1754-1783: Business and the Economy: Chronology

IMPORTANT EVENTS OF 1754-1783

IMPORTANT EVENTS OF 1754-1783

1754

• A board of brokers is formed to supervise the financial activities at the London Coffee-House for Merchants and Traders in Philadelphia.

1756

• A stagecoach line begins operating between Philadelphia and New York City.
• Parliament allows duty-free imports of American iron into England.

1759

• Virginia forms a public corporation to encourage the growth of manufacturing.

1760

• Benjamin Franklin publishes The Interests of Great Britain Considered, arguing that colonial manufactures will not hurt the mother country.
• Boston, Providence, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston are connected by a rough road.

1761

• Boston merchants oppose in Massachusetts court the use of general warrants by English customs officials. These warrants allow the authorities to search anywhere and at any time for smuggled goods.
• The United Company of Spermaceti Candle Manufacturers of Providence and Newport is formed to fix prices, limit dealers, and ban new candle companies.

1762

• Anthracite coal is discovered in Pennsylvania.

1763

• Parliament reduces bounties on indigo.
• Chambers of commerce are established in New York and New Jersey.
• Boston forms the Society for Encouraging Trade and Commerce.
• In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Henry Williams unsuccessfully attempts to navigate a steamboat on Conestoga Creek.
• The Proclamation of 1763 places the Indian trade under royal control and temporarily bans new settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains.
• 9 Sept. The English Crown grants George Washington and associates 2.5 million acres at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

1764

• New York City businessmen and merchants form the Society for the Promotion of Arts, Agriculture, and Economy.
• Parliament bans the immigration of skilled workers to the colonies.
• German-born Heinrich Stiegel founds a glass factory in Pennsylvania and staffs it with foreign glassmakers.
• Peter Hasenclever starts two industrial complexes, including blast furnaces, forges, stamping mills, and grist and steel mills, in northern New Jersey.
• 5 Apr. Parliament passes the Sugar Act.
• 19 Apr. Parliament passes the Currency Act forbidding colonies, particularly Virginia, from issuing paper money.
• May-June Boston merchants and mechanics begin to boycott English luxury goods.

1765

• Jonn Harmon manufactures the first chocolate in North America, in Dorchester Lower Mills, Massachusetts.
• 22 Mar. Parliament passes the Stamp Act.
• 19 Oct. The Stamp Act Congress in New York City resolves not to import goods that require payment of the stamp duty.

1766

• London merchants, fearful of losing business, petition Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act.
• The Flying Machine, a wagon running from Camden, New Jersey, to presentday Jersey City, offers passengers a service faster than any currently available.
• 18 Mar. The Stamp Act is repealed, but Parliament’s Declaratory Act affirms its right to make any law for the American colonies.

1767

• 29 June. The Townshend Revenue Act imposes taxes on tea, glass, paper, and dyestuffs.
• Public protest meetings in Massachusetts and Virginia result in nonimportation agreements.
• A committee is formed in New York City to develop native industries.

1768

• The proclamation line of 1763 is redrawn to accommodate land companies.
• Twenty journeymen tailors strike for higher wages in New York City.
• The New York City Chamber of Commerce is formed in Fraunces’ Tavern.

• 10 June. John Hancock’s Liberty is seized by customs officials for transporting illicit wine, but the authorities release it when a mob forms.
• 1 Aug. Boston and New York merchants boycott English goods.

1769

• Heinrich Stiegel opens a second American glassmaking plant at Manheim, Pennsylvania; his name becomes identified with a type of American glassware.
• Anthracite coal is used for the first time in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
• The Grand Ohio Company is formed in England to buy twenty million acres in the Ohio River valley for settlement.
• New Jersey grants the Hibernian Ironworks seven years’ exemption from taxes.
• A guild of building trades workers is founded in New York City.
• The Boston Society for Encouraging Industry and Employing the Poor builds a spinning school.
• Mar. Philadelphia and Baltimore merchants join the nonimportation association.

1770

• 31 Jan. Five hundred Boston women agree to support a boycott of tea.
• 12 Apr. Parliament repeals the Townshend duties but retains the tax on tea. In response the colonies lift their embargo of British goods except tea.

