The Ways of a Worker of a Century Ago / as Shown by the Diary of Joseph Lye, Shoemaker

As Shown by the Diary of Joseph Lye, Shoemaker
By FRED A. GANNON SALEM, MASS.
Printed by Newcomb & Gauss SALEM, MASS.
Copyrighted 1918 Fred A. Gannon Salem, Mass.
For all the facts in this little book the writer is indebted to Henry F. Tapley, who gave the Lye, or Tapley, shoe shop to the Essex Institute, and who related the record of it, as well as extracts from the diary of Joseph Lye, to the Lynn Historical Society, October 14, 1915.
Mr. Tapley’s story is published in the Register of the Lynn Historical Society, Number XIX, for the Year 1915.
Joseph Lye was born in Lynn, Mass., in 1792, being one of the nine sons of Joseph Lye, a shoemaker and soldier of the Revolution, and Ann Hart. He kept a diary which shows that he “was first clerk of the Second Congregational church (Unitarian), clerk of the Fire club, served as juryman, trained in the militia, watched with sick friends and neighbors. He was something of a traveler in his modest way, worked as a shoemaker, painter, fisherman and skipper, and sailed small boats. He cleaned the chimney, set out posts and fences, fixed the pump, caulked boats and helped kill the neighbor’s pig. Interested in religious matters, he led the active, useful life of a good citizen.”
Altogether, he was a busy man. He viewed life from many angles. His diary is doubtless a good and accurate record of the acts and thoughts of the average man of his time. It furnishes material for contrast with men and their ways of these days.
In Lye’s time all work was done by hand. Machinery was scarcely known. Men often worked alone, for the factory system had not been started. As they toiled in solitude they read from a book or meditated in silence. They were given to deep thinking.
He lived in extraordinary times. His father told him of the Revolution. Washington, Hamilton and Jefferson were laying the foundations of the new nation. Pioneers were pushing their way west. Inventors were busy. Fulton sailed the Clermont down the Hudson. Inventors dreamed of the steam locomotive. American ships opened trade with the Far East and brought back “the wealth of the Indies.” The nation had prospered so much that it had a surplus in the treasury.