Coming down to more recent times we find that rope-making had been going on for centuries with probably very little change, up to the time of the introduction of machinery and the establishment of the factory system. It had been carried on as a domestic industry, or a trade handed down from father to son, and naturally was of most importance in the principal seaport towns where vessels were built or fitted out. This was the state of the business at the time of the settlement of America, and it was not long before the rope-maker began to be needed as a citizen of the new Colonies. This need was felt in Boston with the first efforts at shipbuilding there, and was also suggested by the great demand for fishing lines, the cod-fisheries being of great importance upon the Massachusetts coast. [Illustration: OFFICE OF PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY] It is recorded that rope was made in Boston as early as 1641 or 1642. John Harrison, a rope-maker of Salisbury, England, came to this country at the request of a number of citizens of Boston, and set up his business in that village. He seems to have had a monopoly of the local trade for a good many years, under the paternal protection of the town authorities, for John Heyman, to whom permission to make rope in Boston was given in 1662, was the next year ordered to give up the work and depart from the town, it being found that this competition interfered with Harrison’s business to such an extent as to make it difficult for him to properly support his family of eleven persons. [Illustration: BOURNE SPOONER] However, upon the death of Harrison this monopoly came to an end, and ropewalks began to multiply in Boston as well as in other parts of the country. In 1794 there were fourteen large ropewalks in Boston, the business having steadily increased with the development of the new country. The importance of this industry is shown by the report that in the federal procession in Boston in 1788, the rope-makers outnumbered any other class of mechanics. In 1810 there were 173 ropewalks in the United States, scattered over the country from Maine to Kentucky. In 1824 the infant Plymouth Cordage Company entered upon the scene and gradually but surely became an important factor in the trade, until today it stands at the head. In the first half of the last century Manila hemp began to take its place as a cordage fiber. According to official records, 27,820 bales were imported to the United States in 1843. This figure looks small when compared with a recent high figure of approximately 830,000 bales in a single year. The first record of the importation of Sisal is in 1860, when the United States received 1,393 bales. This has increased to 1,000,000 bales. [Illustration: PATENT AND COMMON-LAID _CORDAGE_, Manufactured by Water-Power.