USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1800 to the year 1876 > Part 5
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
Swine per 1b.,
$0.03 Hay per ton,
$5.00
Wheat per bu.,
1.00 Pork per lb., .08
Rye per bu.,
.50 Beef per lb., .04
Corn per bu.,
.40 Cheese per lb. ,
.08
Peas and beans per bu.,
.67 Butter per lb.,
.12
Oats pér bu.,
.25| Flax per lb.,
.08
Pittsfield Archives, p. 56.
MANUFACTURES.
In the earliest period of the town-less than seven years after the close of the French and Indian wars had given the security essential to the development of its resources-we found, in the first fulling-mill and the first iron-forge, the germs of that man- ufacturing interest which has since grown to so over-shadowing importance ; and, before the close of the eighteenth century, manufactures began to form a valuable portion of its business, although here, as elsewhere in Massachusetts, agriculture and commerce continued to absorb to a great degree both enterprise and capital.
The clothiers flourished, and, although several of the Berkshire towns which afforded water-power had also their fulling-mills, those of Pittsfield brought to it much trade. The farmers' wives and daughters carded their wool, spun their yarn, wove and some- times colored their fabrics at home ; but all, except those intended for the most common wear, were sent to the clothiers to be fulled, dressed (sheared), and, if that had not been already done, dyed.
The fulling was done by the aid of a small water-wheel; the other processes by hand. The dressing was performed with a huge pair of shears, made expressly for the purpose, one blade of which lay flat upon the cloth, while the other closed upon it as they went rapidly snipping over the surface. The clothiers dif- fered greatly in their skill as dyers, and some of them obtained a reputation among the good-wives which long outlasted their trade ; but, if tradition does them no injustice, in most cases the colors, especially the jaunty blue, were anything but fast. The wearing of a new suit-a bridal suit, it might be-for a single day, left the unfortunate exquisite of a sadly mouldy hue, which he who was content with the humbler butternut, escaped. Claret, also a favorite color of that day, was very skillfully imparted. Mr. Stearns, the ancestor of the later manufacturers of that name,
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
obtained a high reputation by the brilliancy and permanency of his scarlets, a fashionable color for the cloaks of both ladies and gentlemen.
The appearance of these home-made cloths, when sent home by the clothier, neatly pressed and folded, was by no means so inferior to that of modern stuffs, as might be supposed.
There were four fulling-mills, or clothier's shops, in Pittsfield ; that built by Aaron Baker, at the present Barkersville, about 1767, purchased by Valentine Rathbun, in 1770, owned in 1800, by Dan Munroe, and sold the next year to Daniel Stearns ; that of Jacob Ensign at White's mills on Water street; that of Dea- con Matthew Barber, erected by him, in 1776, in connection with a saw-mill, on the site of the present Wahconah flouring-mills ; and that owned by Titus Parker, on the Cameron brook in the south-east corner of the town. The mills were thus scattered in different sections : Barber's being a mile and a half north, Stearns' three miles south-west, Parker's three miles south-east, of Ensign's. We have no means of ascertaining the exact amount of business done by either or all of them; but it must have been considerable, and much of it drawn from neighboring towns.
Another lucrative employment was found in the manufacture of malleable iron, and the working up of the product into various salable articles. The first allusion to this business is in the town records for the year 1767-the same in which Jacob Ensign received permission to build his fulling-mill. The town then refused to give Capt. Charles Goodrich anything for building a road from his iron-works,1 which stood where Taconic village now does, to Keeler's mills, now Pontoosuc. So that it seems, the iron manufacture was introduced into Pittsfield by the most energetic and enterprising business man among its early settlers, and that it, a little, antedated the woolen manufacture.
Goodrich's forge passed through several hands, and continued in operation until about the year 1806. . In its later years it was worked by Capt. George Whitney, and his four sons, Joshua, Asa, Noah and Porter, who performed the greater part of the
1 It is worthy of note, that, upon the same site, Lemuel Pomeroy, a man in many respects strikingly like Captain Goodrich, afterwards had his musket factory ; a business suggested by, and the natural successor of, the early forge. Captain Goodrich was the friend and political confrere of Mr. Pomeroy, when the former was very old, and the latter a young man.
