USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Watertown > Historical sketches of Watertown, Massachusetts > Part 21
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The dyed wool is passed through the dryers, the
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
picker-room, the gauze-room, to the carding-room, which is under the supervision of Mr. Loveland. Here the wool is carded, a work onr grandmothers used frequently to send their wool for miles to have done at carding-mills. There are few old people who do not remember the soft rolls of wool brought home from the carding-mill, which their grandmothers used to spin into thread and yarns for knitting and weav- ing. This work is done now in a superior manner by marvelous mechanism, by which the fibres of the wool are gathered together in fine rolls and wound loosely on large spools, ready for the spinning depart- ment. The automatic, self-feeding cards, with their thousands of steel fingers to arrange the fibres in line ready for spooling, and the nice mechanical adjust- ments, wonderful to us, would have greatly surprised our ancestors, yet it is by the gradual improvements in such mechanism that enabled first Seth Bemis to do the work at all, and now these mills to do work of the quality for which they are noted. The capacity of this room is fifteen sets of cards.
The next department in regular order is the spool- ing department, under Mr. J. H. Clifford, where the wool is spun and wound on bobbins ready for weav- ing. The immense spinning jennies, capable of do- ing the work of several hundred women, do it with almost the same motion,-now advancing, now reced- ing, now twisting, now rolling up on the spool,-but with far greater accuracy and evenness of thread.
In the new building is the weaving department, in charge of Henry G. Chapman. Here looms of dif- ferent degrees of complexity, some capable of utiliz- ing twenty-four frames,-from different manufac- tories,-each in care of an attendant, push the shuttles with deafening sound through the warp in varying figures according to the fancy of the designer. While here we are inclined to think this the principal pro- cess, the most important step of all in the manufac- ture of eloths, but in the finishing department, in charge of Mr. Watslong, where the inspection of the fulling, which has reduced the width one quarter, and increased the thickness and the closeness of thread since it came from the looms, one may see the "teaz- eling," the "trimming," pressing, measuring, folding done, and the cloths packed, after being sampled, ready for market.
All rooms in the factory are furnished with gas fixtures for lighting, and automatic fire sprinklers for extinguishment of accidental fires, while there are hydrants with coils of hose in various parts of the mill and the yard, connected with large pumps read- ily operated by the steam engine or the water-wheels.
The early history of this mill is quite interesting.
This dam it is elaimed was first built by David Bemis and Enos Sumner in 1778. David Bemis had bought 39 acres of land on the Watertown side in 1753, and a few years after, 25 aeres more, nearly all the land on which the village now stands. This homestead, where his sons were born, afterwards
known as the Ritchie estate, was the old house so beautifully located on the knoll near the mills, which was removed to make room for Mr. Davidson's house in 1880. Dr. Enos Sumner owned the land on the Newton side, but sold out in 1779 to three men who built a paper mill. David Bemis became two-thirds owner of this the next year, and with his son Capt. Luke Bemis carried on the paper mill until 1790, when he died. After his death his sons, Capt. Luke and Isaac Bemis, became sole owners and continued to carry on the business of paper making until the death of Isaac in 1794. The process of manfactoring paper at that time was necessarily very slow and tedious. The sheets were made in monlds imported from England. Each sheet required separate dipping of the moulds in the pulp, which when sufficiently consolidated, was turned on to a sheet of felt where it was allowed to dry. David Bemis had built in 1778 on the Watertown side a grist-mill and snuff-mill, the first mill on this side at this place. At his death, his two sons, Seth and Luke, became full owners. About 1796, Seth bought out the interest of his brother Luke, and began to manufacture chocolate, and to prepare dye-woods and medicinal wood, and roots for use. In 1803 he made additions to the old mill; he com- menced the spinning of cotton by machinery, making cotton warp, which though prepared by quite imper- fect machinery, proved to be so much better than that spun by hand, and therefore, in such great repute, that Mr. Bemis could not supply the demand. The business proved thus very profitable.
