USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Milton > The history of Milton, Mass., 1640 to 1877 > Part 37
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The powder-mill was erected on the Milton side, where the. grist-mill now stands, and the watch-house was on the Dor- chester side, just below the bridge. This was the first powder- mill in the country.
The company placed Walter Everden in charge of the powder- mill, in which business he continued for nearly fifty years.
Meanwhile much of the property had changed hands. Ever- den had purchased one share after another, until, in 1722, Everden and Israel Howe were the sole owners. About this time the partnership was dissolved. In the settlement then made Walter Everden took all the property in Dorchester, and Israel Howe took all the Milton portion. In 1724 Walter Everden sold to his son Benjamin the Dorchester property and retired from business. He died in 1725.
In the year 1744 the original powder-mill in Milton blew up, destroying the building, and scattering the mutilated remains of the workmen in charge over the hill near by.
Israel Howe, the owner of the powder-mill, died in 1736, leaving as his only heirs his widow Judith and two daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah. Sarah died early. His widow married Mr. Jenkins. Elizabeth married Nathaniel Gilman, of Halifax, and died childless.
One half of the mill estate fell to Mr. Gilman, the husband of Elizabeth, and was set off on execution, in 1752, to Ebenezer Storer.
The other half, from the estate of Elizabeth, went to her mother, Judith Jenkins, and was sold by her guardian, Joseph Howe, to Edward Wentworth and Henry Stone. Ebenezer Storer sold his half in 1765 to James Boies who sold the same to Edward Wentworth. Wentworth and Stone erected a saw and chocolate mill on the site of the original powder-mill, which had remained unimproved from the time the mill was destroyed,
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and commenced work March 8, 1765. In 1766 Henry Stone sold his share to Edward Wentworth, making him the sole owner. July 11, 1768, Edward Wentworth conveyed the property to Barlow Trecothic.
Mr. Daniel Vose leased the mill until the death of Trecothic, and in 1792 bought the property of his trustees. Mr. Vose died in 1807. In the division of his estate the mill went to his son, Daniel T. Vose, and to his granddaughter, Clarissa, the wife of Dr. Henry Gardner ; and upon the death of Daniel T. Vose, in 1837, Mrs. Gardner came into possession of the whole property.
In 1817 the mill was leased to Mr. Francis Brinley, who con- verted it into an establishment for grinding and pulverizing drugs, medicines, and dyestuffs. He also put in a saw for veneers, and here were sawed the first veneers ever manufactured in America except by hand-power. August 1, 1827, the works were consumed by fire, but immediately rebuilt. The mill continued to be used for grinding drugs until sold by Mrs. Gardner, March 8, 1850, to the Dorchester Cotton and Iron Company. They removed the old red mill, and erected a chocolate and grist mill. Webb and Twombly took possession of the chocolate-mill in October, 1850, and purchased the same in May, 1855, where they carried on the chocolate manufacture. Mr. Twombly sold his interest to Mr. Webb in 1861. Mr. Webb sold to Henry L. Pierce, July 1, 1881, and retired from business.
Mr. Pierce enlarged and greatly improved a portion of the mill, and in 1884 removed the remaining part, erecting in its place the imposing brick structure now occupying, in part, the site of the old powder-mill of 1675.
THE FIRST PAPER-MILL.
In the month of January, 1728, a company was formed for the purpose of carrying on the business of paper-making.
The General Court was petitioned to grant the company the exclusive right to this manufacture in the Province for a term of fifteen years, as will appear in the accompanying transcript from the Court Records : -
AN ACT FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF PAPER-MAKING.
Whereas the making of paper within this Province will be of public ben- efit and service, but inasmuch as the erecting of Mills for that purpose, and providing workmen and materials for the effecting that undertaking will necessarily demand a considerable disburse of money for some time, before
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any profit or gain can arise therefrom, and whereas Daniel Henchman Gil- lum Phillips, Benjamin Faneuil and Thomas Hancock together with Henry Deering are willing and desirous to undertake the manufacture of paper wherefore for the promoting so beneficial a desire : -
Be it enacted by his Excellency the Governor Council and Representa- tives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same : -
Section 1. - That the sole privilege and benefit of making paper within this Province shall be to the said Daniel Henchman, Gillum Phillips Benja- min Faneuil Thomas Hancock and Henry Deering and to their associates, for and during the term of ten years, from and after the tenth day of Decem- ber next insueing, &c.
This act was passed Sept. 13, 1728, with several provisos.
