Person:Nathaniel Goddard (2)

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Nathaniel Goddard

Nathaniel Goddard had the distinction of being the last man in Boston to wear knee-breeches, which, of course, were accompanied by the customary black silk stockings in warm weather and by whitetopped boots in winter. These breeches were imported once a year from Plymouth, England, especially for Barney Hedge of Plymouth and Goddard, by Smith & Gore, and the knee-buckles were similarly imported. These are now owned by his great- grand- daughter, Mrs. ‘H. S. Bush. It might appear as if his life were an easy one, but this was far from the case, for few successful merchants bad to endure greater hardships during the early part of their careers. Nathaniel Goddard was born in 1767 in his family’s Goddard Avenue home, in Brookline. His parents were so poor that, with the help of the many sons and daughters, they had to bake their bread, brew their beer, make their soap, do the sewing, spin the yarn, and make their own clothes. Nathaniel’s mother often said that in helping around the house, he was “the best boy she ever knew, almost as good as a girl." Near the house was an uncovered well where the cattle and horses were watered, and Nathaniel in his diary describes having often seen his anxious mother, when one of her fifteen children was missing, search this old well to see if, by chance, one of them had fallen in and been drowned, using a long stick for this purpose. He said his mother was always greatly relieved to find that the bubbles that rose to the surface were caused by the stick and not by one of her drowning children.

At the age of thirteen young Goddard decided to become a merchant, and his father and mother then set about to procure clothes for him, an undertaking described by the son in a most interesting way. My father," records Nathaniel, "got old Abram Adams, then a leather dresser in the South End of Boston, to make me a pair of smallclothes; but they were too small every way, were rather tighter than my skin, the waistband could scarcely be drawn over my hips so as to hold them up, and the knees buttoned with great difficulty by pulling a string double through the buttonhole round the bottom and drawing the button through, and when buttoned came just to the bend of the knee. I had also a striped, linen and woollen sleeve jacket, and my mother, with all her cares and anxieties, had got two pair of blue yarn socks, two tow shirts which she bleached with buttermilk and which approached to white (we had heretofore worn striped or checked shirts), a good pair of doublesoled cowhide shoes, and contrived to have made some homespun woollen cloth, woven by Nap Wilson, which she got ‘fulled,’ and which would answer fpr a blanket or jacket. Of this, I had a waistcoat made,—it was lovely and warm, and my father bought me a felt hat; after being worked a little and wet, the crown would rise up like a sugar-loaf, and it would do capitally for a grenadier, but in addition I had a second-hand cocked hat, called a ‘castor’ hat, to wear to meeting. Thus equipped I was ready to start. John wrote that there was a packet in Boston for Portsmouth soon to return and that I could get a passage on that.”

Thus outfitted, the boy started in as an apprentice in Portsmouth, being given the privilege of trading in any articles that his small savings enabled him to purchase. One of his first ventures’ was in the West Indies. A man by the name of Briard, first mate of the ship “Ceres,” was instructed to take Nathaniel’s entire savings, then consisting of. eight dollars, and to, invest them in oranges. The whole transaction slipped Briard’s mind, though on being confronted on his arrival in Portsmouth by a serious-faced boy to whom he had never given another thought, he made amends by handing over a cask of tamarinds and, a barrel of oranges, which Nathaniel Goddard disposed of to advantage, selling the oranges for about twenty-five cents apiece, and the tamarinds for twenty cents a pound. In all, this adventure netted him about fifty dollars. Young Goddard then returned. to Boston, where he was apprenticed to Captain Amasa Davis, his duties consisting in helping load vessels. “The most cruel part of this apprenticeship,” said Goddard, “was that they would never allow me but one clean shirt a week, and frequently after taking up rafts and boards and timber, the former from the dock and wharf, and the latter frequently rolling in the raft so as to throw me overboard, I was as wet as a drowned rat, and for some months in summer I seldom went to bed except on Sunday night. This was cruel, but I had no remedy, and no friend to apply to for redress.” In this position he remained until he became of age, when he looked about for an opportunity to better himself. His father prophesied failure, and on account of having to aid two of the older boys was unable to give much assistance. His mother, during the days when he looked about for means of raising funds, helped and cheered him. “Don’t be so impatient,” she often said, “something will turn up by and by.” “Perhaps so, mamma,” replied Nathaniel, “but not until I turn it up.”

