USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1800 to the year 1876 > Part 48
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George W. Campbell, the youngest son of Capt. David Camp- bell, was born at Pittsfield in 1807, and graduated at Union College in 1825. He was president of the Agricultural Bank from 1853 to 1861, and represented the town in the legislature of 1839.
The managers of the mill were all unusually competent, and had great advantage in point of experience over those who, eleven years before, had undertaken the control of the Pittsfield mill. Mr. Shaw had business-talents at once keen and comprehensive, and had been called by his position in congress, to make a thor- ough study of the subject of manufactures ; the Messrs. Camp- bell had enjoyed and made use of an opportunity to become famil- iar with the details of the woolen-business in the Pittsfield mill. Mr. Clapp had eleven years' experience added to the admirable qualifications with which he entered upon the superintendence of that mill.1
The site selected for the factory was a beautiful spot on the outlet of Lake Shoonkeekmoonkeek, or Lanesboro pond, which thenceforward took the name of Pontoosuc lake. It was about equi-distant from Mr. Shaw's residence in Lanesboro and the l'ittsfield park; but a mile south of the Pittsfield line. In 1762,
1 In 1823 the Massachusetts Agricultural Society awarded to Messrs. Pom- eroy and Clapp the first premium for satinets exhibited at its fair in Brighton.
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
Joseph Keeler bought of Col. William Williams, to whom they fell in the partition of " the commons," two hundred acres of land at the south end of the lake and extending forty rods down the outlet. This tract was noted for a remarkably fine growth of pines - of which some noble representatives remained very recently-and in 1763, Mr. Keeler built a dam at the foot of the lake, and a saw and grist mill on the site of the present reservoir- dam. A grist-mill occupied the site as late as 1834. In 1825 this property was owned by Capt. Hosea Merrill and was sold by him to the Pontoosuc company.
Below the Keeler water-privilege, was another upon which, about sixty rods south of the reservoir-dam, had stood the comb- plate and spindle-factory of James Strandring. This was owned by Arthur Scholfield, by whom it was sold in 1816 to John Crane, who converted Strandring's little works into a scythe-factory, which he carried on until the property was purchased, in 1825, by the Pontoosuc company.
The two privileges combined furnish a greater water-power than the company has ever used, and which has been made unfailing by the reservoir of 1866. The factory was placed mid- way between the two, on a site which is said to have been occu- pied by a saw-mill in the early days of the town. It is one hundred and forty-five by fifty feet, in ground dimensions, and four stories high, and is built of brick. Work on it was com- menced in 1825; but such was the scarcity of skilled mechanics, and so great the difficulty of procuring the desired machinery promptly, that it was not ready to go into operation until 1827.
It is difficult to realize the change which has taken place in the last fifty years in the facilities for transacting business, especially of a manufacturing character. In 1825, nearly a quarter of a cen- tury had elapsed since Scholfield set up his first carding-machines, and eleven years since the building of the Pomeroy factory, but still it was no simple task to build and furnish a woolen-mill in Pittsfield. There was not a millwright in the region competent to put in such a water-wheel as was required at Pontoosuc. The shafts-not molded and turned like the work of later machine- shops with a precision which permits no waste of power, space or material-were rudely cast in some neighboring furnace and ham- mered into some clumsy approximation to the desired shape, with no further aid from mechanical appliances than could be afforded
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by a trip-hammer, and always with much superfluous metal. This difficulty extended to repairs, but it was remedied so far as the Pontoosuc factory was concerned, by the building of a fur- nace and machine-shop, near the mill, by William Sunderland, who, in 1832, sold them to the company, by whom they were maintained until the establishment of similar works, on a larger scale, in the village, rendered them unnecessary. Most factories, at that time, had machine-shops attached to them, where heavy work was done, and repairs made upon the more delicate ma- chinery.1
But, in addition to this, in 1825, it was necessary to give orders for the more delicate and complicated machinery a much longer time in advance than it now is, and the improvements, which were constantly going on, rendered it indispensable to give close and watchful personal attention to the state of the market, in order to get the best. And, in place of telegraphs and tri-daily mails by railroad to the great centers of business, the stage lum- bered three times a week to Boston and Hartford, and Hudson, with the orders sent by post, or the agent to make special con- tracts, for articles which, when finished, were shipped by water to Hartford, or Bridgeport; or at best, to Hudson; thence to be transported over roads, often of the heaviest, to the factory.