38
HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
labor with their own hands. In addition to the manufacture of iron, they forged it into anchors, ploughshares and other articles which, beside the home-demand, found a ready market in Hudson and elsewhere. The first iron axletree made in Pittsfield, was forged by them for their own wagon; and the excellence of their workmanship is attested by the fact that, as late at least as 1872, it was still in use on a farm wagon in the West Part, having lasted about seventy years. They also placed the first tire upon a pair of wheels ; a pair used by Capt. Hosea Merrill in his lum- bering business, in which they broke down under some of the rough and rapid work required in connection with the canton- ment in the war of 1812. But, notwithstanding the superior skill of the Whitneys, their industry and good character, their business proved a failure, and the forge passed out of their hands.
The second forge was built by Capt. Rufus Allen in 1775, on the west branch of the Housatonic, a few rods above the West street bridge ; but the dam, in spring, superficially flooded so large an amount of soil which was left exposed to the sun in the dryer months, that fever and ague, and other low fevers, resulted ; rendering it necessary after a few years to demolish it, and aban- don the forge.
Afterwards, about the year 1788-9, Captain Allen, in company with Caleb Merrill, Simon Larned, and Elisha Camp (Thomas Gold acting as attorney for the latter), erected a forge on Onota brook, a few rods above its junction with the Housatonic, and near where it is crossed by Otaneaque street.
A little farther up the same stream, near the present location of Peck's lower mill, was the forge of John U. Seymour; and, still nearer the lake, on the site of Peck's upper mill, was that of Aaron Hicock. At Coltsville, on the site of the present paper mill, John Snow built a forge where he made a large quantity of iron.
Thus we have knowledge of six iron-forges, which were erected. in Pittsfield, between 1767 and 1800-and which, with one exception, continued in operation some years after the latter date. They finally became unprofitable from the building of furnaces in the modern style at places which, like Lenox and Richmond, furnished coal and ore abundantly, and in close proximity.
The ore used in Pittsfield, was at first chiefly obtained in boulders, of great richness and purity, which were found scattered
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
over the fields, or buried in the drift; a large deposit in the gravelly hill between Seymour's and Allen's forges, now St. Joseph's cemetery, and probably others in different parts of the town. A rich deposit of similar boulders is now known to be buried on the east shore of Lake Onota, and many have been found in excavations for railroads and streets. Occasionally also they appear in old stone walls ; and scattered lumps of similar ore are yet to be found in the neighborhood of Coltsville. But, for practical purposes, so far as was then known, this resource was exhausted years before the forges were abandoned; and ore was brought to them from Cone's and other mines, in Richmond and at the Shakers' in West Pittsfield ; the latter of which was excavated before the year 1810, to the depth of sixty feet. The selectmen of Pittsfield, however, in reply to questions propounded by the General Court, reported in 1794, that they "knew of no mines or minerals in the town," and that "the ore used here came from Richmond, etc."
The early forges of Pittsfield and vicinity made malleable iron from the ore, but not by a single process. They were, however, very different structures from the blast furnaces and bloomaries by which the same object is now attained with vastly greater economy of labor and raw material. And in some respects they differed from those generally in use at that time in England and Eastern Massachusetts.
We have a detailed description of that built by John Snow, at Coltsville, from Mr. Phillips Merrill, who, in his youth, was accustomed to draw ore for it, and perfectly remembered its con- struction and operation. It did not differ much, except in size, from an ordinary blacksmith's forge. The hearth was about four and a half feet high, and twelve feet square. The center was slightly hollowed. In front a small aperture, across the top of which a bar or plate of iron was fixed, served to draw off the melted cinders which settled in the depression ; the aperture, at the commencement of the operation being closed with clay, and tapped with a pointed iron bar when occasion required. Above the hearth the forge was open in front and on its two sides, and its back was like that of a common smith's forge. The chimney, which overhung the whole hearth, was supported by the back and by two iron pillars. The blast was supplied by two leathern bel- lows fourteen feet long-one on each side-driven by water-power.
.
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
Alternate layers of ore (prepared by roasting), charcoal, and lime flux, in proper proportions, were heaped in a rounded, or pyra- midal, pile upon the hearth; additions being made as the fusion progressed, and the melted cinders being drawn off as before described.
The metal itself was never perfectly liquefied, but assumed a semi-fluid form in which it was occasionally lifted with levers, in order to let the cinder separate itself more freely. Finally, it was deposited on the hearth ; an imperfectly-rounded mass, some- what more crude than our pig-iron, and technically known as a loop.