Eventually with the aid of his father about $566.66 was raised with which to commence business. “He’ll lose it,” everybody said. “With this,” said Goddard, “I purchased sundry articles of various persons. I bought some yellow corn at two and seven pence per bushel and had it put into fish-barrels, fit for packing alewives; white corn, of Colonel Patton, at the foot of Roxbury Meeting House Hill, at two pistareens a bushel, and I also bought transiently some Indian meal of Captain Nathaniel Curtis; one hogshead of best retailing molasses at a shilling and twopence half-penny per gallon, and one firkin prime family butter at five shillings a pound. I bought of Mr. Lowder an assortment of tin ware, such as lamps, tin pots, teapots, etc:, some pigtail tobacco at ten cents a pound; some yard-wide tow cloth at a shilling and sixpence a yard; a few barrels of New England rum at a shilling and sixpence a gallon; hard bread; some men’s and women’s shoes, Bohea tea, pewter, shot, musket balls, some salt, a little cotton, some flax, boots, and a set of weights and scales, etc.” With these stores he sailed on March 28, 1789, for Machias, Me., on the Boston sloop “Prudence,” Captain William Young. Goddard hired a store on what was then Moose Island, and there cooked his solitary meals and sold his goods to those who came to buy. “I slept with a loaded musket,” he recalls, “by the side of my bed, expecting every night an attempt to rob me. I was alone in the building and out of sight of any other, so that I had to depend upon myself and my gun. I escaped what generally comes under the head of robbery, but there was larceny enough while I was selling off my goods; my customers being refugees, disbanded soldiers, escaped gallows-men and Indians. The first inquiry was ‘Do you trust any?’ My answer was ‘No.’ ‘Then, we cannot buy, for we can get no fish now; we will give you in payment the first fish we catch, or our lumber when we get it down, or furs when we return from hunting, and I don’t know but we must starve to death. What are you going to take in payment?’ I replied, ‘I will take at its value anything but broken crockery-ware and broken glassbottles.’ They answered, ‘Well, then we may do.’”

News flew far and wide that a trader had established himself on Moose Island. The census of 1790 shows the name of Nathaniel Goddard as an inhabitant of Township No. 8, now Lubec and Eastport, Me. Mr. Goddard’s principal difficulty was with the Indians, who were proverbially thievish, and tells of one fight he had on one occasion. “Soon after I first landed, an Indian came ashore in his canoe in the dead of night on the ebb tide with his canoe pretty well loaded. He let it ground, came up to the door alongside of my bed, and rapped. I asked ‘Who’s there?’ He said, ‘Indian wants some black alewitch’ [English rum]. I opened the door, let him in and waited on him. He also wanted something else, enough to buy a musquash skin, and told me he would not pay me unless I would help him carry his canoe down the beach. I suspected that as soon as he got his canoe afloat he would pay me under the paddle and would attempt to paddle off. I was fully determined that he should not, but I went to help the creature down with his canoe and surely he meant to paddle off. I told him he should not go, and held on to the canoe; he found it in vain to try to get away, for I seized hold of his musquash skins and made my selection before I let him go. I had no further difficulty with any of them for some time. During the spring, however, I was at work making hand harrows in my flakeyard, which was back of the store, and from it down to the water was a steep passage-way. I had with me a drawing-knife, axe, and auger, with materials for the purpose. A young Indian named Francis Joseph, Jr., son of their governor, came in and was guilty of conduct which he knew I had forbidden. I caught him by the collar and with a pretty harsh jerk slung him down the passage-way and over the abutment into the water. I ordered him down the hill; he would not go, and I took the drawing-knife and with the back of it struck him pretty hard. He got mad and drew his knife to stab me; I caught up the axe and gave him such a blow as soon sent him down the hill; this ended the scrap.”

The second year that Nathaniel Goddard lived in Maine he took into partnership his brother, Benjamin. After remaining in Maine for seven years, Nathaniel Goddard sailed for Boston in the schooner “Dolphin,” leaving his business in charge of Colonel Lemuel Trescott. “This was in March, 1796,” adds Mr. Goddard. “I was then in my twenty-ninth year, an old bachelor, awkward to an extreme, and unacquainted with all decent society, having been buried in the prime of life where no society existed. I never made a visit there to the house of one person, either in the day-time or evening for seven years, and was pretty well qualified to be a hermit. It is true that within twenty or thirty miles there were a few persons who were civilized, but it was by chance only that I saw one of them and never came in contact with them except in business.”

