USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Fall River > Centennial history of Fall River, Mass. : comprising a record of its corporate progress from 1656 to 1876, with sketches of its manufacturing industries, local and general characteristics, valuable statistical tables, etc. > Part 10
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According to Benedict's History of Rhode Island, in 1809 "there were 17 cotton mills in operation within the town of Providence and its vicinity, working 14,296 spindles; and in 1812 there were said to be, within thirty miles of Providence, in the State of Rhode Island, 33 factories, of 30,660 spindles ; and in Massachusetts 20 factories, of 17,370 spindles, making 53 factories, running 48,030 spindles.
Cotton factories were started at Watertown, Mass., in 1807; at Fitch- burg in 1807; at Dedham in 1808; in Dorchester in 1811, and in Waltham in 1813. In 1808 the companies at Peterborough and Exeter, N. H., wcre organized; in 1809, one at Chesterfield ; in 1810, one at Milford, Swanzey, Cornish, and Amoskeag Falls; in 18r1, one at Walpole, Hillsborough, and Meredith ; there being at the commencement of the second war probably fifteen cotton mills in New Hampshire, operating from six to seven thou- sand spindles.
The first cotton factory in Maine, then a district of Massachusetts, was built at Brunswick in 1809.
The Census of 1810 furnishes the following classification of the industry by States:
Massachusetts.
54
Pennsylvania.
64
New Hampshire.
12
Delaware.
3
Vermont.
I
Maryland.
II
Rhode Island.
28
Ohio.
2
Connecticut
14
Kentucky. 15
New York.
26
Tennessee.
4
New Jersey.
4
(None in any other State.)
The war of 1812, of necessity raising the price of cloth extraordinarily (articles, previously imported from England, and sold at 17 to 20 cents per
78
FALL RIVER AND ITS INDUSTRIES.
yard, bringing 75 cents by the package), stimulated the infant industry in such a degree, that at its closc there were reported, within a short radius of Providence, 96 mills, aggregating 65,264 spindles. The average number of spindles in mills of the period was 500; the largest in the country, that of Almy, Brown & Slater, ran 5170.
In 1815 was compiled for a committee of manufacturers a statement of the number of mills and spindles in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Con- necticut. This statement, made for the purpose of providing a just basis for assessment to pay the expenses of an agent to represent the manufac- turing interest before Congress, furnishes the subjoined items :
Mills.
Spindles.
Rhode Island
99
68, 142
Massachusetts.
52
39,468
Connecticut.
14
11,700
165
119,310
The Committee on Manufactures of the United States House of Rep- resentatives the same year, in a report to Congress, tabulated the condition of the cotton-manufacturing industry, as follows :
Capital.
$40,000,000
Males employed, of the age of 17.
10,000
under 17.
24,000
Females, including children.
66,000
Wages of 100,000, averaging $1.50 per week (sic).
15,000,000
Cotton manufactured, 90,000 bales.
27,000,000
Number of yards ..
81,000,000
Cost, averaging 30 cents per yard.
24,300,000
Succeeding the close of the war of 1812, and prior to the effective ope- ration of the tariff of 1816, a severe and general depression fell upon the industry, many companies suspending, and the strongest struggling on with difficulty.
From 1815 to 1820, a second revolution in the business, hardly less important in its results than the introduction of the water spinning-frames had been, was to be experienced in the addition of the power-loom to the series of mill processes. Previously to this application of power, the work of manufacture in the factory had been limited to the carding, drawing, and spinning stages. The product of yarn was sent out to be woven into cloth on hand-looms, and, as will be seen in subsequent pages, more than half the drudgery and detail of the mill agent was to conduct the manifold and complex system of outside production. The mills in the neighborhood of Providence kept wagons running constantly into the rural districts, inva-
79
COTTON AND ITS MANUFACTURE.