1772

• July A crisis in the English banking system reduces the credit available to colonial merchants, forcing them to sell their inventories at low prices.

1773

• Tailors in Philadelphia form a company to fix prices and limit journeymen’s wages.
• Phillip Mazzei of Virginia imports workers and materials from Italy to start silk production.
• 27 Apr. Parliament passes the Tea Act to save the British East India Company from bankruptcy. The company’s resulting monopoly puts American tea merchants out of business.
• 16 Dec. The Boston Tea Party occurs.

1774

• Parliament bans exports of textile machinery, including plans and models, to the American colonies; additional acts are passed in 1781 and 1782.
• The Transylvania Company is formed by land speculators in Kentucky. The Illinois and Wabash Land companies are formed to buy tracts of western territory.
• 19 Apr. Edmund Burke writes On American Taxation.
• 20 Oct. The Continental Association, a committee of the Continental Congress, bars the importation of British goods.
• 25 Oct. Fifty-one women in Edenton, North Carolina, sign an antitea declaration.

1775

• The English Board of Trade approves the Vandalia Company’s request to buy 2.4 million acres of land in eastern Kentucky. (Benjamin Franklin is among the members of the company.)
• Samuel Wetherill starts a cloth factory with spinning jennies in Philadelphia.
• 20 Feb. The first joint-stock manufacturing company, the American Manufactory of Woolens, Linens, and Cottons, is established. Shares of the company sell at ten pounds apiece.
• 10 Mar. Daniel Boone begins blazing the Wilderness Road westward from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. It was improved for wagon traffic in 1795.
• 22 Mar. Burke gives his Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies to Parliament.
• May Congress establishes a postal system with Benjamin Franklin as postmaster.
• 15 July. Congress authorizes foreign vessels to import essential war materials and to export American products.
• 19 Sept. Congress appoints a Secret Committee to make contracts for the purchase of foreign war supplies.
• 8 Nov. Congress empowers the Secret Committee to export American products to the West Indies in exchange for arms, ammunition, and saltpeter.

1776

• Congress institutes a national lottery.
• Paul Revere starts a gunpowder factory at Canton, Massachusetts.
• John Sears builds a saltworks on Cape Cod to evaporate salt from seawater.
• Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations.
• Congress authorizes a loan of $5 million to finance the war.
• 6 Apr. Congress declares American ports open to all marine traffic except that from England.
• 26 Sept. Congress appoints commissioners to negotiate commercial treaties with European nations.

1777

• Oliver Evans invents a machine that improves the productivity of wool manufacturing.
• Congress establishes a cannon manufactory in Springfield, Massachusetts.
• July After declaring itself an independent state in January, Vermont adopts a constitution that abolishes slavery and adopts universal male suffrage without regard to property.

1778

• Congress prohibits the importation of slaves into the United States.
• 6 Feb. A French-American commercial treaty is signed in Paris.

1779

• Peletiah Webster writes Essay on Free Trade and Finance, opposing regulations on prices and wages.

1780

• 25 Feb. Congress requisitions the states to provide specific supplies to the Continental Army.
• 1 Mar. Pennsylvania becomes the first state to abolish slavery. (Vermont does not join the Union until 1791.) All children born after the law’s passage are free citizens.
• 18 Mar. Congress passes an act to redeem Continental paper money at one-fortieth of the face value.

1781

• The first American pharmaceutical firm is founded.
• The Mutual Assurance Company is formed in Philadelphia to provide fire insurance on houses.
• Robert Morris and associates form the North American Land Company, the first American trust, to sell nearly six million acres of western lands in six states.
• France extends a large loan to the United States.
• 20 Feb. Congress appoints Robert Morris as superintendent of finance.
• 31 Dec. The Bank of North America is established by Congress.

1782

• The United States and the Netherlands sign a commercial treaty.

1783

• 3 Sept. The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Revolutionary War.
• Britain closes the West Indian trade to the United States but permits it to ex-port manufactured goods to England.
• The Empress of China, financed by Robert Morris and partners, is the first U.S. vessel to visit Canton, China.