SAUGUS — Born in what was then Lynn, but is now part of Saugus, on April 29, 1802, Benjamin Franklin Newhall helped bring the shoe industry to the area.
Newhall was his mother’s first son, and he grew quite attached to her. With this intense attachment to his mother, he began to resent his father, a shoemaker. As a result, Newhall was resistant to becoming a shoemaker and set out to support his family in any way he could.
“I hated shoemaking and was yet determined to earn something for my mother,” he wrote in his autobiography.
At the age of 14, Newhall began working in a chocolate factory. The chocolate mill, which was purchased as an abandoned mill on the Saugus River in 1792, began producing chocolate in 1797 under the direction of Newhall’s relative Jonathan “Major” Makepeace. Newhall, however, did not work for his relative but for Amariah Childs, who had purchased the business. According to Newhall’s son Wilbur Newhall, his father worked at the chocolate factory “day and night.”
By the age of 18, Benjamin Franklin Newhall was still working for Childs, but no longer in the chocolate mill, instead “teaming,” transporting goods via horse and mule. He took advantage of his profession to satisfy his love for reading.
“I generally took my book with me and studied while I was driving,” he wrote.
Benjamin Franklin Newhall saved the money he earned teaming, eventually garnering $170 at the age of 21, which he used to enroll in New Market Academy in New Hampshire.
His time at New Market Academy was short. Benjamin Franklin Newhall only stayed there for around six months before returning to Massachusetts, where he began teaching at a school in Stoneham.
In 1825, Benjamin Franklin Newhall married Dorothy Jewett. Soon after, he and his brother-in-law opened a store in Canada. However, the business ultimately failed and Newhall came back home.
After the failure of his business in Canada, Benjamin Franklin Newhall borrowed money and began working in the shoe business “in earnest,” Wilbur Newhall wrote.
As Benjamin Franklin Newhall’s involvement and success in the shoe business continued to grow, he established himself as a businessman of high repute, helping to strengthen the shoemaking industry in New England.
Benjamin Franklin Newhall served Saugus in “nearly every official capacity,” Wilbur Newhall wrote, adding that he had served as town clerk, selectman, overseer of the poor, on the School Committee, and as a representative to the General Court.
He was also responsible for the creation of the Saugus Mutual Fire Insurance Company, serving as its secretary and treasurer until becoming incapacitated by rheumatism in 1861. Newhall lived for two more years, confined to his house, until he died on Oct. 13, 1863.