ding both Massachusetts and Connecticut, bearing out yarn to be woven and returning with the product of the hand-looms, worked by the farmers' wives and daughters of the country side. In the period anterior to the introduction of jennies and water-frames, and the assembling of the different stages of preparation under organized systems of factory labor, all the details of cloth-making had been the legitimate pursuits of the domestic circle. Thomas Jefferson-who was himself a household manufacturer of this early type, having two spinning-wheels, a carding-machine, and a loom in his dwelling, by which his home folk made more than two thousand yards of cloth annually-though finally an advocate and even a partisan of organized factory industry, was in 1786 an eloquent writer in behalf of the time-hon- ored custom of production in the family. It was not, indeed, without at least a show of resistance, that the old style gave way to the new, the former subsidizing the same art of invention to its support, through which the latter has won its eventual triumph. In 1812, when the water-frame with its seventy-two or more spindles was building up the industry in constantly increasing mills, portable spinning-frames capable of spinning from six to twenty-four threads, made expressly for family use, were sold about the country, meeting particular welcome in districts remote from the manu- facturing centres. The construction of these domestic jennies and billies- as they were termed-was pursucd on quite a large scale. The twelve- spindle billy sold for $48 ; the carding-machine, suitable for a large house- hold, $60 ; the spinning-machine, for cotton, of twelve spindles, $25 ; and the loom, with flying shuttle, weaving twenty yards a day, $65. At the great Industrial Exhibition of this first Centennial of the Nation, in the American department, were to be seen instances not only of the old foot-worked spinning-wheel, but likewise of these later more pretentious devices, by which the lingering spirit of old time housewifery sought to assert itself against the progressive future.
The power-loom, though invented by Cartwright and put in cperation at Doncaster, in 1785, was not recognized as a success, or even as a practica- ble suggestion, when Samuel Slater left the old country. Improved by various succeeding inventors, and finally made practical through the warp-dress- ing appliance of Radcliffe and Ross, and the modifications of its working details by Horrocks in 1813, it had by that year become an object of favor- able consideration with the English manufacturers, and, despite the riotous antagonism of the hand weavers, two thousand four hundred were in use in Great Britain. Some years prior to this, rumors of the invention had reached the United States, and (though as in the case of the water-frames the impos- sibility of securing models or drawings of the invention was well enough
80
FALL RIVER AND ITS INDUSTRIES.
known) stimulated the leaders of domestic cotton manufacture to efforts in the same direction. As early as 1806, according to Mr. Samuel Batchelder, whose brief record of the "Cotton Manufacture in the United States" is our authority for many statements in these pages, T. M. Mussey, at Exeter, N. H., produced a loom capable of weaving, but possessing no claim as a labor-sav- ing machine. About the same time a vertical loom was made at Dorchester, and Mr. Batchelder saw another in opcration at Dedham, weaving about twenty yards of coarse cloth per day. Neither of these was, however, supc- rior to the hand-loom in cconomical results.
The following memoranda of various attempts to weave by power in Rhode Island during the years of the war, when cotton manufacturing was making its first extraordinary advance in that State, have been furnished for this work by the Hon. Zachariah Allen, of Providence :
" In March, 1812, John Thorpe, of Providence, obtained a patent for a ver- tical power-loom, and put it in operation in the mill of Henry Franklin at Johnston. About the same time Samuel Blydenburgh made and put in operation at the Lyman Mill, in North Providence, twelve power-looms for weaving cotton cloth.
" Thomas R. Williams soon after (1813) followed, putting in operation several looms.
" Mr. Elijah Ormsbee constructed several power-looms near Providence in 1814.
" Mr. Silas Shepherd, of Taunton, states that he constructed an expcri- mental power-loom in 1811, and, in the winter of 1812, commenced making them for sale in connection with John Thorpe.
" But all of these looms failed of successful operation on account of the imperfect system of dressing and beaming the warps, and also for want of a device to prevent the smashing the warp when the shuttle failed to go through the web to its place in the box.
" Mr. Francis C. Lowell introduced power-looms into the Waltham Mill, operated by a cam and weight to act on the lay to beat in the filling. This pattern of loom was copied from the work on weaving by John Duncan, Plate XIV. These looms were put in operation in 1814, and all the opera- tions of making the yarn, dressing it, and wcaving were performed in superior manner, taking precedence.
