As returning flatboats arrived at the incline plane, the process of getting the flatboats back in the river was reversed.

Inclined plane used in the South Hadley Canal

Despite the difficulties, the canal was built in about three years. It opened on April 16, 1795, the first commercially navigable canal in the United States.  It could accommodate flatboats that measured 16 feet long and 40 feet wide.  Revenue came from the tolls and, increasingly over time, from the sale of water rights for individual usage.  In 1805, various locks replaced the incline plane as the canal was deepened.  The first year of operation yielded only $3,109 in revenue.  Nonetheless, the canal made a profit, especially after the first steamboat (The Barnet) began towing flatboats in the canal in 1826.  It remained profitable until 1847 when railroads began offering a cheaper alternative for freight traffic.  Still, the canal continued in operation until it closed in 1862.

 

A Sister to the South Hadley Canal

In 1794 some of the original investors who had signed the 1792 charter decided to form “The Proprietors of the Upper Locks and Canals on the Connecticut River.” They intended to build the Turners Falls (Montague) Canal, roughly 25 miles north of the South Hadley Canal.  The investors felt that they needed separate funds for this difficult undertaking.  The Turners Falls Canal was also about 2.5 miles long and 20 feet wide.  It opened in 1798 with 10 locks, an impressive achievement that bypassed the “Great Falls” and its rapids. It alsobecame the second commercially navigable canal on the Connecticut River.   The canal made a profit until, like the South Hadley Canal, the railroads began to take over its freight business. It closed for navigation in 1856.

Not only did these canals open up a cheaper and more efficient way to transport goods to wider markets, but they also stimulated industrial activity.  At first, both canals powered grist and sawmills through water rights.  However, only the South Hadley Canal would later grant water rights for larger paper and textile mills.

As the first commercially navigable canals, they also inspired the opening of canals in Vermont.  These were canals at Bellows Falls (1802), Sumner Falls (1810) and White Pine/Wilder Falls/Olcott Falls (1811).  Thus, the South Hadley Canal – along with the others on the Connecticut River – demonstrated that major river obstacles could be successfully overcome for economic advancement.

 

Edward T. Howe, Ph.D. is Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Siena University near Albany, N.Y.

Images: Seal of the proprietors By Holyoke Water Power Company – Canal Park Committee Records, Digital Commonwealth, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79954851. Featured image created by ChatGPT. South Hadley Detroit Publishing Co., Publisher, and Copyright Claimant Detroit Publishing Co. South from Mt. Holyoke, South Hadley. Massachusetts United States South Hadley, ca. 1900. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016794237/.

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From Sugar Houses to the Sugar Trust: Boston’s Candy-Colored History

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Colonial Boston had a sweet tooth, and sugar played an important part of the local economy during that time. Dozens if not hundreds of Boston artisans worked as independent sugar refiners inside sugar houses. These entrepreneurs, called sugar bakers, supplied coffee houses and tea rooms. Over time, they made Boston the center of candy making. Later, larger refineries were built and belonged to a powerful cartel in the 1880s.

Sugars (clockwise from top-left): white refined, unrefined, brown, unprocessed cane sugar

Early Sugar Bakers

Before the era of industrial refining, sugar was processed by small businesses called sugar bakeries. Boston had many of them. The early method of processing sugar involved boiling it in large copper pots called “coppers.” Sometimes sugar bakers used four or five pots in different phases of production. It was a thriving business.

Merchants like John Hancock imported raw sugar from the West Indies, where slave plantations grew sugar cane. Boston had a robust trade with them–part of the “triangular trade.”

The transatlantic triangle trade began with Europeans trading manufactured goods for enslaved people in Africa. Those captives were shipped to work on West Indian sugar plantations. New England merchants then supplied the plantations with commodities like dried fish and lumber, returning to North America with molasses and raw sugar. Notably, French and Dutch Caribbean sugar (from islands like Martinique and Saint-Domingue) was cheaper than sugar from the British West Indies.

