Page 6. MAINE COASTAL NEWS February 2015 Newburyport's Custom House Maritime Museum
NEWBURYPORT, MA – One of my favou- rite places to visit is a maritime museum. Since I have been covering the North Shore of Massachusetts for the past few years I frequently stopped in at the Custom House Maritime Museum in Newburyport. I have always known that Newburyport has a fi ne maritime history, not much different than several notable Maine seacoast towns. During my last visit I sat down with execu- tive director Michael Mroz and he gave me a very interesting lesson on the maritime history of Newburyport.
Newburyport celebrated their 250th anniversary last year. Michael stated, “New- buryport was separated from Newbury. The back bone of what made Newburyport im- portant was its natural God-given structure as being a perfect shipbuilding port by virtue of the river, the lay of both banks and its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. Shipbuild- ing was what propelled this town into prom- inence. We like to say that Newburyport was to colonial shipbuilding what Detroit would become to automobiles. It was a massive shipbuilding factory. Over the years there were hundreds of ships built from this site and all different styles, but what they were really known for was the big ocean going vessels.”
The most noted shipbuilder’s names
were Atkinson, Bowen, Currier, Filmore, Jackman, and Pickett. One of the most fa- mous shipbuilders, known to the world for the clippers he would build in East Boston, built ships in Newburyport and that was Donald McKay. Michael added, “Donald McKay was Nova Scotian by birth, but learned the trade in New York. He left there and wanted to own his own shipyard. He was
sick of working for somebody. He showed up here and every shipyard up and down the river wanted to hire him. He partnered with a couple of people. In some things I have read, McKay was renowned for working with the shipwrights in his yard. Also my understanding is that it is a good thing his wife was a math teacher because she taught him the math that he needed to execute the ideas that he had. That partnership faded after a few years and they don’t know ex- actly why it dissolved, but they do know that every asset that the partnership had was sawn perfectly in half. Say no more. He formed another partnership and he was in the midst of building his second yard, but keep in mind that a lot of shipbuilding projects were brought in through agents, the equivalent today of the venture capitalists. They ran projects in certain yards because of a particular expertise, and it didn’t take long for them to spot somebody who really had what it took. Essentially a group of those investors set Donald McKay up at his brand new East Boston shipyard, but he never lost his connection to Newburyport. He is actual- ly buried here in one of the old cemeteries. “If you have such a prolifi c capability to build ships as they did here,” continued Michael, “it is going to create demand for those to command them and Newburyport grew many of its own ship captains. There was quite a contingent of them here. Just pri- or to the Revolution they formed the Marine Society of Newburyport. They met together to pool their knowledge of the sea. They were encouraged by a group from Salem that just the year before had arranged their own marine society for the same purposes. Salem began in 1771 and Newburyport in
1772. Boston had ac- tually been the fi rst in American in the 1750s, but they didn’t call it a marine society. If you are going to have ships that can be well commanded, you are going to have the mer- chants that will come in and show you how to make a lot of money. Those three groups, shipbuilders, captains and merchants, were what made this town.” Newburyport sep- arated from Newbury in 1764, right at the end of the French and Indian War. Michael added, “They went from be- ing British subjects to American colonists with a certain indepen- dent streak to United States citizens in the course of just 25 years.
The main entrance of the Custom House Maritime Museum.
Smack in the middle of that was the shot heard round the world. The fi rst privateers of the Revolutionary War emerge from the mouth of the Merrimack River and they belonged to one of the largest merchants in town at the time, Nathaniel Tracy. His father was a wealthy merchant and Nathaniel Tra- cy’s fl eet was one of the largest. He could’ve easily moved up into the Maritimes, but he went all in. They converted merchant ships into vessels that could fi ght. Privateering was the perfect way to create a navy without having the whole administration in place. At the time there was no real country it was an organization of the 13 colonies, 13 inde- pendent entities joining together. Newbury- port’s contribution was essentially maritime and because they were not an occupied town they also had the ability to import items, such as gunpowder, which the British wanted to keep away from here. Newburyport’s heri-
tage throughout the Revolution was pretty sterling.
“When ships would come into town boys and girls would run down to the wharf to see the sights,” continued Michael. “They would see the crews, not just Newburyport sailors coming home, but crews made up from people all over the world. The things that they could see, the different people, the products that were coming from across the globe, was extremely amazing. Young boys had a big advantage in that they couldn’t wait to try to get into the ships in some way. There are a number of stories of young boys apprenticing and some captains would give them an opportunity to keep a parallel log or the actual log. There were some that had been in China before they even saw Boston.” One of the most interesting artifacts at
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