Copyright 1999 Adam Barnhart. All Rights Reserved. Fair use of this document.

Both Gloucester and Marblehead were formed as commercial concerns, designed to take advantage of the quality of fishing in the local Cape Ann waters. From that point, however, the stories of the two ports differs significantly. Gloucester's presence on arable land and access to the interior merged agricultural interests with maritime commerce, bringing in a familial population to supplant the initial influx of single men working as fishermen and, to a lesser extent, longshoremen. By 1690, Gloucester reflected many of the demographic characteristics and structure of greater New England, Ipswitch, in particular: "Ipswitch exported to Gloucester not only the produce of its craftsmen, but also, after 1650, some of its families and patterns of political organization."(44)

Marblehead, with "its limited acreage and irregular surface containing little good pasture or planting ground" (209), developed wholly around maritime commerce. Without the traditional family base of Gloucester, Marblehead became a center for ungrounded, irreligious men in North America. With the seasonal nature of fishing and the amount of capital from outside Marblehead invested in its commerce, for decades Marblehead stood as a paragon of dissension, instability, and inequality. After 1713, however, an economic boom helped bring the diverse group of inhabitants together, to protect the interest of the township from Boston, Salem, and the ports of England, led by new social and religious elites, most notably John Barnard, who brought together the economic interests of the community and traditional Puritanism.