History of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, Part 20

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis
Number of Pages: 1168

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MANCHESTER.

four hundred and eighty feet long. The lower begins and sixty feet long, sixty-eight feet wide and four stories high, at about the same place, and extends to the weir below the Namaske Mills, where it empties into the river. The bleachery and napping-house, for bleaching and napping flannels, are in a small building, one hundred and ten feet in length and thirty-six in width, in the rear of the old gingham-mill and near the river. It is six thousand nine hundred feet long, and runs a part of the way over the track of the old Blodget Canal. Till 1855 the canal was connected with the Merrimack, near the old MeGregor bridge, by a set of In 1874 the company erected the mill of the Amory Manufacturing Company. In 1880 they built a largedye- house, two hundred and eighty by fifty feet, two stories, and in 1881 a new mill with forty-four thousand spin- locks, the company having been under obligation to keep the canal open to the public as when it was owned by the Amoskeag Locks and Canal Company; but the Legislature of 1855 gave permission to discon- . dles. In 1880 the old machine-shop which originally tinue the locks. The openings of the canals at the guard-gates are five hundred and ten feet square. The canals' width at their head is seventy-three feet, and at the weirs fifty feet, with an average depth of ten feet. The fall from the upper to the lower canal is twenty feet, and from the lower canal to the river thirty-four feet.

No. 1 and No. 2 Mills are northernmost, and are exact duplicates of each other. They were the first mills upon the Amoskeag corporation, were built sepa- rately, one hundred and fifty-seven feet long by forty- eight wide, and six stories high, in 1841, but in 1859 and 1860 were united by what is called No. 6 Mill,' eighty-eight feet long by sixty wide.

No. 3 Mill, directly to the south of this triple com- bination, was built in 1834, and thoroughly rebuilt in 1870. It is five stories in height and four hundred and forty feet long, while its width varies from sixty- five to seventy-two feet. At its south end is a three- story picker-house, one hundred and thirty-five feet long by sixty wide.

At the upper end of the mills, on the lower level, is a low building, four hundred and seventy-two feet long and thirty wide, used as a bag-mill, which has forty bag-looms.

No. 4 Mill was built in 1846 and enlarged in 1872. The original building was seven stories high, two hundred and sixty feet in length by sixty in width. In the fall of 1872 an extension was built in the rear, one hundred feet long and sixty feet wide. In the rear, also, are two picker-houses, three stories high, fifty-six feet in length by thirty-seven in width.

No. 5 Mill is just north of the one last mentioned. It is two hundred and fifty-eight feet long by sixty wide, and has a picker-house, sixty-two feet in length by forty-four in width, in the rear.

The building at the north of No. 5 Mill, occupied as a dye-house and gingham-mill, consists of a centre- piece and two wings. The south wing is the dye- house, and is two hundred and three feet long, sixty- seven feet wide and three stories high. The middle part is one hundred and twenty feet long, sixty-seven feet wide, three stories high and is occupied by dress- ing-machinery for ginghams. The north wing is of the same length and breadth as the dye-house, but four stories high.

A mill was built in 1874, just at the north of these buildings and parallel with them. It is two hundred

stood on the bank of the river was taken down and the new machine-shop erected, one hundred and ninety by fifty feet, three stories high. The machine-shops up to 1872 manufactured the celebrated Amoskeag fire- engine. In that year this business was sold to the Manchester Locomotive-Works. There are also seven cotton-houses, one hundred by seventy feet, three stories high. The mills are driven by seventeen tur- bine wheels, six and eight feet in diameter, which are sufficient to run all machinery in ordinary stages of water. In addition to this power, there is also one pair of engines of eight hundred horse-power in No. 3 Mill; one pair of two thousand horse- power for driving machinery in Mills Nos. 4, 5, 7 and 8; also an engine of two hundred and fifty horse power to drive the machine-shop. There are forty- eight boilers, one-half for high pressure, to be used when engines are run and exhaust steam is used for heating and drying. These engines are only run in low water. The other twenty-four boilers, of an old type, are only used when the engines are not run, be- cause suited to lower pressure. These boilers have all been placed in a great boiler-house, about two hundred and fifty by fifty feet, on the west side of the river, next to the coal shed, which is a new one built of brick, with a capacity for twenty thousand tons, having three railroad tracks from which the coal is unloaded. On this side of the river also a chimney has been erected two hundred and fifty feet high. The steam is carried across the river in a pipe twenty inches in diameter and two thousand five hundred feet long, which crosses the river on two bridges, dis- tributing steam to the whole establishment. The mills are lighted by electricity, the first light (Weston & Brush,) having been put in February, 1880. The corporation runs ten mills, including Namask Mill, and eight hundred tenements. This immense establish- ment has six thousand looms, uses forty thousand bales of cotton and twenty thousand tons of coal per year, and manufactures annually sixty million yards consisting of ticking, denims, stripes, ginghams, cot- ton flannels and cheviots. Employs five thousand per- sons, with a monthly pay-roll of one hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