In the year 1706 the Rev. Joseph Belcher, minister of Ded- ham, who inherited from his grandfather, John Gill, a tract of land below the bridge on the Milton side of the river, with mill privileges, obtained permission from the selectmen of Milton to dig under and around the bridge, in order to convey the water to a mill he was about to erect. The mill, thus built twenty years before for other purposes, was leased by the Paper Com- pany, and fitted up for their business. This is believed to have been the first paper-mill in the country. They built a house for their workmen on nearly the same site of the house owned and occupied by the late Dr. Ware, leaving the upper story open to the free access of the air for drying the paper, which was sus- pended on poles adjusted for the purpose. This house was removed and the present house was built by Mr. Sanderson about 1820.
The paper-works were carried on for many years, when the company, finding no little difficulty in securing skilful workmen, employed Jeremiah Smith, of Boston, to take charge of the busi- ness. Mr. Smith, though not a paper-maker, entered upon the work with great energy and tact, and was soon master of the business. He bought out the company, one after another, until, in time, he became sole owner of the concern. In 1741 he purchased of the Belcher heirs the mill and seven acres of land lying on the river, "bounded north and east by the river, south by the public landing-place, and west by the highway."
In 1760 James Boies, son-in-law of Mr. Smith, secured for the paper-mill the services of Richard Clark, an English paper- maker from Newcastle, and a thorough and skilful workman, who conducted the business with much ability for five years, when, in company with James Boies, he started the same busi- ness in a new mill at Mattapan.
In 1769 Mr. Smith sold half the mill to his son-in-law, Daniel Vose. They carried on the works in company until
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1775, when Mr. Vose purchased the other half, and Mr. Smith retired.
In 1772 Dr. James Baker hired a part of the mill, fitted it up with a run of stones and set of kettles, and commenced the manufacture of chocolate. This was continued by Dr. Baker and his son, Edmund Baker, until 1804, when their business was removed to the mill built by Wentworth & Stone, in 1765, on the site of the first powder-mill.
Mr. Vose continued the paper business until near the close of the century, and then retired from active business life. He died Dec. 7, 1807.
John Sullivan and Joseph Bodge occupied the paper-mill till 1800.
In April, 1801, Isaac Sanderson, of Watertown, leased the property, and in 1810 purchased it of Daniel T. Vose and Elizabeth, wife of Edmund Baker, heirs of Daniel Vose.
In 1803 Mr. Sanderson manufactured for the Boston Custom- House the first folio-post and quarto letter-paper ever made in New England. In 1817 he built a new paper-mill just below the old one, and put in a wrought-iron tub-wheel, which was the first iron water-wheel used in this section. Mr. Sanderson continued in the business till 1834, when the mill was leased to Joshua Ayers. In 1839 it was sold to Dr. Jonathan Ware, and for a time was used as a saw-mill by T. T. Wadsworth and E. B. Scott. Dr. Ware soon tore down the old mill erected by Belcher in 1708, and on its site built a new one with two reaction wheels ; this was finished for a grist-mill and chocolate- mill.
In 1843 Josiah Webb and Josiah F. Twombly took possession of the chocolate-mill, and remained there until 1850, when they removed to the mill afterwards purchased by them on the oppo- site side of Adams street.
THE FIRST CHOCOLATE-MILL.
In the fall of the year of 1764 a wayfarer was encountered at the Lower Mills, who seemed to be in distress, and to require the attention and sympathy of those disposed to help the suffering. He claimed that he was John Hannan, from Ireland, a chocolate- maker by trade ; that he came to this country with the hope of improving his condition, but had utterly failed in all efforts to interest any one in his business ; that he was a stranger in a strange land, penniless and friendless, and exhausted by hunger and fatigue.
Mr. James Boies, of Milton, carefully investigated the case,
The MILTON CHOCOLATEMILLS
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and became convinced of the sincerity and capacity of the man. He interceded in his behalf, and induced Wentworth & Stone, who were at that time erecting a new mill in Milton on the site of the old powder-mill, to make provision in their mill for the manufacture of chocolate. This was done, and on the spot where the spacious and commodious chocolate building of Henry L. Pierce now stands, John Hannan, in the spring of 1765, manu- factured the first chocolate made in the British provinces of North America.
This early introduction has been followed by its continued and increased manufacture in Milton and Dorchester, at various points and by different individuals, down to the present time. The whole business seems now to be centred in Dorchester and Milton villages, and to be conducted by a single proprietor.
