19. THE CHAMBER OF MARITIME CUSTOMS

The Chamber of Maritime Customs was established immediately after the town of Degerby-Loviisa was founded in 1745. The duties of the customs were given to a private tenancy company.

Already in the first year of its operation the customs reported that iron and iron pots from the Strömfors Ironworks were exported, and Dutch tobacco was imported to Loviisa. According to the customs registers the export of wooden products and import of salt started the following year as the two Spain trade ships of the town – Enigheten and Friedrichshamn – sailed to the home harbor with 7,800 barrels salt.

Customs duties were facilitated by the fact that all merchant ships passing through the Öresund Strait to enter the Baltic Sea were cleared at the Sundtolden (Sound Toll) in Denmark. Once the ship arrived at port of Loviisa it had to present the customs clearance certificate prepared by the Sound Toll.

The town of Degergy-Loviisa built a modest and partly temporary customs house with guardhouses around Laivasilta harbor. In 1765 the Chamber of Maritime Customs was moved further to the south, in Tullisilta, where a new customs house was built according to the drawings of the college of chambers in 1759.

A customs yacht was built in Turku shipyard and measured on 18th February in 1746. The measurement protocol of the 24 feet long and 8 feet wide yacht was signed by the English Robert Fithie, who was also known as the constructor of the yacht, a sworn wine taster, the Commissar of the Turku Diving Company – and as the most famous master shipbuilder in Finland after Chapman. Fithie had worked five years on the shipyard in Stockholm and mastered even the theoretics of shipbuilding which he had studied on the shipyards in England, Holland, France, Italy, Portugal and even in West Indies.

At first, the personnel of the Maritime Customs consisted of eleven men: a customs foreman, an inspector, a yacht lieutenant, yacht crew and four boatswains. Later one more crew man and two rowers were employed to help the yacht lieutenant. At the customs’ disposal was also a smaller customs sloop.

In 1755 the Maritime Customs had expanded its operations to three other places near the town: to the sea fortress of Svartholm (where it had two crew foremen and one boatswain), near the Russian border in Ahvenkoski (with one customs foreman and two boatswains) and in Pellinki (with one customs foreman and one crew foreman). In ten years, the personnel of Maritime Customs had doubled.

Smuggling was practiced already in the 18th century. Vast areas on the inaccessible coast were still uninhabited. It was a popular trick among the smugglers to land at some remote shore and unload the cargo during the dark hours of the night and out of reach of the eagle-eyed customs. The most careful ship masters had their crew capsize their ship or one of the ships if there were several of them so that it would appear wrecked and, on that basis, forced to seek an illegal port of refuge.

The ingenious decision of the Danish Customs to pay four percent of the customs duty on customs declared goods for the ship’s captain significantly reduced smuggling into the Baltic Sea area. The more goods the captain declared for customs clearance, the thicker his wallet became.

Behind you, in front of the skylight, there is a display showing the SHIP BELL OF FRIGATE MERCURIUS, produced in 1761 in Stockholm

The frigate shipped bar iron and hardware produced by Strömfors Ironworks to the Mediterranean countries and France in the 1760s. It was shipwrecked carrying a cargo of salt outside Bristol in England in 1771. British sports divers found the bell in the 1960s and lifted it up. The bell was sold at auction in Denmark to the Lions and Rotary Clubs in Loviisa who donated the bell to Loviisa town museum in 1967.

Beside you, by the window: SEA SALT

Salt was produced in the Mediterranean countries by leading salty sea water into vast low pools. In the heat of the sun the water evaporated quickly and the salt that accumulated at the bottom of the pools was collected in storage. Salt was transported in barrels in bulk, one barrel being about 140 liters.

19. WAREHOUSING THE SALT

Shipping company activities and salt business flourished in Loviisa at the turn of the 19th century. Both declined sharply during the war years of 1808-09 but recovered eventually and reached another peak in the 1850s.

During the years 1764 – 1807, 13% of Finland’s salt was imported via the port of Loviisa. This was about 6,000 barrels a year. At the turn of the 19th century the amount was already more than 10,000 barrels a year and in 1805 a record of 15,000 barrels was reached.

The largest ships were loaded and unloaded into barges on the roadstead and the cargo, for example salt, was brought ashore in barrels or sacks. The salt was stored in the numerous barns, owned by the merchants, in the Laivasilta harbor until it was time to transport it further inland. Usually, the salt was transported to Eastern and Middle Finland on sledges during the wintertime.

