State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 3, Part 36

Author: Field, Edward, 1858-1928
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Boston : Mason Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 728

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of the most capable of its iron workers was Jeremiah Wilkinson of Cumberland. It is recorded of the latter, who was engaged in the manufacture of hand cards when the Revolution began, that, owing to the high price of tacks used in the business, oceasioned by the war, and the labor of making them by the old process of hammering, he adopted the plan of cutting them from a sheet of iron with a pair of shears, and afterwards heading them in a vise. This process he afterwards ap- plied to cold or cut nails, and he is said to have been the first to employ that mode of making tacks and nails. The Wilkinsons, like the Jenks family, produced many ingenious meehanies. They made anchors and heavy iron implements, serews, heavy oil presses, farming implements, stoves, pots and other castings. Oziel Wilkinson built a small furnaee for casting iron, in which he made the first wing-gudgeons known in America. He and his family of five sons and four daughters removed from Smithfield to Pawtucket about the close of the war, and estab- lished an anchor mill there about 1784, making also farming tools and household utensils. Oziel's son David, who, as well as his four broth- ers, was a blacksmith, forged the iron work and turned the spindles and rollers for some of the machinery used in the first cotton factories. In 1797 he invented a gange and sliding lathe, but as the patent ex- pired before he had realized any profit from it, Congress, fifty years afterwards voted him $10,000 as a partial rceompense.

In brief, it may be said that while Rhode Island was in its infancy, before the inauguration of the factory system, before the adoption of labor-saving machinery, before the drafting of steam to lessen the necessity of muscular expenditure, nearly everything necessary to the comfort and well-being of its people was made within its borders.

The following letter from Moses Brown of Providenee to a Newport friend will give a good idea of the state of manufacturing in and around Providence eight years after the elose of the Revolutionary War:

"Providenee, 19th, 11th Mo., 1791.

"Respceted Friend :

"I intended writing thee before now in answer to thine respeeting manufactures, but my attention has been much otherwise drawn, and tho' it may be late, I tho't I would make some essay to manifest I had not wholly negleeted that attention which I owe to my friend.

"The spermaceti manufactory, thou art sensible, has been long standing in the State, and was the second at least in the State before the war, but the interruption of the whale fishery and impoverishment of Nantucket (from whenee the heads mostly come) during the war, has wholly deprived this town, and almost yours, of that once profit- able branch of business. None of it has been done here since the peaee.

"The distilleries are also aneient. Two have been ereeted since the peaee, one of them for gin, which, thou art sensible, is made of grain

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and juniper berries. One of our old distilleries of spirits is turned into a gin distillery, so that large quantities of that article are now madc. The remains of the wort fattens large quantities of pork.

"We had one sugar house before the war, one erected in and toward the close of it, and one since. The latter only is now improved, for want of stocks of brown sugar.

"We have in this county one furnace for making pig iron in Scit- uate, the ore bed in Cranston. The water from the pit is discharged by a steam engine, also made here and at the furnace. We have 12 or 13 forges which make bar iron out of pig ore, scrap iron and black sand. The latter is bro't from the south shore of the State mostly. A slitting mill has been lately erected in this neighborhood. It also plates iron, makes hoops and rails, shovels and spades, of which arti- cles many are made for exportation. Anchorsmiths are ancient, but as the business has increased, divers have set up the business, and many are made for exportation. The steel manufactory is perfected, as to the kind blistered and drawn equal to imported, and is made so low that the importation has mostly ceased. Ten per cent. on a cwt. of bar iron turns it into good blistercd steel, weight for weight.

The making of all kinds of screws for paper mills, clothiers, and etc., is carried on to advantage, and New York, Connecticut, etc., have been supplied with them. The making of cold nails, from card tacks to shingle nails, and some up to 10 p's is largely carried on. Ten penny nails and downward are made so cheap and plenty as to prevent their importation from our neighbor States, who furnish hot-made nails in plenty. The cotton and woolen card making is well-perfected in this town, and many are made in every part, from the leather, tan- ning, making the backs, the engines for cutting the wire (except the wire is imported from England and Germany ), and bending the teeth fit to set, which is done with amazing facility by an engine that cuts and bends 800 or upwards in one minute, by a lad turning a crank by hand, and easy work, save the quickness of his motion must be weari- some when such numbers are turned out. The machines for pricking the leather are improved in the neighborhood. The setting is by children and the business is a neat, useful manufactory.