In 1764, the Crown levied a tax on the importation of sugar and molasses from the non-British sources in the West Indies. Hancock criticized the tax, and the next year he entered politics by winning election as a Boston selectman. The sugar bakers likely supported Hancock.

Boston Sugar Houses

Ezekiel Cheever (1720-1793), an early Boston sugar baker, had a role in the American Revolution. Born in Charlestown, a descendant of Ezekiel Cheever, the colonial schoolmaster, he was appointed to protect the Boston Tea Party participants in 1773. During the war he worked closely with Gen. Henry Knox as Commissary of Artillery Stores (ordnance equipment). He was buried in Granary Burial Ground in 1793. Ezekiel’s brief biography  can be found at the Charlestown Preservation Society.

There must have been several Ezekiels in the sugar business during that time! “How Sweet it is! A History of Sugar and Sugar Refining in the U.S.” by Virginia Mescher, states that Boston tax rolls show an Ezechiel Cheever, sugar refinery, in Charlestown from 1721-1766.

The book “Crooked & Narrow Streets of Boston 1630-1822,” by Annie Haven Thwing, mentions several sugar businesses such as that of Thomas Child, distiller and sugar baker at the corner of Essex and Kingston Streets in the 1730’s. “Opposite Franklin Ave was the sugar house of James Smith & James Murray which was used for Barracks by the British during the Siege,” she wrote.

Sugar bakers used a multi-step process to produce refined white sugar. Raw sugar from the sugar cane was purchased from Cuba. First it had to be washed to remove the molasses (which was sold for the rum trade), then crystallized, dried and formed into cone shaped “loaves.”

A sugarloaf

Boston’s many sugar houses spawned new businesses. In 1764, Dr. James Baker and Irish chocolatier John Hannon started the first chocolate factory in America. Their water-powered gristmill on the Neponset River became the Baker’s Chocolate Company. The Schrafft Candy Co. in 1861 introduced jelly beans and urged customers to send them to Civil War soldiers. Later, the company made boxed chocolates and started a chain of restaurants.

Sugar Refineries

Although independent sugar bakers continued to exist for several decades, larger refineries began to appear in the 1830s. The Boston Sugar Refinery was established on Lewis Street between Webster and Sumner in East Boston in 1834. Powered by a steam engine, it employed 80 people.  This boiling and drying process was on a much larger scale than in colonial days.  Later, South Boston’s Charles Hersey patented a drying machine called a granulator in 1871. The invention led to Boston’s success as a candy maker. You may remember Necco (New England Candy Co) wafers, Mary Janes and Squirrel Nut Zippers–all made in the Boston area.

The East Boston directory of 1852 listed 41 sugar bakers, most of them on Sumner or Everett Street. Many of them also appear in the 1850 census of East Boston where 38 sugar bakers, all born in Germany, lived at the same address. These men probably worked in one of the larger refineries and lived in nearby factory housing.

The Sugar Trust

In 1887 the Boston Refinery belonged to the Sugar Trust, a monopoly that took advantage of protective tariffs to control the market. Henry O. Havemeyer, a third-generation sugar refiner, formed the trust. Comprised of 17 mostly East Coast sugar refineries, it included four in Boston. The Sugar Trust had a 98 percent monopoly and was highly controversial for its predatory pricing, political influence and fraud. It even won a Supreme Court case in 1895. The high court ruled that the Trust did not violate the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which prohibited monopolies in trade and commerce. Thus, this sugar monopoly survived because the court considered refining a local activity and not subject to interstate commerce regulations.

Political cartoon showing an old woman labeled “Monopoly Tariff” sitting next to an old shoe labeled “Special Privilege”, around which a number of children are playing; they all represent a “Trust” and include the Sugar Trust.

