Career
Richard Fry came from London to Boston in 1731, under the agreement with Samuel Waldo, a wealthy New England merchant, to manufacture paper. For three years, he waited for the mill, which according to Waldo’s contract was to have been ready within ten months.
During this period, he sold stationers’ supplies and printed and distributed 1, 200 copies of the poems of Stephen Duck. He also formulated an ambitious project for reprinting the Spectator, provided orders for 300 sets could be obtained.
In 1734, Waldo leased to him a mill on the Stroudwater, not far from Portland, and here he went with his family and began making paper. Within two years, he was in financial difficulties which led to protracted litigation.
The first case brought against him was for £70 arrears in rent. For this sum, Waldo seized his paper-making machinery, which was already mortgaged. Fie was thus rendered unable to manufacture more paper, his sole means of support, and was plunged into trouble with the mortgagee.
He was probably in Boston jail by the end of 1736 or the beginning of 1737, and from there he appealed one case after another for five years. Discussions of currency were engrossing the attention of Boston merchants at this time, and Fry, during his incarceration, wrote a treatise on currency for the consideration of the General Court (1739).
His scheme was of greater interest than the usual land-bank project of the time since it involved the creation of a chain of factories which should provide New England with a wide variety of products. Indeed, it probably had more value as a suggestion for the industrial development of the colonies than as a solution to the monetary difficulties of Massachusetts.
While in prison Fry also signed, and in all likelihood formulated, two vigorous petitions to the General Court, asking for better treatment of prisoners, and sent to that body a communication charging one of the keepers with circulating bills of the land bank.
His death occurred before August 1745, for in that month his widow, Martha Brook Fry, petitioned to be made administrator of his estate.
