USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Uxbridge > Address delivered at the Unitarian church, in Uxbridge, Mass., in 1864, with further statements, not made a part of the address, but included in the notes > Part 8
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Sometimes, jennies were set up for the purpose of spin- ning the yarn used for filling. The principal goods made
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being satinet, the warp was of cotton yarn obtained at the cotton mills. Of course, the yarn used for filling (or the roping when the spinning was done in the shops) was pro- cured at the mills where there were carding machines.
The embargo, and the war with England following, created a demand for manufactured goods which the Yankee nation was not slow to endeavor to supply ; and as a consequence, it suffered for being too eager to make money on the closing of the war and the re-establishment of commercial relations with England.
The next attempt at woolen manufacturing was made by the Rivulet Manufacturing Company, which was incorpora- ted in 1816, although the company was formed and build- ings erected in 1814, and the business of manufacturing was begun in the winter of 1814 and '15. The capital paid in was $14,000; the shares were $500 each. It was agreed that no dividend should be paid until the expiration of eight years, a most wise provision to make in this instance. As a matter of fact, no dividend was ever paid ; and when the business was closed up, the stockholders received little, if any, more than half the amount paid in and without interest.
Is the question asked, Why was the act of incorporation delayed so long, or why was the company incorporated at all, or what advantage was it to the individual members of the company? When the company entered upon its busi- ness, it was found necessary, as it frequently is now, to use process of law to collect accounts for goods sold. To begin a suit required the name of every member of an un-incor- porated company to appear in the writ. Any failure in this respect would invalidate the writ and make it necessary to
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begin again. In the meantime, the debtor had an oppor- tunity to put his property into the hands of a favored credi- tor, but an act of incorporation enabled a company to do business by an agent ; to sue and be sued ; but gave indi- vidual corporators no advantages whatever, above what they would have enjoyed as simple corporators. It thus became a simple co-operative association, with power to act by an agent instead of being obliged to act by all the members of the company.
The original members of the company were, Daniel Car- penter, Samuel Read, Ephraim Spring, Alpheus Baylies, John Capron, Jerry Wheelock, Samuel Judson, Joseph II. Perry, Thomas Farnum and Esband Newell. The two last- named persons, I think, soon surrendered their shares to the other members of the company. Daniel Carpenter was a merchant, and had been engaged in trade outside of an ordinary country merchant's trade, which well fitted him for the position he was now to assume - that of agent. Samuel Read was a farmer, hotel-keeper, and owner of the privilege on which the mill was to be built. Eph- raim Spring was also a farmer, and owner of real estate available for business purposes, besides having a son desir- ous of becoming a manufacturer in some of its branches. Alpheus Baylies was a farmer with sons who wished to be- come manufacturers. John Capron was a clothier by trade, cloth-finisher and dyer, whose proposition to the company will appear by-and-by. Jerry Wheelock was a mechanic, and one of the original Daniel Day company, and well acquainted with the construction and operation of machinery, and with the management of stock, which would fit him for
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the place of Superintendent. Rev. Samuel Judson, the Congregational minister, was, so far as I know, the only man who might be considered a capitalist. IIe joined the company for the sake of the profits from his investment, and a poor investment it proved. Joseph H. Perry was a young man who came from Dudley, Mass., and had money enough to take a share in the company and have an oppor- tunity to learn a trade. These men were all of moderate means, of sterling integrity and good business qualifications and intelligence. Surely such men were, and are now, the very men and the only men fit to try the co-operative princi- ple in business. This was a co-operative association - nothing more, nothing less.
Jolin Capron came to Uxbridge near the close of the last century. The first mention of his name that I have noticed of the town books, is as one of the committee to superin- tend the building of the school-houses of 1797. He had acquired the trade of a custom clothier at the Cargill mill in Pomfret, now Putnam, Conn. He purchased the Col. Read estate and water-power, and set up the business of finishing the cloth woven in families in this vicinity. This will account for the following proposition :
" At an adjourned meeting of the Rivulet Manufacturing Company, holden January 2d, 1815, at Capt. Samuel Read's, I made the following proposition to the meeting in order to join said company, viz., that I would take shares to the amount of $1,000, $1,500, $2,000, or $2,500, and give my note to the company on interest ; then to do the dyeing of all the wool and the dressing of all the cloth for the com- pany, at the common price of doing the same, till I had paid for as many shares as they should choose I should take with them, and that all charges for the same should be endorsed
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on my note at the end of every ninety days from the begin- ning till the whole be paid; that I should then be entitled to the same value of dyeing and dressing cloth, for which said company are to pay me at the end of every ninety days ; that is to say, that I shall do or cause to be done, in man- ner as above stated, work to the value of $5,000 in the whole.
