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 13
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28
Twenty years ago the hand mule was not infrequently met in American factories-a machine which could not perform its work without manual assist- ance in its regular and necessary changes. The self-acting mule of to-day operates of and through itself, and embodies the poetry of manufacturing. Six or eight hundred spindles, and sometimes even a thousand, set in a carriage, moving backward and forward automatically, hum busily around at a speed of 6000 revolutions in a minute. On these spindles is built the cop, or conical ball of thread spun by the two-fold operation.
Like the drawers and speeders, a mule has its essential train of rolls. The roller-beam may be imagined occupying the background of the machine. The bobbins, bearing the accumulations of the last speeder's work, are set in a creel back of the roller-beam, and their strand ends inserted between the rolls. In the foreground of the machine, perhaps five feet from the rolls, and parallel with them, are the spindles, in regular alignment, close ranked together. This rank of spindles, actuated by the will of the tender, travels forward to the roller-beam and backward to its own position, its carriage, not obvious to the view, running upon three or more ground rails. The spindles are first run up to the roller-beam to receive the ends of the bobbin strands. These attached, the farther operation is thus described by Dr. Ure : " When the spinning operations begin, the rollers deliver the equally attenuated rovings as the carriage comes out, moving at first with a speed somewhat greater than the surface motion of the front rollers. The spindles mean- while revolve with moderate velocity, in order to communicate but a moderate degree of twist. When the carriage has advanced through about five sixths of its path, the rollers cease to turn or to deliver thread. The carriage thenceforth moves at a very slow pace, while the speed of the spindles is increased to a certain pitch, at which it continues till the carriage arrives at the end of its course. The spindles go on revolving till they give such an additional twist to the thread as may be desired, the degree of twist being
106
FALL RIVER AND ITS INDUSTRIES.
greater for warp than for weft. The spindles then stop, and the whole machine becomes for a moment insulated from the driving-shaft of the factory. Now the delicate task of the spinner begins. First of all hc causes the spindles to make a few revolutions backward. In this way he takes off the slant coils from their upper ends, to prepare for distributing the fifty-four or fifty-six inches of yarn just spun properly on their middle part. He, using the faller-wire with his left hand, gives it such a depression as to bear down all the threads before it to a level with the bottom of the cop, or conical coil, of yarn formed, or to be formed, round the spindles. Under the control of an experienced eye, his right hand at the same time slowly turns the handle of a pulley in communication with the spindles, so as to give them a forward rotation, and his knee pushes the carriage before it at the precise rate requisite to supply yarn as the spindles wind it on. As the carriage approaches to its primary position, near to the roller-beam, he allows the faller-wire to rise slowly to its natural elevation, whereby the threads coil once more slantingly up to the tip of the spindle, and are thus ready to cooperate in the twisting and extension of another stretch of the mule."
Dr. Ure's description gives a correct idea of the general operation of the mule as it was in England in 1865. Improvements made since the issue of the volume from which quotation is made, and due to American ingenuity, have, however, still farther developed the self-acting nature of the machine, till it is now indeed, in all respects, automatic. In the perfected mule of American production-which, made by Hawes, Marvel & Davol, of Fall River, and other manufacturers of spinning machinery, is now generally purchased for the equipment of mills-instead of the one faller-wire indicated by Ure, there are two, the upper, or faller proper, which leads the thread and forms the cop, and the lower, or counter-faller, which stiffens the thread and assists the operation of its companion. These wires, supported by curved arms or hooks, placcd at intervals along the rank of spindles, are extended parallel with the spindles at a distance of about three eighths of an inch. The hooks, actuated by a weight, incline downward when the carriage is nearly run out, thus dropping the wire to the base of the spindle and pressing down the thread. When the carriage retires, the hooks rise again, elevating the wires and relieving the cops. The wires can be controlled by hand, but this is unnecessary, and when their action is wholly automatic the cops are better than those produced by the most experienced spinners. In this respect the improvement is a very valuable one, while there is the still farther impor- tant advantage gained by the automatic process, that the spinner, relieved of his constant care of the faller-wires, has only to watch the general operation
107
PROCESSES OF MANUFACTURE.
of the mule, preserve the continuity of threads, and repair those that are broken.
