Rural Economy in New England 287 



Middletown depended for its prosperity chiefly upon its commerce. 

 Since the entries at the port included goods and ships of Wethersfield 

 and Hartford, they give us but little clue to the trade of the city itself.^ 

 In 1815 there were 24 vessels, measuring altogether 3,500 tons, owned 

 here. Up to 1810 the following manufactures had been established: 

 A rum distillery with an annual output of 600 hogsheads; a paper 

 mill employing 9 to 12 men; a powder mill whose product was worth 

 $1,000 per annum; and a cotton factory, erected 1808, of 330 spindles. 

 The inhabitants numbered 5,300 of whom a part lived in a village of 

 300 houses. The small influence which this settlement exerted as a 

 market for agricultural produce may be seen in the declining popu- 

 lation of the outlying districts. In Field's Statistical Account of 

 Middlesex County we read: "The inhabitants of the southern, 

 western and northern parts of this town (Middletown), are very 

 generally farmers, and as the lands in those parts have long since 

 been taken up for farms, the population has increased very little for 

 many years. There were 80 dwellings in Middlefield (a village in the 

 south-western part of the town), in 1745, and but one more in 1815. 

 The population of Westfield, for the same length of time, has been 

 nearly stationary. . . . Young enterprising men, trained to 

 husbandry, unable to get farms in their native town have removed 

 from time to time, to other parts of the country. "^ Had there been 

 opportunity for the sale of a considerable amount of agricultural 

 produce in Middletown, either for consumption by the merchants and 

 artisans or for export to the West Indies, this emigration would 

 undoubtedly have been checked.^ 



(4) Cape Cod and Nantucket. 



There were two other districts in Massachusetts where maritime 

 enterprises employed a considerable population, who purchased 

 their food-stuff's either from the farmers in their vicinity or from those 

 in other parts of the state. These were Barnstable and Nantucket 

 Counties, the former including Cape Cod and the latter the island 

 and town of the same name. Cape Cod was recognized as a unique 



* Dwight, Travels, I. 190, gives a table showing the value of the imports 

 for this district during the years 1801-1810. The annual average was $292,000. 

 Here, as in other tables of the sort given by this author, the value of the imports 

 is calculated from the amount of duties paid, assuming an average rate of 25%. 



* Field, Op. cit., 38-39. The facts quoted in the description of Middletown 

 are from this work, pp. 32-53. 



^ See Appendix B. Emigration from Inland Towns in Southern New England, 

 1720-1820. 