Then it was voted unanimously that I should take five shares, being the highest sum I had proposed, and in every respect agreeable to the foregoing proposition.
Uxbridge, March 24th, 1815. JOIIN CAPRON."
It is therefore easy to be seen why John Capron became a co-operator in this company.
Artemas Dryden, Jr., made the carding machine and picker for this company ; and John and George Carpenter of this town built the billy and jennies,-the first machinery built in this town, unless they had previously built a jenny for Daniel Day. The weaving was all done by hand-looms, and the goods were chiefly satinets, although some broad- cloths and cassimeres were made.
Cotton manufacturing kept pace with the woolen; and this same year, 1814, the Ironstone Mill was built, on Iron- stone Brook, in the south part of the town, by William Arnold and others. There had been, somewhere on this brook in former years, a forge, and an excellent quality of iron was made from the bog iron-ore found in the vicinity. I have heard Elihu Brown, a blacksmith well qualified to judge, and who carried on the business in Uxbridge thirty years or more, say, that the best iron he ever used came from that forge. This iron-making gave the name to the brook and village. Only a small amount of ore was found here, and of course the forge was abandoned.
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I have made thus far no mention of the finishing of woolen goods, except in the proposition of John Capron, already quoted. This was then, as now, a very important part of the work of manufacturing, and at that time the most of it was done by Mr. Capron. Some goods how- ever, were finished by other persons. I have found among the old papers before mentioned, a bill of Benjamin Crag- gin of . Douglas, against Daniel Day and Company, of September 23d, 1813 :
" For Dressing 24 yds. wool cloth, N. Blue, at 25 100' $6,00 For Fulling and Dressing 17} yds. Satinet, at 20 100' $3,40 $9,40."
The above prices for finishing are as much as the entire price of manufacturing has been, except during the war, for the last twenty years.
After this time, for a few years, there were no mills erected in this town, but important improvements were made in the construction of machinery.
On the expiration of the contract with John Capron, the Rivulet company proceeded to put in finishing machinery, and among other things a shearing machine with a revolv- ing blade, or cutter, to be driven by power, then a recent invention of William Hovey of Worcester. It would be a great curiosity to see the shears used previous to this inven- tion of Hovey. No one of the present day would have any conception of what it was for, or how it was to be used. I never saw but one pair, and that was when I was quite young. It was not then in use, and I can give no description of it.
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The bobbin winder came into use during this period, by which one person could wind as many bobbins as six or eight could do on the old quill-wheel. The bobbin winder was not long used, for it was soon found that the yarn might as well be spun and run directly upon the bobbin, as to run it upon a cop (as it was called), and then wind it upon the bobbin.
The napping machine came next, much the most import- ant invention then made. Previous to the introduction of this machine, the nap of woolen, and other kinds of cloth, was raised by means of jacks-that is, cards similar in form but smaller and closer set than the hand-cards for carding cotton or wool, that at the present day may sometimes be found. The cloth was stretched tightly on a frame and the operator raised the nap by drawing the card lengthways upon it. This was a hard and slow process, and required much skill and care on the part of the workmen to produce a smooth and equal nap over the piece, without leaving any tender spots in the goods. I should add that teasels were also set in " hands," as I think they were called, and used in the same manner as the jacks. Some time in the sum- mer of 1819, Luke Baker, from Putney, Vermont, came to my father's with a new machine for doing this work by means of a revolving cylinder, on which the cards or teasels were to be fixed, to be operated by power, the cloth to pass backward and forward under the cylinder, and in contact with the cards, or teasels, and thus by a continuous process raising the nap more rapidly, producing as good a face and with more certainty than could the most skillful workman. My father took a license from Mr. Baker to make and to
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sell the machines, and immediately entered upon the busi- ness of their manufacture and sale. The new machines went into immediate use in most of the mills of the county, and in Rhode Island, where he was authorized to sell them. Who the inventor of this machine was, I never knew ; but I think it was probably a "Yankee notion," as in a letter from Mr. Baker, written in January, 1827, I find the following :
" I have lately been acquainted with an Englishman who has worked in England for many years in the business of manufacturing woolen cloth ; he informs me that he never saw a napping machine that worked both ways (backward and forward), cither with cards or teasels, until he came to this country."
