USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I > Part 28
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" In the midst of cxultations of recent and re- peated victory, in the midst of the highest hopes, of the most anspicions omens, in the hour of uni- versal joy, the nation passed at once, by an inscru- table and mysterious providence, into the valley of the shadow of death. Assembled while the cloud is yet thick upon our eyes, and the hearts of men are oppressed by a sense of a strange dismay, it has become iny mournful duty to record, by for-
mal and official announcement to the legislative department of the commonwealth, this calamitous and distressing event."
Appropriate honors were paid to the memory of the deceased president. Never was sorrow more spontaneons or more heartfelt. Notwithstanding the exalted position of him to whom these honors were paid, there was not an individual but seemed to feel the loss as a personal bereavement; and from every pulpit in the commonwealth the uni- versal grief and lamentation found appropriate and tender expression. In the army triumph was changed for sadness, and horror followed by ex- asperation ; for the murdered president was the soldiers' friend. All this was the work of a man who believed himself a hero, but who was only an assassin.
The census next following the conclusion of the war showed Middlesex to be the most populous, and, next to Suffolk, the wealthiest county of the state. In 1874 she, however, received a sensi- ble check by the annexation of Charlestown and Brighton to the metropolis. The government census of 1870 showed the first to have a popu- lation of 28,330, and the last of 4,970. At the time of actual separation the number of inhabi- tants thus lost to Middlesex was probably not fewer than 35,000. The annexation of Brighton was a question of comparatively recent growth, but that of Charlestown had been long agitated ; and though its associations with the county were hal- lowed by age, and the common history one and indivisible, the dismemberment was inevitable.
The loss of population was, however, soon repaired ; though Suffolk, by her numerous an- nexations, still holds the first place in respect to population and wealth. Since 1870 the towns of Hudson (1866), Everett (1870), Ayer (1871), and Maynard (1871) have been incorporated, con- stitnting, at the moment we are writing, an aggre- gate number of fifty-four cities and towns.
The statistics of population present some curi- ous results. Previous to the Revolution, while engaged in her disputes with the mother country, the province refused to take a census, fearing that it might be made the basis for taxation. By tlie colonial census of 1776 the population of Middle- sex was 40,121 souls. By the state census of 1816 it was 53,406; and by that of 1875, 284,112 souls. Lowell, which had no separate existence until 1826, has to-day ten thousand more inhabi- tants than the whole county had a century ago. If
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COTTON MANUFACTURES: OTHER INDUSTRIES.
we include Charlestown and Brighton, which together had about 33,000 inhabitants in 1870, and which we are certainly entitled to include in our comparative estimates, we shall find the popu- lation to have doubled cvery thirty-four years during the century ; to have increased its original numbers eight times ; and now showing an aggre- gate somewhat in excess of 325,000. In the state, Middlesex holds the second rank in popula- tion by counties ; and were the towns taken from her since 1870 to be restored, she would fall but a few thousands short of Suffolk, the most popu- lous county. Middlesex exceeds the aggregate population of the six counties of Barnstable, Berk- shire, Bristol, Hampshire, Nantucket, and Dukes.
The census of 1776 affords other curious com- parisons with the present rank and importance of many towns. For example, Sudbury was then the only town having a population of 2,000 souls; it now ranks thirty-ninth in the order of population ; Reading and Concord come next, with 1,900 each.
Charlestown having been destroyed the previous year, exhibits only 360 in the tables. In 1810 Charlestown, the largest town, had 4,959; Cam- bridge, 2,323; Reading, including that part since set off' under the name of South Reading, 2,228 in- habitants. Next to Reading, in population, came Groton, Newton, Marlborough, Framingham, Con- cord, Watertown, and Medford in the order given. In. 1776 there were thirty-seven, in 1816 forty-five, and in 1878 fifty-four towns in the county. Look- ing back across the century, these figures give. a most instructive view of the growth and expansion in this important division of the commonwealth.
In the value of farms, including land and build- ings, Middlesex far exceeds any other county, her valuation in that class of property being nearly one fifth that of the whole state, or, in figures, $36,375,185. Included in this general aggregate are the market-gardens of the county, which are valued at $497,079, or nearly half the ascertained value of such gardens in the state.
XXV.
