Connecticut in transition: 1775-1818, Part 10

Author: Purcell, Richard J. (Richard Joseph), 1887-1950
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press
Number of Pages: 346


USA > Connecticut > Connecticut in transition: 1775-1818 > Part 10


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General Humphreys, the prime promoter of agriculture and meri- nos, was among the first in the country to manufacture high-grade woolens. His interest was purely experimental, and his display of cloths at fairs of agricultural and domestic manufactures was intended to dem- onstrate the value of improved sheep. The success of these endeavors caused Humphreys to establish a clothier's works. Jefferson wrote that he understood that the best cloth in America was made by Humphreys, and that, as "Homespun is become the spirit of the times, I think it an useful one and therefore that it is a duty to encourage it by example." 55 This he did by purchasing a suiting through the agency of Abraham Bishop. Madison at his inaugural is said to have worn a suit cut from the Humphreys cloth.56 In 1810 the Humphreysville Manufacturing Com- pany was chartered with a maximum capital of $500,000 in $400 shares.57 While David Humphreys, Oliver Wolcott and Thomas Vose were the incorporators, others were probably associated with them. They agreed to employ a teacher for three months to instruct the child employees in the elements of learning, religion, morals, and manners, probably for the


54 See Note I at end of this chapter.


55 New Haven Hist. Soc., Papers, I, 143-146.


56 Johnston, Connecticut, p. 343; Baker, Montville, pp. 621 ff.


57 Public Laws, pp. 28-31. For an account of the Humphreysville industry, see Courant, May 31, 1809; Atwater, Plymouth, p. 144; Campbell, Seymour, p. 233; Sharpe, Seymour, p. 68; Warden, Statistical Account, II, 26; Bishop, American Manufactures, II, 167; Dwight, Travels, III, 375 ff .; Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 117.


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MANUFACTURES


purpose of placating the domestic manufacturers, who opposed fac- tories on the grounds of morality.58 Then, too, this instruction bespoke the mind of Connecticut regarding the elements of schooling for all children. At any rate, conditions were regarded as ideal and a proof that American factories need not bring in the evils of English factory life.59


This was immediately followed by the Middletown Manufacturing Company, with a capital of $200,000 in $1,000 shares, and a similar charter. By 1815 this company, housed in a five-story building, em- ployed from sixty to eighty hands and manufactured annually $70,000 worth of cloth.60 During the next four years a good-sized clothier's works and another woolen mill were established in Middletown, em- ploying over forty people and disposing of 25,000 pounds of wool a year. In 1813 a broadcloth factory was built at Wolcottville in which Oliver Wolcott was interested. Two woolen factories of considerable capacity were operating in Goshen. The Mystic Manufacturing Com- pany commenced business in 1814 with a capital of $200,000. Its manu- facturing, however, was of a general nature, including brass, iron, engines, as well as cotton and woolen goods.61


New London County had in 1815 fourteen woolen factories; Litch- field County counted at least eight, besides some forty-six cloth-dressing establishments. Hartford County in 1818 reported nine woolen factories in addition to about thirty-seven fulling mills; New Haven County, five woolen mills and thirty-three fulling mills; Fairfield County, nine woolen mills besides twenty-nine fulling mills and clothiers' works; Windham, the cotton manufacturing county, ten small woolen works with thirty-seven fulling mills; Middlesex County, five woolen factories and seventeen fulling mills; and Tolland County had eleven fulling mills and a good number of carding machines, even though there was no


58 See article in Portfolio (1817), IV, 317.


59 In May, 1813, at the instance of Humphreys, the old laws of master and servant were revised to meet the new conditions; and a board of visitors was ap- pointed to oversee the education and moral training of child employees. It is said that in New London, for instance, factories wrought an improvement in living conditions. Public Laws, p. 117; Sharpe, Seymour, p. 61; Niles' Register, VIII, 291; Mercury, Nov. 10, 1818.