Boston’s Edwin F. Atkins (1850-1926) was involved in the Sugar Trust and served as vice president and president after Havemeyer’s death in 1907.  Atkins, a Boston businessman, managed Cuban sugar purchases for his family business, and he also managed the Bay State Sugar Refining Company. A 2023 Boston Globe article called him “The Sugar Baron of Boston”.

Another Bostonian, John Perrin Spaulding (1832 -1896), also had a role in the Sugar Trust. He had established the Revere Sugar Refinery in 1871 in Charlestown. Spaulding was also a philanthropist, an early benefactor of Helen Keller, and was known throughout Boston as the Sugar King. His Revere Refinery initially remained independent of the Sugar Trust, but Boston-based United Fruit (now Chiquita Brands International) absorbed and finally acquired the business.

The Revere Sugar Refinery.

Enter Domino

The Sugar Trust evolved into the American Sugar Refining Company. It then dominated the United States sugar industry for much of the 20th century, and Domino became one of its brands.

By 1960 American Sugar Refining Company built a new plant in Charlestown to replace the one in South Boston. According to the Boston Globe in April 1961, “Commencing today, the American Sugar Refining Company rededicates itself to a brand-new era of service to Domino’s friends throughout Boston, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and all of New England.”

The Domino brand has since gone through many ownership changes, but you can still find that familiar yellow-and-white bag of sugar on grocery shelves.

Images: Sugarloaf By Petr Adam Dohnálek – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14669401.  Kinds of sugar, By Romain Behar – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1219848. Boston Gazette ad By Boston Gazette – Boston Gazette, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12128308. And Puck cartoon Pughe, J. S. , Artist. Special privilege / J.S. Pughe. , 1908. N.Y.: J. Ottmann Lith. Co., Puck Bldg. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2011647293/. Featured image illustration by Chat GPT>

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The Dixie Cup Serves Health and Food Industry Needs   

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The ubiquitous Dixie Cup, created in the 20th century, initially served to halt the spread of disease and then to meet the needs of the food industry.

Commercial drinking vessels in America can be traced to the colonial era where people patronizing an inn or tavern shared a drinking (punch) bowl, tankard, goblet or cup to quench their thirst.  Up until the early 20th century a common cup, tin dipper, glass tumbler, or other container could also be found in places such as schools, public drinking fountains, factories, communal water pumps, and railroad stations and trains.

“It’s cholera to blame” By Pavel Fedotov

The First Dixie Cup

In 1907 Lawrence Luellen, a Boston lawyer, listened to another lawyer, Austin Pinkham, about developing a single-use paper drinking cup. A vending machine attached to a water cooler would dispense it.

So, a year later Luellen began developing a cone-shaped pleated paper cup, with a separate flat- bottomed piece attached to the cup. He also developed a vending machine to go with it.  The vending machine had an ice container with a water jug on top, a section in the middle for wastewater and a bottom repository for used cups.  The dispenser, with the column of cups, was in front of the vending machine.

On April 4, 1908, Luellen and a group of investors incorporated the American Water Supply Company of New England in Boston.  Soon the firm began making the metal  dispensers for the cups, which sold for a penny apiece.

On Feb. 3, 1909 Luellen and Hugh Moore established the Public Cup Vendor Company in New York for leasing vendor machines to the railroad industry.  On Dec. 15, 1910 they formed the Individual Drinking Cup Company of Maine.  By 1912 its drinking cup became known as the Health Kup made by its first semi-automatic machine.

An ad for the HealthKup

Waterborne Diseases

When Luellen formed his company in 1908, public concern about waterborne diseases (e.g., typhoid fever, cholera, and dysentery) in urban and rural areas was emerging. A study of contaminated cups in public schools by Alvin Davison contributed to that concern.   After Kansas abolished the communal drinking cup in 1909, other states followed.   A further increase in demand for the single-use paper cup came between 1918-20 with the arrival of the Spanish flu.

Needing to differentiate its business from emerging competitors, Moore decided in 1919 to rename the Health Kup the Dixie Cup.  He took the name from Alfred Schindler’s Dixie Doll Company in New York City, with Schindler’s permission.