"We have two paper mills that do much business. They make some good writing paper, press paper, bonnet paper, sheathing and etc., etc. We have hand and water mills for ginning cotton, of which much has been done since the Southern States have raised that article. But they raise it so badly by mixing ripe and unripe, good and bad, clean and unclean together that renders it useless in general for machines, tho' it answers a good purpose for hand spinning.

"We have in this neighborhood increased in fulling mills, upwards of a dozen of which are working in our county. I intended an account of the amount of cloth made in this town, which our Mechanical Society is collecting, but have not yet, I believe, completed it. The goods made by Almy & Brown's factory of all cotton and cotton and linen, tho'

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chiefly the former, for the last 12 months is about 780 yards a month of velvets, thieksets, corduroys, faney goods, royal ribs, denims, jeans, fustians, etc. The business is increasing, as they learn apprentiees to weave, etc., and was it not for the effects of British manufacturers sending out agents, and selling on a long credit of 18 months, or de- positing on commission their goods, to prevent the manufactury here, as well as promote their own, whereby ready pay as is required to pay workmen, etc., the country could soon be supplied. The warps for their goods are spun by water, upon Arkwright principles, from which mills yarn is furnished to other manufactories in this State and Con- nectieut, as well for stocking weaving as making cloth.

"We have many ehoeolate mills and snuff mills, which go by water, besides the usual mills for sawing, grinding, ete., by water, and the usual manufactures of hats, girt webs, saddle fringes, and the common ineehanieal and manufacturing business makes the principal on this subject.

"I may now mention that we have talked of a duek and twine man- ufaetory, in addition to our rope, line &e., walks, of which we have three, but on hearing you at Newport had it in contemplation, some of us tho't it best to defer the matter till we heard further about you. I believe it would suit your situation, and prove more publicly useful with you than with us, as our poor of both sexes are, or may be, em- ployed in the various branches of business carried on already, and yours, I understand, are not, and as your part of the State is well- calculated for raising flax a duck factory could be supplied. You have publie lands near your poor house. The poor may be employed, if a house for spinning was erected. The filling may be spun all over the town, and many poor families might get their bread by the busi- ness, that may be now dependent on daily charities.

"Thy friend,

"Moses Brown."

Among the manuscripts of the Rhode Island Historical Society at Providenee are certain memoranda, written on the baeks of election tickets and lottery sheets, which show that salt works were operated during the Revolution-from 1776 to 1785-at Pawtuxet village, now a suburb of Providenee.

The establishment doubtless owed its origin to the necessities of the people, whose supply of salt from its usual sources had been cut off by the war. The proprietors-Daniel Owen, Dr. Mason, Elisha Bowen,. Jr., Samuel Clarke, Enoch Hopkins, John Wells, Elijah Hawkins, Amos Winsor, Nathaniel Phillips, Asahel Harris, Samuel Cole, Jona- than Hopkins's son Timothy, and William Page of Gloeester, each paid £3 toward the enterprise, while Caleb Arnold is credited with an assessment of £4 1s., "part for a former sum." Whether the enter- prise was a paying one, we are not informed. The promoters seem to have divided the salt between them, as the memoranda shows that

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Esquire Williams is of opinion that Asahel Harris's share of the pan be allowed at 750 (pounds), at 18s. 6d. per hundred, or 6€ 18s. 9d. This would be nearly four and a half cents a pound for what was probably a coarse and inferior article. Salt is now worth about a cent a pound by the hundred-coarse or fine.