One year after his return from such uncivilized surroundings he married Lucretia Dana of Amherst. They bought an estate in Boston on the southwest corner of Kingston and Summer Streets, where their nearest neighbors were Davis Ellis, Dr. James Jackson, the Rev. Dr. Frothingham, S. P. Gardner, Henry Cabot, Dr. Jacob Bigelow, George Blake, William Sturgis, Daniel Webster, Israel Thorndike, and John C. Gray. There was a fine garden adjoining their town place, which Goddard often said was “better than doctor’s bills.” They also bad a place in Brookline, and when going there the family conveyance usually consisted of a broad two-wheel chaise. Goddard and his wife rarely went out in the evening, but they entertained, however, a great deal; in fact, so much, that his wife used to say it was like keeping a hotel. Their daughter, Henrietta, and S. Parkman Blake, her partner, were acknowledged the best dancers -of their day with J. & H. Bird, who also furnished meats for his vessels, his faithful servant, Michael, following, with a large basket to take home his purchases. It has been said that Goddard often used to shop in Boston for his Sunday lunch, carrying on his shoulders a large basket, and when asked why he did so, he always replied, “So that my daughter, Lucretia, may ride in a barouche.” This servant, Michael, was a man of much precision. Mr. Goddard asked him once to put the horse in the chaise and bring him round to the door. "I can’t do it, sir,” he replied. “Why not, Michael?” “Because he’s too heavy, sir,” answered Michael, -who could only understand the order when it was asked of him that “he attach the horse to the chaise.”

Mr. Goddard became interested in wharf property, and as early as 1802 he purchased an interest in Long Wharf, later acquiring an interest in Rowe’s Wharf. He began shipbuilding about 1816, and in that year contracted with Calvin Turner of Medford to build for him the brig "Governor Brooks." He purchased with Captain Burrows two years later the brig “Dryade,” later taking over Captain Burrows’ share, acquiring also the “Ventrosa” and the “Grampus,” “Van Buren,” “Frederic Warren,” and “Captain Nichols,” and many other vessels. In 1821 he appears to have been interested in the ship “Esther” and to have been engaged in South American trade. He also bought rice through Messrs. Leland at Charleston, and he was an importer of Chinese teas and goods from Calcutta. At One time he controlled the market in Boston for Russia and Manila hemp. Mr. Goddard bought Union Wharf and on this property he had his counting-rooms. He also at one time owned Constitution Wharf. There his offices were so near the water that the schooner “Lucy” of Wiscasset, Me., once ran her jib through one of the windows and had to pay damages. On Union Wharf in the same block were Mackay & Coolidge; Alfred Richardson; his sons, Nathaniel and- Benjamin Goddard; his nephew, W. W. Goddard; and his son-in-law, Benjamin Apthorp Goul

Source:  Other Merchants and Sea Captains of Old Boston, State Street Trust Company, Boston, Mass., 1919 --------------------------- Wigglesworth Family Photographs II    ca. 1844-1962; bulk: 1855-1890   Guide to the Photograph Collection     Downloaded on 24 Nov 2008   http://www.masshist.org/findingaids/doc.cfm?fa=fap016

Nathaniel Goddard (1767-1853) Son of John Goddard of Brookline, Mass., Waggonmaster-General to the Colonial Army in the Revolution. Merchant and resident of Boston, Mass., involved in East India trade. Married Lucretia Dana (1773-1866) in 1797, daughter of Amariah and Dorothy Dana of Amherst, Mass. They had 11 children: Lucretia Dana (1798-1876), who married Benjamin Apthorp Gould (1787-1859) in 1823; Frederic Warren (b. 1800); George Augustus (1803-1845), married Cornelia Amory in 1841; Henrietta May (1805-1895), married Edward Wigglesworth in 1835 (see under Wigglesworth family); Mary Storer (1807-1889), married Henry Weld Fuller (1810-1889) in 1835; Frances Dana (1809-1880), married Henry White Pickering (1811-1898); Nathaniel (1813-1900); Benjamin (b. 1811); Louisa May (1814-1907); Georgianna (1817-1865), married in 1848 to John Adams Blanchard; and Frederica Warren (1817-1894), married in 1849 to William Storer Eaton. --------------------------

1. ↑ Brookline, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States. Vital Records of Brookline, Massachusetts to the End of the Year 1849. (Salem, Mass.: Essex Institute, 1929)
   32.

   GODDARD, Nathaniel, s. John and Hannah, [born] June 5, 1767.