But it was in the last State, at Lynn, that the industry had its real origin and center in this country.
Philip Kertland was the first person of that craft to locate in what was to develop into the "City of Shoes," coming thither from Sherrington in Buckinghamshire, England, in 1638. He was joined soon after by Edmund Bridges, and considerable of a local business sprang up. At that time shoemakers went around from house to house and worked up the family stock of leather, but this itinerant system was soon dropped by the Lynn craftsmen as their business grew into more than a local one. The art of shoemaking, however, was not understood and the workmen were unskilled. Occasionally some of the more ambitious ones would send to England for shoes and take them apart, with a view of learning the way of making them. But men who had money and were in a
Fig. 2.—An Early Lynn Shoe-shop. These shops marked the intermediate stage in the evolution of the shoe industry. With the introduction of machinery, between 1860 and 1870 they passed out of use and largely out of existence.
position to help on such experiments were shy of the shoe business. They preferred to invest in trade and real estate. The result was that no real progress was made in the business until John Adams Dagyr, a Welsh shoemaker, moved to Lynn in 1750. Dagyr was skilled in the methods employed in England, and he proceeded to instruct all who came to him in the art. His fame spread abroad through northeastern Massachusetts, and it was only a short time after his settlement before a notable improvement became apparent in the Lynn product. The Boston Gazette of October 21, 1764, said: "It is certain that women's shoes, made at Lynn, do now exceed those usually imported, in strength and beauty, but not in price." Edward Johnson, of Woburn, in his "Wonder-working Providence," says of Lynn: "All other trades have fallen into