An undertaking of considerable magnitude for the times was begun in 1772 at Providence, when a company was organized and a charter secured from the General Assembly for the purpose of supplying a portion of that town with water. On the west side of the river at what was known as Eddy's Point, shipyards and industries connected therewith had been established and many homes had been erected for 'the convenience of the workmen. Eddy's Point was formerly an island, and was connected with the mainland by an artificial embank- ment, and there was no source of water supply. On the land adjoin- ing this point belonging to Capt. John Field, was a large and perma- nent spring of water; this spring was located at a point on Clifford street, a short distance south of Chestnut street. Here a fountain or reservoir was constructed from which pipes made from logs were laid to the Eddy's Point district. Capt. Field generously donated one- half of the land with the water privileges to the company for a period of nine hundred and ninety-nine years. The work of introducing this system was completed in four months, and in a letter of thanks, ad- dressed to Capt. Field on the 26th of August, the committee in charge of the undertaking wrote: "We are supplied with fresh water in a more convenient manner than any of the inhabitants of the colony ; and, to use the language of Scripture, our situation was, before, pleasant, though our waters were naught; but, now, through your bounty and beneficence, we have at command a spring shut up, or fountain, opened at pleasure." It is stated that this aqueduct was capable of supplying one hundred gallons per minute.

EARLY CLOTH MAKING-COTTON MANUFACTURE.

Up to about a century ago, Rhode Island was essentially an agricul- tural and commercial State. Its manufactures, such as they were. were almost entirely for home consumption, and were largely the result of muscular expenditure. The State's prosperity as a manu- facturing centre is owing in great degree to the adoption of the factory system, resulting from the invention of labor-saving machinery, by means of which water and steam power is made to take the place of muscular energy, and the rapidity of manufacture is greatly increased.

A factory has been defined as "an establishment where several workmen are collected for the purpose of obtaining greater and cheap- er conveniences for labor than they could procure individually at their homes ; for producing results by their combined efforts which they could not accomplish separately ; and to prevent the loss occasioned

BUILDING DEMOLISHED IN 1900.

ESTABLISHED IN 1772 FOR THE PURPOSE OF SUPPLYING A PORTION OF THE TOWN WITH WATER.

FIELD FOUNTAIN, CLIFFORD STREET, PROVIDENCE.

---

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by carrying articles from place to place during the several processes necessary to complete their manufacture." The factory is, therefore, in broad terms an association of separate occupations conducted in one establishment. In its practical results it has relieved housewives of much of the burden which formerly devolved upon them of carding and weaving the cloth and making the clothes for their families. Prior to 1767 all yarn used in the manufacture of textiles of all kinds was spun in single threads by the fingers of the spinners upon the domestic spinning wheel. The process of spinning and weaving was generally performed in the same cottage, the weaver continually press- ing upon the spinner for a supply of weft or warp, but the weaver's own family could not respond with a sufficient quantity, and he had much difficulty in collecting it from neighboring spinners. As the supply did not equal the demand, the spinner often put up the price of the yarn. While much of the weaving was done by the housewife for her own family, professional weavers were always in evidence. They went from house to house, or they set up weave shops at some central point.

The Early Records of Providence contain many references to weavers. In January, 1704, the town granted William Smith, weaver, a piece of land forty feet square, "to build a weaver's shop upon, he being desirous to follow his weaver's trade." William was a son of the John Smith to whom the town gave a grant of land, near Charles street, Providence, in 1646, in consideration of his starting a grist- mill. The Records show that Joseph Smith, weaver, another son of the miller, was granted three acres of land near Wanskuck, in the right of his deceased father, in December, 1700. And even earlier- in 1674-two residents of "Maushantatuch," in the town of Provi- dence-Edward Sairle and Anna Sairle, respectively the step-father and mother of Moses Lippitt-indentured the latter "for fifteen years and a half and two months" to William Austin, to learn the trade and occupation of a weaver. The weaver must have been one of the earliest of the colony's handicraftsmen.

Fulling mills for the fulling of the weavers' webs were in operation at quite an early date. The Providence records show that the town was called upon in the year 1700 to settle a misunderstanding between Daniel Williams and William Hawkins, who had built and carried on a fulling mill in town for some time.