In the year 1885 the mill formerly of Webb & Twombly, built by the Dorchester Cotton & Iron Company in 1850 on the site of the old powder-mill, was removed, and the present structure of brick was erected.
In this spacious building, on the Milton side of the river, in the large brick mill on the Dorchester section of the powder- mill estate, and in the Walter Baker stone mill, the manufacture of chocolate is carried on in a way to promote the best interests of the many laborers in the mills, and to secure to the people this wholesome and delicious article as pure and as good as skilful labor and painstaking can make it.
It is a curious fact that on the very spot where the industry was started by John Hannan in 1765, and taken up by Dr. James Baker in 1772, the business has attained its highest development.
From the small beginning by Dr. Baker there has grown up one of the greatest establishments in the world, - the house of Walter Baker & Co., - an establishment which competes successfully for prizes in all the great industrial exhibitions of the world, whose influence is felt in the great commercial centres, and whose prosperity promotes the welfare of men who labor under a tropical sun in the cultivation of one of the choicest fruits of the earth.
THE FIRST SLITTING-MILL.
David Colsen, of Boston, a fell-monger, bought of Jonathan Badcock, of Lebanon, Conn., Sept. 15, 1709, a tract of one hundred and twenty-seven acres of land, situated in Milton, on the Neponset river, " bounded north by that river, and westerly by land sold by said Badcock to Manasseh Tucker that joins upon the grist-mill that stands upon the Neponset," and at the
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HISTORY OF MILTON.
same time about six acres in Dorchester, on the north side of the river, lying opposite the Milton purchase, with the right to dam the river and use the water in his business of dressing skins.
The first dam was erected and the trench dug to conduct the water by the rapids to his place of business. Not long after, Ezra Clapp, of Milton, by an arrangement with the owners, erected a corn-mill " between the Neponset river and the road leading to Brush Hill," on this same mill-privilege; securing also from the town of Milton the right to utilize the water of the Neponset. This right was granted by the town at the town- meeting, March 21, 1715, "for the corn-mill erected by Ezra Clapp, about two years past at the request of some of the in- habitants of the town." David Colsen sold all his interest to Jonathan Jackson, of Boston, a brazier by trade.
In March, 1710, Mr. Jackson erected a slitting-mill on the premises and commenced the business of slitting iron, which was the first mill of the kind in the province. After a few years it was consumed by fire, and Mr. Jackson relinquished the enterprise. He died in 1736.
The property on the Dorchester side was sold by the widow of Jackson and Edward, his son, in 1750, to John Robinson ; from him it passed successively into the possession of Samuel Payson, Andrew Gillispie, Jonathan Payson, and Jonathan Davis, and in 1778 became the property of James Boies and Hugh McLean. When Boies & McLean made partition of their business, in 1790, this fell to McLean. Mr. McLean died in 1799, and his widow, Agnes, sold it in 1809 to Edmund Tiles- ton and Mark Hollingsworth.
The property on the Milton side continued in the Jackson family for twenty-eight years, when it was sold by Daniel Marsh, Samuel Sewall, and Thomas Cushing, the executors of Edward Jackson, son of Jonathan, to James Boies, March 9, 1764, together with a piece of land situated as follows :-
On the west side of the highway, adjoining the river, with a nailers shop and a house thereon, also one-half the dam west of the road, and all the rights which said Jackson had in the stream.
James Boies built a paper-mill on the mill-site thus purchased, and conveyed to Richard Clark, June 29, 1765, -
One half the mill, one acre & six rods of land adjacent thereto, and one- half of the stream ; also the northerly half of the dwelling house in which he lived und six acres of pasture land bounded northerly on the ditch.
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FIRST THINGS.
In the mill thus erected Boies & Clark commenced the manufacture of paper.
In 1769 Mr. Boies repaired the old Jackson Slitting-Mill, or erected a new one on the site of the Jackson mill, and also built a chocolate-mill.
Nov 12. 1770 The old slitting mill is now in good repair, at which place good nail rods may be bought at 30s. per hundred ; cash given for old iron at the slitting mills, Milton. - News Letter.
Two years later Mr. Boies built a second paper-mill, and, July 4, 1771, conveyed one-half of the paper and chocolate mills on the south side of the trench, with six and a half acres of land, to Hugh McLean.
Mr. Clark died in 1777 ; his son George sold his father's half of the mill to Hugh McLean.
Thus James Boies and Hugh McLean became equal owners in the two mills. When the partnership was dissolved and the property divided, in 1790, McLean took the mill on the north side of the trench, and Boies that on the south side.
