USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 37
USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 37
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 37
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Canton has been famous for its woolen manufactures, cotton, cop- per, cutlery, hoes and silk. Rolling mills, a cotton wicking mill and a cotton thread mill, were in operation nearly one hundred years ago.
Dedham was an early boot and shoe town and has also made chairs, cabinet work, silk goods, straw bonnets, paper and cards. About the same time Dorchester had ten manufactories of chairs and cabinet ware. There were in Dorchester three cotton mills with 5,500 spindles, two paper mills and numerous smaller businesses in the manufactur- ing line. Dorchester was one hundred years ago engaged in the whale fisheries and in cod and mackerel fishing. One of the earliest impor- tant industries of Dover was a rolling mill which manufactured hoops, rods and other products.
The manufacture of straw bonnets is one of the things for which Foxborough was famous within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. Ninety years ago this industry produced nearly 150,000 bonnets an-
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nually. It was one of the towns of the early cotton mills, made agri- cultural implements, woolen cloth and iron castings Franklin engaged in the making of straw bonnets and there was some rivalry between the two towns in the amount and excellence of the product. Medway, Sharon, Walpole and Wrentham numbered among their early indus- tries the making of straw bonnets in the days when they were in vogue.
About the same time watches were being made in Roxbury there was a flourishing clock factory in Medway. There was also a bell foundry among the earlier industries, and an organ factory. The distinguish- ing product in Milton has been for more than a century chocolate and cocoa.
The story of the principal industry in Quincy is that of selling, ton after ton, of that which makes up the southwestern part of the town itself-granite. This granite rock rises to a height of 600 feet above the sea level. There are inexhaustible quarries of the best possible building material.
Shipbuilding has always been an important industry and from the shipyards at Fore River have been launched, in recent years, some of the most formidable dreadnaughts of the world. In earlier days the manufactures of coaches, harness, chaise and wheel-wrighting were considerable. Large fleets of vessels were employed in cod and mack- erel fishing.
Stoughton and Walpole have engaged in the manufacture of thread and twine, as well as cotton and woolen cloth. They have also been shoe towns, made agricultural implements, paper and iron castings. Weymouth has consistently remained a shoe town from early days and has held a reputation for being the home of some of the best shoe- makers in the world.
Early in the Cotton Industry-Cotton manufacturing was an im- portant industry in Norfolk County after the invention of the cotton gin and the great increase in the production of cotton in the Southern States. The Norfolk Cotton Manufactory, for the manufacture of cotton goods, was incorporated in 1807. Nearly all the incorporators were residents of Dedham and the manufacturing plant was erected on Mother Brook in that town, a canal dug in 1640, said to have been the first commercial canal dug in this country. The cotton was picked in neighboring houses by hand. After it was spun it was sent abroad to be woven. Cotton yarns and cloths were sold at retail from the storehouses.
The company also manufactured woolen goods and satinets. Its time of unusual prosperity was occasioned by the War of 1812, when domestic manufactured goods were in demand and sold for high prices.
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At the close of the war prices fell and the company, caught for an enor- mous lot of goods on its hands for those times, sold out at public auction.
Other companies were formed in Dedham and engaged in cotton manufacturing with considerable success. Some of them also manu- factured woolen goods, in order to have a greater variety to sell, as it was before the days of specialization. Other engaged in the business elsewhere in the county.
The first cotton factory equipped with machinery, in Massachusetts, was located at Canton in 1803. There is a record in existence which shows that James Beaumont, Abel Fisher and Lemuel Bailey agreed to enter into partnership to carry on the cotton spinning business March 14, 1803. They built a factory on the east branch of the Nepon- set River in Canton and there transacted business under the name of James Beaumont & Company. Beaumont became the sole proprietor later and manufactured bedticks, ginghams, shirtings and sheetings in large quantities in the time of the War of 1812 and later.
A company which had been incorporated in 1789 completed the Middlesex Canal in 1804. This canal became of great importance to the cotton industry and its development in this vicinity.