The town merchants were also required to keep a certain amount of salt in store. This was supervised by officials. In 1774 the amount of stored salt was deemed to be 500 tons.

The showcase in the corner of the room shows a miniature model of the Laivasilta – Tullisilta area.

19. LAIVASILTA AS AN EXPORT AND IMPORT HARBOR

When Degerby was founded, the towns in the Swedish Empire were divided into staple towns and inland towns. Staple towns had the right to send ships to foreign ports and receive foreign ships to their own ports.

When the town of Degerby–Loviisa received staple rights there were only three staple towns in Finland: Helsinki, Turku and Loviisa. The town of Hamina had had the same rights but it was lost to Russia in the Treaty of Turku 1743. Merchants who had moved from Hamina to Degerby brought with them so called Spain trade ships, merchant ships with which they had imported salt from the Mediterranean countries. These three ships were Finland, Enigheten and Friedrichshamn. Foreign trade was thus able to start almost immediately and the Laivasilta port was established.

Ships owned by the merchants in Loviisa sailed once a year to the Mediterranean Sea and exported mainly timber products and imported salt.

From 1764 to 1807 Loviisa was the country’s leading export port for timber products: 35% of the exported wood was planks (< 3 inches) and 57% ship planks (>3 inches). In addition to that, 30% of the country’s grain as well as 70% of its butter was exported through Loviisa.

The Mediterranean ports included Cádiz, Setúbal, Ibiza and Torrevieja. Back then salt was almost the only preservative and Laivasilta harbor became one of the country’s most important ports. The imports of salt in one summer could reach as much as 15 000 barrels.

Warehouses were built for storing the salt. During the next few decades there was already a double row of barns to the south and north sides of the road leading from Suolatori (Salt square) to the Laivasilta pier. Every merchant owned one or more barns. Already by the end of the 18th century the rows of salt barns reached from Laivasilta to the east-western corner of the current Suolatori (Salt Square). The number of barns is likely to have been more than 50.

19. THE FISHING HARBORS BY LOVIISA BAY IN THE 20th CENTURY

When the golden age of Laivasilta harbor as an import harbor ended, its significance as a fishing harbor started to increase. In the early years of the 20th century the harbor was used by Estonian sailing yachts and the passenger steamboats that stopped by the pier with visitors to the Loviisa spa.

A company specializing in fish exports and selling also refrigerated fish, “Lovisa Fiskexport- och Frysinrättnings Ab”, was established in 1911. The company built a shop with a fish processing plant by Suolatori (Salt square). Several barns were demolished to make way for the new building. This big, yellow painted house still stands by the square.

The wholesale and retail fish sales began in Laivasilta along with the company’s activities. An unregistered association of archipelago fishermen started to act in the area in 1930s. In the following decade the sale was organized by the cooperative Lovisa Fiskandelslag. Later in the 1950s and 1960s fish was sold from trawlers by Tullisilta pier.

In the same place where Café Laivasilta (opposite to the museum) is situated today, there was a small cooperative-owned retail stall called “Fiskis” which operated in Laivasilta until the end of 1960s when the trawl harbor in Valko was introduced.

Prive fish sale continued in Laivasilta until the end of 1970s. The trawl harbor is still active in Valko.

19. THE SALT BARNS DISAPPEAR

The salt business began to decline already in the 19th century and Loviisa lost its special status.  The Laivasilta channel was too shallow for the so-called Spain trade ships. In 1870 Loviisa town bought the current Tullisilta from the town’s richest merchants and the port activities were moved there. A couple of decades later most port activities moved to Valko, which then belonged to the municipality of Pernaja.

The salt barns lost their use as salt storage and started to fall into decay.  A new town plan, which included the current Rantatie Road, was approved in 1912. The planned road threatened the uniform rows of barns. According to the Magistrate’s records, only 23 barns remained in 1913.  During 1914-17 the fate of the salt barns was the topic of lively discussion in local newspapers. In 1920 there were only 10 salt barns left – three on the south side of the road to Laivasilta and seven on the north side.

At the request of the town, architect Gustaf Srengell gave a statement in 1920 in which he unequivocally recommended saving the salt barns. The town council, however, considered the cost of saving the area too high and let the matter lapse in 1921.  In 1945 there were five barns left, but in 1951 only one remained.