To understand the cause of this great demand for cotton warp, we need only to reflect that by many a family through Massachusetts, it was the custom to weave at home cotton cloth, cotton and wool for blankets, and with dyed wool a coarse kind of satinett for home wear, as well as rugs and carpets for the floor. The writer remembers full well the old hand-loom which stood in the capacious attie of his grandmother's house, which was built at this time only a little over twenty miles away on one of the turnpike roads leading off into the country. This honse, built of brick, stood near the centre of a large farm which had always been owned, and still is owned in the family, a Water- town family, since it was first purchased of the Indians. Here were the flax and the wool spinning-wheels also. But it must have been a great relief to the over-worked women of the family to find, by Mr. Bemis' intro- duction of power-machine-spun threads for warps, " Bemis' warp," as it was known, so great a help in their labors.
One is tempted, in speaking of the great improve- ments introduced by Mr. Bemis in the mannfacture of cotton goods, to reflect upon the great change that has finally resulted in the present domestie economy of our New England households. Then the women, both young and old, were taught a multiplicity of occupations that trained both the hands, the eye, and the mind as well.
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"The preparation of the cotton for carding was at that time a slow and expensive operation. It was carried out in small parcels, to be picked by hand in families living in the vicinity, at about four cents per pound, exclusive of carrying ont and bringing back, which required most of the time of one man and horse. To facilitate the process of picking, such families as were engaged in the occupation were mostly provided with a 'whipping frame,' the bottom of which was woven, or made of strong cords so loosely that the seeds and dirt could pass through ; the cotton, being placed thereon, the two sticks, one in each hand, being laid on smartly for two or three minutes, became very much loosened. For several years the business of cotton picking afforded employ- ment to a multitude of persons, enabling them to obtain a comfortable livelihood."
" Mr. Bemis constantly improved and increased his machinery for spinning, etc., discarding the old and adopting that which was new and better. After a few years he caused a machine to be made for preparing cotton for carding, which did not differ materially from the 'cotton pickers' of the present day. This machine bore the grim title of 'the devil'; and though not very attractive in appearance, particularly when in notion, performed in a very expeditious and satisfactory manner the service intended, much to the regret of the numerous laborers, who were obliged, in consequence of the invention, to seek their daily bread by other methods." 1
This Mr. Seth Bemis, the senior of that name, en- gaged in manufactures at this place, was a graduate of Harvard College, graduating in 1795, and, although his knowledge of Greek roots and Latin poetry was not essential to success in the profitable management of a cotton factory, doubtless the knowledge was no great burden to carry, and as it did not from the pride of possession incapacitate him from entering heartily into the solution of the various practical problems that presented themselves, it might have sharpened his wits so that he was able to improve upon all who had gone before and even to almost unconscionsly anticipate one of the greatest inventions of the age, namely Whitney's cotton gin.2
The town of Watertown enjoys the distinction, through Mr. Bemis' inventive and active disposition, of having made the first cotton duck ever manu- factured. It was at a time after the embargo of 1807 had been laid by our general government upon all foreign commerce, and great difficulty had been ex- perienced in getting duck for sails, that Mr. Winslow Lewis, of Boston, extensively engaged in commerce,
in conversation with Mr. Seth Bemis, spoke of the difficulty of getting duck, the coarse linen cloth used for sails, asked if he could not make something of cotton that would answer the purpose. Mr. Bemis had been engaged in the manufacture of sheeting, shirting, bagging for the southern market, bed ticking, etc., and had had the aid of some English weavers on hand-looms. He said he would see about it. Mr. Lewis was unwilling to be at the risk alone of pro- viding machinery on the uncertainty of success, but promised to help to find a market for the cotton duck if it could be made, a large quantity of which he him- self would require for his own vessels. Mr. Bemis succeeded in having the work done and for some years received a large return for his venture, as much as $1 per yard being received during the war for duck.
" It was in 1803 that Seth Bemis commenced spin- ning cotton by machinery.
" In March 1809, he employed a Mr. Douglas to construct a twisting machine of 48 spindles.3
"In October of 1809, he employed six English weavers, paying them fourteen cents per yard for weaving, and in November following made sales of duck in Boston, No. 1 at 65 cents, and No. 2 at 58 cents per yard." "The sheetings and shirtings sold for 42 cents per yard." " This was probably the first cotton sail duck ever made and sold in this country." In consequence of the impossibllity of finding a market nearer for all bis products, during the war of 1812-15, Mr. Bemis sent his duck and other manufactures, by his own teams to Baltimore, and even further south, bringing back cotton, tobacco, and other southern pro- ducts, taking several months to make the journey and return.
