GLOUCESTER. A city and port of entry in Essex County, Mass., including the villages of Annisquam, Bay View, East Gloucester, Fresh water Cove, Lanesville, Magnolia, Riverdale, and West Gloucester, 31 miles northeast of Boston; on Massachusetts Bay, near Cape Ann, and on the Boston and Maine Railroad (Map: Massa chusetts, F 2). It is a popular resort for sum mer residents, artists, and tourists, and has the Gilbert Hospital, Gilbert Home, Huntress Home, Magnolia, public, and Sawyer free libraries, and Stage Fort and Marine parks. The city is the seat of the largest fishery interests in the United States, over 5000 men being engaged in the cod and mackerel fisheries. There is a large, acces sible, and safe harbor, and salt, coal, and lumber are extensively imported. Besides the fisheries and the quarrying of granite, the principal indus tries are ship-building, drop-forging, brass-found ing, and the manufacture of fish glue, anchors, machinery, oil clothing, nets and twine, sails, cigars, and shoes. In 623 a company from Dor chester, England, settled at Gloucester, but three years later removed to Naumkeag (Salem). The
permanent settlement dates from about 1633, and a town charter was granted in 1642. It was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century that Gloucester became especially prominent for its fisheries and its ship-building industries. Many privateers were sent out during the Revo lution and the War of 1812, and the town was unsuccessfully attacked by the English in 1775. A number of disastrous shipwrecks have occurred in the immediate vicinity, and near by is the large sunken rock called Norman's Woe, ren dered famous by Longfellow's "The Wreck of the Hesperus." Gloucester was incorporated as a city in 1873, the charter of that year still being in operation. The government is administered by a mayor, elected annually, and a bicameral council. The city owns and operates its water works. Population, in 1890, 24,651; in 1900, 26,121.