John Box: Not a Ropemaker?

The 1896 history of King’s Chapel states of one Revolutionary-era member of the congregation:

On the record of the death of Mr. John Box in the Church Books he is called ropemaker. This is a mistake. He owned much real estate, and belonging to it was a ropewalk. His niece was highly indignant at this statement of the record; said he never spun a rope in his life, but had a foreman who carried on the business.

In fact, Edes and Gill’s Boston Gazette stated on the man’s death:

Oct. 31, 1774. Died of a consumptive disorder, and on Thursday was decently interred, Mr. John Box, aged 75 years, who for upwards of 40 years was an eminent Ropemaker in this town. He was a Man of a fair unblemished character, strictly just in his dealings, a constant attender of Divine worship, Several years (in turn) a Warden of King’s Chapel and one of the Vestry, its assistant and promoter in rebuilding that Church. He was no medler in politicks, yet a well-wisher to the publick welfare; he loved Order, and condemned too great a stretch of power; much esteemed by his worthy Acquaintance, and by the publick in general. He was a tender, affectionate Husband and Parent.

Obviously Box’s family or friends supplied this death notice and didn’t object to the word “ropemaker.” The legal papers from his estate also used that term. What made his niece object sometime later?

I blame the Industrial Revolution. In the 1770s ropewalks were among the few American manufacturing enterprises with a large workforce. Shipyards were another proto-industrial business that had to employ lots of men on the same project. By contrast, most craftsmen worked in relatively small shops in which the boss directly supervised journeymen and apprentices and put his own hand to some advanced tasks.

With the Industrial Revolution, enterprises expanded, and a new profession and class of men developed: managers. These men ran businesses from behind desks. They dealt with customers, juggled supplies and inventories, and got large staffs to do the work. Paul Revere was the most famous Bostonian to make this jump, from working silver himself in the North End to supervising a copper-rolling mill in Canton in the early 1800s.

In eighteenth-century British and American society, men were legally identified by their profession or place in society. Legal documents referred to “Aaron Wood, yeoman [i.e., small farmer],” or “Benjamin Burdick, barber,” or “William Wemms, laborer.” These labels were crucial. One summons for John Hancock was squelched on the grounds that it didn’t refer to him as “John Hancock, gentleman.”

By the end of the century people were using the term “manufacturer” to refer to the men overseeing large enterprises, like Revere. John Box appears to have been an early example of that type: at Box and Austin’s ropewalk in the West End, he managed the money and sales and his partner Benjamin Austin ran the production process. But I don’t think society understood and accepted the term “manufacturer” yet. Thus, both Box and Austin were labeled as “ropemakers.”

And no one saw anything wrong with that in 1774. Ropemaking was an important business in a seafaring town. People knew it could lead to wealth. Another of Boston’s ropemakers, John Gray, was one of the richer citizens and brother of the provincial treasurer. He probably didn’t spin any more rope than John Box did. But there were so few men like them who “made” things without using their hands that the culture didn’t yet have a name for them.

Only after the Industrial Revolution reshaped the American economy and class system did it seem desirable to label ropewalk owners differently from the skilled workers they employed.

Ropewalks in the West End

The West End Museum has just opened a new exhibit on ropemaking in the area from the mid-1700s through the late 1800s. Less than a hundred yards from the museum’s building at 150 Staniford Street is the site of Boston’s earliest recorded “ropefield,” set up by John Harrison in 1642.

Because sailing ships needed rope, the cordage industry was a very important part of Boston’s economy through the Age of Sail. Rope factories required long stretches of land and employed many people, making them (along with shipyards) among the first businesses in town that operated much more like big factories than family workshops.

On 2 March 1770, ropemaker William Green insulted Pvt. Patrick Walker as he passed John Gray’s ropewalk, near modern Post Office Square. Their argument led to a series of brawls that culminated three days later in the Boston Massacre. Gray had fired Green after he heard about the trouble. But an experienced ropemaker was valuable, and I found in the accounts of John Box and Benjamin Austin’s ropewalk that Green found work there in the West End before the end of the year.

A West End ropewalk supplied the anchor cable for the U.S.S. Constitution during the War of 1812. A couple of decades later, engineers applied the technology of mechanized spinning to ropemaking and truly industrialized the process; the Charlestown Navy Yard became the U.S. Navy’s principal source of cordage.