COTTON MANUFACTURE. - WALTHAM .- LOWELL. - OTHER INDUSTRIES.
WITH the year 1813 a new era of progress dawned in Middlesex County. This year witnessed the establishment on solid foundations of cotton manufacture in New England. There had been many attempts to introduce this important manu- facture, but so far those attempts had met with indifferent success, and the rude mechanism in use for spinning and weaving cotton had thus far at- tained only trifling results. The restrictions upon commerce, which culminated in the war of 1812, and of course put a stop to importations of Britishlı goods, undoubtedly stimulated new efforts to im- prove machinery, and to furnish the supply the war had thus cut off.
Some beginning had been made at Bridgewater, soon after the Revolution, to construct machinery for carding and spinning cotton. Aid was granted by the state to enable the inventors to complete their machines ; but it does not appear that they were practically used in actual manufacture, al- though they were exhibited as successful models.
We learn from Samuel Batchelder's Introduc-
tion and Early Progress of Cotton Manufacture in the United States, valuable from its having been written by a man not only familiar with the early history of cotton manufacture, but possessing, him- self, a lifelong acquaintance with the practical and theoretical working of mills, that, "in 1786 and 1787 the legislature of Massachusetts was taking active measures to encourage the introduction of cotton machinery, and that it had succeeded in ob- taining machines and models, probably including the roller-spinning and other improvements of Arkwright, which had then been but partially in- troduced in England." Mr. Batchelder concludes that the machinery at Bridgewater was the first built or introduced into this country for the manu- facture of cotton, which included Arkwright's improvements.
A factory for the manufacture of cotton cloth was commenced at Beverly in 1787. The mana- gers, discouraged by the great difficulty and expense of getting the works into operation, peti- tioned the legislature for aid, which that body,
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IIISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
considering the enterprise one of public impor- tance, granted in lands to the value of five hundred pounds ; and upon this proving insufficient, made a further grant of one thousand pounds, to be raised by lottery. In 1789 the company was in- corporated, and the works were visited by President Washington during his tour in October of that year. The raw staple was then procured from the West Indies in exchange for dried fislı, the most valuable export of the state.
The cotton manufacture continued to extend itself within and without the New England states, but it was reserved for Samuel Slater, who had acquired eight years' practical knowledge in Eng- land, to make the production first remunerative at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1790. By 1812 there were said to be in Rhode Island thirty-three factories, with 33,660 spindles ; in Massachusetts twenty factories, with 17,370 spindles ; and in New Hampshire twelve factories. All these were built after the plan introduced by Slater.
As early as 1803, Seth Bemis of Watertown began spinning cotton by machinery at the old chocolate and snuff mill on the Watertown side of Charles River. The weaving was done on hand- looms. It is claimed that the first cotton sail- duck ever offered for sale in this country was turned out of this mill. In 1807 an exemption from taxes for five years was granted by the legis- lature for a cotton-mill erected at Watertown by Seth Bemis and Jeduthan Fuller. In 1810 the Waltham Cotton and Wool Factory went into operation, and in 1815 was working 2,380 spin- dles. In 1813 there was a cotton-mill at Fram- ingham.
In 1810 Francis Cabot Lowell, son of Judge John Lowell, was in England. The subject of cotton manufacture was engrossing his mind when, in 1811, he met Nathan Appleton, of Boston, in the city of Edinburgh, to whom he imparted his idea that the processes of manufacture might be so improved as to render the United States indepen- dent of Great Britain. Mr. Appleton encouraged him to pursue his investigations by visiting Man- chester, and by an examination of all the new appliances which were, so to speak, only so many approximations towards the power-loom.
Having procured all the information possible to be obtained, - for the improvements in cotton ma- chinery were jealously guarded from the public, - Lowell, in 1812, returned to the United States with the idea of the power-loom in his head. He im-
mediately set about making and perfecting a work- ing model with much secrecy, and having at last attained this object, secured the co-operation of his brother-in-law, Patrick Tracy Jackson, a successful merchant of Boston. The next step was to obtain an act of incorporation, under the name of the Boston Manufacturing Company. Having asso- ciated with themselves several of the intelligent merchants of Boston, among whom was Nathan Appleton, the projectors of the enterprise pro- ceeded to erect a mill at Waltham, which went into successful operation in 1814, and was the first, in America, in which all the processes of making cotton cloth were combined.
