Ebenezer Breed was an American early advocate of protection of the shoe industry. He is regarded as one of the first successful merchants who introduced most advanced methods in the shoemaking art.
Background
Ebenezer Breed was born on May 12, 1766 in Lynn, Massachussets. He was the youngest of the eight children of Benjamin Breed and Ruth Allen and was of the fifth generation in line from Allen Bread (afterward Breed) who came to Salem, Massachussets, in 1629 and settled at Saugus, Massachussets, his portion of the plantation being known as "Breed's End, " afterward a part of Lynn.
Benjamin Breed is recorded as being a cordwainer and husbandman, combining, as was the custom, two vocations in order that no part of the year might be wasted.
Education
Ebenezer Breed's younger days were probably spent in connection with his father's business but letters written later in life indicate that he received more than an ordinary education.
Career
Ebenezer Breed early moved to Philadelphia and being reared in the Society of Friends was warmly received by several of the more prosperous Quakers, previously residents of Lynn. Foremost among them was Stephen Collins, a successful merchant of the period. Influenced by his early association Breed established himself as a wholesale shoe merchant. In his business he quickly encountered the oppressive economic conditions which beset the not-too-well established industries in the period of adjustment which followed the Revolutionary War.
Three years of his agitation culminated in a brilliant dinner-party given by Breed to the members of Congress at the Collins Mansion loaned for the purpose. This dinner took place between the meeting of the First Congress, March 4, 1789, and the following July 4, when the first tariff act was passed, providing a duty of fifty cents per pair on boots, seven cents per pair on leather shoes, slippers, galoshes, and ten cents per pair on all shoes or slippers made of silk or stuff.
Breed now visited England where he arranged for the coming of several workmen of unusual skill to the city of Lynn for the purpose of teaching the most advanced methods in the shoemaking art. He also visited France for a brief period and is said to have had a few very miserable hours in endeavoring to escape the ravages of the Revolution then in progress.
He gradually lost his health and finally his eyesight and the year 1800 found him back in his native town, an inmate of the poorhouse. A kindly disposed cobbler taught him the art of making shoes and he at various times worked whimsically at his trade, resentfully refusing the aid that well-meaning friends proffered.
He died in Lynn in 1839 at the almshouse and was buried in the Friend's Cemetery.
Achievements
Ebenezer Breed was an initiator of the first tariff act that was approved and passed by Congress, providing a duty of fifty cents per pair on boots. After that Breed visited England, where his correspondence shows that he was well received, and made many business contacts of great advantage and became an importer of much of the shoe material that came from England and France. He also arranged for the coming of several workmen of unusual skill to the city of Lynn for the purpose of teaching the most advanced methods in the shoemaking art.
Views
Being of a sanguine temperament, with a Quaker sense of the injustice of poverty from avoidable causes, he early seems to have formed definite ideas regarding the policy to be pursued in building the way to economic independence.
Quotations:
The register of the Lynn Historical Society preserves this fragment of Breed's impassioned plea for the shoemaker: "Will you stand tamely by and see this infant industry swallowed up by the raging lions of Britain and Gaul? Will you see the homes of these operatives destroyed or abandoned and not hold out your strong arms to shield them as they shielded you when war bent his horrid front over our fair land? No, I trust and New England expects that by your suffrages we shall obtain the desired relief when the matter comes before your honorable body. "
Membership
He was a member of the Society of Friends.
Personality
He was a person of a sanguine temperament.
Connections
Among the estimable ladies of Breed's circle in Philadelphia was one to whom he paid fervent court, Polly Atmore, daughter of a prominent Quaker, and before he went abroad in 1792 he had won the promise of her hand in marriage. But, on his return, Polly's father accused him of departing from the precepts of his youthful training in his contact with the wealthy classes abroad and directed that the nuptials be postponed for a year. When the year of probation expired, however, Polly was married to a Mr. Robinson and from that day Breed began to give color to the old Quaker's charge by being constantly in his cups.