60 Public Laws, p. 41; Field, Middlesex, p. 42; Bishop, American Manufactures, II, 180.


61 See Field, Middlesex, pp. 42-43; Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 272; Orcutt, Torrington, pp. 92 ff .; Wheeler, Stonington, p. 141; Bishop, American Manufac- tures, II, 194-195.


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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


woolen factory. Throughout the state there were about sixty woolen factories, although in 1819 only five had a capacity of over 10,000 pounds of raw wool a year.62


The decade of the Embargo and War witnessed not the birth but the real beginning of the Connecticut cotton industry.63 Cotton manufac- turing had attained importance in Providence, Rhode Island, because of the early endeavors of Samuel Slater and the Browns. Favorable trade conditions, such as low-priced cotton and extravagant prices for cloth, caused such a rapid extension of the business into Connecticut that the Windham Herald in 1811 was justified in asking: "Are not the people running cotton mill mad?" 64 Cotton cloths were woven in factories built by stock companies, whose subscribers were small in- vestors of the farming class or local capitalists,65 rather than in the homes. Probably this was due to the fact that cotton became known in the factory age, whereas centuries-long was the association between the home and homespuns. However, according to Tench Coxe, flaxen goods to the value of about $800,000 were woven in the home in 1810.66


Windham County, because of its proximity to Rhode Island, early became the center of the industry. In 1806 the Pomfret Manufacturing Company bought 1,000 acres of land and built a factory involving a capital of $60,000. The size of their holding made it possible to exclude taverns from the vicinity of the factory and to offer farm work to the parents of child employees. A school and church were built, attracting attention as a favorable contrast to the English system. Work was given to the townspeople, some of whom were able to save from $50 to $200 a year from their earnings.67 In Sterling there were three cotton fac- tories in 1818, one with 1,600 spindles. Thompson had three plants which by 1818 were turning 5,000 spindles. Plainfield built four cotton fac- tories between 1809 and 1818. Killingly's four mills with 5,000 spindles employed a large number of hands, and represented an outlay of $300,- 000. Woodstock had a large cotton factory and a combination cotton


62 See Warden, Statistical Account, II, 26; Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, pp. 37, 95, 141, 170, 204, 230, 271, 289; Niles' Register, VIII, 291; Bishop, American Manu- factures, II, 195; Wright, Wool-Growing, p. 43.


63 Stiles, Diary, III, 525; Dwight, Connecticut, p. 414.


64 Larned, Windham County, II, 402.


65 Junius in Norwich Courier, quoted in Mercury, Nov. 3, 1818.


66 Tables, p. 28; Niles' Register, II, 323 ff.


67 Bishop, American Manufactures, II, 113; Larned, Windham County, II, 400; Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 219.


83


MANUFACTURES


and woolen mill. In 1818 this county had twenty-two cotton mills, about one-third the number in the whole state-an increase of eighteen in eight years. The industry from the point of numbers engaged and the value of the product was second only to agriculture, and served to check emigration by giving employment to the surplus population.68


Hartford County had five cotton mills in 1810, and thirteen in 1818; only the Hartford Manufacturing Company, the Marlborough Manu- facturing Company, and one at Glastonbury were important. The Marl- borough factory, capitalized at $42,000 in 1815, made a specialty of blue cotton slave clothes. New Haven County had only two mills in 1818, the one at Humphreysville and another in New Haven. During these years New London County built nine small mills. The town of Nor- wich had a factory with 1,200 spindles; and in Groton there were woven, but chiefly in the domestic way, 500,000 yards a year. Alto- gether the counties of Fairfield, Middlesex and Litchfield had only twelve small cotton factories in 1818. Nine cotton mills were scattered throughout the towns of Tolland County, but the two in the town of Hebron, with 2,000 spindles, were alone worthy of note.69


These manufacturing concerns each represented an outlay of from $30,000 to $300,000 in lands, buildings, and machinery, according to the contention of a firm supporter in 1818. This, he argued, the state should consider by conserving their welfare. He saw in the growth of manu- factures a cessation of the population's "continual surges to the West." "In the three eastern districts of Connecticut," he continued, "the traveller's eye is charmed with the view of delightful villages, suddenly rising as it were by magic, along the banks of some meandering rivulet; flourishing by the influence and fostered by the protecting arm of manufactures." 70 His was a sanguine but not an untrue picture.