I think this is tolerable evidence that it was a Yankee invention. How unlikely that a Yankee would work all day scratching cloth with the small result gained by the old process ! On the contrary, the English workman has always been willing to use the same machine, to do as his father and grandfather have done before him, until fairly forced from it by circumstances over which he has no control.
The next mill built was the Capron mill, thirty-three by sixty fect, and three stories high. I think it must have been built in 1821 (perhaps in 1820), and it went into operation in the winter of 1821 and '22, or the spring of 1822. It was started with one set of cards, made by Artemas Dryden, Jr. ; one billy of forty spindles; two jennies of one hundred and twenty spindles each, built by the Messrs. Carpenter ; two cotton spinning-frames of sixty- four spindles each, with the preparation and a warper and dresser for making satinet warps; and twelve power satinet
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looms ;- the first satinet power-looms ever built, it has been said. The engineer, in the construction of this mill, was Luke Jillson, of Cumberland, R. I., who was, as I have reason to believe, the planner of the looms, which were built on the premises.
I do not know who built the cotton machinery. In 1824, an addition of a set of cards, built by Dryden ; a billy of fifty spindles, and a jenny of a hundred and twenty spin- dles, built by the Messrs. Carpenter ; a jenny of one hun- dred and fifty spindles, built by Jerry Wheelock ; eight sati- net looms, two cotton cards, and two spinning frames of sixty-four spindles cach, built by Armsby and Arnold of Woonsocket, R. I., were made. These looms were of an entirely different construction from those built by Jillson, and were used in mills for some twenty-five or thirty years. There was no real difference in the construction of the other machinery used, but the number of spindles in the billy and jenny was increased.
In the autumn of this year, the dams were built for the Luke Taft mill, -now Wheelock's, - and the Uxbridge Woolen, - now W. D. Davis', -also to carry the water of the West River to the mill of Mr. Day. The next year, 1825, witnessed the erection of the Luke Taft mill, thirty- four by sixty fect, three stories high ; the Uxbridge Woolen mill, thirty-six by eighty fect, three stories high ; and an addition to the Day mill, making it forty by forty-five feet, three stories high. Two sets of cards, built by Dryden, were put into the Taft mill, with roping and spinning machinery equivalent, and twenty power satinet looms of the Jillson style, with some slight improvement, Paine and Ray makers ;
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ten satinet looms by the same makers, in the Day mill,-the cards being already in that mill; and in the Uxbridge Woolen mill, two sets of cards by Dryden; two billies, forty spindles each ; two warp jennies, eighty spindles cach ; two filling jennies of a hundred and twenty spindles cach, made by Wheelock ; and ten power cassimere looms, made by Paine and Ray. Taft's and Day's mills were started in the winter of 1825, and the Uxbridge Woolen mill late in the autumn of 1826.
In August, 1828, the Uxbridge Woolen mill was burned ; and within a week, a woolen mill was burned in Milford and another in East Douglas. Much alarm was felt by manu- facturers at so sudden a destruction of factory property, and in a way they were unprepared to account for. It was a time when the country had become much excited on the subject of duties for the protection of domestic industry. So sudden and unaccountable were these fires, that the opinion was expressed by some, that the English manufac- turers had emissaries here who were to burn the woolen mills, recollecting the old threat of the British minister, that "he would not allow America to make a hob-nail." Of course, there was no occasion for these surmises, as these fires were undoubtedly cases of spontaneous combus- tion. The Uxbridge Woolen mill was immediately re-built, forty by eighty feet, three stories high, with an attic, and built of brick.
The new machinery placed in this mill shows the pro- gress which had been made in the manufacture of woolen goods. After the original mill was built, and before the erection of the new one, the Goulding patent for
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improvement in carding and spinning wool had been so far perfected, that it was coming into general use.