With Moore now running the company and Luellen a shareholder and consultant, the firm moved in 1921 to a larger location in Easton, Pa.  The new facility soon offered Dixie Cups for sale for home use.

The Dixie Cup Company in Easaton, Pa.

New Uses for the Dixie Cup

Prior to 1923, ice cream was sold in quarts or pints out of bulk containers in drugstores, soda fountains and other locations. In 1923 ice cream makers were aware of the success of the single-serving Dixie Cup and looked for a convenient way to distribute their product. So, they contacted the cup maker.  The franchise deal had the Dixie brand on the cup, but the ice cream maker’s name was on the lid.  The small paper cup, with a wooden spoon (spade), was heavily advertised. It was sold to ice cream parlors, drugstores, soda fountains and convenience stores.

In 1928 the company created the Dixie Circus radio program, which appeared on NBC/CBS.  By 1930 the firm was using circus animals and performers on its ice cream lids.  Other ideas for the lids followed. They included a “nature series” of animals, movie stars, sports figures and World War II scenes.  This use of these lids ended in 1954 when blank lids began to appear.

Other food-related products included paper plates, begun in the 1950s. Insulated hot beverage cups started in the 1960s, and, more recently, take-out containers that display food items.

At your local grocer’s

In 1935 the Individual Drinking Cup Company merged with the Vortex Company of Chicago.   The Dixie-Vortex Company then became the Dixie Cup Company in 1943.  More recently, Koch Industries acquired the Dixie Cup Company from Georgia-Pacific in 2005.

Edward T. Howe, Ph.D. is Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Siena University near Albany, N.Y.

Featured image illustration created by Google Gemini

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Quincy Granite Quarries Develop Innovative Granite Industry Technologies  

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The opening of a Quincy granite quarry in 1826 propelled a transportation innovation, new quarrying technologies, greater use of granite as a construction material and the emergence of large-scale quarrying elsewhere.  Quarrying activity in Quincy, long in decline, finally ceased in 1963.

Granite quarrying in Quincy, Mass., located about 10 miles southeast of Boston, began in the colonial era.  Most houses and other structures in that era were made of wood, as granite buildings would be expensive to construct.  However, granite boulders were used for installing foundations, tops of windows (lintels), hearthstones, doorstops and linings of walls.   Other uses included wells and retaining walls.  The first granite structure in Boston used pieces of granite for the rebuilding of King’s Chapel in 1754.

King’s Chapel in 1928

To get small pieces of granite before 1800, boulders were heated and then split by dropping iron weights on them.  Around 1800 feathers (pieces of curved metal) were inserted into drilled holes in the granite rock. Then, iron wedges were hammered between the feathers to split the rock.  This procedure, known as the “feather-and-wedging” method, cut the cost of splitting.  Gunpowder (black powder) was often used to acquire large pieces of granite.

The first commercial quarries in Quincy appeared in the early 19th century, after Newcomb Richards opened the first quarry in 1803.

The Bunker Hill Monument

On June 7, 1823, the Bunker Hill Monument Association was formed to build a suitable replacement for an 18-foot wooden column built in 1794.  It honored Dr. Joseph Warren, a noted patriot, and was located on nearby Breed’s Hill, the actual site of the 1775 battle in Charlestown.  In 1825 the association directors made several moves. They purchased several acres of Breed’s Hill and decided on an obelisk (a four-sided tapered column with a pyramid at the top) for the new monument. They broke ground for the project on June 7 and hired Solomon Willard–later recognized as the pillar of the granite industry–as the architect and superintendent, and they bought a 4-acre quarry in Quincy (the Bunker Hill Quarry) to furnish the estimated 9,000 tons of granite needed.