The first few years of the nineteenth century were eventful in the industrial developments. The embargo of 1807 and 1808 stimulated manufacturing, although it had its bad effects. Prior to the embargo there were only fifteen cotton mills in the United States, with eight thousand spindles. At the end of 1809, there were eighty-seven cot- ton mills, sixty-two of them in operation, with 31,000 spindles. But manufacturing benefited at the expense of commerce and, after the war, many establishments went down, through the importation of foreign goods.
The first introduction of the power loom in this country was at a mill erected in 1813 by the Boston Manufacturing Company at Walt- ham. The loom was largely the invention of Francis C. Lowell. The founding of Lowell followed. The starting of the Merrimack Mills in September, 1823, completed the introduction of cotton manufacture into the United States in its modern form. Until 1814 a cotton factory had merely been a place where yarn, which had been woven upon hand looms in the homes of the workers, had been spun. The modern cotton fac- tory and the modern woolen and worsted factories were brought about by the power loom about the same time.
Revere Copper Works at Canton-Owing to the fact that Colonel Paul Revere, who made the famous ride on the night before the Con- cord fight, was a member of the firm, the establishment of Messrs.
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Revere at Canton became one of the most famous of the Norfolk County industries. Bishop in his history says: "In 1802 the only manu- factory of sheet copper in the country was that of the Messrs. Revere at Boston." Headquarters for the firm were in Boston but the factory was in Canton. Soon after the Revolution Colonel Revere's sons in- vested $25,000 in the Canton plant. Under the firm name of Paul Revere & Son the copper works began doing business January 3, 1801. Previous to that time Colonel Revere had a bell and cannon foundry in Boston. This later was moved to Canton and bells and brass cannon were cast in several sizes and all kinds of composition work was carried on. Bolts, spikes, nails and other things were fashioned from mal- leable copper and cold-rolled.
After the death of Colonel Revere in 1818, the business was car- ried on by his surviving son, Joseph Warren Revere, until 1828. In that year the Revere Copper Company was incorporated by Joseph Warren Revere, James Davis, Fred W. Lincoln and James Davis, Jr.
About that time there were in Canton eight furnaces for the manu- facture of copper and the output was 1,500,000 pounds, the estimated value being $400,000. Forty hands were employed.
A petition was sent to Congress by the Messrs. Revere in 1808, praying for a duty of seventeen and one-half per cent on copper in sheets, and for the free importation of old copper. The firm alleged that it was able to supply the entire United States with sheet copper and did not wish foreign competition. The prayer was not granted. There was no duty put upon copper plates until 1842.
Paul Revere engraved the copper plates, made the press and printed the bills of the paper money ordered by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, in session at Watertown. He also made copper plates for political caricatures and of the "Boston Massacre."
First Paper Mill Built in New England-Two hundred years ago the General Court of Massachusetts passed an act to stimulate the manu- facture of paper in New England and, encouraged by this act, the first paper mill was built near the present Milton Lower Falls. A patent was granted September 13, to Daniel Henchman, Gillam Phillips, Ben- jamin Faneuil, Thomas Hancock and Henry Dering, for the sole manufacture of paper for ten years, under certain conditions.
Daniel Henchman was the leading Boston bookseller of the day. He is called by Thomas "the most eminent and enterprising bookseller that appeared in Boston, or indeed in all British America, before 1775."
Benjamin Faneuil was the father of Peter Faneuil, the enterprising Boston merchant who gave Faneuil Hall and the market to the town of Boston. Gillam Phillips was the brother-in-law of Peter Faneuil.
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Thomas Hancock had served his time with Henchman and incidentally had married Henchman's daughter. The company had close family relationship but history does not record any great business success. Possibly this was on account of the conditions attached to the patent.
The company was required in the first fifteen months to make one hundred and forty reams of brown paper and sixty reams of printing paper; the second year to make fifty reams of writing paper, in addition to the first mentioned quantity. The third year and after- wards yearly, to make twenty-five reams of a superior quality of writing paper, in addition to the former mentioned, that the total an- nual produce of the various qualities not to be less than five hundred reams a year.
