R. C. MACKAY AND J. S. COOLIDGE
J. S. COOLIDGE & CO.

R. C. Mackay and J. S. Coolidge, two well-known Boston merchants, with offices at 16 Union Wharf, were associated in business, conducting a large trade between this port and Calcutta and the East. Mr. Mackay sailed around the Horn fourteen times on his voyages to Calcutta. For some years, J. C. Phillips was head book-keeper for the firm, C. C. Bancroft, Percy B. Goodwin, and Francis Lodge Mackay, a brother of George H. Mackay, being three of their supercargoes. Mr. Mackay was proud of the fact that he never used a steel pen in his life, always preferring quill pens, which he made himself. He also used to declare that he had never used a piece of blotting-paper, but that he always blotted his letters with sand, which he sprinkled on his writing from a sand-box resembling very much a pepper-box. This sand-box is illustrated by the tailpiece at the end of this book.

It was customary in those days for foreigners having business transactions in India to carry on their trade through a native, as was the custom in China. Mackay and Coolidge and several other houses transacted their business through an Indian at Calcutta named Radha Kissen Mitter, who lived at 55 Radhabazaar in the old native part of the city. R. C. Mackay and his son, George H. Mackay, who went to India at the age of nineteen as supercargo for his father, and who is now residing in Boston, both used to live during their stay in Calcutta with the Mitters at their residence, which is described as being very much like the China "Hong," with a high wall around the grounds. The Mackays knew the Mitters probably better than did any of the other Americans, and Mitter used to say that he considered any of the Mackays as part of his own family. The two families have carried on a correspondence ever since, and the Mitters always referred to the Mackays as Uncle George or Uncle William; Mitter in writing to Mr. Mackay, Sr., usually addressed him as "Reverend Sire." When about to leave for home, Mitter asked George H. Mackay to sell him some goods, but Mr. Mackay would not do so because he felt that their value would soon decline. Mitter was rather vexed at the time, but later realized why he was not allowed to purchase the property. Just before sailing, the Indian in return for the many kindnesses shown him gave the younger Mr. Mackay a ring to take back with him to the United States, making the recipient of the gift promise at the same time that he would never give it away to any one until he was married. These instructions were carefully followed, and when Mr. Mackay did marry he presented it to his wife, who still wears and prizes this Eastern possession. The Mitters often begged the Mackays to visit them, telling them that they would have to come to the East, as on account of custom they were not allowed to leave their own country. In the Mitter house there is an oil painting of Mr. Mackay, Sr., with pictures of almost all of his family, while in Mr. Mackay's house on Bay State Road there are also to be found pictures of several of the Mitter family.

While in Calcutta in 1819 Mr. Mackay witnessed a Bengal Suttee, or religious rite. It was the custom in India for the wife of a deceased husband to throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre and be burned to death with him, and it has even happened that several wives have actually fought over the honor of being burned. In this case, curiously enough, the wife, after throwing herself on the burning pile, decided she would rather live, and jumping up ran to the river and put out the flames which were consuming her clothes. Mr. Mackay and his friends with considerable difficulty were able to protect her and to help save her life, as her countrymen believed it her duty to die and considered it a disgrace for any wife to refuse to be burned with her spouse.

Mr. Mackay and Mr. Coolidge, between the years 1833 and 1850, owned a number of vessels which included the "William Gray," "United States," "Eugene," "Potomac," "India," "Argo," "Aldebaran," "Mohawk," "Chilo," "Catalpa," "Catherine," "Rambler," "Dolphin," "Union," and "John Q. Adams." Robert G. Shaw, G. Howland Shaw, and Robert G. Shaw, Jr., had an interest in some of these ships, and Mr. Mackay and his family were the sole owners of three others, the "Minstrel," "Art Union," and "Panther." In those days these vessels carried the mail, there being no government mail service between the two countries, and the charge for this duty varied from twelve to thirty-eight cents per letter. As there were no insurance companies at that time, it was customary to get different merchants to take a certain amount of insurance on a vessel about to sail, and among those insurers can be found the names of our best-known Boston merchants. The cargoes from Calcutta and East India consisted chiefly of shellac, buffalo and cow hides, goatskins, linseed, indigo, jute, ginger, and mahogany; the return cargo from Boston consisting chiefly of drills, tar, timber, naval stores, spars, mahogany logs, and tobacco. The firm also traded with Singapore, Penang, and Batavia on the island of Java, from which pepper, tea, rattans, rice, nutmegs, and buffalo hides were the chief importations.