The present officers are as follows :

William Amory, Daniel Clark, T. Jefferson Coo- lidge, Thomas Wigglesworth, George A. Gardner, William P. Mason, John L. Bremer, Channing Clapp,

HISTORY OF HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

George Dexter, directors; William Amory, president; T. Jefferson Coolidge, treasurer ; Herman F. Straw, clerk and agent.

EZEKIEL ALBERT STRAW was born in Salisbury, De- cember 30, 1819, making his age at the time of his death sixty-three years. He was the eldest son of James B. and Mehitable (Fisk) Straw, and one of a family of seven children (five sons and two daughters), and of whom three survive .- Miranda (wife of Benja- min F. Manning), Abigail and James B. Straw, Esq., all residents of Manchester. His father, after a few years' residence in this State, removed to Lowell, Mass., where he entered into the service of the Apple- ton Manufacturing Company. Mr. Straw acquired his education in the schools of Lowell, and in the English Department of Phillips Andover Academy, where he gave especial attention to practical mathe- matics. Upon leaving this institution, he was, in the spring of 1838, employed as assistant civil engineer upon the Nashua and Lowell Railway, then in pro- cess of construction. In July, 1838, he was sent for by Mr. Boyden, the consulting engineer of the Amos- keag Manufacturing Company, to take the place of T. J. Carter, the regular engineer, who was absent from work on account of illness. He came to the city of Manchester July 4, 1838, expecting to remain but a few days, and has ever since made it his home. This was before a mill had been built upon the eastern side of the river; among his first duties were the laying out of the lots and streets in what is now the compact part of the city, and assisting in the construction of the dams and canals. In November, 1844, he was sent by the Amoskeag Company to Eng- land and Scotland to obtain information and machi- uery necessary for making and printing muslin de- laines, and the success of the Manchester Print- Works, which first introduced this manufacture into the United States, was due to the knowledge and skill he then acquired. He continued in the employ of the Amoskeag Company as civil engineer until July, 1851, when he was appointed agent of the land and water-power department of the company, the mills and machine-shops then being managed sepa- rately, under different agents. In July, 1856, the first two were united and put in charge of Mr. Straw, and in July, 1858, all three were combined under one management, and MIr. Straw assumed the entire con- trol of the company's operations in Manchester.

Mr. Straw was prominent in the early history of the town's prosperity. He was a member of the com- mittee to provide plans and specifications for the re- building of the town-house in 1844, and one of the first committee appointed to devise plans for the in- troduction of water into the town. He was connected with all the subsequent plans for the same purpose, and when the board of water commissioners, who had charge of the construction of the present water- " r's, was appointed in 1871. he was made its presi- dent, and held the office until within a few years. He

was chosen, in 1854, a member of the first board of trustees of the public library, and held the office for twenty-five years. In 1846, Mr. Straw was elected assistant engineer of the Fire Department, and was re-elected several times afterwards. In 1859 he served as Representative in the State Legislature, and was re-elected in 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, and during the last three years was chairman of the committee on finance. In 1864 he was elected to the State Senate and was re-elected in 1865, being chosen its president in the latter year. He was also chosen, on the part of the Senate, one of the commissioners to superintend the rebuilding of the State-House. In 1869 he was appointed by Governor Stearns a mem- ber of his staff. In 1872 he was elected by the Re- publicans of New Hampshire Governor of the State, and was re-elected the succeeding year. In 1870 he was appointed by President Grant the member from New Hampshire of the commission to arrange for the centennial celebration of the independence of the United States at Philadelphia, Pa., in 1876.