Looking at the spinning process, in which sometimes a thousand spindles are twisting, stretching, and winding up a thousand threads, the mule of mechanism seems much more like a sentient organization than the mule of nature.
In the average Fall River mill, 40,000 of these spindles run back and forth, in industrious locomotion, all day long, as busy as the ant of fabled story.
The same machine can be adapted for the production of warp or weft, the former being coarser and requiring more twist. The weft on leaving the mule is ready for the loom, the warp still requiring somc preparatory attention before it is in condition. The thread in both cases, however, is all right, as the stage of manufacturing ended with the spinning process.
Our yard of print cloth, it will be remembered, is 28 inches broad, having 64 threads to the inch, and consequently 1792 threads of warp must be used to constitute its whole width. It is obvious that the yarn-beam, which is to furnish the material for the loom's consumption, must, therefore, hold 1 790 .threads, the weft forming the two outside threads. The operation of transferring the thread from the cops to this beam is not direct, there being intermediate stages worthy our notice.
In the first place, the warp cops are wound on spools, 6 inches long and 4 inches in diameter. These spools, 358 in number, are then arranged in a creel or stand, and subjected to the warping-machine, an ingenious contrivance credited to the eccentric Jacob Perkins, inventor of the steam- gun, which detaches their threads and winds them, each distinctly, the whole number preserving an exactly parallel alignment, on its beam. Five of these beams thus freighted are then taken to the slasher, or dressing-machine, where they are all wound on to the main yard-beam for the loom. During its passage through the slasher, the yarn is stretched and ironed, and also measured into sections of forty-five and one quarter yards, the points being indicated by a red, blue, or yellow dye, where the weaver is to take off a cut. The Fall River mills weekly consume 50,000 lbs. of potato starch in dressing their yarns.
The yarn-beam, 34 inches in length, has now wound upon it 1790 parallel coils, each something more than 15,000 feet, and together forming a body of warp, as the thread is now termed, 18 inches in diameter.
The weft-thread requires no dressing, or even manipulation, after the finishing stage in the mule, being at once taken, cop by cop, and placed in the shuttle to do its duty as an individual thread in the weaving process.
108
FALL RIVER AND ITS INDUSTRIES.
If we reflect that the function of a shuttle in a loom is the same as that of a needle in a woman's fingers, it is obvious that the warp must be made to assume some shape different from a web of 1790 threads, stretched upon a perfectly even plane. In the process of darning, the sempstress's intelligent and habile fingers direct the needle over and under the threads of the fabric she works upon. The shuttle has to darn, but has no sentient intelligence to direct its point, and is obliged to run its course to and fro in the loom, whether it passes a thread or not. This being the case, it is necessary to arrange the warp threads so that the shuttle, carrying its thread of weft, will pass over onc and under the next, and vice versa across the web. To effect this, recourse is had to the harness. ;
The harness, or heddle, as it is called in England, was a necessary fixture of the original hand-loom, and, until some more clever and convenient device shall supplant it, will remain a fixture of the power-loom so long as men weave cloth. Possessing neither mechanical beauty nor the least degree of ordinary inventive ingenuity, its place is permanent and its function indispen- sable.
The harness is a web of varnished hempen twines, running perpendicu- larly and quite close together, enclosed in a framework just heavy and strong enough to give it permanent shape. In forming the web, each couple of twines by a system of knotting is furnished with an eyelet, or small loop, so that the harness has a row of eyelets crossing its entire length. The pair of harness are separately suspended by pulleys from an arched beam of iron which rises over the loom-one a little lower than the other, so that the ranks of eyelets will be on a different level-and passing down into the loom, are secured to the machinery of a set of treadles, by which they receive such upward and downward play as the work demands.