In 1812-13 with the aid of an Englishman, Mr. Be- mis made from coal and used to light his factory, the first illuminating gas used in America. This had, how- ever, to be discontinued after a few years, because of its leaking from the tin tubes through which it was conducted.
During some of the years following, while this was the leading factory for the grinding and preparation of dye woods and dye stuffs by machinery, for the manufacture of cotton goods and woolen yarn, the grinding of glass,-and with which continued to be carried on a grist mill, as also a shop for making and repairing machinery,-the operatives were called to their meals at the house of Captain Luke Bemis, where they found board, by the blowing of a tin horn, from which circumstance the village received and continued to have, even till our day, the rather suggestive title of " T'in Horn."
Mr. Bemis purchased of his brother Luke and his partner, Caleb Eddy, a brother-in-law, in 1811, the mills and water-power on the south side of the river and thus became sole owner of the entire water-power.
1 From S. F. Smith's "History of Newton, " published by the American Logotype Company, Boston, 1880. .
? Eli Whitney, a descendant of the Watertown family of that name, had in 1794 obtained his first patents on the celebrated saw gin, that raised a man's effectiveness in cleaning the cotton from the seed, from about six pounds each day to one thousand pounds a day. This was ap- parently not introduced in the North for several years.
3 From Report of Boston Board of Trade, 1857, quoted in Nelson's " Waltham."
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
lle soon after sold to the Boston Manufacturing Com- pany his right to raise the height of the water by flash- boards for $1000 per inch for twelve inches. Although gaining $12,000 by the sale, he afterwards regretted this loss of power, or others have who have followed him. In 1822 he built the present stone rolling-dan. In 1827, the Bemis Manufacturing Company was in- corporated, in which his brother Luke was interested, for the manufacture chiefly of satinets and duck. However in 1830 this corporation was dissolved. Mr. Seth Bemis and Thomas Cordis, members of the com- pany, bought the entire property and continued the same business until 1539, when Thomas Cordis sold out to Seth Bemis and Seth Bemis, jr., who continued the business on both sides of the river of manufactur- ing cotton and woolen goods in part, and at last on the Newton side of the manufacture of drugs and dye woods. In 1847 they sold the dye wood business to William F. Freeman, and Seth Bemis continued to manage the Watertown mills until his death in 1849, when on the settlement of the estate in 1851, Seth Bemis, jr., became the sole owner. From 1848 to 1860 the Watertown property was leased to Hiram Cooper, who manufactured hosiery and domet flau- nels. The product for a part of this time was about $100,000 a year, and a hundred men were employed. In 1860, he sold the entire property to William F. Freeman & Company, who having developed the bus- iness largely, in turn transferred the property to the Etna Mill Company, who greatly enlarged the works ou this side, and although for many years, certainly until after 1867, continued to grind and prepare dye woods, gradually enlarged and improved their manu- facture of woolen goods until at present their products are well known among the finest and best woolen goods for ladies' use to be found in the market.
It was in 1810 that the " Waltham Cotton and Wool Factory Company " was established, although not until 1813 that the " Boston Manufacturing Com- pany," under the lead of Franeis C. Lowell, Patrick T. Jackson, and Nathan Appleton began to apply the knowledge of the improved cotton machinery which they had seen in operation in England, and which they greatly improved and put into the new factory two miles above, which turned Waltham from a smaller and an agricultural town to a rapidly growing centre of manufactures. The success of this led in 1822 to the incorporation of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company and the founding of the eity of Lowell.
With the advance of improvements it became necessary to specialize, and thus gradually the great variety of kinds of business carried on successfully by Seth Bemis, sr., has come to one of narrower range, but of a magnitude and the product of a quality of which he had never dreamed. We have followed with great brevity, hardly touching here and there the fortunes of these mills, through their possession by the Bemis family from 1753, the date of the first purchase, for over a hundred years.
