“ The first smelting works in New England were established here in 1643. More important and earlier was the manufacture of boots and shoes, an industry introduced in 1636 by Philip Kertland, a Buckingham man; a corporation of shoemakers existed here in 1651, whose papers were lost in 1765. There were many court orders in the seventeenth century to butchers, tanners, bootmakers and cordwainers ”

“ Patent medicines and compounds and the manufacture of electrical machinery are prominent industries. The Lynn factories of the General Electric Company had in 1906 an annual product worth between $15,000,000 and $20,000,000. The foreign export of manufactured products is estimated at $5,000,000 a year. ”