From the organization of the Namaske Mills, in 1856, till the dissolution, Mr. Straw was the treasurer and principal owner, and after 1864 until near the end of his business career the sole proprietor. In 1874 he was chosen a director of the Langdon Mills. He was the president and one of the directors of the Blodget Edge-Tool Manufacturing Company from its. organization, in 1855, till its dissolution, in 1862, and during the existence of the Amoskeag Axe Company, which succeeded it, he was a director. He was one of the first directors of the Manchester Gas-Light Com- pany when it was organized, in 1851, and was chosen its president in 1855, holding the office until January 29, 1881. In 1860 he was elected a director of the Manchester and Lawrence Railroad, and in 1871 was elected president of the corporation, resigning in 1879. Upon the organization of the New England Cotton Manufacturers' Association he was chosen its pres- ident, and was also president of the New Hamp- shire Fire Insurance Company from its organization, in 1869 to 1880, when he resigned. He was one of the founders of the First Unitarian Society, in 1842, its clerk and treasurer from that time till 1844, its president from 1853 to 1857, and was chairman of the committee which built its present house of wor- ship.

Governor Straw married, April 6, 1842, at Ames- bury, Mass., Charlotte Smith Webster, who died in this city March 15, 1852. To them were born four children,-Albert, who died in infancy; Charlotte Webster, wife of Mr. William H. Howard, of Somerville, Mass. ; Herman Foster, agent of the Amoskeag Mills; Ellen, the wife of Mr. Henry MI. Thompson, formerly agent of the Manchester Print- Works, and now agent of the Lowell Felting Com- pany, of Lowell, Mass.

There are now seven living grandchildren,-Albert. Straw, William H. and Sarah Cheney Howard. Par-

HISTORY OF HULTSRODOHAR MATTANINMY NEW HAMPSHIRE

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MANCHESTER.

ker and Harry Ellis Straw, and Albert W. and Her- man Ellis Thompson.

His rapidly-failing health and strength obliged Mr. Straw to retire from the active management of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in 1879, and at the annual meeting of the proprietors of the company next following, this resolution was unanimously adopted,-

" Resolved, That the Hon. E. A. Straw, agent of this company at Manchester, having since our last annual meeting been compelled by ill health to resign his office, in which for abont forty years, in many differ- ent capacities, he has served the corporation from its infancy with signal ability, fidelity and skill, we owe it to him and ourselves to put upon rec- ord the testimony of our high appreciation of the value of those services, our sincere regret at his resignation, our deep sorrow for the cause, our cordial thanks for his long-continued and excellent management of our affairs in this city, and our earnest wishes that, free from pain or suffer- ing, he may pass the remaining years of his life improved in health, prosperous and happy."

The Hon. Daniel Clark, on rising to second the resolution, said,-

" Mr. President and Gentlemen,-It is with mingled feelings of pleasure and of pain that I second this resolution. It is now forty years, and more, since I came to Manchester. I came in a one-horse wagon to a one-horse town,-to a town, in fact, having no horses at all. As yon know, sir, the canal was not then finished. It was a muddy trench. They were blasting stone and laying them in the walls and throwing out the dirt. There was not a mill then finished. The walls of one of the Stark Mills were up, the roof was covered in ; but there were no windows in the mill, and, I think, no machinery. There was not a school-house ; there was not a church ; there was not a hotel ; there was not a place to lay my head ; and I went away over into what was then Goffstown, now Amoskeag village, to find a place to board. There had been a land sale the fall before, and the hill yonder was covered over with stakes, denot- ing the corner-lots and where the streets were to go. There was not a street well made that I remember of seeing, and a butcher's cart coming along got stuck in the sand not far from where Elm Street now is, soon after I came here.

"Soon after I came there appeared upon the scene a young man, healthful, compactly built, about nineteen or twenty years of age, with a fresh, ruddy countenance, with an air of assurance, but without arro- gance, who manifested such industry and energy and pluck as gave promise of his future brilliant success. I think, sir [addressing the pres- ident of the meeting], I think on a former occasion you used the word ' luck' instead of plnck. I think you must prefix a 'p' to the word and make it ' płuck.'