Bunker Hill Monument under construction in 1840

Three Innovations

The dark gray granite chosen was known for its hardness, durability, high polishing ability and resistance to weather.  Workers–including from Scotland–used the feather-and- wedging method to reduce the cost of the material to less than a cent per cubic foot. Three innovative technologies developed at the quarry greatly aided the large project.  The first technological advance came when Almoran Holmes invented a hoisting apparatus to get the granite out of the quarry.

Quarry workers using hoisting equipment to load granite.

The second innovation involved a new transportation method.  In 1826 the Granite Railway Company was formed to transport the Bunker Hill Quarry granite to a wharf on the Neponset River in Milton.  Gridley Bryant, an engineer, was chosen to build the innovative railway.  The cars initially ran on wooden rails crowned by iron plates.  Underneath, perpendicular ties (sleepers) rested on crushed rocks to support the rails.  The earliest rail cars had flat platforms upon which the granite blocks were loaded using hoists and manual labor. Chains and ropes held the blocks in place.  On Oct. 7, 1826, the rail line transported granite by horsepower to the wharf in Milton for the first time.

The third innovation occurred in 1830 when a 315-foot incline plane, using a continuous moving chain, took loaded rail cars down to the main rail line.

The incline, 1934

In addition to the Bunker Hill Quarry, the Pine Hill Ledge Quarry opened in 1830 to help build the monument.

Quincy Granite to Charlestown

After arriving at the wharf, the granite blocks were transferred to flat-bottom barges or schooners and sent to Devens Wharf in Charlestown where teams of oxen carried the blocks to the monument site.  Unfortunately, funding shortages over a long period of years delayed the completion of the 221-foot, 5-inch monument until July 23, 1842.

The construction of the Bunker Hill monument using new technologies showed that large-scale granite production could be cost-effective.  This drew increasing numbers of firms into the industry in Quincy and throughout the country during the 19th century.  In contrast to the Bunker Hill Quarry, most of the firms in Quincy were small operations.  Some of them included Wright & Barker, 1834-1842; Frederick & Field, 1834-1890; Elcock & Son, 1865-1902; and Swingle’s Quarry, 1856-1963.  At its peak, about 50 quarries operated in Quincy.  Moreover, these quarries dominated the industry for most of the 19th century.

More Innovation

Further technological innovations from the mid- to late-19th century helped the Quincy granite quarries maintain their dominant position.  Among them were pneumatic drills for more efficient splitting of the granite blocks, specialized tools (e.g., chisels and polishing machines), steam-powered derricks and, later, air compressors to lift the stones.  By 1894 the Lyons Turning Mill used steam-powered machinery to shape columns of granite.

A granite column cut by the Lyons Turning Mill

Both skilled and unskilled quarry workers engaged in dangerous work.  The worst hazard for skilled workers (e.g., stonemasons, carvers, blacksmiths) was inhaling granite dust. That often led to lung disease (silicosis) and other health issues.  Accidents from falls, use of machinery, explosions and human error added to the dangers.  Finally, the skilled workers decided to join the Granite Cutters National Union in 1877 seeking better working conditions.  The unskilled workers faced the same hazards as the skilled laborers, plus other tasks such as heavy lifting and setting explosives.  Many of the unskilled workers came from Britain, Ireland, Italy, Finland and Sweden.  They too finally joined a union– the Quarry Workers’ International Union of North America–in 1916.

Ubiquitous Quincy Granite

During the 19th century, some examples of the use of Quincy granite in Boston included Quincy Market (1824-1826); the Charlestown Navy Yard for a dry dock (1827-1833), ropewalk (1827-1834), and engine house (1838); the Boston Custom House (1837-47); the so-called “pagoda building” (1843) and Charles Street jail (1851).

Quincy Market

Outside of Boston, Quincy granite was used for the Merchant’s Exchange Building on Wall Street (1836-1841) in New York City; and customhouses in Savannah, Ga. (1852); Providence, R.I. (1855-1857); and Portland, Maine (1867-1872).  Quincy itself boasts several granite structures including the United First Parish Church (Church of the Presidents). Built in 1828, it includes the burial site of Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams and their spouses.    Also notable are the Old Town Hall (1844), the National Mount Wollaston Bank (1925) and the Granite Trust Building (1929). The second Minots Ledge Light south of Boston also used Quincy Granite (1860).