Before placing the yarn-beam in its position on the back of the loom it is necessary to pass its threads through the two harnesses that are required in the production of plain cloth. This is done in the web-drawer, which sepa- rates the 1790 ends of thread, and puts half of them through the eyes of one harness, and half through the eyes of the other. The beam is now set in its place and the harnesses suspended from their iron archway. The next opera- tion is to take the ends of each pair of threads, held by the loops of the har- nesses, and insert them in the dents of the reed, a light framework of wood, after passing through which they are finally secured to the cloth-beam, which is situated on the front of the loom, relatively opposite to the yarn-beam. If the reader has been able to follow this description of the arrangement of the warp, he will see that after passing the loops of the harnesses it is divided into two webs, or banks of web, thc threads of which have an upward and down-
109
PROCESSES OF MANUFACTURE.
ward play through the harnesses, actuated by their treadle connection. The space thus opening and constantly changing for the race of the shuttle, and with each motion offering a thread alternately above and below its plane, is termed shed. With every play of the shuttle crosswise, its coadjutor, the reed, vibrates backward, beating up, or forcing the threads of weft to close together, and then, resuming its position, gives place for the return of the busy worker. This is, roughly and superficially sketched, the process of the loom, utterly prosaic and destitute of the fine mechanical achievement and the poetry of motion discovered in the spinning stage, yet a veritable realization in its operation of the cognate process pursued by human fingers.
The foregoing summary of the different stages of manufacture, though without the assistance of illustrative cuts to make its details clear to the unpractised contemplation, will still impart a general idca of the operation through which the raw material from the Southern cotton-press is spun and woven into 64 by 64 print cloth in the Northern mill.
How long a period is consumed in the passage of the raw material through the consecutive processes, is a question that may suggest itself to the curious mind. It is not so easy to answer this question in the regular opera- tion of a mill, but assuming a new grade of cotton to be put into a mill, fur- nishing the entire preparation for the looms, it would require fully seven weeks to work up the whole bing, though within ten days a portion of it should have issued in the shape of cloth. The latter period may therefore be accepted as a fair length of time to go through all the processes, under good average working conditions.
The manufactured cloth is conventionally allowed to weigh seven yards to the pound of cotton consumed ; that is, one yard weighs one seventh of a pound, or 2-2% ounces. This does not of course represent the entire weight of cotton as taken from the bale for the specific yard, there being an unavoid- able waste in the various operations; and practically, calculating the propor- tional weights of hoops and bagging for which the mill has to pay, about three ounces gross weight in the bale is the equivalent of the yard of Fall River print cloth. The estimate is also somewhat affected by the grade of cotton used (some grades showing much less foreign matter and making less waste than others), and by the care taken to utilize the waste. The first figures given of the weight allowed (2,2% ounces) to each yard indicate a waste of -7% ounces in the gross amount. The value of this waste is realized by selling it, and by so much diminishes the gross amount, leaving a net waste relatively small. Manufacturers of print cloth, out of every gross pound of the grades commonly put in, expect to obtain from 5 to 5} or 5g yards of fabric.
110
FALL RIVER AND ITS INDUSTRIES.
The waste per gross pound is now estimated at about fifteen per cent in the New England mills. In 1831 it was perhaps twenty per cent.
The experience of the Fall River cotton manufacturers has led them to the conclusion that the most desirable size of a mill, for the manufacture of print eloths, is one of 30,000 spindles. In such a mill, the different parts balance each other to the best advantage; that is, if properly arranged, the looms will just take care of the preparation-the carding, spinning, dressing, ete .- with no surplus or deficiency. It is also about as large as a superinten- dent can handle casily, by keeping up the different ends, and having every thing run smoothly, without hiteh or break.