" The first cotton mill in which all parts of the manufacture were accom- plished to delivery of the finished cloth, in Rhode Island, was in Olneyvillc, belonging to Henry Franklin and John Waterman.
" The first wide looms for wcaving woollen broadcloth werc put in opera- tion in Allendalc, North Providence, in the year 1826."
81
COTTON AND ITS MANUFACTURE.
To two very progressive manufacturers, Mr. Francis C. Lowell of Bos- ton, and Judge Lyman of Providence, the development of weaving by power was mainly due. Mr. Lowell visited Europe in 1810-II, and, if he did not see the Scotch loom in operation, was doubtless acquainted with its results and general principles. Returning to America, he organized the Boston Manufacturing Company in February, 1813, and late in the same year com- pleted the erection at Waltham of a factory of seventeen hundred spindles. In 1814 he devised, constructed, and put in successful operation a power-loom differing essentially from the Scotch loom, but accompanied by the dressing machine of Horrocks, which Mr. Lowell had procured drawings of, and materially improved upon.
In the perfection of the Waltham loom, Mr. Batchelder remarks that application was made to Shepherd, of Taunton. Capt. Shepherd, one of the oldest manufacturers of cotton machinery in the country, was believed by David Anthony to have been the first who experimented upon the production of a power-loom.
The Waltham loom was a satisfactory success, and the mill in which it was operated was the first in the United States, and possibly in the world, conducting all the operations of converting the raw cotton into finished cloth. Lowell, who was as remarkable for his projecting and organizing capability as for his inventive genius, died in 1817 at the early age of forty- two. When Nathan Appleton and others of his associates in the Waltham enterprise, a few years after his death, were beginning on their land at East Chelmsford the immense industries which for many years constituted the largest cotton-manufacturing centre in America, they paid only a worthy tribute to his extraordinary merit in naming the future city Lowell.
Hardly more than a year (September, 1816) subsequent to the Waltham invention, the Scotch loom was introduced in this country by William Gil- more, a Scotch machinist, who was thoroughly acquainted with the original construction of Cartwright, and the various improvements which had ren- dered it a practical machine. Of Gilmore, Mr. Allen's memoranda says : " The principal great impulse given to power-loom weaving was accomplished by William Gilmore, who came from Scotland with the latest improved Scotch loom, warper, and dresser, in 1815. He built several looms at the Lyman factory in North Providence."
Gilmore's first communication with manufacturers in New England was at Slatersville with John Slater. Mr. Slater was in favor of accepting his proposition to construct the Scotch loom for his company, but, in the depression of business, his partners were averse to any new investment of
82
FALL RIVER AND ITS INDUSTRIES.
capital. At this time fortunately, Judge Lyman, who had employed Blyden- burgh to put up several looms in his mill, which did not operate satisfac- torily, heard of the foreign machinist, and at once employed him to build twelve machines. They were completed fully to the satisfaction of the patron, and successfully operated early in 1817.
This was the first introduction of the crank-loom in this country, the maker receiving fifteen hundred dollars for his services -- a most inadequate recognition, if we consider the enormous benefits accruing to the industry from its results.
" Mule-spinning," says Mr. Batchelder, " having been introduced in Rhode Island, the building of the power-loom by Gilmore completed the manufacturing system of that State within about three years from the time when the power-loom was put in operation at Waltham.
" It was not until ten years after the crank-loom had been in use in Rhode Island that it was adopted at Waltham or Lowell, and in neither place, nor in any of the mills that followed their system, was mule-spinning introduced until after 1830."
The last important advance in mill machinery through the introduction of the self-acting mule of Sharp & Roberts will be noticed at length in the history of Fall River cotton manufacture.
With the completion of the processes of cloth-making, within the fac- tory, by the introduction of the power-loom, the industry became perma- nently established in the United States. Notwithstanding the unstable policy of parties upon the question of tariffs and imports, the number of mills was constantly increasing, and, as they began to be built on a larger scale, the number of spindles was likewise even more largely extended.