The proprietors, after erecting their mill on a site adjoining the Neponset River, near the lower bridge in Milton, carried on with the assistance of Henry Woodman, an Englishman well skilled in paper making. The business was carried on intermittently, the original proprietors being succeeded by Jeremiah Smith and James Boies, who secured a paper maker from a Boston regiment of the British Army. This Englishman's name was Hazelton. He secured a furlough long enough to set the mill in order and operation, in 1760. Hazelton was allowed to advise Boies and was of considerable assistance to him, until the regiment to which Hazelton was attached was ordered to Quebec. Hazelton was wounded on the plains of Abraham and died a few weeks later.
Next time the mill was set to work by Richard Clarke, an English- man who arrived from New York, made his own moulds and was later joined by his son.
This may have been the first paper mill in America, unless one of the early mills in Philadelphia was first in the business. At all events it was the first in New England.
The growth of colonial manufactures was not regarded with favor by the English government, but the colonies, from the nature of the charters under which they were established, were always more or less independent of the commercial restriction imposed by Great Britain. The increasing export trade of the American provinces was viewed with any- thing but satisfaction by the home government. Complaints were made to the Board of Trade and Plantations of the House of Commons that, "in Massachusetts an act was made to encourage the manufacture of paper, which law interferes with the profit made by the British mer- chants on foreign paper sent thither." Paper, made in Milton, was one of the articles which was produced here of a quality superior to that sent here from abroad and that was another thing which rankled in the English breast.
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During the early days of its establishment, the Milton mill had made paper to the amount of two hundred pounds sterling. The chief dif- ficulty encountered was the lack of paper stock. People were admonished to save their rags. The following announcement appeared in the Boston "News-Letter" in 1769: "The bell cart will go through the town before the end of next month to collect rags for the paper mill at Milton, when all people that will encourage the paper manu- factory may dispose of them."
In 1789, when General George Washington visited Boston and vicinity and some of the manufacturing establishments, there were six paper mills on the Neponset River, instead of a single one at Mil- ton. Most paper mills had two vats and employed about twenty hands, half of the number being boys and girls.
Part of a Bible Not Inspired-Those who profess to believe "every- thing in the Bible" should examine the title page of the first American Bible which appeared about 1749 with the imprint "London, Printed by Mark Baskett, Printer to the King's most excellent Majesty." It was a very close imitation of the English authorized edition but was printed by Kneeland and Green, in quarto. The "lie on the face of it" was to avoid the consequences of violating English statutory regula- tions.
This Bible with the false imprint was printed for Daniel Henchman, "Cornhill, corner of King Street," notable book seller who headed the company which received the patent from the General Court of Mas- sachusetts in 1728 for the sole manufacture of paper for ten years, the company which built the first paper mill in New England, at Milton.
It is said that five or six hundred copies of this Bible were printed. Bancroft in his history doubts the existence of such an edition.
Century and More of Straw Bonnets-In several of the Norfolk County towns the manufacture of straw bonnets was an important in- dustry one hundred years ago. Betsey Metcalf of Providence, Rhode Island, came into possession of an imported Dunstable bonnet and imitated it, cutting the straw by means of scissors. She was twelve years of age at the time and showed great skill. For a time she had a monopoly of the business but instructed others in bonnet making, and soon a large number of women and children engaged in the work in Foxborough and Wrentham.
In the latter town Amariah Hall kept a store in which the bonnets were displayed for sale. They were brought in by those who made them and exchanged for groceries and drygoods. It is said that the first straw bonnet was made in Foxborough by Eunice Everett. It soon became the leading industry of that town. Metcalf Everett
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first made straw goods for the New York market. £ Straw braid and bonnets were received at most stores in or near the towns where straw braid was made or sewed in lieu of cash. The records of at least one organization show that the regular dues could be paid in money or braided straw at the market price.
In recent years the Union Straw Works at Foxborough was the largest straw shop in the world. Its manufacture had changed many years before from straw bonnets to straw hats of the finest quality, made by artisans of generations of skillful training.
Early President's Prophecy Fulfilled-John Adams expressed his belief that the vicinity of Quincy, that part of Norfolk County which borders on the ocean, would some day be the scene of a great develop- ment of maritime industry. This prophecy has been astonishingly ful- filled in recent years. Shipbuilding and the fisheries were from early times important.