While the rise of cloth factories was the most noticeable feature in the transition from agriculture to manufacturing, other industries grew rapidly apace. By 1810 there were twenty-four flax-seed oil mills, with a productivity of $65,000. Five hundred distilleries produced 1,374,404 gallons of spirits, valued at $800,000. Buttons valued at $100,000 were


68 Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, pp. 17, 213, 217, 222, 224; Larned, Windham County, II, 402, 438; Coxe, Tables, p. 28.


69 Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, pp. 37, 43, 75, 82, 101, 117, 147, 154, 170, 230, 270, 289, 292, 296, 302; Niles' Register, VIII, 291; Hall, Marlborough, p. 29; Coxe, Tables, p. 28.


70 Junius in Norwich Courier quoted in Mercury, Nov. 3, 1818.


84


CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


annually turned out. Four hundred tanneries did a three-quarter-million- dollar leather and shoe business. Eighteen rope-walks were worth about $250,000. Fourteen houses produced yearly $60,000 worth of glass and pottery. Three rolling mills and eighteen naileries did a $30,000 business. Gun factories had a capacity of 4,400 guns per year. The tinware in- dustry amounted to $139,670 with brass goods at $50,000. Eight blast furnaces and forty-eight forges produced $184,000 worth of bar iron. Thirty-two trip hammers added nearly $100,000 to the iron products. Seven mills manufactured gunpowder. Combs to the annual value of about $125,000, paper products from nineteen mills at over $80,000, hats and bonnets at $560,000, and silk, stockings, and suspenders at nearly $ 140,000 reveal the variety of manufactures already established.71


The grand total of manufactured goods returned by the census marshals amounted to $5,900,560, in 1810, leaving only Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia in the lead. Tench Coxe, however, estimated the total output at $7,771,928.72 In 1810 an actual survey map, published by Hudson and Goodwin of the Con- necticut Courant, shows the location of all factories, mills, distilleries, and furnaces. Their number is surprising and must have astonished even the best-informed men of the state. While no attempt was made to differentiate between small and large factories, forges and the like, the significance of the mere compilation must not be underestimated. One is impressed with the fact that Connecticut's fairly extensive manufac- turing did not mean the concentration of industries in cities or in sec- tions.


During the following decade (1810-1820) these industries increased in number, size and output.73 Powder mills increased from seven in 1810 to thirteen in 1818; paper mills from nineteen to twenty-four; and glass works from two to four, to cite random examples. Forges, fur- naces, naileries, oil mills, gun shops, and tin works all enlarged their capacity and output. Litchfield County reported thirty-nine forges for every conceivable kind of iron goods. New Haven, Hamden, Berlin,


71 Coxe, Tables, pp. 28-30.


72 Coxe, Tables; Bishop, American Manufactures, II, 163.


73 Coxe, Tables, p. 28; Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, county tabulations, also pp. 14 ff., 95, 170; Conn. Mag., V, 278 ff. VII, 628; Church, Address, p. 46; W. W. Lee, Barkhamstead, pp. 37, 47; Field, Middlesex, p. 43; Jennings, Bristol, pp. 47-49; Gillespie, Meriden, pp. 352-355; Dwight, Connecticut, p. 413; Dwight, Travels, II, 43, 45; Bronson, Waterbury, pp. 559 ff .; Anderson, Waterbury, I, 502; Timlow, Southington, p. 422; Courant, Jan. 29, 1812.