This loop, still at a red heat, was next dragged, by means of a long hook, to the front of the hearth, and there beaten with a sledge-hammer, for the double purpose of expelling loose cinders, and bringing it into shape to be handled with the tongs, and fitted under the trip-hammer. This process was called shingling the loop.
When brought to the proper shape, the mass was re-heated, if necessary, and then, being lifted with tongs, was placed on a huge anvil under a heavy trip-hammer driven by water-power. At first the loop was so large that there was little space above it for the hammer to rise and fall. So that the blows were little more than a moderate tapping ; but as it was reduced to shape, and more and more of the cinder expelled, the force of the strokes increased, until the loop became a perfect bar of malleable iron. The loop, after the shingling, and before being placed under the hammer, was generally about as heavy as a stout workman could well lift-perhaps two hundred pounds. The daily average prod- uct of a Pittsfield forge was, according to one authority, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds of iron. Mr. Merrill thought it was somewhat more. There was wide diversity in the quality, as those who used chains and other articles requiring great tenacity in the metal, soon discovered ; a large proportion being very inferior to that of the Messrs. Whitney.
The iron-makers sent a portion of their product directly to market, either in bar or in anchors and other manufactured arti- cles. This was especially the case with the Whitneys; one of the sons, Porter, devoting himself almost exclusively to the mer- cantile part of their business. But much of the iron from the other forges was bartered with the town merchants. Persons
41
HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
very recently living remembered seeing Mr. Seymour trudging to the village with a bar of iron on his shoulders, to return laden with goods for his workmen. Some of the iron thus bartered was sent to market by the merchants; but a great deal was used by the neighboring blacksmiths, on whom the people depended almost entirely for many domestic utensils, farming implements and mechanics' tools, now almost as exclusively manufactured in large establishments, and by the aid of machinery ; except where, as with the old-fashioned cranes, hooks and trammels, which then hung in every kitchen-fireplace, they are dispensed with alto- gether.
Third among the manufactures of Pittsfield, in the order of time, but second, if not first, in the value of its production, was that of leather, for which there were three tanneries of considera- ble note. The first was probably built by Capt. Daniel Weller, on the north bank of Wampenum brook, on the west side of South street. In 1795, Captain Weller sold twenty-three acres of the south end of "lot No. 28 South," which included this tannery, to his son, the major, of the same name. The next spring he pur- chased ten acres of the north end of the same lot, where he built another tannery, if one had not already been built there, on the north bank of the Housatonic and on the west side of South street. His son, Enoch, had a bark-mill' on the little water- power on Wampenum brook below South Mountain street, from which he supplied tan to his father and brother, and perhaps to others.
In 1798, James Brown, who had learned the art and mystery of tanning from Capt. Nathan Pierson, a noted and wealthy tan- ner of Richmond-whose niece he married, built a tannery next to the Elm street bridge on Water street. Some years before, but how many cannot now be ascertained, he had established similar works on the north side of Silver lake. Whether they were abandoned immediately on the completion of the new, is not known. In 1800, Mr. Brown admitted his brother, Simeon, a partner in the Water street tannery, and for a long time, under
1 It is doubtful whether this mill was exclusively owned by Enoch, as his father, in 1806, bequeathed a fourth part of the saw-mill, which had taken its place, to another person. It would be interesting to learn when this mill was built, as it is claimed that the first of the kind ever run by water-power, was erccted at Northampton, in 1794; but we have not been able to do so. 6
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
the proprietorship of the brothers, as well as subsequently in other hands, it has had a remarkably-prosperous history.
Single vats were probably scattered in different parts of the town, as shoemakers and saddlers then learned the art of tanning as part of their trade; while the process of manufacture in vogue was so simple, the materials so cheap and abundant, and the demand for the product so great, that many farmers were led to enter into the business in a sort of household-way.
These conditions also rendered the manufacture upon a larger scale very profitable, and moreover favored the manufacture of boots and shoes ; so that tanneries and shoe manufactories multi- plied so greatly in all parts of New England, that, although the number in Pittsfield was considerable, and afforded a valuable source of local wealth, they did not give the town any special prominence for that branch of manufactures in the State; of which a single county, Middlesex, had seventy tanneries, some of them of very large product.