Prior to the Revolution the cloth made in this country was chiefly produced from wool, silk, flax and hemp. A little cotton was raised in the Southern States, but the difficulty of separating the seed from the fibre, which was done by hand at the rate of about a pound of cotton a day, prevented its general use. At the time of the non-importation movement, just prior to the war, attempts were made to encourage

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domestic manufacture in most of the colonies. Arnold's History rc- lates how cighteen young ladies of Providence, belonging to an organi- zation known as the "Daughters of Liberty," met by invitation at the house of Ezekiel Bowen and spun linen from sunrise till sunset to encourage home industry and assist in securing the industrial indc- pendenee of the eolonies. Their organization inereased so rapidly in . numbers that they held their next meeting in the Old State House, on North Main strect, where they assembled to weave a handsome web of linen to be given as a prize to the farmer who would raise the most flax that season. It is worthy of note that the General Assembly had pre- viously attempted to eneourage the production of flax and hemp and wool growing, and the manufacture of these staples into cloth by offer- ing premiums equal to one-third the value of the finished produet. An aet to this effcet was passed at the March session in 1751, but was repealed in the following June, because the legislators feared the offering of a bounty on colonial manufactures would rouse the anger of the mother country, and because previous offers of premiums for the raising of flax and hemp had produced no result.

Previous to the introduction of the spinning frame in New England, cotton, earded and spun by hand, had only been used for filling, with linen or woolen warp. The eotton yarn produced by hand spinning was not considered strong enough for warp. An imperfeet spinning jenny was smuggled over from England just previous to the Revolu- tion, and was set up in Philadelphia. Hargreaves had invented a earding machine, to take the place of hand eards, in 1760, and his spinning jenny in 1764 ; Arkwright ereeted his first spinning frame in 1769; an improved mule jenny was produced by Crompton in 1775; the power loom by Cartwright in 1784; the adaptation of the steam engine to the spinning and earding of cotton was made by Watt at Manchester in 1783; cylinder printing was invented by Bell in 1785; and the use of acid in bleaching was introduced at Glasgow by Watt in 1786 and at Manchester in 1788. All of these inventions were jealously guarded by the British government, and the exportation of any of the machines was forbidden under heavy penalties. All efforts during the Revolution and for a half dozen years after its elose to engage in cotton manufacture were, therefore, seriously handicapped. A spinning jenny of the Hargreaves model had, however, been smug- gled aeross in the early seventies, and had been set up in Philadelphia. One or two other spinning and carding machines were probably im- ported soon after the elose of the Revolution, and three carding, rop- ing and spinning machines were made at East Bridgewater, Massachu- setts, in 1786, by two Scotch mechanics, who had obtained some knowl- edge of eotton machinery before coming to this country. Attempts at the manufacture of eottons by the use of machinery were thus enabled to be made at Philadelphia, and at Worcester and Beverly, Massachu-

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setts, but the honor of sueeessfully inaugurating the factory system of manufacture belongs to Rhode Island.