The character of Mr. Seth Bemis, sr., is treated by another hand elsewhere. ITis son, Seth Bemis, jr., was always a friend to educational and religious institu- tions, as he was one of the original contributors, with his brother George, to the fund for the establishment of the Watertown Free Public Library, giving $500. In 1882 he gave $1000 towards the building. The family numbers ten students and graduates of llarvard Col- lege; one of them, George, gave largely to this college and to the Boston Athenteum, thus showing their own appreciation of the best educational institutions and their willingness to contribute to them for the welfare of others; and proving, in this family at least, the enobling and liberalizing tendency of suc- eessfal activity in manufactures. In closing, one might add his testimony of fitness in the change of the old name of " Tin Horn," and even of the later more euphonious and descriptive " Etna Mills " to the brief, well deserved and suggestive name, Bemis, which the Fitchburg Railroad Company, and the United States Post-office Department, and all by com- mon consent, apply to this village. Loug may it honor its name, but may it never forget by its con- tributions and its commingling in all social and municipal relations, that it is a part of the old town of Watertown.
The Watertown Indurated Fibre Company .- This company, one of the latest formed, incorporated in the year 1888 under the laws of Maine, with a capital of $100,000, of which Mr. J. H. Conant is at present the principal, if not the sole owner, is engaged in the manufacture of various utensils from wood pulp, ornamental or useful, which are impervious to water.
The buildings are located on a large lot of land near the West Grammar School-house, on Howard Street, and very near the Fitchburg Railroad, which gives with its side tracks, facilities for receiving materials, and for sending away their manufactured produets to all parts of the country.
The material used is the ground pulp of spruce wood, which is reduced to a semi-liquid state, and pumped into moulds where, under hydraulic pressure, of some 120 pounds to the square inch, the water is forced out, and the masses of fiue wood fibres are con- solidated into any desired form.
These forms, when dried, may be sawn, turned, sanded into any more desirable forms like any masses of wood. They are then given a bath of hot linseed oil or of chemieals largely composed of pure linseed oil, then baked in an oven for about eight hours at a temperature of 270" Fahrenheit. Then the process is repeated several times until the compound is entirely impervious to any liquids. The ware is then fin- ished, polished, ornamented, and made attractive for the various purposes for which it may be used.
The number of men at present employed is seventy - five, their wages about $750 per week, the value of the products of the factory about $100,000 per year.
These works were started by Mr. Conant iu 1885,
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have been increased in extent several times, in the
Their business consisted in the manufacture of sew - same location, until they are now double their former ing-machine needles, sewing-machine shuttles, bob- size. They occupy three principal buiklings and five bins. tools, and machinery. They employed as many smaller buildings. The largest building is 120 feet | as seventy-five (75) men, and turned out 20,000 needles per day, with a monthly pay-roll of $2000. They also furnished other manufacturers with blanks. They invented some fine machinery for the manufac- ture of shuttles and bobbins.
long and fifty feet wide, and is three stories high. The engine and boiler-house is fifty feet by forty feet, and is two stories high, the upper stories being occu- pied as a drying-room. The treating building is eighty feet by fifty feet, two stories high. The upper story is used for indurating and water-proofing the 'for six or eight years, until 1888, when
The business was continued with varying success
product, and consists of a work-room and four ovens. . The Porter Shuttle and Bobbin Company, managed by Lewis B. Porter, succeeded to a part of the business, the manufacture of needles having been discontinued. This company continue the manufacture of shuttles and bobbins for sewing-machines, also manufacture These ovens are thirty feet deep, one seventeen feet wide and nine feet high ; the three others have the same depth and height, hut are only nine feet wide. They are heated by steam, which is furnished by two boilers of 100-horse power each, which also various kinds of attachments for several kinds of sew- furnish steam for driving the engine. The engine is 'ing-machines.
one of the Fitchburg Engine Company's manufac-
The buildings are lighted by electricity from a dynamo in the building, are thoroughly protected a- far as such buildings can be protected, by a system of pipes and sprinklers throughout the large buildings. the water for this purpose being supplied by the Watertown Water Supply Company. The water for use in the process of manufacture, of which large quantities must be used, is obtained from three or four wells, which give an abundant supply.
