50 NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
July 21, 1918. 
Manchester’s Lost Industries 
HELENE SHERMAN 
ONE of the most beautiful towns along the North Shore 
is Manchester, which within a comparatively few 
years has become Mancnester- -by-the-Sea. It is row rec- 
ognized everywhere as one of the leading summer resorts 
of the country and to many people the name, Manchester, 
brings visions of a charming, peaceful little New Eng- 
land | town, where one goes in the early spring to enjoy the 
beauties which Nature has scattered down with a gener- 
ous hand; remains through a gay summer, with golfing 
and dancing and dining at the Essex County club, 
swimming at the lovely Singing Beach, motoring from the 
pretty town to its pretty neighbors, and doing, in short, all 
the happy, carefree things that go to make a summer 
resort the delightful place it is; and leaves dnly when 
the first snowflakes warn one that “‘the people have gone” 
and that it is time to return to town. 
There is another side to Manchester-by-the-Sea—the 
story of the place when it was plain Jeffrey’s Creek. Few 
of us think of it as one of the pioneer towns of New 
England, of America in fact, but it was just that. It 
was settled not more than five or ten years after the 
landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth and was ever a 
healthy, happy community. Manchester was never a lag- 
gard in industry; true to the type of village to which 
she belonged, her people worked early and late and bore 
hardship uncomplainingly and even, if we may judge from 
some of the accounts that have come down to us of the 
merrymakings of those days, cheerfully. Every home had 
its spinning-wheel and a woman who was adept at running 
it. ‘The men grew some wool on the hills that surround 
the town and this.was carded, spun and woven at home, 
taken to the mills at Ipswich for fulling, and finally 
brought ‘back to Manchester to be made up into clothing. 
Not only clothing was, made in the busy little community, 
but hats of palm leaf and straw braiding. Many a “lone 
Hannah” sat binding shoes, too. 
Saw mills came early to play an important part in 
business in Manchester. The first comers had built their 
homes of logs and their first frame buildings of hewn 
timber,, but it was not long before a surprising number 
of saw mills had been put up by the thrifty people. The 
brook must have been larger and more energetic than it 
is in these days of degenerate ease, for it could never 
gather up enough power now to turn the wheels cf a mill. 
Perhaps there were other streams in town, too, for we 
read of various saw mills, all of which must have been 
dependent .upon running water. One was at Cheever’s 
Creek, north of what is now called High School Hill (Ben- 
nett street).: As, early as 1694 this was referred to as 
the ‘old’, saw mill, so it: must have been built quite early 
inthe town’s history, ‘There was one, also, at the old 
Baker farm and there were three at “The Cove.” Other 
mills; particularly grist mills, furnished occupation for 
some of, the villages, also. 
Few who pass the quiet pond on Summer street, 
just above. the railroad bridge, can picture it a flourishing, 
noisy, dirty brick-yard, but it was just that not so very 
many. years ago. That is why it is no more. Manches- 
ter’s present calling cannot permit the presence of any- 
thing too blatantly businesslike, so the old brick-yard 
had to go. In 1894 106,000 bricks were put from this 
vard in the.one month of August; this year it will be a 
charming bit of landscape, with its. still. waters and_ its 
gold-fish and is pond lilies and the great trees bending 
over them, in the month of August. 
Farther back than this period takes us, Manchester 
had many shipwrights engaged in the making of the 
fast Yankee sailers that made Gloucester and her sister 
ports famous for their fishing vessels. Manchester men 
made fishing craft of from ten to one hundred ‘tons and, 
possibly, even larger vessels. Ship building in those days 
was no sinecure, for it meant real work with real mate- 
rials. The boats had to be stout enough to withstand 
the assaults of all the winds that blew from the Banks 
of Menan to San Domingo and to give good service in 
time of fight. Merchant sailors had often to fight their. 
way to their destination and back again in those old days. 
Sea navigation was not so much a trade as an instinct, 
therefore, and men learned to be good sailors and naviga- 
tors through force of circumstance. Manchester has pro- 
duced many a seaman of whom she may well be proud. 
Their lives read like a page from “Treasure Island,” for 
pirates play their parts, as well as Indians and other ene- - 
mies of the colonies. Manchester’s men rendered to their. 
country good service in the wars of 1776 and 1812. 
Next to cabinet-making, which another article will 
describe, fishing has been the great factor in the industry 
and consequent prosperity of Manchester. And Man- 
chester may thank it for much besides the money it 
brought into town. First of all, fishing was the hard 
school that made real men. The severities of the jour- 
neys they took—to the Grand Banks in summer to catch’ 
the fish, home to Gloucester to cure it, and on again to 
the West Indies in the winter to sell it—made muscle and 
courage. Hardly a boy grew to manhood who had _ not 
stood watch upon a slippery deck through a long, winter 
night, or heard the cry, “Man overboard!” in a cold 
no’theaster that made mountains of the sea and widows 
of the women back home. Such men as these are men 
who founded a colony on bravery, steadfastness and kind- 
ness. Of this school was Capt. Thomas Leach, who 
was born at Manchester in 1807. He was born a sailor, 
the son of a sailor father. At an early age he sailed with 
his father, who, incidentally, was a mariner of note in 
‘the employ of William Gray, and no discipline of ship- 
board was relaxed for him. At the age of twenty-five 
he was made captain of the brig “Oregon,” an honor 
in itself and especially an honor. coming to a man so 
young. Capt. Leach sailed about the world for many 
a useful year after that, seeing strange sights and strange 
ports. What a curious thing it would be if these quiet, 
New England towns could bring back their dead cap- 
tains to tell of the deeds they have done and the sights 
they have seen overseas! What a tale each one could 
tell—a story of brave fights won or of brave fights lost, 
a story of standing alone at the wheel through the bitter, 
dark watches, while a drunken crew caroused, fought 
and finally slept below. The courage and will of these 
men is our priceless heritage, and it is for us to see 
that we do not shame it. To go back to the story of 
Captain Leach—for more than fifty years he made his 
home upon the sea, and after retiring, served for twelve 
years as port warden of Boston. — Ill health finally forced 
the cheerful, kindly, self-reliant old man to give up this 
task, too, and on the fifth of December in 1886 he died 
in the house where he was born at Manchester. Capt. 
John Allen was another such man and his descendants 
still form the greater part of the village population, Not 
second to these fine men were their women- folks! They 
never hesitated to put aside the bonds of conventions and 