Such a mill, according to the Fall River standard, should be built of stone or brick, 300 feet long, 72 feet wide, five stories high, with hip or flat roof, the latter more desirable on account of fire. It will have a capacity of 30,000 spindles and 800 looms, will employ 325 to 350 operatives, and use about 3500 bales of cotton in the production of 9,000,000 yards of print cloths per annum. A capital of $500,000 would probably be required to pay the cost of the mill and machinery (which are generally reckoned in the pro- portion of two fifths and three fifths), and allow a small margin for working capital. From four to ten acres is generally allowed for a mill site, varying according to the number of tenements put up for the operatives.
There are some twelve general departments in a mill of from 30,000 to 40,000 spindles, and employing from 350 to 450 persons. These are divided as follows : 8 pickers, 8 card-strippers and grinders, 4 drawing-tenders, 24 speeder-tenders, 30 other card-room hands, 32 spinners, 36 other hands in spinning-room, 28 spoolers, 6 warpers, 3 slashers, II web-drawers, 200 in the weaving department, and some forty on miscellaneous work. Each depart- ment is necessary to every other, and all act as forwarders of the general work. If one department, though never so small, becomes disarranged from any eause, the result is a disarrangement of all the other departments of the mill. Henee the necessity that the mill " when wound up," as it is ealled, should have all the departments balanee each other in their production, and that the superintendent should be a man of skill and judgment, and of suffi- cient eapaeity to keep the whole machine well in hand.
Of course a very important factor in the perfect organization of a eotton factory is the arrangement of the different departments of machinery. The system pursued in Fall River disposes of the five stories allotted to manufacture, as follows: The first and second floors are used for weaving, the third for carding, and the fourth and fifth for spinning. The engine is placed in an ell, running from the eentre of the rear of the mill and gen- erally opposite to the tower, which furnishes the main ingress and egress on
III
PROCESSES OF MANUFACTURE.
the front. The main driving-wheel, from which proceed all the belts trans- mitting the power to the various departments, is entirely within the basement of the main structure, thus bringing the source of transmission in the closest possible relation to its work. This ell, usually three stories high, is occupied by the mixing-room and the picking-room, the latter on a level with the third story of the mill, so that the picking stage delivers its cotton on the same level to the carders, where it is divided, a part led off in one direction to form the warp and the remainder in the opposite direction to form the weft. After undergoing the various processes of the carding-room, the prep- aration, still preserving its newly assumed relations, passes up through elevators located at each end of the mill, to the stories occupied by the spin- ning machinery, whence the cops are lowered, when finished, to the weaving floor. In the factories of New England, at the period of Mr. Montgomery's visit and description, the second story was used for the carding, the third the spinning, and the fourth and attic the weaving and dressing,
The cotton is generally stored in a separate building, though in occa- sional new mills of six stories the ground floor is, by a very convenient and economical arrangement, devoted to this purpose.
The average wages for operatives of all ages are a trifle above those of Lowell and Lawrence, and while Fall River has to compete on short ten- hour time directly with the Rhode Island mills, not regulated as to hours of labor, the former makes a better showing in the remuneration accorded to its operatives.
The operatives employed in Fall River are mostly foreigners, but the American, French, and Irish elements are well disposed as a rule, and give little trouble except when led by the English (Lancashire) operatives, who, having come from the most discontented districts of England, have brought their peculiar ideas and the machinery of their home style of agitation along with them. This system is not relished by the other operatives, but so potent has been the influence of the active element that it has sometimes held the others in awe, and in times gone by has even been so powerful that if one of the trades-union men went into a mill and held up his hand, all the operatives at once, quitting their machines, left the mill, and went outside to find out why it was that they left their work. But it is hoped that the day of this style of terrorism and despotism has gone by, and that the compulsory system of school education, now in force in Massachusetts for factory children, will put them in a position to control their own motions, rights, and interests.
II2
STATISTICS OF COTTON MANUFACTORIES IN FALL RIVER.
CORPORATION.
Location.
Capital.
Spindles.
Looms.
Style of Goods.
Incorporated.
