As far back as I can recall, in 1832, Water street retained much of the business aspect, which had characterized it for about seventy-five years. The whaling and fishing industries were active and prosperous and Boston had not yet drawn away from Plymouth any considerable portion of its foreign trade. Molasses and sugar from the West India Islands, salt from Turks Island and Cadiz, and iron from Gothenberg, continued to come in, the last free of that burdensome duty, which has destroyed the iron industries of the old colony. I can hear today the rattling of the bars which Stephen Thomas and others carted through our streets to the various manufactories established in Plymouth, Carver, Wareham, Plympton and Kingston. I can count within my memory twenty-six establishments engaged in the manufacture of iron in Plymouth county, while with only two or three exceptions the few now at work are in a languishing condition. I have letters in my possession written in Plymouth, opposing the imposition of high duties, and predicting as a result of their operation the very conditions which now exist. CHAPTER IV. Living as I did on Cole’s Hill through my youth, I have a distinct recollection of Water street and its business as far back as 1832. During the summer I spent much of my time out of school hours sculling a boat, or climbing vessels’ rigging. At those times my special playmate was Winslow Whiting, who during the last years of his seafaring life commanded the bark Volant, and when the brig Hannah was in her berth on the north side of Hedge’s wharf we laughed at the boys crawling through the lubber hole, while we proudly mounted the futtock shrouds. At that time there were on Water street fourteen stores, three counting rooms, two blacksmith shops, two pump and blockmakers’ shops, two painters’ shops, one sail loft, one rigging loft, perhaps six cooper shops, one carpenter’s shop, a wood carver’s loft, and on the eight wharves leading from the street, sixteen storehouses. The stores were occupied by James Spooner, I. L. and T. Hedge, Richard Holmes, George Cooper, Elkanah Bartlett, William Nye, Josiah Robbins, Atwood L. Drew, Charles Bramhall, Phineas Wells, Levi Barnes, Scudder and Churchill, Leander Lovell and Henry Tillson.