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Marblehead Mass.

Stephen Higginson Tells Fish Stories To Parliament In 1771 and Gets Arrested For It

In 1771, the British government desperately needed to know how American colonists felt about fishing policies. Stephen Higginson filled them in, and almost got jailed as a traitor because of it.

Stephen Higginson served in many capacities during the American Revolution and the formative years of the country – military leader, representative to Congress and political intriguer.

Higginson was born in Salem, Mass., in 1743 into a family of politicians and clergymen. Well-connected, his single act of rebellion against his place in society seems to be his decision to marry Susannah Cleveland, his second cousin from Connecticut. As their families opposed the marriage (probably because of their youth), the couple ran away to New Hampshire to marry in 1764.

After returning to Salem, Higginson took up his position as a merchant trader, same as his father. He set up a home near East India Square in Salem across from the Lafayette Coffee House. Armed with introductions from his well-connected father, he sailed to England in 1771.

Stephen Higginson in London

Stephen Higginson

In England, Higginson had his first critical brush with politics. Higginson, on his travels in England to introduce himself to his trading partners, found himself summoned before Parliament to answer to an investigation about New England’s fisheries.

Higginson’s testimony gave a picture of how large and vital cod fishing was to the New England economy.

Seven hundred fishing vessels, most between 40 and 70 tons, worked the waters off New England fishing for cod. It took more than 4,000 people to man those vessels, Higginson estimated. Another 2,000 worked on shore, curing and preparing the catch for sale. And another 350 vessels, employing another 3,000 people, transported the fish to market.

Between 1768 and 1772, fish accounted for 35 percent of all New England exports by value. But the interests of the English and their American colonies often diverged when it came to codfish.

Fishing schooners

American fish fed slaves in the West Indies and Catholics in Europe. This resulted in New England fishermen trading with the French, importing French sugar, rum and molasses, as well as trading directly with the French in Newfoundland. Britain implemented a series of tariffs to limit New England fishermen’s ability to trade with the French, preferring to keep such trade for Englishmen.

By 1771, the arguing over the New England fishery had gone on for 40 years, and Britain’s Navy actively seized American fishing vessels caught trading with the French. Edmund Burke, a member of Parliament who sympathized with the colonists and their position, summoned Higginson to testify.

Stephen Higginson Testifies

The British, as usual, were concerned that New England was trading too much with Spain and France, rather than England.

Higginson explained that Britain remained New England’s primary trading partner. He suggested that restricting New England trade would result in the region being unable to pay its debts to English companies.

In particular, the Parliament questioned what New England fishermen would do if the government closed the fishery entirely.

A partial transcript of his testimony:

Under Questioning

Q. What would these people do if the Fishery was stopped?

A. I can’t readily resolve that question. I suppose they would remain where they are as long as they could subsist in hopes of being engaged in their old employment.

Q. But when that hope failed and they could no longer subsist?

A. Then they will probably go elsewhere?

Q. Whether they would settle at Halifax?

A. In general I think not … the Fishermen in Salem and other Towns are a very quiet and steady set of men They esteem the people of Halifax to be dissolute and of a quite contrary turn. I think therefore they would not sit down among a people so different in their manners. Another reason is that they think the Government of Halifax is arbitrary and have a terrible notion of it. Another, those who have been there have disliked the country very much as being inhospitable.

Q. Would they go to Miguelon and St Pierre and fish for France?

A. Don t think they would generally. From Marblehead some perhaps would.

Q. Why would they from thence?

A. Because the people there are of various nations Spaniards, Portuguese and Dutch, but the others are born in the towns where they live, have tenements and freeholds there and would not leave their place of abode, I conceive.

Return of the Traitor

News of Higginson’s appearance before Parliament spread, and upon his return to Marblehead, the colonial authorities arrested him on suspicion of traitorous conduct. Higginson had walked a fine line in Parliament, both continuing to state the American case for greater freedom in operating the fishery while defending the loyalty of the colonists.

Fortunately for his sake, Higginson had brought a detailed account of his testimony home with him. When he presented what he had said, the colonial authorities reversed themselves and praised him for his poise and presentation.