Jeremiah Smith Boies, the son of James, occupied the mill on the south side of the trench until the death of his father, in 1796, and then by will became owner of the same. After a few years he leased it to Amasa Fuller. Fuller and George Bird carried on the business in company till 1803, when Capt. Henry Cox took the place of Bird. Fuller & Cox continued the manufacture of paper till 1807 ; then Mr. Cox left, and Fuller was alone till 1825. Richardson Fuller, son of Amasa, Benjamin F. Crehore, and Jarvis Fenno succeeded the elder Fuller. Two of this firm died within three years of commencing business, and, Oct. 17, 1828, the executors of Amasa Fuller sold the mill and property to Edmund Tileston and Mark Hollingsworth.
McLean carried on the business in the mills on the north side of the trench until his death, in 1799. Capt. Cox hired the mill, and purchased the stock of the widow of McLean, and continued there three years, when he left to engage with Amasa Fuller in the mills on the south side. George Bird succeeded Cox in the McLean Mills, where he remained till the spring of 1805. After Mr. Bird retired, Ebenezer Steadman and Joseph Randall took the mill for two years, when Steadman sold to John Savels. Randall and Savels carried on the business for about a year, and vacated the premises in consequence of its sale by Agnes McLean to Edmund Tileston and Mark Hollings- worth.
Tileston and Hollingsworth thus came into possession of
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HISTORY OF MILTON.
both mills, which they proceeded to enlarge and remodel for the prosecution of this work on a larger scale. These mills are still occupied in the same industry, and are conducted by the same firm so favorably known in the paper business for the long period of eighty-five years ; but instead of the fathers are the children and children's children.
PROGRESS.
A glance at some of the difficulties that attended the manu- facture of paper in its crude beginnings and in the days of our fathers, compared with the immense production of our day, and the improved methods, skilled labor, and abundant facilities that now surround this branch of industry, will show very clearly the wonderful progress made in these intervening years.
I copy the following quaint advertisement from the Boston " News Letter " of March 23, 1769 : -
Advertisement. The Bell Cart will go through Boston before the end of next month, to collect Rags for the Paper Mills at Milton, when all peo- ple that will encourage the Paper Manufacture may dispose of them. They are taken in at Mr Caleb Davis' Shop at the Fortification. Mr An- drew Gillespie's near Dr Clark's : Mr Andras Randal's near Phillips' Wharf: and Mr John Boris's in Long Lane: Mr Frothingham's in Charlestown, Mr Edson's in Salem, Mr John Harris in Newbury, Mr Daniel Fowle's in Portsmouth, and the Paper Mill at Milton.
" Rags are beauties which concealed lie ; But when in paper how it charms the eye ! Pray save your rags new beauties to discover, For of paper truly every one's a lover. By Pen and Press such knowledge is displayed As wouldn't exist if Paper was not made ; Wisdom of things mysterious, divine, Illustriously doth on Paper shine."
The above method of gathering and furnishing stock for the paper-mill of James Boies in 1769 would hardly meet the de- mands of the Milton mills of Tileston & Hollingsworth in 1886.
SCARCITY OF PAPER-MAKERS.
Our early manufacturers were largely dependent on English artisans for skilled work in certain lines of production, as but few in this country had been trained to the work required. This was especially true in the manufacture of paper. Not unfre- quently the early mills were forced to stop work from want of paper-makers. Illustrative of this, a petition found in the Pub- lic Archives, Lib. 180, Fol. 18, is here presented : -
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To the Honorable the Congress of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay asembled at Watertown, the petition of James Boise and Hugh Mc- Lean of Milton humbly sheweth.
That your petitioners carry on the business of manufacturing paper at Milton, which has been deemed of great utility to the Public, that John Slater, James Calder, William Durant and William Pierce now inlisted in the Provincial Service were all of them apprentices of ye petitioners, and have attained to so great a knowledge in the art of paper making that their attendance in the business is absolutely necessary to its being carried on. That they have done the principle part of the work and labor at your peti- tioners Mills, for two years past; and unless they are released from the service they are now in, tis impossible for your petitioners to continue this so useful and necessary branch of American Industry.
Wherfore your petitioners pray that the said John Slater, James Calder, William Durant and William Pierce, may be, by order of this Honorable Congress, dismissed as soon as may be, from the service of the Provincial Army. And ye petitioners as in duty bound shall ever pray. May 15, 1775
JAMES BOIES HUGH MCLEAN
IN PROVINCIAL CONGRESS, May 16, 1775.