From the statistics of cotton manufacturing embodied in the census of 1820 the following statement is extracted :
POUNDS OF COTTON NUMBER OF
STATES.
POUNDS OF COTTON ANNUALLY SPUN.
NUMBER OF SPINDLES.
STATES.
ANNUALLY SPUN.
SPINDLES.
Maine.
56,500
3,070
Pennsylvania.
1,067,753
13,776
New Hampshire
412,100
13,012
Delaware.
423,800
11, 784
Massachusetts.
1,611,796
30,304
Maryland.
849,000
20,245
Rhode Island.
1,914,220
63,372
Virginia.
3,000
Connecticut.
897,335
29,826
North Carolina
18,000
288
Vermont. .
117,250
3,278
South Carolina.
46,449
588
New York.
1,412,495
33,160
Kentucky.
360,951
8,097
New Jersey.
648,600
18,124
Ohio.
81,360
1,680
This estimate, showing a material falling off from the figures presented to Congress in 1815 by the Committee on Manufactures, was evidently
83
COTTON AND ITS MANUFACTURE.
inadequate. In 1821, as will appear, the amount of cotton consumed in domestic manufacturing was 20,000,000 lbs.
In 1825, the number of spindles operated in the United States was estimated at 800,000, and the cotton worked up, 100,000 bales. The average price per pound was HI cents. The average price of the prints of the Merrimac Company at Lowell was 25.07 cents per yard.
In 1826, quoting Bishop's History of American Manufactures, the number of distinct factory buildings in New England was estimated at 400, averaging 700 spindles each, or 280,000 in all. The new ones were very large, the old ones quite small. Each spindle was presumed to consume about one half a pound of cotton per day, or 140 pounds per annum, which, for 280 days' work, gave 39,200,000 pounds, or about 98,000 bales for the year's consumption. About one third of the buildings employed power- looms, one third hand-looms, and the others_spun yarn and twist for the Middle and Western States. The factories were distributed about as follows: In Massachusetts, 135; Rhode Island, 110; Connecticut, 80; New Hampshire, 50; Maine, 15; Vermont, Io. The number of cotton factories in all the other States was estimated at 275, of the same average size, which would make the total annual consumption about 150,000 bales, or 60,000,000 pounds.
In 1831, in the midst of the heated controversy between not only parties, but individual thinkers, upon the proper and just tariff policy, a convention of prominent promoters of domestic industry was held in the city of New York on the 26th of October. This convention included over five hundred delegates from the Eastern and Middle States, Virginia, Mary- land, and Ohio, and its discussion elicited correct and reliable statements of the condition and relative importance of "the various pursuits of domestic industry." The subjoined summary of the report of the Committee on Cotton Manufacture is copied from Mr. Bishop's History :
" From the best information that could be obtained, the Committee on Cotton, of which P. T. Jackson, of Massachusetts, was chairman, estimated the crop of the United States, after the year ending October I, to be, in the Atlantic States, 486, 103 bales of 306 pounds each, equal to 148,747,518 pounds, and in the Southern and Western States, 552,744 bales of 411 pounds, equivalent to 227, 177,784 pounds, giving a total crop of 1,038,847 bales, or 375,925,302 pounds. The domestic consumption amounted to more than one fifth of the whole crop ; and the value of the product, allowing it to be increased four-fold in the process of manufacture, probably four fifths that of the cotton crop, and equal to the value of the whole quantity exported.
"The following is a summary of the detail of the cotton manufacture in the twelve Eastern and Middle States, including Maryland and Virginia. But owing to misapprehension of the question respecting capital, only that employed in fixtures was returned, and some manufacturers were reluctant to give the details of their business, for which reasons it was thought that one fourth to one third might be safely added to the account. The statement was exclusive of no less than thirty establishments returned from the Southern and Western
84
FALL RIVER AND ITS INDUSTRIES.
States, from which no accurate details were received, and also of family manufactures. The cotton mills in the twelve numbered seven hundred and ninety-five.