85


MANUFACTURES


Middletown and Hartford manufactured guns, swords and pistols. Two of the Middletown munitions factories alone employed one hundred men. The twenty-four paper mills of the state had as centers Norwich and East Hartford. Carts journeying from town to town with the prod- ucts of the tin-plate factories became usual sights on distant turnpike roads. The manufacture of clocks became increasingly important. But- ton factories profited along with the clothing industry. Their employ- ees numbered many women and children who were thus enabled to assist in the family support. Danbury in 1810 had some fifty-six hat shops, but none employed over four men. By the end of the decade they had grown considerably because of improved machinery and the cessa- tion of foreign competition. The leather trade of Hartford, Bridgeport, New Haven and Norwich flourished. Plows, wagons and carriages were made in New Haven, Burlington and Enfield for local and southern trade. The distilling industry, while well represented throughout the various towns, centered in Hartford County. As a business, it proved especially profitable as the waste could be utilized to fatten export swine and cattle. It was regarded highly, as it stimulated the local grain production.74


The manufacturing spirit was fast gaining sway. Men were turning from languishing commerce to manufacturing. There was a shifting of population within the state from the country to the cities. Hartford, New London, New Haven, and the borough of Bridgeport were gain- ing in population, while the smaller towns were at a standstill or actually being depopulated. A city laboring class was forming, as the census tables of 1820 amply demonstrate.75 No state save Rhode Island could show so large a percentage of its population engaged in manufac- turing.76


Patriotism played an important part in stimulating manufactures, being appealed to during and after the War by writers, advertisers, and Republican orators.77 Republicans, playing the patriotic tune, charged their opponents, who rather favored household manufactures,78 with


74 See Note II at end of this chapter.


75 See Note III at end of this chapter.


76 Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 14; Morse and Morse, Guide, p. 91.


77 Mercury, Apr. 5, 1810; July 11, 1811; Kentucky Reporter article in Mer- cury, Dec. 16, 1817; Chronicle article in Mercury, Feb. 20, 1816; article from the Aurora in Mercury, Oct. 24, 1811.


78 Trumbull's "Addresses to the Legislature" in Mercury, May 26, 1803; Courant, May 14, 1806; Mercury, May 28, 1807.


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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


lack of genuine Americanism. They argued that "it must be truly grati- fying to every true American to witness the rapid introduction and progress of manufacturing establishments in the various parts of the United States." 79 The Federalist, a man of the past, gloried in agricul- ture and shipping, while the Republican, with more perspicacity, read the future and approved manufactures and independence.


This Republican attitude was in part opportunist, for local Repub- licans were bound to defend the whole Jeffersonian policy, which in- cidentally stimulated many industries. The Federalists, on the other hand, attacked the Embargo on all occasions and from every angle. It was ruining the state's wealth, destroying agriculture and commerce to the advantage of manufactures, building up an aristocracy, corrupting the moral life, driving men to smuggling, and depriving working men of labor.80 Senator Hillhouse saw a betrayed New England, its com- merce overthrown by visionary men. He deprecated the state's dimin- ishing importance in national affairs, making it helpless to prevent a policy which drove mariners into factories.81 Governor Treadwell's speech of May, 1810, was bitterly assailed by Republicans because they "read not a word of manufactures, although they are more formidable to Britain than a navy of 100 ships of the line." 82 Governor John Cot- ton Smith, in 1814, believed that legislative encouragement had fostered manufactures quite enough. Indeed, he feared that they had been unduly increased, in the light of returning commercial activities. Domestic manufactures he heartily advocated.83 This party division became more noticeable during the War and the hard years of the panic.


Peace in 1815 marked prosperity's wane. This the manufacturers learned as much to their surprise as to their cost. England's attention was wholly given to commerce and manufactures, and her labor was never cheaper, for the discharged soldier was returning to field and shop. Spanish and German wool forced downward the price of raw wool, as Russian hemp did in the case of that commodity. The war- devastated continent offered a poor market, but in America England saw an opportunity if the competing industries could be destroyed.