In 1817 Lowell died. But he had left a suc- cessor who, if not his equal in fertility of invention, was, in other respects, worthy of himself. The limited capacity of Charles River for extending the manufacture of cotton, the future of which he had the sagacity to foresee, induced him to seek other locations where it might be prosecuted with advan- tage on a great scale. The canal at Pawtucket Falls having attracted his attention was soon trans- ferred to the control of himself and a few chosen associates. The lands lying contiguous to the falls, on both sides of the Merrimack, were also purchased. Nathan Appleton, Kirk Boott, and others of the Waltham Company joined in organ- izing a new company with the corporate title of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company. A mill was immediately constructed, and in September, 1823, it went into successful operation. At the sugges- tion of Nathan Appleton the new manufacturing town took the name of the distinguished founder of the mills at Waltham, Lowell.
Tudor, in his Letters on the Eastern States, has the following reference to the establishment of the factory at Waltham : " This," he says, " was begun at a period when manufactures were depressed, and many of the establishments were discontinued. One in the immediate vicinity, of considerable ex- tent, had ceased working. Under these discourag- ing appearances this manufactory was set on foot by five or six gentlemen who had a sufficient capital to meet the delays attendant upon an incipient es- tablishment, and in both their purchases and sales to take advantage of the market. They had a large stake in the undertaking, and everything was done with precaution and solidity. They first secured a water-power which gave them an ample, certain supply at all seasons. They then erected large, substantial buildings. Having procured the best
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COTTON MANUFACTURE: OTHER INDUSTRIES.
mechanics, they began by degrees to put up their machinery, making it certain, by experiment, that it was of the best and most improved kind. Their machinery is, consequently, superior to any other in the United States, and is not surpassed by the most perfect in England. They now consume about 400,000 pounds of cotton annually, and keep nearly two hundred looms, moved by water, in constant operation. This manufacture is a very interesting one, because it proves decisively that, with sufficient capital and proper management, the manufacture of cotton may be carried on with advantage."
Through the eyes of a visitor, who saw these works in 1825, we are enabled to take a passing view of them as they then appeared to an intelli- gent European, and to observe what were the most striking characteristics of cotton manufacture as conducted at Waltham.
His Highness, Duke Bernhard, of Saxe Wei- mar, thus describes Waltham and its mills in 1825 : " At this place a branch of a large cotton manu- factory is situated, belonging to a company of twenty-five persons. It is under the direction of Mr. Jackson, who possesses a very handsome dwelling, where he appears to pass a happy life with his amiable family. About four hundred and fifty workmen are employed, who live in different buildings belonging to the factory, and form a par- ticular colony. They have two schools, a churchi, and a clergyman. They appear to be in very good circumstances, as the dress, cleanly exterior, and healthy appearance of the workmen testify. In these buildings the cotton is spun and woven ; but the coloring and printing are performed in another establishment. The machines are worked by water which is said not to freeze in winter, but sometimes fails in dry summers. More simple machines than jennies are used for spinning, and the dressing ma- chines are different from those in the Netherlands, though not better, I believe, as they have but one cylinder. The weaving machines are mostly of wood, which is very cheap, though I believe that our iron ones are better. The workmen of this factory are, as I have since learned, esteemed on account of their good manners, and their morality is universally praised."
Mr. Batchelder remarks that the inventions and improvements in the machinery at Waltham hav- ing been patented, the Rhode Island mills adopted the crank-loom, and introduced various other plans in the processes for which these patents were held, so that two systems of mannfacture were thus
established. On the other hand, the mills which were from time to time built in Massachusetts and New Hampshire adopted the Waltham loom, and in general the plan pursued there.
But there was also a difference in the general management of the business, as well as in the machinery of the two systems. The works at Waltham formed a new era in the conduct of a manufacturing industry. In Rhode Island the English plan of employing families, often including children of a tender age, was put in practice ; and, instead of payment in money for daily or weekly wages, a store was established by the mill-owners, which paid for labor in provisions, clothing, and other articles. At Waltham wages were paid in money, and boarding-houses built for the accom- modation of operatives. Children were excluded. Thns, instead of drawing to the neighborhood of the mills a population wholly dependent upon them for support, which, in the event of even a temporary suspension, would suffer destitution, a picked class of operatives were provided who, when work failed from any canse, might return to the homes they had left. By this system the status of the English manufacturing town, its squalor, poverty, and crime, was wholly avoided, to the great melioration of the condition of the em- ployed.