Bales Cotton used per annum.
Yards of Cloth manu- hands No. factured em- per annum. ploy'd
Monthly Pay Roll.
I
American Linen Co.
2
Ferry Street. .. ..
$400,000
82,512
1,956
Print Cloths. 1852
8,500
21,000,000
1,000
$22,000
2
Annawan Manufactory. . .
I
Annawan Street.
160,000
10,016
I92
1825
1,000
2, 150,000
I40'
2,800
3 Barnard Mfg. Co.
I
Quequechan St ..
350,000
28,400
768
1874
3,500
9,000,000
340
8,500
4
Border City Mills.
2
North Main Road
1,000,000
72,144
1,760
1872
8,250
20,500,000
900
22,000
5 Chace Mills ..
I
Rodman Street. .
500,000
43,480
1,056
187I
4,500
12,000,000
425
11,000
6
Crescent Mills.
I
Eight Rod Way ..
500,000
33,280
684
Yd .- wide fine g'ds. 187I 3,250
5,750,000
340
9,000
7 Davol Mills ..
2
Hartwell Street. .
270,000
30,496
730
Sheet'gs & Silesias. 1867
3,500
5,000,000
375
11,000
8 |Durfee Mills.
2
Pleasant Street. .
500,000
87,424
2,064
Print Cloths. 1866
9,500
23,000,000
950
22,500
9
Fall River Manufactory.
I
Pocasset Street. .
150,000
25,992
600
1813
3,000
7,000,000
330
7,000
IO Fall River Merino Co ..
I
Alden Street. . ..
90,000
1,560
15
Merino Underwear 1875
750
9,000,000
60
2,000
II
Fall River Print Works ..
I
Pocasset Street. .
200,000
13,600
306
Print Cloths.
1848
1,350
3,500,000
175
4,750
I2
I
Alden Street. . .
600,000
45,360
1,008
I872
4,750
12,500,000
150|
11,000
I3
2
Twelfth Street .. .
400,000
76,920
1,868
1863
9,000
21,500,000
900
22,000
14
I
Laurel Lake ...
500,000
37,440
776
Yd .- wide fine g'ds. 1871 Print Cloths. . 1868
5,750
14,000,000
550
14,500
16
2
Metacomet Mill
Annawan Street.
300,000
23,840
591
1847
2,500
6,500,000
325
7,250
18
I
Laurel Lake .. ...
250,000
7,200
II2
Bags, Duck & Bats.
1871
2,500
2,000,000
125
3,000
19
Mount Hope Mill
Bay Street . .
200,000
9,024
216
1867
675
1.225,000
I35
3,500
20
I
North Main Road
400,000
27,920
700
Print Clothis. . 1871
3,250
S, 250,000
325
8,000
21
I
Laurel Lake. ..
500,000
37,232
930
1871
4,250
II,000,000
425
11,000
22
2
Pocasset Street. .
800,000
36,744
918
1822
3,150
7,500,000
550
12,000
23
I
Rodman Street. .
800,000
42,528
1,032
187I
4,500
12,000,000
450
11,500
24
I
Hartwell Street. .
260,000
21,632
552
1867
2,500
6,500,000
275
7,000
25
Sagamore Mills.
I
North Main Road
500,000
37,672
900
1872
4,000
10,500,000
425
10,000
26
Shove Mills ..
Laurel Lake ....
550,000
37,504
960
1872
4,250
11,500,000
425
11,000
27
I
Laurel Lake ....
550,000
37,040
860
1871
4,000
10,000,000
350
9,500
28
I
Quarry Street ...
550,000
34,928
860
1871
4,000
10,000,000
350
9,500
29
Tecumseh Mills.
2
Hartwell Street. .
500,000
42, 166
1,014
..
I 866
4,500
12,000,000
400
12,000:
30
Troy C. & W. Manufactory
2
Troy Street .. . ..
300,000
38,928
932
ISI4
4,000
10,250,000
400
10,500
31
Union Mill Co. .
