The Ways of a Worker ofa Century Ago
As Shown by the Diary of Joseph Lye,Shoemaker
By FRED A. GANNONSALEM, MASS.
Printed by
Newcomb & Gauss
SALEM, MASS.
Copyrighted
1918
Fred A. Gannon
Salem, Mass.
THE WAYS OF A WORKER OF A CENTURY AGO
As Shown by the Diary of Joseph Lye, Shoemaker.
For all the facts in this little book the writer is indebted toHenry F. Tapley, who gave the Lye, or Tapley, shoe shop to the EssexInstitute, and who related the record of it, as well as extracts fromthe diary of Joseph Lye, to the Lynn Historical Society, October 14,1915.
Mr. Tapley’s story is published in the Register of the Lynn HistoricalSociety, Number XIX, for the Year 1915.
JOSEPH LYE HIMSELF.
Joseph Lye was born in Lynn, Mass., in 1792, being one of the nine sonsof Joseph Lye, a shoemaker and soldier of the Revolution, and Ann Hart.He kept a diary which shows that he “was first clerk of the Second2Congregational church (Unitarian), clerk of the Fire club, servedas juryman, trained in the militia, watched with sick friends andneighbors. He was something of a traveler in his modest way, worked asa shoemaker, painter, fisherman and skipper, and sailed small boats. Hecleaned the chimney, set out posts and fences, fixed the pump, caulkedboats and helped kill the neighbor’s pig. Interested in religiousmatters, he led the active, useful life of a good citizen.”
Altogether, he was a busy man. He viewed life from many angles. Hisdiary is doubtless a good and accurate record of the acts and thoughtsof the average man of his time. It furnishes material for contrast withmen and their ways of these days.
In Lye’s time all work was done by hand. Machinery was scarcely known.Men often worked alone, for the factory system had not been started. Asthey toiled in solitude they read from a book or meditated in silence.They were given to deep thinking.
He lived in extraordinary times. His father told him of the Revolution.Washington,3 Hamilton and Jefferson were laying the foundations of thenew nation. Pioneers were pushing their way west. Inventors were busy.Fulton sailed the Clermont down the Hudson. Inventors dreamed of thesteam locomotive. American ships opened trade with the Far East andbrought back “the wealth of the Indies.” The nation had prospered somuch that it had a surplus in the treasury.
The shoe business flourished. John Adam Dagyr, “the CelebratedShoemaker of Essex,” had taught his fellow workers of Lynn how to makeshoes equal to the best imported from London and Paris. Newspapersof the time urged people to buy American shoes instead of importedfootwear. Ebenezer Breed, an early captain of American industry, hadinduced Congress to put a protective tariff on American shoes.
Joseph Lye, the diarist, learned shoemaking of his father, theRevolutionary soldier, as did many a lad of his time. He worked on thefarm, too, and became a handy man, able to undertake most any of thesimple4 tasks of his time. He was content to work industriously andto live thriftily. Ambition did not tempt him. He though