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The town was founded for “purposes of trade and commerce” and early its sails began to whiten the seas. Naturally the first commerce was coastwise only. Then vessels sought the ports of the West Indies and Spanish Main, laden most frequently with that bulb whose fragrance lingers longest in the nostrils, the onion. The culture of this vegetable was one of the three things for which the town was noted for more than two centuries.

There once dwelt in Bristol a man named Sammy Usher, who was noted for his irascibility not less than for his caustic tongue. One day a visitor from Brown University was introduced to him. This young man, though a sophomore, was yet somewhat fresh, and Sammy did not like him. He said, “Mr. Usher, I hear that Bristol is noted for three things, its geese, girls and onions. What do you do with them all?” “Oh,” said Usher, “we marry our girls as soon as they grow up, we ship our onions to Cuba, and we send our geese to college.” The first recorded shipment, however, was not of onions. November 6, 1686, Byfield placed a number of his horses on board the Bristol Merchant bound for Surinam. Possibly they may have been of the Narragansett pacer breed for which the south county was so long famous. Very early in the town’s history, sails were turned to the coast of Africa. The voyage was the most hazardous that could be taken, but the returns from a successful venture were enormous. There was profit on each leg of the voyage. The first leg was from the home port, with the hold filled with casks of New England rum and small crates of trinkets. One cask was ordinarily enough to secure a slave, but before the cargo was complete, all hands were likely to be down with coast fever. When the crew were again strong enough to work the vessel, the “middle passage” to the West Indies was made, and the live freight, which had been handled with as great care as are the cattle on the Atlantic transports today, was exchanged for casks of molasses. Then came the last leg of the voyage. The molasses was carried to Bristol to be converted into rum. This trade the town shared with Newport and Providence.