And these disadvantages were quite as sensibly felt after the factories went into operation, especially when in the case of a sudden demand for a special class of goods, or a change in market- prices, it became necessary to send sleighs, sleds, or wagons heav- ily loaded, in all directions, in all sorts of weather, to the nearest point of water-communication, if not the entire distance to the city. Many were the adventures in flood or storm, that the younger members of the earlier Pittsfield manufacturing compa- nies encountered in thus forwarding their goods to market.
But, to return to the building of the Pontoosuc factory : the brick of which it was constructed was made at a yard on the north shore of the lake, which has been submerged by the succes- sive raisings of the water-level. The lumber was furnished chiefly by Captain Hosea and Mr. Phillips Merrill, who still had good logging-ground close at hand. David Campbell, as agent, made the contracts for material and for work, and superintended
IMr. Pomeroy's machine-shop, in connection with his armory, rendered any such attachment to his factory unnecessary.
M. BRADLEY
N
PONTOOSUC WOOLEN MILLS.
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their execution ; but Mr. Clapp selected the machinery and other appliances of manufacture.
The factory went into operation in the spring of 1827, and at the cattle-show and fair of the Agricultural Society in October of that year, the committee on domestic manufactures, Ezekiel R. Colt chairman, "noticed, with pride and pleasure, the growing independence of the country of foreign looms, as shown in the exhibition by the Pontoosuc Woolen Manufacturing Company of broadcloths and cassimeres, not excelled by any cloths imported from Great Britain." There was patriotism still behind the inter- est of the Berkshire public in manufactures.
Although under all the tariffs, cotton and woolen manufactories in the country had increased in numbers, and, it is to be inferred, must have been conducted with some profit to their owners, none of them-not even Mr. Clay's tariff of 1824-was considered by the manufacturers as really protective of their interests,1 and agi- tation for a still more stringent policy continued. In Berkshire, under the lead of Mr. Shaw, public meetings favoring and earn- estly urging this course, were more frequent and determined than before. At one held December 12, 1827, Mr. Shaw presiding, speeches of unusual force and ability were made by Thomas B. Strong, George N. Briggs, and the chairman; and a memorial to congress, drafted by Mr. Shaw and Henry Marsh, was adopted; the meeting at the same time resolving, that the "interests of the grower and manufacturer of wool were alike in a ruinous condi- tion, beyond their means to retrieve, and only within the power of government to redress." The famous " Black Tariff " was enacted in 1828, and was the first regarded by the mass of manufacturers with entire satisfaction. But, Mr. Clay being secretary of state, it lacked, in congress, his judicious supervision. It contained many provisions which did not meet his approval, and some most obnoxious features, introduced by the opponents of the bill with the hope of defeating it;2 and which, although they did not accomplish that object, did create, in some sections of the country, a prejudice against all tariffs, which has never been eradicated. Mr. Shaw and his associates in the Pontoosuc company, coneurred with their great leader in regard to the imperfections of the bill. We copy, from Niles's Register of 1829, an article illustrative of
1 Bishop's History American Manufactures, vol. II, page 324.
2 Colton's Life of Clay, vol. II, page 178.
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this point, and also containing other interesting information con- cerning the mill.
The senior editor has received a present of extra superfine cloth, for a suit, from the Pontoosuc Woolen Manufacturers in Berkshire, Mass., accompanied by a letter, more valued than the cloth ; but written in terms so kind and complimentary as to prevent its publication entire. Some points, however, may interest the public.
" The degree of perfection reached by this manufactory, will be best displayed by the specimen itself. Wear it out of respect for the motives which prompt the gift. * * ' The [American] System ' cannot be arrested ; its march is onward. Trying as are our present embarrassments, the system will survive the misjudged efforts of its friends, and the misjudged opposition of its foes. It needs material modifications. The effective protection to woolens under the present tariff, is less than under the old duty of thirty-three and one-third per cent., with fair invoices. The auctions and the frauds combined inflict upon the revenue, not less than upon the manufacturer, a heavy loss. The remedy appears so obvious, that no fair man can mistake it ;- repress the auctions and abolish the one-dollar minimum. The duty on wools should be modified. We do not, nor shall we, under the present tariff, raise very fine wools. From more than fifty thousand pounds, all that we could select, suitable for the fabric sent you, was less than seventy pounds ; and we believe that the fifty thousand pounds was as fair a lot, taking entire flocks, as could be procured in New England. * We also send you a pattern card, containing specimens of the cloths we make. It will show you the manner in which we send them to market. Sales are made by these samples."