79 From The Democrat quoted in Mercury, Oct. 24, 1811.


80 See hostile editorials, Courant, Mar. 30, Apr. 6, 1808.


81 Letter to Noah Webster, Courant, Apr. 6, 1808.


82 Mercury, May 24, 1810.


83 "Address" in Courant, May 17.


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MANUFACTURES


This could be done with ultimate profit by underselling them in their home market. Lord Brougham, in a speech in Parliament, declared:


It was even worth while to incur a loss upon the first exportations, in order by the glut to stifle in the cradle these rising manufactures in the United States, which the war had forced into existence, contrary to the nat- ural course of things.84


This was the policy followed. America bought unwisely on credit, thus playing into rival hands.85 The result was the financial and com- mercial depression of the years 1815-1818.


The banks, hard pressed, were unable to redeem their own notes or to make loans. Factories and mills closed, as English goods forced prices below the cost of production. Retailers were deluged; imported goods were sold at auction. Patriotism could not withstand sacrifice prices, especially when English woolens were regarded as the acme of per- fection. The effect on the woolen industry was appalling, nurtured as it had been by monopoly prices. Unable to negotiate loans, manufacturers failed or shut down; only a few operated their factories. The whole industry bade fair to be destroyed.86


Cotton manufacturing suffered almost as severely.87 Raw cotton rose in price because of the foreign demand from thirteen cents in 1814 to twenty cents in 1815, twenty-seven cents in 1816, and finally thirty- four cents in 1818. At the same time cotton goods were falling in value. In this way the hope of a closer economic union between North and South through cotton and internal trade was doomed to disappoint- ment. Yankee ingenuity in cutting the cost of production by improving power spindles alone saved the industry. While woolen and cotton manufacturers suffered most severely, all manufacturing was greatly hindered by competition and the panicky conditions.


Economic depression meant general discontent. Housewives found domestic spinning less profitable; factory operatives were idle; and men were forced to emigrate. The party in favor of manufacturing was in a position to make an effectual appeal. Factory owners and stock-


84 Bishop, American Manufactures, II, 212.


85 Humphreys, Discourse (1816), p. 13.


86 Wright, Wool-Growing, p. 41; Field, Middlesex, p. 42; Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, pp. 17, 43; Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 194; Larned, Windham County, II, 424, 427, 437; P. Perkins, Historical Sketches, p. 58; John Cotton Smith's address to the Legislature, Courant, May 14, 1816.


87 Bishop, American Manufactures, II, 212 ff., 244.


88


CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


holders desired favorable legislation; and they recognized the interests of the old order when commerce and shipping thrived. Naturally, they turned toward the party which supported manufactures. New capital and new labor joined the new party, while old capital remained Fed- eralist in sympathy.


The tariff of 1816 assisted manufactures, but did not satisfy the New England cotton and woolen manufacturers, who convened to draw up memorials beseeching Congress for more protection.88 There was estab- lished a Connecticut Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures whose purpose was to advance manufactures in every legitimate way.89 Even John Cotton Smith in 1816 declared that, while the enterprise of citizens had carried them too far, so much capital had been invested that the state would suffer if relief were not given. He inclined toward a policy of bounties and exemptions by the state, especially in the case of household manufactures or those allied with agriculture.90 The As- sembly of May, 1817, four-fifths of whose members were clothed in domestic woolens, exempted cotton and woolen factories from taxation for four years, and their employees from a poll tax or militia service.91 A resolution was passed, urging citizens to buy American manufactures that business might be revived. Federalists condemned this as partial legislation, maintaining that all industry as well as this particular branch had suffered a set-back.92


Democratic papers begged citizens to drive out the "foreign gew- gaws and finery," so unsuited to Christians and Republicans, and to cease "supporting tyranny in England by taking British manufactures." They further exercised themselves to disprove the Federalist contention that immorality, vicious poverty and factories were concomitant. Fed- eralist writers, pointing to the current Spa-Fields riots, remarked that England as the workshop of nations was not to be envied. Manufactur- ing made the few rich. Pauperism increased fifty-fold. Republicans argued that, deprived of commerce, Connecticut must look to manu- factures to retain her people. As a further incentive they predicted that


88 Bishop, American Manufactures, II, 213, 214, 235.


89 Among its leaders were "Boss" Alexander Wolcott, Commodore McDon- ough, and the Federalists Judge Titus Hosmer and Asher Miller of the Council. Constitution and Address (1817).


