MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES. 501 



still sent to the houses of the farmers to be finished, and some of 

 the shops turned out work enough to entitle them to the more am- 

 bitious name which is attached to such establishments at the pres- 

 ent day. Other towns about Lynn followed its lead ; and Marble- 

 head, Danvers, and Haverhill soon became actively engaged in 

 the industry. Women's shoes were then as they have ever con- 

 tinued the staple article of manufact- 

 ure at Lynn. These were made largely 

 of stuff, the finer qualities with white 

 and russet rands, stitched firmly with 

 white waxed thread, pointed at the toes, 

 and adorned with wooden heels covered 

 with leather. ^ ^ FlG 5 ._ Section of a Man > s Boot , 



That England felt this growing in- , The upper ; b, in-sole ; c, out- 

 dustry of the colonies is shown by the 8ol< v d i 7 elt ' f the stitching 



J . . , 01 the sole to the welt; f, the 



fact that a commission was appointed stitching of the upper to the 

 to inquire into the reason why no more welt - 

 boots and shoes were exported to Amer- 

 ica. It was with astonishment that the gentlemen composing the 

 commission reported to their colleagues that the colonists were 

 supplying their own foot-wear, and apparently, too, with satis- 

 faction to those concerned. Then came England's desperate ef- 

 forts to force the trade of the colonies into British channels and 

 the consequent resistance of the latter to such coercion. Under 

 the influence of the import duties, the shoe industry flourished 

 especially, and at the time of the Revolution the manufacturers 

 were unable to meet the demands which were made upon them 

 for boots for the Continental army. But following that came a 

 serious check. The American markets were flooded with English 

 goods, and trade was paralyzed. A demand was then made on the 

 part of the shoe manufacturers for some kind of protection, with 

 the result that, in the first Congress, in 1789, a tariff was arranged 

 so as to check importations. Hon. John B. Alley, of Lynn, at a 

 leather-trade dinner in New York in 1859, gave somewhat of a 

 romantic version to that portion of the tariff affecting boots and 

 shoes a version which possibly is not to be accepted in detail as 

 history, but which is, nevertheless, of interest. He said that this 

 early duty on imported boots and shoes was due largely to the 

 efforts of Ebenezer Breed, a young Lynn shoemaker, who had 

 located in Philadelphia on account of the dull times in his own 

 town, and of his friend Stephen Collins, a native of the same 

 place. By their influence with members of Congress and with 

 Dolly Payne, the young Quakeress, to whom Mr. Madison, then a 

 rising man in public legislation, was at that time paying atten- 

 tion, they got this boon for their home industry. Be that as it 

 may, with the cessation of imports the Massachusetts shoe-shops 