The museum’s press release says:

The new exhibit in the Main Exhibit Hall at the West End Museum, traces the history, vitality and economic significance of the rope-making industry in colonial and federal Boston with graphic and model renderings, interactive displays, artifacts, videos, and more.

Events linked to this exhibit include:

• Thomas K. Burgess’s walking tour “Ropewalks of the West End and Beyond,” 2 June starting at 10:30 A.M. at the museum, $15 ($7 for members).
• showings of Steve Fetsch’s documentary Ropewalk: A Cordage Engineer’s Journey Through History, 5 June and 19 July at the museum, 6:30-8:00 P.M., free.
• Duane Lucia’s walking tour “The Marriage of Wharf and Waterfall,” 7 August starting at 6:30 P.M. at the museum, $15 ($7 for members).

This exhibit will be on display until 18 August. (The thumbnail photo above, though taken by Lucia in connection with this exhibit, shows the Plymouth Cordage Company’s equipment now at Mystic Seaport.)

Changing Wages for Ropewalk Workers

This evening the Boston Area Early American History Seminar at the Massachusetts Historical Society tackled the question of the cost of living in Boston during the 1700s. How much money did it take for a poor person to survive? This is tough to calculate because of a wide range of variables: incomplete records, lack of complete details in the records that exist, changing prices, fluctuating currencies, different family situations, uncertain expenditures, and the bias of different sources.

During that conversation someone asked about workers’ wages, which prompted me to talk about the data in two accounting books from the Box & Austin ropewalk, documents now owned by the Winterthur museum in Delaware. John Box and Benjamin Austin owned and operated their rope factory in Boston’s West End during the mid-1700s.

Ropewalks and shipyards were the biggest proto-industrial businesses of the colonial period. They required a large infrastructure and fairly large workforce, including some highly skilled workers—the spinners. (In the picture above, from the Alexandria Archeology Museum, the spinner is the man at the rear walking backwards spinning a strand of hemp yarn from each hand. Now that’s skill.)

Often the owner of shipyards and ropewalks did not work alongside his men, and in some cases may never have learned their crafts. But he had the money, business knowledge, and customer contacts to run the firm, producing a clear management/labor distinction. According to his daughter, Box never learned how to spin rope, but he kept the accounts. According to later political rivals of his sons, Austin did make rope himself, so he was probably in charge of supervising the output.

Box’s account book for 1757-66 lists every ropewalk worker, what he was due in wages, what he accumulated in debts, and finally what he received. Early in the period covered by the book, most workers were paid “By Worke,” meaning by output: in 1758 each unit of work [which is unclear] was worth 5 shillings. After Sept 1760 all men were paid for the number of days out of six that they worked each week, occasionally with extra for “Jobbing.” The prevailing wage was 25 or 30 shillings per day.

Thus, James West earned £34.15.10 in September 1760 under the old system, and only £32.5.0 the following month, when he was paid by the day for the first time. Was this a better deal for him? That’s impossible to know because the record doesn’t state how many days West worked in September, or how many units he produced in October. Workers could work as many as six days of the week, but sometimes worked only one or two. I assume that overall Box & Austin thought the new payment method was better for their firm.

Before paying the workers, Box deducted for their debts. Charges to the workers’ accounts included “Sundrys” from the warehouse, firewood, gloves, pumps, bread, handkerchiefs, tea, sugar, “Shoes for ys Wife,” “1 years Rent of dwelling House,” “Victualing at my House,” “Pork,” and “Spinning Bands.” Thus, a man named Neal McNeal boarded with Box at £4.10 per week while earning 25 shillings each day.

Some men accumulated debt faster than they could earn wages. By October 1766 Samuel Tralaven owed £60 to his employer, including a whopping £11 “To a Beaver Hatt of Thos. H. Peck” the previous September. At the end of that period Tralaven was working less than full weeks and could barely sign his name; I wonder if he was debilitated by illness or drink.

One interesting name that popped up in this document is William Green, the ropemaker who started a fight with Pvt. Patrick Walker at Gray’s ropewalks on 2 Mar 1770, beginning a cycle of violence that led to the Boston Massacre three days later. Green’s employer, John Gray, fired him after that fight. The following January, Green started to work across town for Box & Austin at 25 shillings a day.