Page 14 - China Trade Grand Turk Salem MA

Salem Maritime Activity revenue. At the time the building was erected
the trade of the port was still thriving, and a
After 1800 further increase in the volume of its foreign com-
merce was confidently expected. As a result the
T H E VENTURE of the Mount Vernon was the last building was constructed much too large for a
undertaken by Elias Hasket Derby, for 2 months business which soon started to decline instead of
after his son and namesake had departed on the to grow. Today, it remains one of the few elab-
eventful Mediterranean voyage the great merchant orate examples in New England of public archi-
died at Salem. The trade in distant seas, in which tecture from the Federal Period and has an especial
his enterprising spirit had led the way for his interest derived from a prominent name that
fellow countrymen, was continued for half a cen- appeared on the list of customs officers to serve
tury longer by a notable succession of Salem mer- there.
chants and shipmasters, many of whom had Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of America's out-
received their training in the great merchant's standing men-of-letters, was Surveyor of the Port
counting room or aboard his ships. of Salem from 1846 to 1849. For 3 years prior to
The years immediately following the great the spring of 1846, Hawthorne had been living at
merchant's death were the heyday of Salem's the Old Manse in Concord where his financial
ocean trade. The embargo enforced on American condition had become serious, due to the uncertain
shipping by President Jefferson in 1807 and the income derived from his writing. Political friends,
War of 1812 were a severe blow to Salem and the realizing the plight of the poverty-stricken writer,
first of several factors which led to the decline of had succeeded in securing for him the post of
her commerce. During the War of 1812, pri- Surveyor at the Salem Custom House.
vateering again took the place of maritime trade Completely lacking any interest in business,
as it had in the Revolution, and at the end of Hawthorne found the surveyorship no more stimu-
hostilities merchants were not lacking, possessed lating than previous ventures into the world of
of the same pioneering instinct that Elias Hasket affairs. At the time he took up his duties the busi-
Derby had displayed at the close of the War of ness of the port was decreasing rapidly. Seated
Independence. They explored new channels of at his crude pine desk in the southwest corner room
trade to the continents of Africa, Australia, and on the first floor of the Custom House, the author
South America, and to the islands of Madagascar, could look out upon thej decaying wharves and
Zanzibar, and the South Seas. When the news empty warehouses waiting for the cargoes that
of the discovery of gold in California swept through ships no longer brought. As he gazed upon this
the country in 1848 and 1849, they were among the scene, Hawthorne probably conceived the plot
first shipowners to reap profits from the trade for many a good story, yet his years as Surveyor
around Cape Horn to San Francisco. The in- were singularly devoid of any writings which fore-
crease in the size of vessels, however, which came shadowed his future greatness. For one thing, he
with the clipper ship era from 1850 to 1860, found it impossible to combine the job of book-
spelled Salem's doom on salt water. Her shallow keeper with that of literary man, and for another,
and landlocked harbor could not accommodate his associates seemed to lack the essential qualities
the new leviathans of the sea, and in consequence to excite his pensive nature into action.
her seafaring talent was absorbed by the rapidly
With no particular regrets, Hawthorne returned
growing ports of Boston and New York.
in the summer of 1849 to his study and forthwith
turned out "The Scarlet Letter," "The House of
"
Seven Gables," and The Blithedale Romance"—
The Salem Custom House and works which established his reputation as an author
and are still the basis of his claim to immortality.
Nathaniel Hawthorne He thought the inactivity in the Custom House of
his day had an enervating effect upon his creative
T H E SALEM CUSTOM HOUSE, which stands at the powers, but it was there that he stored up the
head of Derby Wharf, was built in 1819 to accom- materials for his greatest novel, "The Scarlet
modate the collectors and officers of the customs Letter."

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