Resolved-that the prayer of the within petition - Be so far granted, that considering the small number of persons within the Colony who carry on the manufactory of paper, and the great Demand and Necessity of that ar- ticle for the use of said Colony, that the petitioners be desired to apply to General Thomas, that he may order the within named four soldiers to serve the public in carrying on the manufactory of paper at the said petitioners paper works at Milton.
THE FIRST VIOLONCELLO.
In the year 1798 Mr. Benjamin Crehore, who was born in Milton, and always lived here, whose place of business was at the village, opposite the paint-shop of Mr. Chapman, was engaged by the proprietors of Federal-street theatre to assist in getting up the machinery and appliances of the stage for the play of the "Forty Thieves," about to be introduced.
The inventiveness and skill manifested in the nice adjustment and execution of the work intrusted to him were greatly admired by the managers, and brought his services into frequent demand. Peter von Hagen, the leader of the orchestra, applied to him to repair a broken bass-viol, greatly needed in the band, but laid aside as useless, no one being found to mend it. Mr. Crehore, though unused to the work, undertook the job, and the instrument came from his ingenious hands as good as new, and, in the judgment of the musicians, improved in tone.
This resulted in his commencing the manufacture of bass- viols, which were the first made in this country, and were said to rival those imported. One of these instruments is now in
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the possession of Mr. John Preston, of Hyde Park, Mass., and doubtless many are still in existence.
In the early part of the present century Dea. Nathan C. Martin, for many years postmaster of Milton, a good singer and musician, was on a visit at Thomastown, Me. Being there on the Sabbath, he was invited to take a seat with the choir. Before the service he was trying the big bass-viol, and remarked that the tone was excellent. "Yes," replied the man who played the instrument, "we value it very highly, both on account of its fine tone and of its great antiquity." - " Ah," says Deacon Martin, " an old instrument, is it?" -" Yes," said the player, "a very old instrument; we do not know exactly how old, but it is something more than two hundred years old." This led the deacon, always on the alert for antiquities, to look it over carefully, when, on gazing through the opening in the front, he read on a paper pasted within : -
BEN. CREHORE, MAKER, MILTON.
THE FIRST PIANO-FORTE.
Mr. Crehore's reputation in the musical world, arising from the successful treatment of the bass-viol, caused all sorts of disabled musical instruments to flow into his Milton shop for repairs. Among these was a piano-forte. With his usual patience and dexterity he attacked the instrument, analyzed its parts, mastered its mechanism and movements, and entered upon its manufacture.
The first piano-forte made in this country was manufactured by Benjamin Crehore, in his Milton shop, A.D. 1800.
From this small beginning sprang one of the largest and most successful piano manufactories now doing business in America.
Lewis Babcock, a Milton boy, was with Mr. Crehore as an apprentice. William and Adam Bent were also in his employ. They continued the business in Milton for a few years, when the genius of Crehore aspired after some new enterprise.
In 1811 Lewis Babcock started the manufacture of pianos on Washington street, Boston, in connection with William Bent. Bent left Boston and went to Philadelphia. Babcock then took in Thomas Appleton, and his younger brother, Alpheus Bab- cock, under the style of Babcock, Appleton, & Babcock. In the spring of 1812 Appleton & Babcock, of Boston, hired two
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large rooms in the house now owned and occupied by Lemuel W. Babcock, on Canton avenue, Milton, for the purpose of using them as a workshop for making pianos. Before this they had occupied rooms near or over the Marlborough House, but as the building was to be repaired or taken down, and no place being found in Boston, they came to Milton while a building was being erected for them on Milk street, near the corner of Washington. The pianos made in Milton were taken to Boston to receive finishing and tuning, and were kept there on sale. The work of finishing and tuning was done by Alpheus Babcock.
In Jan., 1814, Lewis Babcock died, at the house of his father in Milton, at the age of thirty-eight years.
The whole business was then removed to Boston, when Charles and Edna Hayt were taken into the firm. In 1817 the company failed, and Alpheus Babcock went to Philadelphia.
Capt. John Mackey, of Weston, Mass., a master mariner, on a return voyage from Marseilles, was induced to bring to this country a Frenchman, who had been a piano-manufacturer ; and, becoming deeply interested in the man for his benefit he took up the suspended business at the old stand on Milk street, employing Joshua Stephens as foreman, who had been in the employ of Hayt, Babcock, & Appleton.
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