Total in Cotton Mills.
Machine Shops.
Bleach- cries.
Printeries.
Total.
Capital (principally in fixtures) in dollars ..
40,614,984
2,400,000
900,000
1,000,000
44,914,934
Spindles in operation .
1,246,503
Yards of cloth made.
230,461,900
. .
...
Pounds of yarn sold.
10,642,000
.. ....
...
Pounds of cotton used (214,822 bales).
77,757,316
Hands employed (females, 38,927).
62,157
3,200
738
1,505
67,600
Pounds of starch used.
1,641,253
429,625
2,070,873
Barrels of flour for sizing.
17,245
1,300
18,455
Cords of wood .
46,519
30,000
76,519
Tons of coal . .
24,420
..
19,250
2,250
45,920
Bushels of charcoal .
39,205
Gallons of oil .
300,338
2,800
303, 139
Value of other articles in dollars.
599,223
1,960,212
276,625
935,585
3,766,285
Spindles building.
172,024
Hand weavers ..
4,760
9,600
1,403
2,860
131,489
Annual value in dollars.
26,000,000
3,500,000 1,248,000
1,036,760 209,814
1,500,000 402,965
32,036,760
Aggregate wages
10,294,944
12,155,723
From 1831 to 1836 a large increase of the capacity of distinct mills was observed, the new erections averaging from five to six thousand spindles. This enlargement of mill capacity continued with the growth of the industry, but is now believed to have reached its maximum.
It is unfortunately impossible to furnish an exact statement of the number of mills engaged in the various branches of cotton manufacture in the United States. In 1850 they numbered 1094, employing 92,286 hands, consuming 288,558,000 pounds of cotton, and realizing a product worth $65,501,687 upon a capital invested of $74,500,931. In 1860, there were 1091 mills of 5,235,727 spindles, employing 122,028 hands, consuming 422,704,975 pounds of cotton, producing $115,681,744 of goods, on an invested capital of $98,585,269. In 1870 the number of distinct producers had fallen off to 956 ; but this does not indicate a diminution in the industry, the estimate of spindles operated being 7,132,415; the hands employed, 135,369 ; cotton worked up, 409,899,746 pounds; capital invested $140,706,291 ; and the value of product, $177,489,739. The foregoing figures are taken from the census reports for the several decades. The report of the amount of cotton worked up in 1860 is obviously an error, and is more correctly estimated by Mr. Nourse at 364,036,123 pounds.
The subjoined summary of the strictly cloth-producing business of the country was made up in November, 1874, by the thorough statistician of the New York Commercial and Financial Chronicle, and its tables republished in 1875 as a correct exhibit of the industry.
...
Total dependents
117,625
85
COTTON AND ITS MANUFACTURE.
STATEMENT OF THE NUMBER AND CAPACITY OF COTTON MILLS IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE CONSUMPTION OF COTTON FOR THE YEAR ENDING JULY 1, 1874.
NORTHERN STATES.
No. of No. of Mills .!
Looms.
No. of Spindles.
SOUTHERN STATES.
No. of No. of Mills. Looms.
No. of Spindles.
Maine.
24
12,415
609,898
Alabama.
16
1,360
57,594
New Hampshire. .
42
20,422
855,189
Arkansas.
2
28
1,256
Vermont.
10
1,274
58,948
Georgia. .
12
2,934
137,330
Massachusetts
194
71,202
3,769, 292
Kentucky
4
42
10,500
Rhode Island
II5
24,706
1,336,842
Louisiana
3
300
15,000
Connecticut
104
18,170
908,200
Mississippi.
II
348
15,150
New York
55
12,476
580,917
Missouri.
4
382
18,656
New Jersey
17
2,000
150,968
North Carolina.
30
1,055
55,498
Pennsylvania.
60
9,772
452,064
South Carolina.
18
1,238
62,872
Delaware
8
796
47,976
Tennessee
42
1,014
42,058
Maryland.
21
2,399
110,260
Texas.
4
230
10,225
Indiana
4
618
22,988
Minnesota.
