By Erika Brown
The Manchester-by-the-Sea Museum officially kicked off its 2024-2025 lecture season last Thursday with a presentation on the 19th Century proliferation of—and Manchester’s successful efforts to halt—streetcar trolleys as a new “futuristic” mode of transportation spread across the United States.
Despite the downpour of rain that soaked Cape Ann, the First Parish Church Hall was full of attendees, drawn to hear “Manchester vs. the Trolley,” museum associate director Matthew Swindell’s lecture on the North Shore’s adoption of electric street trolleys in the last decades of the 1800s.
When Manchester Said "No" to Trolleys
The “trend,” said Swindell, was both a technological advancement (from horse-drawn trolleys) and a mark of social mobility, since trolleys offered the working classes cheap transportation for work and leisure days off. Mills employing thousands shuttled people to work and back as electric trams were introduced to Boston in 1887, in Lowell in 1889, and in Worcester in 1891.
Trolleys and trains also whisked folks to the ocean shore, offering opportunity for new leisure activities like going to a seaside hotel or the beach. In 1880, the Naumkeag Street Railway Company built Salem Willows waterfront amusement park. In 1895, Revere Beach which enjoyed both railway and trolley service, was America’s very first public beach.
The Boston trolley system soon extended from Lynn to Marblehead, Salem, and Beverly. But, Swindell said, that exuberance hit a wall when Beverly Farms resisted trolley service beyond Chapman’s Corner. Manchester, by then a growing enclave of Gilded Age wealthy summer residents, followed suit: “No trolleys.”
Residents opposing trolleys in Manchester said the increased traffic from outsiders would erode the “charm” of town, encouraging unsightly “picnickers” who would lessen the unique quality that Manchester offers its residents. Those who supported the trolley system said it could bolster downtown establishments. (Fun fact: Swindell said in those decades, Manchester also resisted adoption of the telephone).
The controversy was pronounced, and prolonged, as Swindell showed through clippings chronicling the debate in the Manchester Cricket. The trolleys ran on shallow iron street rails and were powered by an overhead metal rod that linked to electrical power lines suspended overhead. Swindell said this new “electrification” evoked images of flying witches in the sky, dipping their brooms down to spur these trolleys along.
In fact, in his popular 1891 poem “The Broomstick Train,” Beverly Farms Oliver Wendall Homes satirized the controversy, painting a tale of New England’s witches returning from hell to wreak havoc on the locals who had wreaked havoc on them.
As for the hag, you can’t see her.
But hark! you can hear her black cat’s purr,
And now and then, as a car goes by,
You may catch a gleam from her wicked eye.
Often, you’ve looked on a rushing train,
But just what moved it was not so plain.
It couldn’t be those wires above,
For they could neither pull nor shove
In the end, trolleys did come to Cape Ann, albeit by way of Essex, which (like Manchester at the time) had multiple train stations that started with Centennial Grove (Fun fact: Centennial Grove was developed by the railway company to encourage urban families to spend a day of country leisure alongside Chebacco Lake); then downtown Essex (the station was located behind Town Hall); then at the beginning of Southern Avenue; and finally, at Conomo Point. Essex welcomed the trolley system, which extended from Beverly to Essex and up to Gloucester, stopping short of Magnolia.
Unveiling the Portico
Swindell’s lecture followed the Manchester by the Sea Museum’s annual meeting, in which the board quickly installed a new slate of officers and board members. Tom Dirkin will be the museum’s new president this year, replacing Philio Cushing who oversaw a bicentennial celebration year that drove a highly successful capital campaign ($220,000).
The museum held a formal ribbon cutting ceremony just prior to the meeting for the new handsome portico built last summer that restored an original architectural entry of the Trask House that had been missing for more than 100 years. The portico project was overseen by Matt Genta, Rebecca Campbell, and Suzanna Thompson. Essex-based Carpenter & MacNeille provided the architectural drawings for the museum as a pro bono gift for its centennial, and Lucciano Andrade served as builder.
Next up for the museum is a children’s workshop, “Autumn Art & History: Children’s Workshop” scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 19 (11 .m. to noon) to explore portraiture and the painting of Charles Hopkinson and facilitated by artist Martha Chapman, and supported by The Hooper Fund.