The factory appears to be a most prudently managed concern, em- ploying forty men and sixty girls as operators, and making what is equal to one hundred and fifty yards of broadcloth daily. About ninety thousand pounds of wool will be manufactured the present year. The account concludes thus : " We use American wool, we employ American labor, we desire American patronage. Will a wise govern- inent permit establishments like this to sink under the combined oper- ations of English frauds and New York auctions ?"
Mr. Shaw had reason soon to revise some of the opinions expressed above. Even before the date of his letter, the ex- tremely fine-wooled sheep of Saxony had been introduced into Berkshire, and were bred even upon his own farm. They multi- plied without much respect to tariffs, and within a very few years almost entirely superseded, or were very largely crossed with, the merino. The change from the coarser and more oily fleece
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of the latter breed to that of the Saxony, was almost as great and as beneficial, as that from the native wools to the varieties intro- duced by Livingston and Humphries, and soon after, 1830, wool of as fine quality as was desired was grown abundantly in Berk- shire.
Nor was the lack of protection the sole evil under which the Berkshire and other American woolen-manufacturers labored. There was a lack of perfect skill in their art, which, whatever tariffs might be imposed, required long years to overcome. Of the trouble in obtaining fast colors, we have already spoken; but there was another difficulty which affected the manufacturer, rather than the wearer, of domestic goods. The makers of broad- cloths, especially, were ambitious and determined to make their fabrics as firm and as heavy as the best imported goods ; and, by dint of crowding an unlimited amount of material into the weav- ing, and removing the surplus in the process of dressing, they accomplished their purpose ; but with an enormous waste of stock, that was fatal to the hope of profit. The foreign manufacturers had a nack and mystery in this particular, which their American rivals were long in acquiring."
There was also an unfortunate custom of American manufac- turers which greatly hindered advance in their art. At the pres- ent day it is the general practice for each mill to devote itself to the making of a single class of goods ; sometimes confining its product to one color, in the manufacture of which it becomes per- fect and for which it holds its specific place in the trade. The earlier American manufacturers had not learned the wisdom of this division of labor and concentration of effort. Each little factory set itself to satisfy the varied demands of the universal market; and the advertisements of the first Pittsfield mills read like descriptions of diverse spectra, or an enumeration of the col- ors of the rainbow imparted to every known fabric of wool.
Thus, before the manufacturer had discovered the source of his failure in one class of goods and devised or learned a remedy, he was called to another, in which he encountered new and mysteri- ous troubles ; and so on in an endless circle of tribulations.
Notwithstanding the comparative skill of Mr. Clapp, the Pon- toosuc factory met its full proportion of this class of obstacles ; which were doubtless augmented by its ambition to excel. Its proprietors were, however, shrewd business-men, and quite as
62
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prompt as any of their rivals to detect and reform an erroneous practice ; and they struggled through to the day of ultimate triumph, with as little embarrassment as any; and with some moderate profit from the first.
In 1835, George W. Campbell became general agent in place of his brother, David, who died that year, leaving his estate to his sons, George, David and' Edward, and his daughter Caroline, who afterwards married Hon. Ensign H. Kellogg.
In 1841, George W. Campbell sold his interest in the concern to his partners ; and his nephew, George, became clerk and treas- urer.1
In 1841, Henry Shaw sold a portion of his stock to Socrates Squier of Lanesboro, who then became president of the company. In 1846, he sold the remainder, which was divided among his associates. In 1861, Mr. Squier sold his interest to his associ- ates, and Hon. E. H. Kellogg succeeded him as president. In May, 1862, Col. Thaddeus Clapp transferred a portion of his stock to his son, Thaddeus, Jr., who was made assistant-superin- tendent, and in 1865, became general agent and superintendent.2
In 1865, Colonel Clapp died, leaving his share in the Pontoo- suc property to his widow and children. In 1864, J. Dwight Francis, son of Mr. Almiron D. Francis, having purchased a por- tion of David Campbell's stock, was chosen clerk and treasurer ; and in 1865, assistant-superintendent.