Into the History Books

During the American Revolution, Higginson ran his ships as privateers, and in 1783 Massachusetts elected him to the Continental Congress. Following the war, he participated in the military force that put down Shay’s Rebellion in 1786 and 1787.

Higginson’s most well-known legacy involves his opposition to John Hancock, during Hancock’s term as governor of Massachusetts. Higginson was a firm Federalist, along with John Adams and many others. The Federalists wanted a strong central government, and they were opposed by the Anti-Federalists who wanted the states to retain more power in the new country that they were forming.

John Hancock, meanwhile, had become something of a political chameleon. He managed to win support from enough Federalists and Anti-Federalists to serve as governor.

Stephen Higginson led probably the harshest attack on Hancock, though there were many. He published the “Laco Papers” in a newspaper, castigating Hancock for a weak military record during the Revolution. He called into question Hancock’s fitness to serve, as well as the alliances he had struck with his opponents, including Samuel Adams. In addition to printing the letters in a newspaper, under the pseudonym Laco, he also had them bound and distributed.

The Laco Papers had a remarkable effect, though not the one Higginson intended. Historians agree that the publication most likely generated sympathy for Hancock and helped extend his political reign.

Thanks to: Life and Times of Stephen Higginson, Member of the Continental Congress (1783)

Images: Stephen Higginson, Delegate to Continental Congress, New York Public Library, Max Rosenthal(Etcher)

Postcard of fishing vessels at the Portland Dock, Maine, c. 1908.

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Rodman and Ruth Law Take Their Sibling Rivalry to Crazy Heights

Rodman and Ruth Law rocketed to fame just before World War I with daredevil movie stunts and breathtaking aeronautical feats. Their father attributed their success to the strong strain of sailor blood that ran through the family.

Rodman, nicknamed the Unkillable Actor, starred in feature films. Ruth, called the Queen of the Sky, smashed height and distance records set by men.

Their father, Frederick Law, told a newspaper in 1919 that the Laws of New England were noted for their fearlessness in the rigging during the days of sail.

Rodman and Ruth Law.

Rodman Law was born Jan. 21, 1885 in Lynn, Mass. Ruth Bancroft Law came two years later, on May 21, 1887. Even as small children, they brought their father and mother, Sarah Bancroft Breed, to the verge of prostration.

“Rodman and Ruth always were daring one another to do something dangerous. If they were not jumping from a barn or climbing a tall tree they were riding our cattle or doing something equally hair-raising,” their father said.

Rodman Law

As a young man, Rodman worked as a sailor, a detective, an ironworker and a circus rider, but his work as a steeplejack launched him on his path to fame and fortune. In 1909, on a bet with another steeplejack, he climbed the Flatiron Building in New York with his bare hands.

He kept performing daredevil stunts even after he married Florence Kimball. To his wife’s dismay, life insurers wouldn’t cover him. They had three children and lived in Brooklyn.

In 1912 he walked into the Pathe film production company offices in Jersey City and suggested they film him parachuting off the Statue of Liberty.

Rodman Law in 1917

Pathe was then a two-year-old company hungry to fill its silent newsreels. A Pathe executive saw the possibilities in the daredevil stunt and agreed, according to Jacob Smith in The Thrill Makers: Celebrity, Masculinity, and Stunt Performance.

On Feb. 12, 1912, Rodman Law and an assistant climbed to the top of Lady Liberty’s arm. A small crowd of cameramen, reporters and photographers watched from below. Law, who had never used a parachute before, stepped outside the rail and noticed his assistant crying.

Then he looked down. “I must admit that just then I didn’t enjoy the prospect of dropping 345 feet,” he recalled. But he jumped anyway, his chute opened and he landed unhurt on the cold ground. Newspapers and newsreels brought his thrilling stunt to an eager audience around the country.

A film star was born.

Ruth Law

Five months after Rodman jumped off the Statue of Liberty, little sister Ruth flew a plane for the first time. She had tried to enroll in the Wright brothers flying school, but Orville refused her because of her sex. He sold her an airplane, though, a 26-foot-long Wright Model B, which could reach speeds of 45 mph.