[Mr. Wheelock here gives a description of the old and the new methods of carding and spinning, which, if we were giving a history of manufacturing, would find a welcome place : but we reluctantly feel compelled to omit it. - ED. ]
The change made from the old to the new methods of carding and spinning, allowed wider carding machines to be used; and nearly all that are now made are double the width of those used under the old régime " How so?" you ask. Because no child, eight or ten years old, could take up more than a handful of rolls about two feet long, and hold them so as not to drag on the floor, but by raising the arm so high as to make it very fatiguing ; while to let them drag on the floor would stretch the rolls so as to spoil the evenness of the yarn. So in carding ; the work of two hands was done by one; besides power was saved, as there could be but half the number of bearings to make friction. Again, it would save the work of a man to run the billy, and of three children to piece rolls, who ought not to be in the mills under any cir- cumstances. In the interest of the children then, it was a great and much needed improvement.
There was another improvement that came into use at this time; and it had been used in the Uxbridge Woolen mill about a month, when the mill was burned. I refer to the woolen warper and dresser, by which the process of making and sizing the warps to prepare them for the looms was done by machinery, instead of by hand, as formerly, thereby saving certainly one man's labor.
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The carding and spinning machinery in the new woolen mill was made by Washburn and Goddard of Worcester, who, a short time previous to this, had established the business of building woolen machinery. They were men of enterprise and ingenuity, and provided themselves with the best tools and the most desirable patterns for machinery, and they soon did the most of that kind of work, which for many years had been done by Dryden. Joseph Day now doubled his machinery, putting in the Goulding patent ; the carding machines were made by Washburn and Goddard, the spinning jacks by Jerry Wheelock, and the looms by the Messrs. Carpenter.
The disastrous times of 1828 and '29, together with the large investments made in the Blackstone Canal, which proved a wholly unproductive enterprise, caused the failure of the Messrs. Capron. The sons, by means of the assist- ance of wealthy friends, succeeded in liberating their father from the liabilities he had incurred as the head of the firm of John Capron and Sons, and resumed the business of manufacturing. They changed their machinery to the im- proved machinery made by Goulding, and were so success- ful as to warrant them, in 1836, in doubling the size of their mill.
During this decade, the Ironstone Cotton mill was burnt. It was re-built by Jonathan F. Southwick, and put into opera- tion by Albert Fairbanks, Samuel Shove, and Charles A. Messenger, at first on satinets and afterwards on cashmerets, of which they made a superior quality for many years.
The financial storm of 1837, scarcely left a business man standing squarely on his feet in the valley of the Black-
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stone ; and although many went under for a time, most of them came to the surface again struggling desperately for success.
In 1834, Jerry Wheelock, who, up to this time had made jacks and other woolen machinery, found it impossible to compete with the large capital of the Worcester machinists and gave up the building of machinery. He turned his machine shop, which was in the old Day mill, into a woolen yarn factory, under the firm of J. Wheelock and Son. In 1837, they hired room and power at the Uxbridge Woolen mill, and doubled their machinery. In 1840, they bought one-half of the Luke Taft mill, taking into the busi- ness S. M. Wheelock, making the firm J. Wheelock and Sons. After the purchase of one-half of this mill, in 1840, by J. Wheelock and Son, the other half was run by Moses Taft till he sold out to C. A. and S. M. Wheelock, in 1846. The mill formerly standing on this spot, owned by Luke Taft, had been burned, in the winter of 1837 and '38, but was immediately re-built and improved machinery intro- duced.
The Uxbridge Woolen Manufacturing Company was an incorporated company, receiving its charter in the winter of 1826 and '27. The original members of the company, were Amariah Chapin, Royal Chapin, Dr. George Willard, John and Orsmus Taft. These men were all relatives, and owners of the land on which the mill and most of the other necessary buildings, and tenements for the employés, would stand, and of the most of the land through which the canal to convey the water to the mill would run. The Messrs. Chapin were merchants and active business men, father and
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son. The Messrs. Taft were brothers, both of them were manufacturers, and had been more or less engaged in the manufacture of woolen goods for several years.