" This gentleman, soon after coming to this city, went into the Amos- keag Company's employ as assistant engineer. I think his chief was a gentleman distinguished for his scientific attainments. From that time forth that young man has been in the employ of this company. Under his industry, skill, direction and perseverance, it has grown from the beginning that I have indicated to what it is now. I do not mean to say that he has done this entirely alone, for he has received the aid of others, and, fortunately, of yourself. Of that I have spoken on a former occa- sion ; but for forty years he has been steadily engaged in the service of this company. There is nothing here, sir, which does not bear the im- press of his hand. Certainly the river has acknowledged his power, for he has twice dammed it and turned it out of its course. There is not a railroad about us, sir, in which his skill and wise counsel have not been manifested ; there is not here a highway or public building in which his management has not been discernible. We have our gas-light com- pany, of which he has been president for many years. I speak of these as showing the honorable services of this man to the community as well as to this company. We have the New Hampshire Fire Insurance Com- pany, the only stock insurance company in the State, of which he has been the president. We have built here the city water-works, bringing the sweet waters of the Massabesic to our city, of which he was one of the chief movers. There is not a school-house here, filled with happy scholars, that he has not in some way assisted ; there is not a church here to whose support he has not given his aid. We have a library, a free library, to which every operative, man, woman or child, who can pro- cure some one to say that he or she is a fit person to be be intrusted with

its books, can go to receive its benefits. I may say here thal there is no man in this city to whom the city owes so much for the library, I think I may say it, sir, as to your late agent.

"I once said, sir, I think, here, that that library seemed to me like an aviary of sweet singing birds, and at morn and noon and eve they flit away to the homes of tired labor. They perch upon the window-sills, upon the table and the chair and the shelf and the mantle and the pil- low, and sing their sweet songs in the car of tired labor, and it is be- guiled of its pain and sinks to rest. In the morning labor rises refreshed ; it takes up its burden, and thus ever goes on the round ; and at night labor is again tired, and as it goes to its home the sweet singing birds are there to welcome it and solace the hours of weariness. None can say how much labor owes to Governor Straw. No one can know, except those here, how much this company, how much this city, how much we all, owe to this same man.

" And now, Mr. President, i cannot forbear to say for myself, that, through all these forty years that I have been beside my friend yonder, he has never forfeited my esteem, my respect, my affection and my love, and I think I have always received his ; and you may judge, Mr. I'resi- dent, how sad it is to me to see him now, like some great ship that has buffeted the waves and sailed forth triumphantly, laid on the shore. I am glad to see that she lies so easily and so quietly, and may it be a great while before her timbers shall be broken up and she disappear in the sand.

"But, Mr. President, generations pass away, and I see now not ten men in this city that were here when I came. I stand almost alone. 1 stand with you, sir, and with a few others ; but our friends and we shall soon pass away, for such is the common lot.

"I do not know that I have anything further to add, but to repeat what my friend has said in the resolution. Long may it be before the sun shall finally go down on my friend. May his last days be his best days ; and when his sun shall finally set, may the rays stream to the zenith in one bright flame, a fitting emblem of a well-spent life."

After a long and weary sickness, Governor Straw died October 23, 1882, but his memory is still green in the State he served, in the city he helped to build and among the friends he loved.

On the afternoon of his funeral business was generally suspended throughout the city, the Amos- keag Mills were closed, and hundreds of his fellow- citizens visited the Unitarian Church, where the body lay in state.

Mr. Straw was emphatically a great man, not only in his profession, in which he towered far above nearly all others, but in all the various positions to which he was called. He was not known as a brilliant or a sharp man. He had little need of the helps which other men gain by dazzling or outwitting friends or foes ; for there was a massiveness about. him, a solid strength, which enabled him to carry out great plans by moving straight on over obstacles which other men would have been compelled to re- move or go around. His mind was broad, deep and comprehensive ; he had rare good judgment, great self- reliance and a stability of purpose which seldom failed. He was peculiarly fitted for the management of vast enterprises. His plans were far-reaching and judicious, and his executive ability was equal to the successful carrying out of whatever his mind pro- jected and his judgment approved.