She took flying lessons from the Burgess Company in Marblehead, Mass. In August she soloed and in November she earned her commercial pilot’s license. She also took lessons from a German mechanic so she could fix her own plane.

Ruth Law in Daytona Beach

Ruth then went to work in Florida ferrying passengers from the Sea Breeze Hotel and barnstorming in aerial exhibitions.

Her father first saw her fly in an aerial show in Columbus, Ohio. He almost fainted. “I had to hang on to a fence,” he said.

The Unkillable Actor

In one of Ruth’s exhibition flights, she had a passenger – Rodman. Of course he jumped out of the plane. The Ryno Film company recorded the jump, during which he dislocated his neck.

Rodman had quickly made a name for himself, first appearing in newsreels about his exploits and then in feature films as a stunt performer. He scaled skyscrapers and climbed across a ravine on a 250-foot cable. He jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, and his parachute didn’t open until his feet nearly touched the East River.

In 1913, Rodman climbed into the nose of a 44-foot skyrocket loaded with 900 pounds of gunpowder. He planned to shoot himself into the air and parachute to earth. Instead, the rocket blew up and threw him 30 feet, burning him badly and knocking him unconscious.

Rodman the year before had starred in a feature film, At the Risk of His Life. The next year he appeared in the Daredevil Mountaineer, followed by Fighting Death. His daring stunts earned him the nickname “The Unkillable Actor.”

His father disapproved. “I could not see why he should risk his life merely to send cold chills down the backs of spectators and to please ‘movie’ men,” he later said in a 1919 newspaper interview.

The reason was simple: He was making scads of money. And spending it as fast as he made it.

Ruth Law, Queen of the Air

In 1915, Ruth became the first woman to perform an aerial loop the loop—like her brother, on a bet. On the morning of November 19, she took off from Chicago in her new plane, a Curtiss Pusher, and headed to New York. She intended to reach the city in a day, something no aviator had ever done.

People didn’t think she’d make it. No woman could withstand the cold or the long hours in the cramped, exposed cockpit. Plus she got a late start when a strong wind prevented her departure from Grant Park until 8:25 a.m. And in a scene that her brother would recognize, her mechanic started crying as she prepared to take off in her tiny wire-and-stick biplane.

She barely got off the ground in the gusting Chicago winds, but she then flew 590 miles without a stop. At 2:10 p.m., she landed in Hornell, N.Y., smashing the record of 452 miles of continuous flight.

On the ground in Hornell, Ruth was so numb with cold she had to be helped into a waiting automobile. But she ate lunch while her plane was refueled, and then took off from Hornell. Her late start cost her, though, and it got so dark she had to land in Binghamton at 4:20 p.m. She tied her plane to a tree, asked a policeman to watch it and checked into a hotel.

Little Girl

The next morning she took off for New York City, encountering fog so thick she sometimes couldn’t identify any landmarks. She found the Hudson River as she started to run out of fuel, so she glided the last few miles. Finally she landed on Governors Island, where Gen. Leonard Wood and a large crowd greeted her.

“Well done, little girl, you’ve beaten them all,” Wood said to the 29-year-old woman. “We all feel proud of you.”

Arriving on Governors Island

She won a $2,500 prize for breaking the cross-country nonstop record, having gone 884 miles in 8 hours, 55 minutes, something no man or woman had done in America.

Now Ruth was a star, too. She continued to barnstorm and by 1917 she was making as much as $9,000 a week for her stunt flying.

Not So Unkillable

Rodman Law’s career had more or less ended by then. In 1914, he injured himself while parachuting from a balloon in Trenton, N.J.

“Rodman Law, the daredevil aviator whose hazardous feats have thrilled thousands throughout the country, is now paying the price of his recklessness,” reported the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on Feb. 22, 1917.

What money he hadn’t squandered he spent on hospital bills. He had to give up his big home in Brooklyn and move his wife and three children to a furnished rooming house.

Eventually he recovered enough to join the Army Aviation Corps during World War I. He contracted tuberculosis while in the Army. Rodman Law, the unkillable actor, died Oct. 14, 1919 at the age of 34 in a hospital bed in Greenville, S.C.