The first weavers employed by Daniel Day, I think were Irish by birth, and had all the virtues and all the vices of Irishmen. These habits would make it desirable that one should have more reliable persons as operatives, in order to carry on manufacturing successfully, or, in fact, any other business, and therefore Orsmus Taft, a young man, and a neighbor of Mr. Day, accepted an offer to go into the mill to work at what was considered, by some of his friends and the Irishmen, rather low wages. But he thought, " let those laugh who win ;" and in about a year he had charge of the weaving, and now Yankees generally took the places of the Irish.
In the autumn of 1837, Orsmus Taft and Samuel Smith sold the shares they held in the stock of the Uxbridge Woolen company, to Edward Seagrave and Lyman Cop- land. Royal Chapin gave up the agency of the mill to Seagrave, and in a short time sold his shares. I do not remember how Amariah Chapin's stock was disposed of; but on the failure of Dr. Willard, his stock was sold at auction, to settle his estate, about the year 1842 or '43, and brought the vast sum of forty-five dollars for that which had cost him four thousand five hundred dollars-nine shares. We see in this an instance of the ill-fortune which attended manufacturers as the business had thus far been developed. Cassimeres were at first manufactured at this mill, afterwards satinets, and in 1844, it again changed to cassimere, and since then has continued a cassimere
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mill. Mr. Copland gave up the superintendence of the Uxbridge Woolen mill in 1844, and was succeeded by J. W. Day, for some three or four years, when the manufac- turing business was practically given up by the corporation, and the mill was operated for about ten years by Messrs. M. D. F. Steere and Josiah Seagrave, not however without reverses and heavy losses. The mill was enlarged about the year 1850, and the machinery increased to twelve sets of cassimere machinery, with about fifty looms, most of them the Crompton fancy loom. In February, 1852, the mill was again destroyed by fire. It was immediately re-built and filled with the most improved cassimere machinery then known. In 1854, Mr. Seagrave became pecuniarily embarrassed, and Mr. Carnoe took his place. The firm was now Steere and Carnoe for two or three years, when Mr. Seagrave resumed his place in the mill. He was, however, unable to withstand the crisis of 1857, and, although he made an carnest effort to go on again, it was in vain,-everything seemed to turn against him. Mr. Stecre received an offer, in the winter of 1857, to take charge of the Salisbury mills, which he accepted, and left Uxbridge.
In February, 1859, the finishing mill and dye-house were destroyed by fire. This was another serious blow to one so harassed and perplexed, and although Mr. Seagrave suc- ceeded in re-building, by means of the insurance, he was unable to continue the business and soon after died. The property passed into the hands of Messrs. J. C. Howe and Co., of Boston, and after standing idle a year or more, was sold to its present owner, W. D. Davis, of Providence, R.
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I., who took it just in time to receive the advantages the war gave to manufacturers. About 1868, Mr. Davis sold the mill to Messrs. R. and J. Taft, who made very exten- sive repairs, additions and improvements ; and after running the mill two or three years, they re-sold it to Mr. Davis, who still owns it and has run eight or nine sets of machinery a part of the time since he re-bought it. This mill has been a very costly one for its owners, being several times burned. Three mills, three barns, two dwelling-houses, and two dry- houses, have been destroyed by fire, besides numerous smaller losses in the same way.
The old Day mill, the first mill built in town, was burnt in 1844, and was re-built in the course of a year or two. On being re-built, J. W. Day, son of Joseph Day, having left the Uxbridge Woolen mill, ran it for four or five years. In 1844, J. Wheelock and Sons put in looms, and put one- half of their yarn machinery into the manufacture of plaid flannels. In 1846, Charles A. and Silas M. Wheelock bought of Moses Taft, the part of the mill owned by him, and Jerry Wheelock retiring from business, the firm of C. A. and S. M. Wheelock was formed. They continued to manufacture satinets and plaids till 1852, when they made alterations and additions to their mill, and put in additional machinery and fancy looms, but did not begin the manufacture of cassimeres solely, until 1855. In 1854, a steam engine was put into the mill as auxilliary to the water power, the first engine set up in this town for manu- facturing purposes. In 1859, additional machinery was put into the mill. In 1872, additional buildings were put up, and soon more machinery was introduced, with self-
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