In later years J. S. Coolidge started a firm of his own, which was composed of John Templeton Coolidge, his son, Joseph S. Coolidge, Jr., and John Templeton Coolidge, Jr. Their ships were usually armed with small cannon for service against pirates, and the boys of the Coolidge family used to amuse themselves by going down to the docks in Boston when the vessels were unloading, to examine these cannon, and to watch the opening of the tea-chests from China, which were filled with the strange wares from the East. The Coolidge firm, among other ships, owned the "Nor'wester," which, in 1855, made the second fastest voyage from Boston to Calcutta. A model of this vessel, together with a number of Eastern curiosities brought back by the Coolidge ships, can be seen in the Marine Museum in the Old State House. Some of the other vessels owned by the firm were the "Versailles," "Atlas," "Annie Buckram," "R. B. Forbes."

Mr. Coolidge once had a captain who was asked by a number of Boston friends to buy for them certain Chinese objects, and all of them, except one, gave him the funds with which to make the purchase. When the ship returned he reported that he had made the purchases for all excepting one, and when asked by this person why he had nothing for him, Coolidge explained that he placed all the memoranda of the purchases on the capstan on anchoring at Calcutta with the money upon each memorandum and that the memorandum which was not weighted down had blown away!

The Coolidges remember their grandfather's tale of a cargo of pepper from the East which was shipped to Boston just as Congress put a heavy duty upon that article of import. As the last days of exemption drew near, the Coolidge family and others interested mounted the lookout of the Coolidge counting-house, from which they anxiously scanned the harbour for the approaching vessel. As fortune would have it, she pulled in on the very last day before the duty went on, and the cargo netted the firm thirty thousand dollars extra profit. John Templeton Coolidge, Jr., who was a partner in the firm, was tutored by the Rev. Samuel Longfellow, a brother of the poet. He was on board the "Nor'wester" on her fast voyage to Calcutta, but the return trip of this vessel was not so fortunate, for the crew was stricken with Asiatic cholera, and the vessel was obliged to go out of her course to the island of St. Helena. Coolidge and the others had to remain there for ninety-seven days to recuperate. Upon his recovery he returned to Boston. He was married to Anna Tucker Parker, sister of Richard Parker and Mrs. George G. Lowell, mother of judge Lowell.

It may be interesting to mention some of the Boston merchants in the Calcutta trade during the time of Mackay & Coolidge: N. & B. Goddard; Young & Emmons; Curtis & Peabody; Foster, Rogers & Co.; Atkinson, Tilton & Co.; Whitney & Young; John S. Farlow & Co.; Rufus Wills & Co.; James E. Whitney, later president of the Franklin Savings Bank; Whitney Brothers & Co.; George Goddard, and William C. Codman. Other Boston merchants who traded with the East were Charles E. Guild, S. Endicott Peabody, Lawrence Cushing, William Bancroft, Joseph Prince, George T. Lyman, Stephen Cabot, J. B. Glover, George B. Upton, Charles K. Cobb, Thomas Wigglesworth, N. P. Manlin, J. G. and Frank Whitney, Hersey Goodwin, and C. C. Bancroft.

The building of warehouses increased the Calcutta trade, and in the year 1857 the imports were very large, consisting of six million pieces of gunnies. In the year 1857, ninety-six vessels arrived in this port from Calcutta, and on one Monday morning seventy-five ships came into the harbour from the East Indies.

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