Minot’s Ledge Light

Besides the Bunker Hill Monument, other notable monuments are the Franklin obelisk, dedicated to the parents of Benjamin Franklin, in the Granary Burying ground in Boston (1826); the Washington Tower in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Mass. (1852-1854); the Robert Cushman monument (1858), for a Mayflower ship organizer, in Plymouth, Mass. (1858); the Civil War monument in Hingham, Mass. (1870); the Daniel Webster monument in Central Park, New York City (1876); the Henry Ward Beecher monument in Brooklyn, N.Y. (1871); the West Brookfield, Mass., War Memorial (1921); and the Quincy Granite Ball monument (1926).

Other uses for granite have been for paving blocks and curbing, especially in the 19th century, and more recently for aesthetic uses (e.g., countertops).

The Rise and Fall of Quincy Granite

Up until 1875 demand for Quincy granite for building projects steadily increased.  However, demand declined between 1875 and 1880 as new quarries emerged. Prices also moved relatively lower for brick, cement, sandstone and Bedford oolite (limestone). Granite also had a tendency to crack because of improper sealing.

Nonetheless, the granite quarries then experienced a recovery up to World War I as demand for monuments and gravestones rose.  The quarries experienced a long-term decline thereafter: needed iron, steel, and machinery for the quarries was lost to shipbuilding during the world war;  a crippling drop in demand for granite occurred during the Great Depression; the inability again to get iron and steel during World War II; and the rising use of reinforced concrete as a construction material after the war.  Thus, the quarries began to go out of business over time.  The last Quincy granite quarry, Swingle’s, closed in 1963, marking the end of the “Granite City” era.

Earth-filled quarry at Quincy Quarries Reservation

After the quarries closed, they filled with water.  This encouraged swimming, diving, and trash disposal that was accompanied by numerous injuries and deaths.  In 1985 the Metropolitan District Commission bought 22 acres of quarry property that became the Quincy Quarries Reservation.  Tons of dirt and clay from construction of the “Big Dig” highway project in Boston filled in the largest quarries starting in 1999.  The reservation subsequently opened to the public in 2003 for picnicking, hiking, rock climbing, scenic views, and to witness the application of graffiti to its boulders.

A climber at Quincy Quarries Reservation

End Notes

Edward T. Howe, Ph.D. is Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Siena University near Albany, N.Y.

 

 

Images: Granite Railway Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator. Granite Railway, Pine Hill Quarry to Neponset River, Quincy, Norfolk County, MA. Norfolk County Quincy Massachusetts, 1933. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/ma0848/. Rock climber By Jake Sutton – https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakesutton/1333655730/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4353398. Unfinished Bunker Hill monument By Cornell University Library – https://www.flickr.com/photos/cornelluniversitylibrary/4360064926/ Freemen’s Quick Step, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11725421. Quincy Quarries Reservation By Sswonk – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7197983. Hoisting equipment Detroit Publishing Co., Copyright Claimant, and Publisher Detroit Publishing Co. Loading, a New England granite quarry. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2016813995/>. Granite Railway (horses) PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7614475. Quincy Market By Jack Boucher – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs divisionunder the digital ID hhh.ma0469/photos.075918p.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27771492. Minot’s Ledge Light By USCG – U.S. Coast Guard, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9745973. Granite column By Jameslwoodward – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7996463

 

 

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The Christmas Tree Ships: When Schooners Brought the Holiday to American Cities

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After the Civil War, the great wooden schooners—the Christmas tree ships—began to carry cut evergreen trees from the Maine woods to the bustling winter markets near the big city docks. These vessels were more than shippers; they were the lifelines of a holiday tradition.