2
Pleasant Street. .
155,000
44,784
1,050
IS59
5,000
12,000,000
475
13,500
32
Wampanoag Mills.
I
Quequechan St. .
400,000
27,920
704
1871
3,250
8,250,000
325
8,000
33
Weetamoe Mills .. . .
I
Mechanicsville ...
550,000
34,080
840
1871
4,000
10,000,000
350
9,250
43
$14,735,000
1,269,048
30, 144
139,175
343,375,000
425
12,000
I
Merchants' Mfg. Co ..
Mechanicsville .. Fourteenth Street
800,000
85,570
1,942
1867
9,250
22,500,000
800
21.000
I7
I
Montaup Mills.
I
King Philip Mills
3,000
5,500,000
750,000
53,712
1,248
Shirtings. .
Narragansett Mills
Osborn Mills.
Pocasset Mfg. Co
Richard Borden Mfg. Co.
Robeson Mills.
I
Slade Mills ..
Stafford Mills.
Number of
Mills.
FALL RIVER AND ITS INDUSTRIES.
14,270 $359,550
=
" Sheet- }
ings &Shirtings y Print Cloths ..
Flint Mills.
Granite Mills. .
Mechanics' Mills. .
ORGANIZATION OF CORPORATIONS.
AMERICAN LINEN COMPANY.
President : Jefferson Borden.
Clerk and Treasurer : Walter Paine 3d.
Directors : Jefferson Borden, Philip D. Borden,
Richard B. Borden, George B. Durfee, Walter Paine 3d.
Annual Meeting-2d Wednesday in February.
AMERICAN PRINT WORKS.
President : Jefferson Borden. Clerk : Thomas J. Borden.
Agent and Treasurer : Thomas J. Borden.
--
Directors : Thomas J. Borden, Jefferson Borden, Nathan Durfee, George B. Durfee, John S. Brayton. Annual Meeting-Ist Tuesday in August.
ANNAWAN MANUFACTORY.
President : Jefferson Borden. Directors : Holder B. Durfee, Jefferson Borden, Clerk and Treasurer : Thomas S. Borden.
Wm. B. Durfee, Wm. Valentine, R. B. Borden. Annual Meeting-Ist Tuesday in August.
BARNARD MANUFACTURING COMPANY.
President : Louis L. Barnard. Clerk and Treasurer : Nathaniel B. Borden.
Davis, Simeon Borden, James M. Aldrich, N. B. Borden, Alphonso S. Covel, John Campbell, Jos. A
Directors : L. L. Barnard, Stephen Davol, Wm. H. | Bowen, Wm. H. Gifford.
Jennings, A. D. Easton, Arnold B. Chace, Robert T. Annual Meeting-3d Thursday in January.
BORDER CITY MILLS.
President : S. Angier Chace. Wilson, Chas. P. Stickney, Elijah C. Kilburn, Ches- Clerk and Treasurer : George T. Hathaway. ter W. Greene, Geo. T. Hathaway, James A. Hath- Directors : S. A. Chace, David T. Wilcox, Job T. | away, Isaac Smith, George Parsons, H. B. Durfee. Annual Meeting-4th Wednesday in October.
CHACE MILLS.
President : Augustus Chace. Henry, George W. Grinnell, Robert K. Remington, Clerk and Treasurer : Joseph A. Baker. Edward E. Hathaway. William Mason, Charles P. Directors : Augustus Chace, Cook Borden, James | Stickney, Joseph A. Baker. Annual Meeting-In October.
CRESCENT MILLS.
President : Benjamin Covel. Wm. B. Durfee, Alphonso S. Covel, Griffiths M. Clerk and Treasurer . Alphonso S. Covel. Haffards, Joseph Brady, David F. Brown, John F. Directors . Benjamin Covel, Daniel A. Chapin, | Nichols, Lafayette Nichols. Annual Meeting-2d Wednesday in February.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.