Ruth Law Returns to Earth

When the United States entered the war, Ruth declared her ambition to join the Army Aviation Corps as well. But the Secretary of War refused to give her a commission. He said, [it would] “let down the bars to women in the United States to seek commissions in the army.”

So Ruth Law instead performed aerial stunts for crowds to raise money for war bonds and the Red Cross. The army allowed her to wear a non-commissioned officer uniform as she flew around the Statue of Liberty and down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. She dropped Liberty Bond pamphlet bombs from her plane.

After the war, she returned to the barnstorming circuit. She started a flight school in Miami and formed Ruth Law’s Flying Circus. Her little aerial circus – a troupe of three planes – thrilled audiences at county fairs and race tracks. They raced cars, flew through fireworks and did stunts like wing walks, plane-to-plane transfers and loop the loops.

The stunts got increasingly dangerous, and in October 1921 a young stuntwoman died in an accident.

Ruth had married a mechanic and motorcycle racer, Charles Augustus Oliver. He supported her flying career—up until that point.

“It’s my husband’s turn now, I’ve been on the limelight long enough, I’m going to let him run things hereafter and me, too,” she told a newspaper reporter.

They moved to Beverly Hills, where she had a nervous breakdown 10 years later. In 1946, they moved to San Francisco. Charles died the next year.

Ruth Law died on December 5, 1970, and was buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in Lynn, Mass.

With thanks to Ruth Law–Queen of the Air: Challenging Stereotypes and Inspiring a Nation by Billie Holladay Skelley and Jacob Smith in The Thrill Makers: Celebrity, Masculinity, and Stunt Performance. This story last updated in 2022.

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The 1790 Census: New England by the Numbers

Just after the American Revolution, Gilmanton, N.H., ranked as the 30^th biggest municipality in the United States. The Lakes Region town was bigger than Pittsburgh, Portland, Raleigh, Trenton, Louisville, Cincinnati and Savannah, according to the 1790 census.

New Hampshire, in fact, had four towns among the 30 largest in the country, including Londonderry, Portsmouth and Rochester. Only four New England states belonged to the union then, but they were home to 19 of the 30 biggest cities and towns in the country. Back then, one in four U.S. citizens lived in New England.

The region’s power and influence in the early Republic can be inferred from the 1790 census, the first taken in the United States. It didn’t last long. The westward migration had already begun in 1787, from a minister’s house in Ipswich, Mass. As people migrated west for land and opportunity, new cities and towns began to eclipse those of New England.

Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn served as U.S. Marshal for Maine during the 1790 census. Painting by Gilbert Stuart.

The 1790 Census

In 1790, there were 93,000 people living in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, including the District of Maine. A year after the federal government took the 1790 census, 86,000 Vermonters officially joined New England.

Massachusetts alone held nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population, and Boston ranked as the third biggest municipality. Only New York and Philadelphia had more people. Census takers counted Boston’s population at 18,320 — about the size of contemporary Hopkinton, Mass.

Jonathan Jackson served as U.S. Marshal for Massachusetts during the 1790 census.

Today, only 2.1 percent of the U.S. population lives in Massachusetts, and Boston has slipped to the 24th biggest city.

Census taking in 1790 was an inexact science. Congress ordered U.S. marshals to take it. Each state had only one marshal, so the marshal appointed assistants to count people. The 650 enumerators had nine months to collect the data and post the results in two public places. Then they stored the results in the federal courthouse.

The U.S. marshals in New England included Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn for Maine, Jonathan Jackson for Massachusetts, John Parker for New Hampshire, William Peck for Rhode Island and Philip Bradley for Connecticut.

Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both questioned whether the census could count everyone. During a time of difficult travel and communication, the enumerators probably missed some people. And they deliberately missed all Indians not taxed, for example.

In the end, the census takers managed to count just under 4 million people.

A pitcher commemorating the 1790 census

Urban vs. Rural

The vast majority of Americans lived in the country in 1790. New Hampshire was one of the more urban states, with more towns in the Top 30 rankings than Connecticut, which only had New Haven and Hartford. New Hampshire, in fact, had more municipalities in the Top 30 than Pennsylvania, which had almost three times the population.