Four schooners arrived from Maine carrying that first modest shipment—fewer than 6,000 trees. Yet, as demand exploded, the fleet struggled to keep pace. By 1905, there simply weren’t enough Christmas tree ships to satisfy the hunger for hundreds of thousands of cut trees destined for the festive hubs of Portland, Boston, New York, and Baltimore.

Newspaper illustration of a Maine woodchopper

The Christmas tree ships allowed Maine farmers and woodsmen to turn a nearly worthless but plentiful resource into a lucrative commodity. It sustained them through the lean winter season when they would otherwise go hunting. Then the expanding railroad network would allow New Hampshire and Vermont to ship their own cut trees from the interior.

The Christmas Tree Ships

A combination of post-war prosperity, massive immigration and the growing popularity of the Christmas celebration kept the fleet busy hauling trees from late November. It reigned until the inevitable rise of trucks and trains. By then, the old wooden schooners were becoming too costly to maintain, and the era of the Christmas tree ships gradually faded away.

But their legacy endures. It lives on in the majestic windjammers that now carry tourists along the rugged Maine coast each summer. And it is remembered solemnly on Lake Michigan, where an annual ceremony honors a beloved Christmas tree ship skipper who perished with his vessel in a storm.

The Emergence of the Christmas Tree

The changing American celebration of Christmas gave rise to the Christmas tree ships. In the 17th century, New England puritans banned Christmas.  They viewed it as a rowdy, Papist celebration far removed from the family-centered holiday we know today. By the Civil War, Christmas was making a comeback. Charles Dickens’ 1843 story, “A Christmas Carol,” popularized a holiday that celebrated Christian values of kindness, charity and family. As the Civil War erupted, the “influencers” of the day—ladies’ magazines—promoted the Christmas tree as a cherished family ritual.

Immigration also reshaped American Christmas customs. German immigrants, in particular, brought with them traditions like the decorated Tannenbaum. At the same time, people were migrating to cities in droves. Between 1890 and 1910, Boston’s population alone grew by 25 percent. This urban concentration created a centralized demand for Christmas trees that grew every year.

Northern farmers and woodsmen welcomed this development. So did schooner captains and their crews. Their versatile vessels worked the coast year-round, hauling cargoes of fish, granite, lime, lumber, coal or canning supplies. As winter approached, they readily converted into Christmas tree ships.

The Lewis R. French once carried Christmas trees. Now it carries tourists.

The Lewis R. French, launched in 1871 from Christmas Cove in South Bristol, Maine, was one such maritime workhorse. With her sturdy oaken hull and two towering masts, she carried freight for a century. She hauled Christmas trees to evergreen markets and cans to Maine’s sardine factories.Today, her legacy continues, reborn as a passenger windjammer that still sails the Maine coast.

For Yew I Pine…

Early American Christmas trees were often spruce, pine or cedar. Their widely spaced branches were considered ideal for hanging candles and small gifts. Then, in 1892, the humble balsam fir made its celebrated debut at Boston’s Quincy Market.

Here’s how it happened: A party of Bostonians was returning via steam yacht from a caribou hunt in Newfoundland. They stopped in Sedgwick, Maine, on the Blue Hill Peninsula and journeyed inland. From a high vantage point, they beheld thousands of vigorous young balsam firs blanketing the hills and valleys.

A young balsam fir

The yacht’s owner  concluded they would make ideal Christmas trees.—far superior to the scrubby, pines then common. He hired men to cut 500 trees, loaded his deck and took them to Boston to sell in the market district.

The market sellers around Faneuil Hall clamored for the fragrant, bushy trees. The yachtsman sold his entire stock at a tremendous profit and immediately sent for more. The next year, 40,000 balsams were sent to Boston. From then on, the balsam fir was the premier tree in New York and Boston.

Christmas trees at Quincy Market. Colorized by ChatGPT>

That Woodsy Odor

Buying a Christmas tree at the bustling outdoor dockside markets became an annual ritual in the big cities.