For twenty-five years he carried business burdens which would have crushed almost any half-dozen strong men. He was agent of the Amoskeag corpora- tion, having in his charge its millions of dollars, its thousands of operatives, its acres of streets and build- ings, its numerous water-powers and all its costly

HISTORY OF HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

extensions and improvements, besides the daily opera- tions at its factories. He was Governor of the State, and answered for two years all the exactions made upon the occupant of that position. He was a rail- road president, president of an insurance company, president of the gas company and a director and lead- ing spirit in several other moneyed institutions. He was a publie-spirited citizen, whose time was always at the service of the community in which he lived; but with all these duties, he neglected none, postponed none, failed in none. He had great opportunities and he left no one of them unimproved. In the management of the Amoskeag corporation he found room for the display of magnificent abilities, and the uninterrupted success and growth of that corporation, not only in seasons of general prosperity, but at times when nearly all others failed, attest how grandly he planned and how well he executed.

As Governor, he entirely justified the confidence that secured his election, giving to the people the full benefit of his integrity, industry, sound sense and great business abilities, and leaving a record which will always be a credit to the State ; and in the dis- charge of the numerous other public trusts committed to him, he added constantly to his reputation as a man in whose hands any interest was both safe and for- tunate. He had great knowledge of men and read character at a glance, so that in selecting his hun- dreds of assistants he seldom made a mistake. He possessed vast stores of information upon a multitude of subjects, which he had acquired by extensive read- ing and observation, and was able to use it upon occasion with great effect. He had decided views upon all current events and all matters connected with his business, and could state his opinions most clearly, compactly and convincingly. He spoke easily, but without any attempt at rhetorical display, and wrote without apparent effort in plain, vigorous language, which contained no surplusage. He was a willing and liberal helper to any object which he ap- proved, and there was nothing narrow or bigoted about him to confine his benefactions to his own sect, party or nationality. He was a genial, entertaining and always instructive companion, a good neighbor and a true friend. Manchester was proud of E. A. Straw, and, whenever occasion offered, delighted to honor him. He has been one of her citizens during most of her history as a city, and it is safe to say no other man contributed more to her rapid growth and progress in all profitable and pleasant directions than he. He always remembered, too, that he was a citizen of Manchester, and did not allow any antagon- ism between her interests and those of the corporation he represented, but worked constantly and zealously for the good of both. Her people were not slow to respond to this feeling, and there has existed from the start the utmost cordiality and unity of purpose, which have contributed in no small degree to the ad- vantage of both city and corporation. For his potent

influence in this direction, Governor Straw will long be gratefully remembered.

Stark Mills .- This corporation was chartered in 1838, with a capital of five hundred thousand dollars, and commenced operations in the same year. In 1845 the capital was increased to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in 1846 to one million, in 1847 to one million two hundred and fifty thousand. They own fifteen acres of land, occupied for mills, boarding- house and overseers' blocks, etc. The goods manu- factured are cotton and linen, the latter product being in the form of crash and toweling, while the cotton goods are sheetings, drillings, duck and bags, the latter being known as the "seamless bags," being woven in one piece.

Phinehas Adams was agent from 18447 to 1881. He was succeeded by Mr. S. N. Bourne, the present agent.

President, William Amory ; Clerk, C. A. Hovey ; Treasurer, Edmund Dwight; Directors, William Amory, J. Ingersoll Bowditch, Lewis Downing, Jr., T. Jefferson Coolidge, John L. Bremer, J. Lewis Stack- pole, Roger Wolcott ; Agent, Stephen N. Bourne.

Manchester Mills .- This corporation was organ- ized in 1839, with a capital of one million dollars, for the manufacture of dress goods. The Amoskeag Com- pany had previously made the fabric for delaines in their mill at Hooksett, but the printing was done else- where. In 1845 the first mill for the printing of de- laines was erected, which went into operation the next year. In 1847 the property was sold to a corporation which was chartered the previous year, with a capital of one and a half million dollars, under the name of the Merrimack Mills, which was afterwards changed to the Manchester Print-Works, and its capital in- creased to eighteen hundred thousand dollars. In 1873 it was reincorporated, under the name of the Manchester Print-Works and Mills, with a capital of two million dollars, and in 1874 the name was changed to the Manchester Mills.

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History of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, Part 20

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis Number of Pages: 1168

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis
Number of Pages: 1168