92 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



THE PIONEER INDUSTRIES OF ESSEX COUNTY. 



[Address before the Essex Agricultural Society,] 



BY MK. DAVID W. LOEK OF GLOUCESTER. 



I have taken for my subject the pioneer industries of 

 Essex County, — planting and fishing, their past and present 

 success. As the fishermen were first to occupy the field, I 

 will consider their industry first ; for, had it not been for them, 

 your farmers of Essex County would not be here to-day. 



In the records of the Great Council of New England is 

 found. May 1, 1622, "that order is given for patents to be 

 drawn for the Earl of Warwick and his associates, the Lord 

 Gorges, Sir Robert Mansell, Sir Ferdinando Gorges." This 

 order is regarded as referring to a division of the country 

 from Bay of Fundy to Narragansett Bay among twenty 

 associates, in which the region about Cape Ann fell to Lord 

 Sheffield, who, on the first day of January, 1623, gave by 

 charter, " to Robert Cushman and Edward Winslow " of 

 the Plymouth Colony, " a certain Tract of Ground in New 

 England in a known place there, commonly called Cape 

 Anne, in which charter provision was made against disturb- 

 ing any English inhabitant already there ; provision was also 

 made for ' Scholes, Churches, Hospitalls,' and the mainte- 

 nance of Ministers, Officers, and Magistrats." 



Previous to any action by the Plymouth Colony towards 

 a settlement of this region. Rev. John White of Dorchester, 

 Eng., having interested some merchants and other gentle- 

 men there in forming a company, sent a small ship of fifty 

 tons to plant in New England the foundation of a colony 

 for the more successful prosecution of fishing voyages. 

 Their ship came to the usual fishing-grounds, but, arriving 

 late in the season, did not obtain a full fare, and "the Mas- 

 ter thought good to pass into Mattachusetts Bay to try 

 whether tliat would yield him an3^" Vessels heretofore had 

 not fished so far west. Succeeding better than he expected, 

 and finding the beautiful harbor of Cape Ann so handy, he 