Today, New Hampshire’s biggest city – Manchester – ranks 259^th, the only New Hampshire municipality among the top 300 U.S. cities.

Massachusetts was similarly urban, though some towns had not yet started to grow into cities – Worcester, Springfield and Fall River, for example, were all smaller than Gilmanton, N.H. Lowell didn’t even exist.

But the towns in Massachusetts that ranked in the top 30 might surprise you. In ascending order, they were Plymouth, Beverly, New Bedford, Taunton, Middleborough, Sherburne, Newburyport, Gloucester, Marblehead and Salem. Salem was bigger than Richmond, Va., and Albany, N.Y. Middleborough, Mass., was also bigger than Albany.

New England, in fact, had five of the 10 largest urban places in the United States: Boston, Salem, Mass.; Newport, R.I.; Providence, R.I., and Marblehead, Mass.

Connecticut had a significantly more rural character then than it does now. New Hampshire’s population was denser, especially along the southern border. The Connecticut towns of Stamford, Waterbury and Danbury had fewer people than Gilmanton. Bridgeport, now Connecticut’s biggest city, wouldn’t incorporate for another 30 years.

Westward Ho!

The center of the U.S. population has steadily moved west and slightly south, as people migrated and new states joined the union. New England’s presence steadily declined.

Ten years after the 1790 census, only 15 New England cities ranked in the top 30, despite having added Vermont. And in 1820, New England had just 13 of the biggest cities and towns.

In 1790, Massachusetts had 9.7 percent of the U.S. population. Twenty years later it had only 6.5 percent, as four states had joined the union. And in 229 years, the Bay State has slipped from fourth to 15^th place.

Gilmanton has grown a little from its base of 2,613 in 1790, when it had an ironworks and a half-dozen villages and parishes. In 2017, 3,734 lived in the town. But Gilmanton never again appeared on the list of the top 30 cities and towns in the United States.

For a list of the Top 30 cities, click here.

This story was updated in 2021.

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Presidents Day Quiz

How well do you know our presidents? Take the New England Historical Society Presidents Day quiz to find out!

[mlw_quizmaster quiz=3]

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Maurice Prendergast Paints New England at Play

The much-loved American artist Maurice Prendergast once wrote in his notebook,

Art is the great stimulus of life -I find it year by year more rich, more desirable, and more mysterious.

Revere Beach, ca. 1896. Private collection.

He found much richness outdoors in New England, especially during the summertime.

His art featured familiar scenes of parks and beaches, holidays, festivals and picnics. But his paintings resembled delicate mosaics more than the representational art then popular in the United States.

Marblehead, ca. 1914-15. Courtesy of the Williams College Museum of Art.

Maurice Prendergast was one of the first American painters to paint in a manner inspired by the French Post-Impressionists like Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat and Paul Cezanne.

Maurice Prendergast

He and his twin sister Lucy were born in a subarctic trading post in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on Oct. 10, 1858. (Perhaps that’s why light and summer attracted him so.) The trading post failed and the family moved to Boston’s South End. He then left school at 14. Prendergast was apprenticed to a commercial artist who painted show cards – advertising point-of-sale displays. By the time he reached 24, he could support himself painting flat, colorful advertisements — much the way his art would look.

Boston, Snowy Day. ca. 1910. Private collection.

His brother Charles, an artist with whom he was close, said he always knew he wanted to be an artist and he didn’t let anything get in his way. Back then, one generally studied in Europe if one wanted to pursue art. The brothers in 1886 worked their way to England on a cattle boat.

Nantasket Beach, ca. 1896. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Maurice then saved enough money to go to Paris, where he studied for four years. He was exposed to James McNeill Whistler, Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Edgar Degas and Claude Manet.

When he returned to Boston in 1895 he had some modest success. By 1897 he acquired patrons who sent him to Italy to work for several years. But he suffered from poor health, and he’d lost nearly all his hearing by the time he returned home.

Maine Beach, ca. 1913. Private collection.

Back in New England, he painted in watercolor on the coast in summer, then recast his work in oil in the winter. He especially liked Revere Beach, Marblehead, the South Boston Pier and the Boston Public Garden.

