The Fashion Among More Superior People: Charity and Social Change in Provincial New England, 1700-1740

Abstract

JOHN BARNARD RELUCTANTLY ACCEPTED A CALL FROM THE CHURCH AT Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1714, and his first impressions of village did little to heighten his enthusiasm. As he later recalled in his Autobiography, town was an economic backwater with so much one proper carpenter, nor mason, nor tailor, nor butcher . .. nor anything of a market worth naming . . . above all, not so much one foreign trading vessel. Equally unpromising were inhabitants, as rude, swearing, drunken and fighting a crew they were poor . . . contented to be slaves that digged mines, and left merchants of Boston, Salem and Europe to carry away gains. But dismally poor circumstances of place did not prevent new minister from discerning its potential maritime advantages. Seeing that the town had a price in its hands, Barnard thought it my duty to stir up my people ... to enriching of themselves. 1 On his own, he learned fine points of fish marketing from masters of English vessels and then initiated into those mysteries one Mr. Joseph Swett, a young fisherman of enterprising genius, great industry, but small fortune. Within Barnard's lifetime and under his auspices, an economic miracle took place: profitable supply of fish first to Barbados and later to Europe ushered in prosperity and created a newly rich merchant class of gentlemanlike and polite families. 2 Above all, town's progress exemplified, at least for its pastor, natural congruence of interests of