“How picturesque the sight, and how wholesome the woodsy odor, when thousands of these trees are displayed in the marketplace of a great city the week before Christmas,” exulted The Youth’s Companion in 1913.

In New York, enormous quantities of trees were sold at “the Farm,” a vast wholesale market on West Street near the Hudson River docks. A 1905 newspaper writer waxed nostalgic about the scene: “At one time West Street, with all its wide expanse of space in front of the great warehouses, was packed full of piles of evergreens… each day as evening came, showed great gaps purchasers had made in carrying out their selections, until on Saturday the huge piles had dwindled to a few remnants of the great store that had almost denuded the Maine forests.”

A Forest Weed

Not everyone celebrated the trade. In 1905, a conservation-minded newspaper editor argued for a ban on the Christmas tree ships, condemning the clearcutting of Maine’s forests.

The Bangor Daily News scoffed at such concerns. It editorialized that the balsam fir, which comprised 95 percent of a typical shipload, amounted to nothing more than a forest weed. “The balsam fir of North America is not a valuable or a useful wood,” the paper declared. It argued the tree crowded out more valuable species, and its only real merit was as a fleeting landscape ornament. Once mature, the News claimed, the trunk became brittle powder, insects reduced it to sawdust, the greens browned and fell and the tree toppled to decay into forest mold.

Furthermore, the paper opined, the Christmas tree business was a drop in the bucket, making no meaningful dent in Maine’s vast timberlands.

As World War I approached, the tradition evolved again. Churches, schools, and towns began erecting large communal trees in public squares—Augusta, Maine, installed its first municipal tree in 1913. By this time, trains and trucks were rapidly supplanting the schooners. Profit margins on the big trees shrunk, and the industry began shifting from family farmers and foragers to managed tree farms.

Large outdoor trees didn’t become a thing until after the turn of the 20th century. Here, Calvin Coolidge lights the first National Tree in 1923.

Unforgotten

The Christmas tree ships of the Atlantic might have faded quietly into history if not for a parallel—and tragic—story on the Great Lakes. There, schooners hauled evergreens from the forests of Northern Michigan and Wisconsin across Lake Michigan to Chicago. For three decades, Capt. Herman Schuenemann, known affectionately as “Captain Santa,” sold trees directly to families at the Clark Street Bridge at low cost, even giving them away to the poor.

On Nov. 23, 1912, the Rouse Simmons, overloaded with Christmas trees, set sail for Chicago into a brewing gale. The violent storm overwhelmed the schooner. The crew raised a distress flag, but the tempest snapped the mast, and the ship foundered and sank. All 17 souls aboard were lost, but not forgotten. For years afterward, sightings of a ghostly evergreen-laden schooner were reported, and divers searched for the wreck.

The wreck site of the Rouse Simmons has been found and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The English rock band iLiKETRAiNS recorded an album titled The Christmas Tree Ship, and a musical, The Christmas Tree Schooner, has seen numerous performances.

The Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw arrives at Chicago’s Navy Pier with a cargo of Christmas trees.

Most poignantly, the tradition is reborn each year in Chicago. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw now plays the part of the Christmas Tree Ship, delivering a load of trees to Navy Pier. From there, young volunteers distribute to needy families, ensuring the holiday spirt once carried on the sails of the old Christmas tree schooners continues to reach shore.

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Now available in paperback and as an ebook from the New England Historical Society! A collection of stories about the French people who came to America. Click here to order your copy today!

 

 

 

 

End Notes

mages: Lewis R. French By Raphodon – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7424995. Calvin Coolidge lighting the Christmas tree: Harris & Ewing, photographer. Calvin Coolidge and group at Christmas tree, Washington, D.C. [or 1924] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2016892956/>. Mackinaw by Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. Balsam fir by By Famartin – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44027501. Featured image illustration by Google Gen=mini. 

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