Lowell, being the most remarkable example of sudden growth the Union could show, besides em- bodying new and philanthropic ideas in the man- agement of its mill operatives, soon became an object of the greatest interest to foreign tourists of distinction who found themselves in its vicinity. We present a picture of Lowell as it appeared in October, 1827, to Captain Basil Hall, R. N.
" A few years ago," writes this English officer, who had travelled over the greater part of the habi- table globe, -" a few years ago, the spot which we now saw covered with huge cotton mills, canals, roads, and bridges was a mere wilderness, and, if not quite solitary, was inhabited only by painted savages. Under the convoy of a friendly guide, who allowed ns to examine not only what we pleased, but how we pleased, we investigated these works very carefully.
" The stuffs manufactured at Lowell, mostly of a coarse description, are woven entirely by power- looms, and are intended, I was told, chiefly for home consumption. Everything is paid for by the piece ; but the people work only from daylight to dark, having half an hour to breakfast and as long
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
for dinner. The whole discipline, ventilation, and other arrangement appeared to be excellent, of which the best proof was the cheerful and healthy look of the girls, all of whom, by the way, were trigged out with much neatness and simplicity, and wore high tortoise-shell combs at the back of their heads.
" On the 13th of October, at six o'clock in the morning, I was awakened by the bell which tolled the people to their work ; and on looking from the window saw the whole space between the 'facto- ries ' and the village speckled over with girls, nicely dressed, and glittering with bright shawls, and showy-colored gowns, and gay bonnets, all stream- ing along to their business, with an air of light- ness and an elasticity of step implying an obvious desire to get to their work."
At this early period Lowell boasted of several school-houses, no less than three churches, innu- merable boarding-houses, taverns, and stores, all in the freshness of new bricks, which gave her the appearance of a city sprung, Aladdin-like, in a single night from the wilderness. Lowell at this time had her newspaper and her bookstores ; and Captain Hall records with evident gratification the erection of a mammoth brewery destined to substitute the use of inalt-liquor for that of ardent spirits among the mill population.
Lowell then had a population not much exceed- ing 3,000 souls. In 1830 the number was 6,477; in 1840, 20,796; in 1850, 33,383, nearly as many as Boston had in 1810; by the census of 1870, 40,978; and by the state census of 1875, 49,688 inhabitants. Lowell was incorporated as a town March 1, 1826, and as a city April 1, 1836. Originally part of Chelmsford, it has annexed parts of Tewksbury, Dracut, and Chelmsford. It is now the second city in the state.
It may, we think, be fairly asked whether cotton manufacture, in New England, has not reached its greatest development. In some of the cotton- producing states, the manufacture has been intro- duced with success. The state of Georgia is already a strong competitor in the markets of the South and West. Besides furnishing abundant power, her great rivers neither freeze in winter nor fail in summer. Negro and even white labor is, since the Civil War, cheap and abundant ; while the staple grows at the factory doors, and is, therefore, not subject to the charge of transportation to the Northern mill in its raw state, or back again to the Southern consumer when made into cloth. We
| leave the problem for the consideration of econo- mists and to the solution of time.
According to the latest official tables, Middlesex County has $ 10,815,096 invested in the manufac- ture of cotton into cloth, canvas, thread, and the numerous other articles in common use. Of this capital Lowell has $ 10,075,096, and eleven of the sixteen establishments. Medford, Waltham, and Newton have one each, and two are in Shirley. The value of the manufactured product was, in 1877, nearly eighteen millions of dollars. Mid- dlesex holds the second place in the state in this important industry, being only surpassed by Bristol County with its fifty-three works and its twenty- five millions of capital.
Timothy Dwight, in an account of a journey made through New England about 1810, mentions that the most important manufacture of wool and cotton cards then carried on in the United States was in Menotomy, now Arlington.