The Weymouth Fore River was the scene as early as 1696 of the building of ships. Some of the most famous clippers, in later days, were launched into those waters to outsail the proud merchantmen of England, then the boasted mistress of the seas.
In a recent day when words led to warships and the United States took her place in the World War, gray dreadnaughts and watchdogs of the seas were launched at Fore River with marvelous rapidity to take their part in bringing to a close the inexcusable economic crime of world murder and its boastful purpose to "stagger humanity."
It was in pursuit of the wily cod fish instead of the deadly sub- marine, that shipbuilding was given its first incentive in Quincy and Braintree and wherever Norfolk County touches upon tide water. At the close of the Revolutionary War the fishing industry became con- centrated at Germantown and fish flakes were numerous, almost con- tinuous, along the shore. It was at Germantown and Quincy Point that shipbuilding was developed decidedly, although the industry had first been carried on energetically at Quincy Neck, near the present Fore River Plant. The "Massachusetts" was built at Germantown in 1789, the largest merchant vessel built at that time in the United States. She sailed to Canton, China, in March, 1790, and was there sold to the Danish East India Company for $65,000.
Ninteen clipper ships were built at the Point by Deacon George Thomas who began shipbuilding in that location in 1854. Most of them won fame for speed in the trade with China and voyages to Cali- fornia. There are authentic records of one brig and six schooners which he constructed, including the "Red Cloud," which he built after he was eighty years of age. It was the last wooden vessel of considerable size built in Quincy.
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Gigantic Fore River Plant-A little shop; established in 1883 by Thomas A. Watson, who had worked with Alexander Bell in perfecting the Bell Telephone, gave rise to the present Fore River shipyard. Mr. Watson became associated with F. O. Wellington in the construction of marine engines on a commercial basis in the little shop owned by Mr. Watson. The firm name was changed from F. O. Wellington & Com- pany to the Fore River Engine Company and, in 1896, the firm began the construction of hulls as well as engines. Among high grade vessels built at the yard were the "Sally," "Rajah," "Corona," "Swallow," "Savitar," "City of Quincy" and others. Naval construction began when the country was rallying to the cry "Remember the Maine." Congress authorized the construction of sixteen torpedo-boat destroyers, and on September 29, 1898, construction contracts were awarded for building the "Law- rence" and "MacDonough."
December 14, 1899, brought a contract to build the protected cruiser, U. S. S. "Des Moines." This necessitated additional area and equip- ment and the new site was purchased two miles down the river on the Quincy shore. With the expansion, the company was able to bid on the construction of two battleships, "Rhode Island" and "New Jersey," authorized by Congress March 3, 1899. This contract was signed after the company had changed to a corporation under the name of Fore River Ship and Engine Company, February 15, 1901.
That same year the "Thomas W. Lawson," a seven-masted schooner, was constructed at the yard, in addition to the government work and it was a very busy place. The corporation also engaged in ship re- pairing on a large scale. The U. S. S. "Vermont" and various vessels for steam and sailing were constructed.
The Fore River Ship Building Company purchased the business September 7, 1904. In 1910 a contract for building the "Rivadavia" for the Argentine Republic was carried out at the plant and another contract from the same government for the "Moreno," another battle- ship, was sublet to the New York Ship Building Corporation of Cam- den, New Jersey.
The Bethlehem Steel Corporation purchased the works in 1913 and reorganized as the Fore River Shipbuilding Corporation, but in 1917 the plant became known as the Fore River Plant of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation.
Large contracts for torpedo-boat destroyers were awarded to the company when the United States entered the World War, and the Fore River Plant was the only one to deliver torpedo-boat destroyers to the Navy Department, for which contracts were placed at this time, dur- ing the actual war period.
The scout cruisers "Detroit" and "Raleigh" were built at the plant
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for the United States Government. The giant airplane carrier "Lexing- ton" was constructed there, giving some idea of the magnitude of the plant and its possibilities. Four hundred vessels of all types, about 266,184 tons of naval construction, and 757,578 tons of merchantmen, yachts and such craft had been constructed at the Quincy plant before the delivery of the "Lexington." The plant has also turned out an immense amount of engine and machine work, boiler and tank con- struction, galvanizing, brass casting, wood finish, locomotive recon- ditioning, etc.
