Once again, Seth Mendell – educator, historian, and President Emeritus of the Mattapoisett Historical Society – enthralled a gathering of eager listeners when he gave his final talk of the summer season on Squire Joseph Meigs, Sr. at Shipyard Park on August 31.
Mendell, speaking nearly extemporaneously for an hour on one of Mattapoisett’s most important residents from the past, gave the attendees a peek into our rich local history. The evening’s event was augmented by the creeping insistence of sea fog, which gave Mendell’s talk an ethereal effect, as though the past and its people were returning from a long sea voyage.
Mendell told the assembled that the Puritan Migration brought Meigs’ ancestors to these shores. He said that between the years 1620 and 1640, a grand migration of Puritans landed on shores along Massachusetts’ coast. He said that 75,000 people exited Europe during those years, with 15,000 finally residing in and around the Bay Colony area that encompassed Mattapoisett. Of those was one John Meigs who resided in Rochester (of which Mattapoisett and Marion were part at that time). He would distinguish himself by becoming a prosperous farmer marrying one Alice Dexter. They would have a son, Joseph, born on September 11, 1776. This Meigs would distinguish himself far beyond what his father and mother could have dreamed.
From an early age, Joseph Meigs had an inquiring mind, an intellectual desire to understand things beyond farming. He was interested in literature and the law. His mother and others would say that if you couldn’t find him, when you finally did, no doubt, a book would be in his hands. He had a driving thirst for knowledge.
Mendell told us that during the early years while Meigs was growing up on the farm, farmers took their produce down to the wharves to sell, either directly to the 400 or more workers employed in the numerous shipyards that lined today’s Water Street and Shipyard Park or to the numerous inns and taverns that serviced the huge population of the day. It wasn’t long before Meigs yearned to leave the farm and learn the shipbuilding trade. With his father’s permission, he did just that.
Mendell said that Meigs’ first job in the shipyard was as an apprentice caulker – one who pounded hemp and other caulking materials between the seams of the wooden boat planks. Mendell asked us to imagine those days when ships were rising 30 or more feet over head, one after the other lining Water Street all the way to where town beach is today. One could nearly smell the newly-sawed Georgia oaks and pine that were imported from the south for the whaling ships. An astounding fact Mendell imparted was that Meigs would have pounded seven miles of caulking material in an average whaling boat. Meigs was destined for greater things, however. He was soon a carpenter, then master carpenter, a position one can akin to shipyard manager or business manager today.
In 1799, after years of advancing himself through shipyard work, he purchased property on Water Street where the Inn at Shipyard Park sits today. He opened a tavern and general store at this site. Shortly thereafter, he established his own shipyard, one that would become renowned for quality ships that could withstand long sea voyages. It was not unusual for shipyard owners to also own inns and taverns that would provide food and drink to the massive number of workers employed along the waterfront.
Meigs, ever restless to expand his horizons, was not satisfied with merely being a prosperous merchant and shipbuilder; he craved more knowledge and intellectual pursuits. He traveled to Boston to pursue an education in law. During that time, he met his future wife at a tavern he frequented on his journeys from Mattapoisett to Boston. He married Amelia Loring. She would become his right hand in managing the tavern and general store businesses, freeing him to pursue even greater positions with legislative power.
Mendell said that in 1816, Meigs received his law degree and practiced before the “Great and General Court of Plymouth.” In 1829, he became a Representative in the Massachusetts House and in 1838, a Senator.
One of the footnotes to Meigs’ career is that in his government position he was able to gain the ear of John Quincy Adams, who released funds for the building for Ned’s Point Lighthouse. Amen.
Meigs’ shipyard, under the management of his son Joseph Jr., became world renowned for its quality workmanship. Meigs Sr. was tireless in his marketing effort, heretofore not done by other shipyards, to win new contracts by traveling the circuit espousing the quality of ships from his shipyard.
Mendell said that nearly every aspect of the whaling industry was covered by Squire Meigs’ businesses. From providing provisions through his general store and tavern enterprises, building ships, securing raw materials from southern producers of live oak and southern yellow pine, to having his own fleet of whaling ships, Meigs and company were there.
In 1841, tragedy struck the Meigs family when Joe Junior was stricken by pneumonia and succumbed to it. Though his younger son, Loring, stepped in to fill his brother’s role, Joseph Sr, Mendell said, was heart sick with grief. Loring, for his part, would become a prime mover in the extension of the Fairhaven Railroad through Mattapoisett and beyond.
Meigs carried on in spite of his sorrow, including struggling through the horrific loss of one of his whaling ships as it sat moored off Ned’s Point. After returning from a years-long whaling trip, the ship was too heavily laden with whale oil to dock at the wharf. The deeper waters off Ned’s Point were sufficiently deep enough to allow the ship to anchor as it was off-loaded. Eager to feel land under their feet and loved ones in their arms, all but two sailors were released from duty. During an evening in 1846, as the ship lay waiting for the rest of its cargo to be brought to shore, an onboard accident set the ship ablaze. It was reported that the barrels of whale oil exploded like bombs for hours as the ship and its load burned.
This incident would later find Meigs doing battle with the Sun Mutual Insurance Company, who refused to pay up even though the ship had been insured. Eventually, Meigs would win his case in a New York court.
Mendell believes that the loss of Joseph Junior and the stress of losing such an important load in the form of whale oil impacted Meigs’ health. He died in September of 1846 at the age of 70.
One tender anecdotal story about Joseph Meigs is that he was instrumental in the beautification of Mattapoisett through the planting of elm trees. Today, only one remains as a testament to Meigs’ life and times. It is located adjacent to the Mattapoisett Historical Society Museum, standing in silent vigilance over the building Mendell has supported and assisted for so many years. Surely, this would please the Squire.
By Marilou Newell