. Some of the articles now manufactured are water- coolers for ice-water, umbrella-holders, fire-casks. store barrels, pails for ordinary use and for fires, the latter having a peculiar form to fit them for their use and to prevent them from being used for any other purpose, pans, slop-jars, and churns.
In time, utensils required to hold liquids of every kind may be made. The. material is much lighter and less brittle than porcelain or other earthen ware, or glass, much less costly, less likely to leak or fall to pieces than wood held together by hoops. The use of this manufacture is increasing each year and its appearance is being constantly improved.
Educated decorative artists are employed to orna- ment the ware with fitting designs, some of which make one think of the lacquer of the Japanese.
Mr. F. E. Keyes was the first superintendent, and leaving because of ill health, Mr. L. S. Frost took his place in July, 1886, and has had charge of the works ever since. Mr. B. S. Bott has charge of the decorative department. U. S. Dixon is the engineer. Mr. F. C. Goss has charge of the machine-shop and repairs.
The Porter Needle Company .- The Porter Needle Company occupied buildings on the south side of the river on Watertown Street, not far from Galen Street. Their business was established October 1, 1879, but manufacturing was not begun until January 1, 1850. The company was composed of Mr. Edward F. Por- ter, of this town, president; Mr. Hugh Robinson, of Jersey City, vice-president; Mr. Lewis B. Porter, treasurer ; and Mr. W. D. Porter, secretary.
The stock in this company is owned entirely by ture, and has a capacity of seventy-five-horse power. Lewis B. Porter, who carries on the entire business.
He employs twenty or twenty-five hands, men and boys, and distributes about $800 monthly. The sales are wholly from the factory to sewing-machine manu- facturers and to large jobbers of sewing-machine sup- plies. This is at present the only factory devoted . wholly to the manufacture of shuttles and bobbins in the country, and the outlook indicates a large industry, as the sewing-machine manufacturers are looking more and more to special factories for their shuttles and bobbins.
The Empire Laundry Machinery Company .- This company now occupy a part of the buildings formerly occupied by the Porter Needle Company. It was formed in 1883, with head-quarters in Boston, to man- ufacture a combination of inventions developed by the Cambridge Laundry, of Cambridge, and by Por- ter & Co., of Watertown, and gradually grew to larger proportions as new appliances were manufactured. partly by Porter & Company and tested by the Cam- bridge Laundry, until since 1888 it has succeeded to the use of all the buildings but one occupied formerly by the Needle Company.
The company is at present composed of George L. Shorey, of Lynn ; H. S. Porter, of Roxbury ; and L. B. Porter, of Watertown. It was incorporated under the general laws of the State, with a capital of $10,- 000, with individual loans of $40,000 more, from the members, which with the surplus earnings gives a working capital of about $75,000.
As they are now doing a business of a quarter of a million dollars a year, and require larger buildings they have bought a tract of land containing about 60,000 feet, and are making plans for extensive build- ings and enlargements ; and they propose to include all the capital used, with an enlargement of the same, into its incorporated stock, making it $100,000 or more.
The company's special and patented machinery may be found in nearly every country upon the globe, and there are few hotels or large institutions that do
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
not use some of their machines. About fifty different machines and appliances are now made, of every kind, from boilers and engines that supply the power, to the supplies used either in domestic laundries for family work or the laundries of hotels and larger in- stitutions.
Among the machines and appliances manufactured may be mentioned : washing-machines, both of wood and of metal; extractors for removing water from goods, wringers, centrifugal wringers; starching ma- chines ; ironing machines of many kinds, including the mangle, parallel ironer, bosom, neck and wrist- band ironer, shirt body ironer, bosom ironer, univer- sal ironer, collar and cuff dampener, ternary mangles ; with a great variety of hand machines, from washers to sad irons; stoves for heating hand-irons, blowers, presses. As Watertown is quite a centre for all kinds of laundry work, these and more may be seen in oper- ation in some of the laurdries near the factory. There are at least three such laundries, a visit to which would at almost any time repay any one to see what can be done in this direction by machinery.
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