90 Address to the Legislature in Courant, May 14, 1816.


91 Conn. Laws; Atwater, Plymouth, p. 144; Niles' Register, XII, 360; Mercury, July 1, 1817.


92 Courant, July 3, 8, 1817.


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MANUFACTURES


manufactures would more closely cement the union of states, build up a coast shipping, and possibly even a South American trade rivalling that of England. Party lines were drawn, for manufactures could not be viewed nationally, but must be made political capital.93


NOTES


I. WOOLEN STATISTICS FOR 1810


COUNTIES


YARDS WOOLEN GOODS IN FAMILIES


VALUE


WOOLEN FACTORIES


LOOMS FOR COTTON AND WOOLENS


Hartford


1 88,663


$193,311.45


2


2,372


New Haven


131,054


141,676.75


I


1,566


New London


114,760


83,683.04


5


2,240


Fairfield


139,572


157,229.74


2


1,897


Windham


109,852


86,688.50


I


2,435


Litchfield


281,184


278,496.68


3


3,279


Middlesex


67,062


85,406.76


I


1,10I


Tolland


86,998


71,749.00


O


1,242


1,119,145


$1,098,241.92


15


16,132


CARDING MACHINES


POUNDS CARDED


FULLING MACHINES


Hartford


35


73,419


39


New Haven


28


776,500


33


New London


19


79,999


19


Fairfield


36


101,200


35


Windham


17


64,470


2I


Litchfield


30


85,000


45


Middlesex


10


20,000


14


Tolland


9


3,500


12


184


504,088


218


Taken from Tench Coxe, Series of Tables, p. 28.


II. MANUFACTURING BY COUNTIES


Hartford County had 13 cotton factories; 9 woolen mills; 37 fulling mills; 38 wool-carding machines; 11 powder mills; 8 paper mills; 5 oil mills; 83 grain mills; 2 forges; a furnace; 2 glass works; besides considerable manufacturing of buttons, spoons, combs, and plows (for the South). Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 37.


New Haven: 2 cotton factories; 5 woolen mills; 33 fulling mills; 30 wool-card- ing machines; a powder mill; 4 paper mills; 3 oil mills; 54 grain mills; a forge; a


93 New York Columbian quoted in Mercury, Apr. 25, 1817; Mercury, Jan. 21, 1817; Mar. 10, Nov. 17, 1818; Courant, Jan. 11, 1814; Feb. 25, 1817; Dwight, De- cisions, p. 281.


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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


furnace; a great gun factory; and a considerable output of tinware, buttons, clocks. Ibid., p. 95.


New London: 9 cotton factories; 16 woolen; 15 fulling mills; 18 wool carders; 3 paper mills; 2 oil mills; 70 grain mills; 2 forges. Ibid., p. 141.


Fairfield: 5 cotton factories; 9 woolen; 29 fulling mills; 40 carders; 2 paper mills; 80 grain mills; a forge, a rolling and a slitting mill; Danbury hats and leather goods a leading industry. Ibid., p. 170.


Windham: 22 cotton mills; 10 woolen; 37 fulling; 23 carders; 2 paper mills; 2 oil mills; 85 grain mills; considerable iron, some silk, and combs. Ibid., p. 204.


Litchfield: 4 cotton factories; 8 woolen; 46 fulling; 50 carders; I paper mill; 2 oil mills; 62 grain mills; 39 forges; 5 furnaces; 8 anchor shops; 2 slitting mills. Ibid., p. 230.




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