The opportunity to use coal at the iron-works, and bark in the tanneries, largely reduced the cost of clearing the forests ; and this expense was still further counterbalanced by the utilization of ashes in the manufacture of potash, so that every portion of the tree was made a source of profit, although the earth was robbed of valuable fertilizers. For the product of the potashery, as for iron and leather, there was a ready sale at fair prices, both for the home and foreign market ; the American potash being highly esteemed in the latter.
The process of manufacture was, and under similar circum- stances still is, simple even to rudeness and wastefulness. The wood was usually cut into lengths of eight or nine feet; piled in heaps containing from one to three cords; and, when half dry, burned. The ashes were placed in large tubs whose bottoms were covered, six or eight inches deep, with brush-wood, above which was a three-inch layer of straw. Water was then filtered through the mass, till all the soluble matter was carried off in the lye which passed through an aperture in the bottom of the tub, into a proper receptacle.
This lye was then placed in large iron-kettles, and boiled until the evaporation left the matter held in solution in a solid form : a dark, almost black, crust, known to the workmen as "brown salts," having a strong alkaline and acid taste. These salts con-
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
sisted of a very large proportion of potash mixed with more or less carbonaceous matter, vegetable salts, and a little earth. This mass was thrown into a cast-iron kettle of considerable thickness, and subjected to a red heat for one or two hours, and most of the combustible matter was consumed. The residuum, when cold, was broken up, packed in tight casks, and sent to market-the American potash of commerce. It contained from five to twenty- five per cent. of pure potash, with impurities in various propor- tions, depending very much upon the care exercised in collecting the ashes after the burning of the wood.
In the ruder districts, all the processes of the manufacture were carried on by the farmers in the woods, and many potash-ket- tles might doubtless have been seen in the Pittsfield forests. As a general thing, however, it was more profitable to carry the ashes to the potasheries of the merchants, who paid eight pence a bushel for the best quality. Of these potasheries, that of Graves & Root, was opposite the tannery on Elm street; that of Colonel Danforth, in the rear of his store ; that of Simon Larned "a little east of the meeting-house; " and that of J. D. & S. D. Colt, on West street, a little east of Center street; and each seems to have done a thriving business.
The staple manufactures of Pittsfield, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, were thus: cloth from household-looms, fin- ished by the professional clothiers; malleable iron and its sub- . products ; leather ; and potash.
To these may be added a quasi-manufacture, as lucrative, per- haps, as either of the others: the beef and pork packing carried on by the merchants ; some of whom thought it more economical at least at times, to send the animals " on the hoof" to be slaugh- tered and packed at Hudson, although most of them had their own slaughter and packing houses.
There were several grist-mills ; and saw-mills sprang up wher- ever there was water-power for them.
There were also several minor manufactories of a peculiar char- acter. In one of Luce's mills, linseed oil was made, and the residuum pressed into cakes for fattening cattle ; the lean beeves bought of drovers, and fattened by merchant-packers, furnishing a constant demand for the latter product. Another utilization, it will be observed, of otherwise waste material, as the primary object of raising flax was to supply the household-looms.
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
After Capt. Rufus Allen's ill-placed forge-dam was demolished, John and Jabez Colt built one of more moderate height, on which they placed a manufactory of cut nails, which was in operation in 1800, but how much later we cannot determine.
The manufacture of wrought nails was early a household employment in New England; and in Pittsfield, as elsewhere, many farmers' families had little anvils upon which the boys worked at their leisure, producing a supply for their own use, and generally a surplus to barter at the village-stores. Economy of time, as well as material, ruled the hour.
This home-manufacture continued in some families as late as 1800, although about 1777 a nail-making machine was introduced; an awkward worker, producing only a headless article, but improved, previous to 1825, by one hundred and twenty-three patents. The Pittsfield works were among the earlier, and were probably unable to meet the competition of larger capital and improved machinery.
MERCANTILE AFFAIRS.
Commerce contributed no inconsiderable item to the wealth of the town, and, as in all new countries, the dealers in merchandise were, in one particular, merchants in a stricter sense than those who merely dispense to their customers the goods purchased at wholesale in metropolitan markets. They were the medium for the interchange of the products of the Berkshire farm, loom, forge, . anvil and tannery, for the luxuries and necessaries brought from the great centers of trade. They acted as middlemen in the out- ward, as well as the inward, course of traffic.