The goods manufactured at the Pontoosuc mill, in the forty- eight years since it went into operation, have often been varied to suit the changeful moods of the market; but, since 1834, not so frequently as to forego the advantages of devotion to a single product. Indeed, many of the fabrics are of a class in regard to which the market is most fickle; and it has been the pride of the company to meet its phases promptly and profitably, without depreciating the quality of its goods.
1George Campbell was born in 1811. Ile represented the town in the legis- lature 1857, and was selectman for several years.
2 Thaddeus Clapp, the younger, was born in 1821, being the eldest son of Colonel Thaddeus and his wife Elizabeth, who was the daughter of James D. Colt, the second of that name in Pittsfield. Familiar with woolen-mills from his infancy, he early acquired an accurate knowledge of all the details of the manufacture, which, together with an unusually correct taste and judgment in styles, and an intimate acquaintance with markets, gave him great success in his position.
1
RESIDENCE OF THADDEUS CLAPP, EsQ.
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
It commenced, in 1827, upon plain broadcloths and cassimeres, making, as has been said, the mistake of attempting to supply every color, from black to crimson, and all grades of quality. This course continued until 1834, when it began the manufacture of drab carriage-cloth, for which it soon obtained a demand that occupied it exclusively, except at occasional brief intervals when black and blue broadcloths were made. This continued until 1860, when, the fashionable rage for the balmoral style of ladies' skirts commencing, the company made them a specialty ; and, not only devoted all the machinery in their mill to this product, but filled several neighboring buildings with hand-looms for the same pur- pose. Mr. Thaddeus Clapp, having collected in Canada some recently-imported patterns, among which were the plaids of several Highland clans, was able to introduce new designs, distinguished for good taste and brilliant colors. And during the patriotic fer- vor of the earlier years of the civil war, a few styles in red, white and blue, added to the reputation of the company for adapting its work to the market.
When the balmoral fashion began to pass away in 1865, the company turned its attention to the production of carriage lap- blankets, of which Mr. Clapp had procured an English specimen as a model. The imitation soon equaled the original in splendor of color and beauty of design ; and in six years one hundred and sixty-two different patterns of carriage-blankets were sent out from the Pontoosuc looms.
The enterprise of the company in adding this great article of luxury and comfort to the list of American manufactures, was well rewarded, and it also led to the introduction of the sleeping- car blanket, now the leading product of the mill, with which it has supplied many leading railroads, as well as the noted Pullman palace-car company.
In addition to the blankets, the present products of the mill are meltons, cassimeres, repellants, and flannels.
The machinery now comprises eleven sets of cards, the same number of jacks and spinning-jennies, and fifty-eight broad looms. The number of employés varies from two hundred and twenty- five to one hundred and twenty-five. In 1865, the mill turned out, besides blankets and some minor products, one hundred and sixty thousand seven hundred skirts. In 1871, the product
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was over sixty thousand skirts, sixty-eight thousand yards of mel- tons and repellants, and seventeen thousand blankets.
There is, perhaps, no more proper place than this, in which to introduce an account of Henry Clay's visit to Pittsfield. Mr. Clay being in Northampton, Sunday evening, November 18th, received a delegation from Berkshire, consisting of Henry Shaw, George N. Briggs and Samuel M. McKay, who invited him to pass through the county, and receive its hospitalities. The next afternoon Mr. Clay, having accepted the invitation, crossed the mountains with his family, and spent the night at Lanesboro, as a guest of his old friend, Mr. Shaw. On Tuesday morning, the county-committee of arrangements waited upon him, and accom- panied him to Pittsfield, "escorted by a cavalcade of fifty well- mounted gentlemen, and several hundred citizens in carriages," although the rain fell in torrents. At the town-hall, the guest was welcomed by Colonel Mckay, in a speech full of encomiums upon his course regarding the protection of American manufac- tures, and upon his political conduct generally.