Salem Willows, ca. 1904. Terra Museum of American Art.

His naïve, cheerful paintings sold well, and he began to exhibit in New York to find a wider audience. But not everyone liked his work.

Autumn in New England, ca. 1913, Private collection.

The Eight

In 1908 he exhibited with a renegade group of artists called The Eight. One critic dismissed his paintings as ‘artistic tommy-rot, unadulterated slop, the show would be better if it were that of The Seven rather than The Eight.’ Another compared his work with ‘an explosion in a color factory.’

Merry Go Round Nahant, ca. 1901. Springfield Museum of Fine Arts.

Eventually he moved to New York City, where he often painted Central Park scenes. He continued to work in New England in the summers.

Low Tide at Beachmont, ca. 1905, Worcester Art Museum.

Maurice Prendergast died on Feb. 1, 1924.

This story was updated in 2022.

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What They Say in New England About Local Characters and Customs

[jpshare]Henry Wheeler Shaw, the 19^th-century humorist known as Josh Billings, said genuine proverbs are like good cambric needles: short, sharp and shiny. In New England, there are plenty of them, about the weather, about holidays and about each other.

In Bath, N.H., someone who makes a strong but odd statement was said to be ‘equal to Priest Sutherland,’ a minister in the town for 50 years who made strong but odd statements.

Also in New Hampshire, ‘leaning toward Sawyers’ was an expression used when someone left the house surreptitiously for a drink. The Sawyer family kept a store where drinks could be purchased in Sugar Hill.

Maine loggers blamed annoyances and misfortune on the mythical character Sock Saunders. If a logger slipped on a log but caught himself in time, he said, “Foxed you that time, Sock Saunders.” If he cut himself, he said, “Got me that time, Sock Saunders.’

A Connecticut toast goes, “Here’s to the Nutmeg State—who has a grater?”

In Massachusetts, they say a rib was taken off Billerica to make Bedford. And for someone who finally realizes something obvious, they say, ‘Dawn breaks over Marblehead.’ When Marbleheaders ran into each other they’d say, “Down bucket,” or “To hell I pitch it.” No one seems to know why.

Travelers used to say that Cape Codders called a house a house, but a house with a shed was a village. (That no longer applies.) Cape Codders were called ‘Chowderheads’ and ‘Mooncussers.’ Cape Codders called people who lived off the Cape ‘Off-Capers.’

Nantucketers called Martha’s Vineyard residents ‘Old Town Turkeys,’ while a Nantucketer was a ‘Scrap Islander’ to a denizen of Martha’s Vineyard. Nantucketers liked to say something was ‘as handy as Caleb’s cheese,’ referring to Caleb Macy, who liked cheese so much he kept one hanging from a string in his sitting room.

Northampton, Mass., was called ‘Pudding Town’ and its people ‘Puddingers,’ after the residents’ custom of eating hasty pudding and milk for Saturday evening supper.

All Boston residents were ‘beaneaters,’ and Boston folk were ‘full of notions.’ ‘Brahmins’ were the clannish, aloof, old New England families. Of them it was said,

And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to the Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.

‘Cold roast Boston’ referred to Brahmins because they ate roast beef on Sunday and cold leftovers on Monday. The Codfish Aristocracy was a class of nouveau riche who had acquired wealth from the codfishing industry.

Poor Irish were ‘shanty Irish,’ while shanty Irish with notions of respectability were ‘lace-curtain Irish.’ Above the ‘lace-curtain Irish’ were the ‘two-bathroom Irish,’ then the ‘wall-to-wall Irish,’ then at the pinnacle of Irish society were ‘Irish who had fruit in the house when no one was sick.’

‘Black Irish’ were Irish people with dark hair and eyes, said to be descendants of shipwrecked sailors of the Spanish Armada.

Harvard’s battle cry of ‘Oh, Rinehart,’ started on June 11, 1900, when an undergraduate called up to the dormitory window for John Bryce Gordon Rinehart (Class of 1900). His cry was picked up across the Yard by hundreds of students, and was repeated during any campus ruckus.

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