Of the carliest merchants of Pittsfield, and the nature of its traf- fic, we have scant information. Col. James Easton kept a store in connection with his tavern, and it would appear from entries in Rev. Mr. Allen's diary, that Capt. John Strong kept at least a few articles of merchandise. Probably most of the taverns kept some goods in their bar-rooms, varying in amount with the enter- prise and means of their proprietors. David Noble, the patriotic and ill-fated captain of the minute-men, certainly carried on a considerable mercantile business at the West Part; but both he and his brother officer, Colonel Easton, seem to have had stores separate from their taverns.
We have no means of ascertaining the amount or method of
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
their trade; but what we know of them leads us to believe that they fully availed themselves of the opportunities offered by a new country for the shipment of furs collected by the Indians and Indian-like white men; of wheat which the virgin soil produced with that luxuriance which generally fringes the borders of civil- ization, and the other home-products which have been enumer- ated. Captain Noble had in store, when he was summoned to the field by the Lexington alarm, much grain and cloth, which he afterwards, with noble generosity, contributed to supply the wants of the army laying siege to General Gage, in Boston.
The business of Captain Noble and Colonel Easton was broken up by the war, in which both fought and suffered grandly; both sacrificed the greater part of their fortunes, and in which one died during the most arduous and,-as regards the daring exploits and extreme privations patiently borne by the soldiery,- one of the most glorious campaigns of the American armies, the first incursion into Canada. We refer again to these gallant men in order to remind the merchants of Pittsfield that the earliest of their number furnished splendid examples, which have not wanted worthy followers whenever their country has demanded similar self-devotion ; although never since has the opportunity offered for that grandeur of patriotism which characterized Noble and Easton.
Captain Noble's goods were chiefly sent to Cambridge, by his direction, in 1775, for the use of the army; but Deacon Josiah Wright appears to have continued the store on its old site, on the north side of West street, beyond Lake Onota ; and “store-keep- ing" occurs so naturally to the tavern-keeping mind, that proba- ably other parts of the town were accommodated with at least a few "store-goods " in their numerous bar-rooms.1
But, well as we should like to know how the early citizens of Pittsfield, and its housewives, were able to purchase their daily supplies, it would be of more interest to learn what goods the town sent to market in the old times, and through what chan- nels ; but upon these points we have no precise information. During the war, it is likely that the iron, eloths and buckskins,
1 Captain John Strong, who kept the tavern now the Pomeroy Homestead, was an educated man, a graduate of Yale, and an able politician as well as a genial landlord ; but some of these qualities were not likely to aid him greatly as a trader.
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
which must have been among the principal articles of export, were absorbed chiefly by the demands of the army. This was certainly true of horses, cattle, and other agricultural products.
When trade was not thus interrupted, home-made goods and the productions of the farm were interchanged among neighbors, generally without the intervention of a shop-keeper. Producers sometimes carried their goods personally to such markets as Albany, Kinderhook and Hartford; but, unless their product was large, it was bartered with the leading traders of the town, who, in their turn, bartered it in large markets. Purchases were also sometimes made directly by the consumers, at the greater centers, either on the occasional visits of the customer, or through some accommodating friend. The town's representative in the Great and General Court, was often overburdened by his constituents, with commissions of this kind ; and in one instance, at least, was instructed by the town-meeting " not to purchase any goods in the town of Boston, beyond what was necessary for the use of himself and family." Whether this action was dictated by some petty hostility of the moment towards the capital, or was thought necessary in order to break up a system of brokerage which inter- fered with legislative duties, or for some other reason, we cannot now determine. At the close of the revolution, Pittsfield shared largely in the benefits conferred upon western Massachusetts and eastern New York, by the migration from the sea-board, of active and intelligent men who, relieved of public employment, sought new fields for their restless enterprise. Two of this class began a mercantile business in Pittsfield : Col. Joshua Danforth, whose life and character were sketched in our previous volume, and Col. Simon Larned, of Pomfret, Connecticut, who, like Colonel Danforth, had served with great credit in the army of the revolution. According to Dr. Field, these gentlemen came to Pittsfield in 1784, and commenced business as partners. If this is true, the connection probably arose from friendship formed in camp. It could not, however, have long continued, as we find by advertisements that they were soon carrying on trade sepa- rately, Colonel Danforth occupying the store built by him on the corner of East and Second streets ; Colonel Larned a similar store a little farther cast.1
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