The water-powers of Charles River and of Sud- bury and Concord rivers were very early utilized by the settlers for purposes of prime necessity, such as the erection of saw and grist mills. These were followed by fulling-mills, snuff, chocolate, and paper mills before the era of cotton manufacture had dawned.
The first dam on Charles River is said to have been built in 1778 by David Bemis and Dr. Enos Sumner, at Bemis' Station, one mile above Water- town Bridge.1 The following year a paper-mill was erected on the Newton side, where the manu- facture was carried on by the Bemises for many years. Under skilful and prudent management this has become one of the busy manufacturing centres of the county.
The water-power of Charles River was further improved. At the Upper Falls, in Newton, the hydraulic power was, previous to 1800, utilized to carry snuff, grist, and saw mills. Only about six families resided in that part of the town at this date. Since that time cotton-mills, iron-works, and works for the construction of machinery used in cotton-mills have been erected. A factory for the manufacture of cut-nails was built in 1809, and the first cotton mill about 1814.
Iron-works were established at the Lower Falls by Jonathan Willard as early as 1704. The first paper-mill here was built by John Ware, in 1790.
1 Waltham, Past and Present, p. 125. In the Newton Cen- tennial Memorial, 1876, this dam is said to have been erected in 1760.
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COTTON MANUFACTURE: OTHER INDUSTRIES.
During the half-century that followed, the manu- facture of paper was greatly extended by the Curtises, the Crehores, and the Rices. Formerly, when it was wholly performed by manual labor, the process was slow and laborious, but with the introduction of machinery the production was im- mediately and largely increased. The first Four- drinier machine used in this country is said to have been placed in a mill at the Lower Falls. At the Lower Falls there have been silk factories ; and there are now cloth and hosiery mills, shops for the manufacture of machinery, and other indus- tries. Manufactures are also carried on at Silver Lake, in the northerly part of Newton.
There are other industries in which the people of the county are employed, some of which may be appropriately mentioned here, though our limits do not permit a history of their progress. Middle- sex takes the first rank in the state in the manu- facture of leather, chiefly carried on at Woburn, which has ninety-seven establishments and nearly one half of all the capital invested. Malden, Gro- ton, Lowell, Stoneham, Winchester, Cambridge, Natick, and Sudbury also do a considerable busi- ness in tanning and preparing leather for market. The whole capital employed is $2,892,410; the value of the annual product is $ 7,261,199. We proceed to classify the following industries in the order of their importance.
Boots and Shoes .- Middlesex stands third in the order of counties, having 228 establishments, a capital of $ 2,705,481, and a production esti- mated at $ 16,066,284. In the order mentioned, Hopkinton, Stoneham, Marlborough, Hudson, and Natick are the principal towns in which this indus- try is carried on. We remark in connection with this once distinctive New England industry, in which fully one half her rural population employed the leisure hours of winter, that so complete is the application of machinery to every process requisite for its manufacture, that no one workman now makes a boot or a shoe in the manufactories. It may therefore be said to have ceased to belong to the number of recognized trades. The manu- facturer formerly distributed his stock among his workmen, each of whom returned him the com- pleted boot or shoe ; he now distributes materials to be worked into one of the parts, which is to be fitted together by other hands. Fifty years ago it was confidently asserted that machinery could not be used in the manufacture of boots, shoes, hats, saddlery, etc. Now the mechanical appli-
ances are among the most numerous as well as the most ingenious to be found. The relation which the value of the manufactured product bears to the capital employed is one of the marked fea- tures - perhaps the most remarkable - that the introduction of labor-saving machinery has pre- sented. In the statistics given, the original capital annually multiplies itself six times.
Woollen Cloths, Blankets, etc. - Capital cm- ployed, $2,796,000; value of product, $6,067,131. Lowell, Maynard, Billerica, Watertown, and Stow are at the head of this branch of manufacture. Fifty years ago only the coarsest cloths were made in this country. Experiments for the manufacture of finer cloths were just beginning. Their suc- cess has kept pace with the improvements made in machinery and in the breeds of sheep, which had then only begun with the introduction of Spanish breeds. In connection with the various manufactures from wool, it should be mentioned that in Lowell carpets of excellent quality are produced which find a ready market in the United States. It is said that the Lowell Company's mills were the first in the world where power- looms were introduced for weaving woollen carpets.
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