T
24
3,400
Total.
660
176,480
8,927,754
Total
187
10,495
487,639
RECAPITULATIONS.
No. of Mills.
No. of Looms.
No. of Spindles.
Average Size of Yarn. No.
Total Northern.
660
176,480
8,927,754
28.56
Total Southern
187
10,495
487,569
12.50
Grand Total
847
186,975
9,415,323
27.73
COTTON USED.
Lbs.
Bales.
Northern States.
ยท507,790,099
1,094,387
Southern States
59,793,775
128,526
Total.
567,583,873
1,222,913
We have seen that the number of spinning spindles in the United States on the Ist of July, 1874, was 9,415,383 against 7,114,000 at the same date of 1870, and 6,763,557 at the same date of 1869, as follows :
1874.
Looms.
Spindles.
North.
176,480
8,927,754
South.
10,495
487,629
Total 1874.
186,975
9,415,383
1870.
North.
147,682
6,851,779
South
5,852
262,22I
Total 1870.
.153,534
7, 114,000
I869.
North
6,538,494
South.
225,063
Total 1869. .
6,763,527
Ohio.
5
236
20,410
Virginia.
II
1,664
56,490
The above records a very rapid progress since 1870, being about 33 per cent in the number of spinning spindles.
86
FALL RIVER AND ITS INDUSTRIES.
GOODS MANUFACTURED THIS YEAR.
No portion of our inquiry has been more difficult than the obtaining of statistics with regard to production, and no one, of the results reached, possesses more interest. The most notable feature is the enormous production of print cloths. It is to be regretted that we have no figures for previous years with which to make comparisons, or by which we could show the growth of this branch of manufacture, but it is well known they have increased rapidly of late years. Of course we do not claim that these results of quantities and kinds of goods are as exact as the returns of consumption ; but we believe they are as close an approximation as the nature of the case will permit.
STATEMENT OF THE KINDS AND QUANTITIES OF COTTON GOODS MANU- FACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES FOR THE YEAR ENDING JULY 1, 1874.
New England States.
Middle and Western States.
Total Northern States.
Total Southern States.
Total United States.
Threads, yarns, and twines, lbs.
32,000,000
99,000,000
131,000,000
18,000,000
149,000,000
Sheetings, shirtings, and like plain goods, yards.
520,000,000
90,000,000
610,000,000
97,000,000
707,000,000
Twilled and fancy goods, Osnaburgs, jeans, etc., yards ..
204,000,000
80,000,000
284,000,000 588,000,000
22,000,000
306,000,000
Print cloths, yards
481,000,000
588,000,000
Gingham, yards.
30,000,000
33,000,000
33,000,000
Ducks, yards
30,000,000
Bags, No.
14,000,000 5,000,000
107,000,000 3,000,000 16,000,000 1,000,000
30,000,000 6,000,000
6,000,000
Besides the above, there is a large production of hosiery and knit goods, made of cotton by itself or mixed with wool, of which we are able to give no satisfactory statement. Another year we hope to push our investigations as to production in every direction.
The exportation of cotton cloth was an important feature in the commercial relations of the country at a comparatively early period of the industry. The goods first made at Waltham were heavy sheetings, of the kind which has since been the staple production, and under the name of " American domestics," won and retained the preference for excellence of quality in every market of the world. The superiority of this branch of American production was soon recognized by the British manufacturers, and the dangerous competition threatened therein was very seriously discussed by the commercial and practical writers of England. So great was the alarm of the cotton interest of Manchester, that it resorted not only to furtive attempts to create a public sentiment in this country antagonistic to protection, but adopted trade-marks, mill-tickets and stamps similar to the American, and in every possible way sought to imitate the production of the New England mills. So persistent was this effort, that in 1827 the demand for American domestics in Brazil was considerably affected by the competition of a lower grade of goods, pretending to be New England fabric, but made in Manchester, and offered at a less price. The efforts of Manchester to substitute its inferior cloth, though pursued with desperation of purpose, were, however, only
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