A subsidiary of the Fore River Plant is the Simpson Dry Dock Plant at East Boston. The first dry dock was built in 1853 and in the days of the Civil War the repairs and reconditioning of naval vessels was per- formed there, as well as repair work on the merchant marine. An immense business is carried on at the Simpson plant, and it is doubtful if there is a repair plant on the Atlantic coast better fitted to handle the complicated business of ship repairs. Seventeen vessels have been undergoing repairs at the plant at the same time.
Victory Plant at Squantum-When the World War became a con- dition and not a theory with the United States, a Victory Plant was con- structed on the Squantum shore near where Captain Myles Standish was shown about by Squanto, the first Englishman to employ an Indian guide in America. The plant cost approximately $14,000,000 and extended over forty acres. The buildings were constructed for sur- passing efficiency and to cope with any condition which the require- ments of war might demand. To build and repair vessels was the principal intention, but the plant was ready for any sort of construction of war material when the armistice happily put an end to its antici- pated use.
At the close of the Civil War, Quincy, now the only city in Norfolk County, had a population of 6,700 people who were engaged in twenty- two separate industries, aside from that of stone quarrying at ten plants and employment on sixty-six farms. Previous to that time Quincy had engaged in shoemaking. In 1865 there were six establish- ments engaged in tanning and currying leather. The value of the stock used was $11,400 and the value of the finished product $76,400. The value of the boots and shoes manufactured in 1855 was $309,500 and the number of shoemakers employed five hundred and seventy-one. The large southern trade was destroyed by the Civil War and, so far as Quincy was concerned, shoemaking was not revived as a permanent growing industry. In 1865, however, boots and shoes manufactured were valued at $467,665. There are no shoe factories in the city at present.
One of the large industries is that of the Tubular Rivet and Stud
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Company which was established in 1885 and has ten buildings in its plant, covering several acres.
The Boston Gear Works is the largest factory in the country making standardized gears, with more than twenty service stations.
The building of yachts and speed boats has for many years been an important industry in Quincy, the yards of George Lawley, the famous yacht builder, being among them. Yachting in Massachusetts Bay has always been a favorite sport, challenging the good sportsmanship and skillful yachtsmanship of its devotees.
Departure of "Lexington," Plane Carrier-The last word in naval con- struction, U. S. S. "Lexington," monster airplane carrier, stood out to sea for the first time Sunday afternoon, February 19, 1928, on the way to her station on the Pacific coast. She was built at the Fore River Ship- yard at an outlay of $50,000,000, and had 78,700 in aircraft-carrier ton- nage.
The "Lexington" is 880 feet long and 105 feet beam, with a draft of thirty-one feet and a displacement of 33,000 tons. Her main batteries are of eight-inch guns in four turrets. She is able to steam twelve and a half knots faster than a battleship. Six hundred feet of her hull is protected by a ten-inch belt of armor.
She has a capacity of seventy planes and can cross the Atlantic in four days, making a speed of forty knots an hour. On board, as she slowly made her way down the channel, past Castle Island, Quaran- tine, Deer Island and then into Broad Sound, was an electric power plant capable of developing 180,000 horsepower. Naval experts de- clare that this is sufficient current to light the entire city of Boston.
The "Lexington" was commanded by Captain A. W. Marshall who had carefully watched progress on the immense ship during construc- tion at the Fore River yard, as completion neared. All of the officers were picked men and the normal complement of two thousand men felt proud to be on her decks. Rear Admiral Philip Andrews, commandant of the Boston Navy Yard, was on hand to pay his respects to Captain Marshall and wish the ship a pleasant voyage.
From the Fore River Yards, in which the "Lexington" was con- structed, she was taken to the dry docks at South Boston and thoroughly overhauled before pulling away from the slip and steaming for Cape Cod and Newport, Rhode Island. After a few days there she left for Hampton Roads, then for Pensacola, to load planes and take on her complement of aviators, for the voyage to San Pedro, California.
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