Mr. Clay replied cordially, and with his usual fascinating grace. He alluded to the then recent compromise-act-upon which Col- onel McKay had specially dwelt, characterizing them "as the olive- branch with the sword "-in words which are described, by those who heard them, as " a fine specimen of his resistless and incom- parable eloquence." " He foresaw," he said, " that his opponents would assail, and some of his friends distrust, him ; but he held that no man had a right to refuse to sacrifice himself to his coun- try. He had not been much alarmed by the threats of civil war. He knew the power-or rather the impotency-of the state which threatened it. Yet something was to be accorded to the danger- ous tendencies of other states; and, although he did not believe, and would not admit, that the insurrection could ever have been successful against the arms of the federal government ; yet the disaffected states themselves, when subdued, would have been left with feelings illy adapted to harmonize with their sister-states of the Union." He concluded by expressing a desire "to proceed without further delay to the more agreeable part of the ceremony of presentation : " the personal greetings.
At two o'clock, Mr. Clay attended a public dinner at the Berk- shire Hotel ; and when Hon. Henry W. Dwight of Stockbridge, with some eloquent remarks, gave the name and services of the
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guest as a toast, its enthusiastic reception called from him some remarks full of feeling, in the course of which, he mentioned that, on one occasion, Colonel Dwight was the only member of congress from Massachusetts, who had stood up in defense of that policy of protection to American manufactures, which had since spread prosperity over the whole country.
After the dinner, Mr. Clay visited the Pontoosuc factory, Lem- uel Pomeroy's musket-factory, and other points of interest in the town. In the evening he attended a party given in his honor, at the hospitable residence of Ezekiel R. Colt, where he was pre- sented to many of the ladies of the county. When he left town, the next day, there were few men or women in it whose friend- ship he had not won. Men of all political parties had joined to do him honor, and only those whose souls were wholly encrusted with political prejudice, could entirely resist the fascination of the great statesman's manner.
BARKERSVILLE AND STEARNSVILLE.
The histories of the factories of J. Barker & Brothers, and of D. & H. Stearns, are so intimately connected that they must be told in connection. The factories of the two firms are all located upon the south-west branch of the Housatonic river; stretching along that stream for about a mile, from a point one mile from its issue from Richmond lake.
In opening their story, we must return again to the eighteenth century. Among the first settlers in Watertown, Mass., between the years 1625 and 1640, were some who wrote their names indif- ferently, Sterne, Sternes, and Stearns. A genealogist of the fam- ily has traced it back to an honorable ancestry in Yorkshire, England. Many of its descendants afterwards emigrated to vari- ous sections of New England. Among these was the father of Daniel Stearns, who was born in Killingly, Conn., in 1764.
In his boyhood, Daniel was apprenticed to Colonel Danielson of Colchester, Conn., from whom he learned the art of cloth-dressing, and of dyeing cloth and yarn. At the close of his apprenticeship, he established himself in business at Brookline, Conn., where he continued until 1795, when he removed to Hinsdale and purchased the water-privileges now occupied by Hinsdale Brothers and the Plunkett Woolen Manufacturing Company. He removed to
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Hinsdale in the fall of 1795, and made preparations to erect buildings for his business; but the winter, proving unusually severe, gave him an unfavorable impression of the locality ; and, having an opportunity, in the spring, to sell his property there, he did so, and removed to Lenox Furnace, where he established himself in his business and remained some years. In 1803, he removed to Salisbury, Conn Fever and ague affecting his family in that locality, he purchased the Valentine Rathbun fulling- mill, and removed to Pittsfield.
In 1811, Mr. Stearns built, in the same vicinity, what was long known as the "New Woolen Factory ; " a wooden building thirty- one by forty feet on the ground, one story high, besides a base- ment. In this mill he placed a spinning-jenny of twenty-five spindles, and a double carding-machine, both of Scholfield's man ufacture.
In the year 1825, he retired from business, leaving the control of the property to his sons, Jirah, Daniel, Henry, and Charles T. ; but retaining the title until his death in March, 1841.1
In 1826, the brothers formed a firm under the name of J. Stearns & Brothers, "for the manufacture of broadcloths, cassi- meres, satinets, and flannels." In 1826, they built upon a water- privilege with a fall of twenty-two feet, some half a mile below the old mill, a brick-factory, seventy feet by forty in area, four stories high, and an attic. In this they placed two sets of machinery, which were run upon broadcloth until 1849, when two more were added; and the products changed to satinets and union cassimeres.
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