A model and descriptions of an imperfeet form of an Arkwright machine were brought over from England, in 1785, by Thomas Somers, and, at the instance of the Massachusetts legislature, were placed on exhibition for the inspection of manufacturers. Several of the latter, and among them Moses Brown and Daniel Anthony of Providenee, and John Reynolds, a woolen manufacturer of East Greenwich, availed themselves of theprivilege of inspecting the models. Anthony, who had made hand eards during the Revolution, and had made an engagement with Andrew Dexter and Lewis Peck to make jeans and other home- spun eloth'of linen warp and cotton filling, to be spun by hand, made a draught of the machine. After obtaining this draught Mr. Anthony, in 1787, had a spinning jenny of twenty-eight spindles built on the model of the one in use at Beverly. The wood work was made by his son Robert, and the brass work by Daniel Jackson, a coppersmith of Providence. It was set up at first in a private house, but was soon removed to an upper room in the market house, where it was operated. A earding machine was also made for him by Joshua Lindley of Provi- denee, from patterns of the one at Beverly. The rolls, eighteen inches long, were roped on a hand wheel, as in wool carding. A spinning frame, with eight heads of four spindles each, operated by a erank, turned by hand, was next built from the draught taken by Mr. Anthony of the Massachusetts machine. John Bailey, a clockmaker of Providence, assisted in its eonstruetion. In 1788 Joseph Alexander and James McKerries, weavers, who had emigrated from Seotland, and understood the use of the fly-shuttle, came to Providence to weave corduroy. McKerries went to East Greenwich, but Alexander super- intended the construction of a loom with a fly-shuttle, which was set up and put in operation in the market-house. This is believed to have been the first fly-shuttle ever used in America. As the making of corduroy was not fully understood by Alexander, the enterprise proved a failure. He removed to Philadelphia, and the spinning frame, which was too heavy to run by hand, was sold to Moses Brown, who removed it to Pawtucket and attached it to a water wheel. Mr. Brown also purchased the carding machine and jenny, an additional spinning frame, made from the Massachusetts model and unsueeess- fully tried at East Greenwich, and a stoeking-loom from John Fullem, an Irish stocking-weaver, who had also made a failure at East Green- wich. The spinning frames, which were of imperfect construction, could not be successfully worked by unskilled hands, and were soon laid aside. These two unused Arkwright machines, one of thirty-two and the other of twenty-four spindles, a carding machine, an eighty- four and a sixty spinning jenny, and a doubling and twisting jenny, constituted the principal machinery of Almy & Brown at Pawtucket,

SAMUEL SLATER. THE FOUNDER OF THE COTTON INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES.

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when Samuel Slater arrived. It may be of interest to know that one of these spinning jennies, built by Andrew Dexter, cost Mr. Brown, in 1789, £24 4s. 10d. ; and that he paid Dexter and Lewis Peck, in 1790, £139 15s. for a jenny and a carding and spinning frame. These two ironworkers also appear to have made a machine for calendering goods about this time. It was put up in Mr. Brown's barn, and was worked by a horse. One of the jennies purchased by Mr. Brown had been operated about two years at Newport by Joseph Anthony, son of Daniel Anthony, previously mentioned.

Practically the machines were a failure, but Mr. Brown did not despair. Receiving in December, 1789, a letter from Samnel Slater, a young man who had had several years' experience as a clerk and over- seer in a cotton mill in Derbyshire, England, and who had just arrived at New York, claiming that he could make spinning machinery, Mr. Brown invited him to come on to Providence, and made him liberal offers if he was able to do as he claimed. Slater came on and entered into an arrangement with Messrs. Almy & Brown, by the terms of which he was to build a series of Arkwright machines and was to re- ceive one-half of the profits resulting from their use. The machines were built, and on December 20, 1790, he started three cards, drawing and roving frames, and two frames of seventy-two spindles, which were worked in an old clothiers' building by an old fulling-mill wheel. .They were worked there twenty months and turned out more yarn during the time than the company could either weave or sell. In 1793 the three partners built a small factory in which they set up their machinery and carried on an increasing and profitable business. Thus was started the first successful cotton factory in the State, and in America as well.

During this time experiments were made in cotton spinning in other sections of the country ; but the goods turned out, when not pure woolen or linen were mixed goods of linen and cotton, the warp for which was spun from rolls prepared by hand cards in dwelling houses. When goods wholly of cotton were desired the warp was obtained from Almy & Brown, as the jenny was not adapted to hard twist. No sheetings, shirtings, checks or ginghams were made prior to 1790.

The cards for the Slater carding machines were made by Pliny Earle of Leicester, Massachusetts. The rest of the machinery was constructed by Slater and Sylvanus Brown of Pawtucket. They worked in secret in an old building on Quaker lane, Samuel making the lines with chalk, and Sylvanus carving wooden models. Samuel was a stalwart, handsome, rosy-cheeked youth of twenty-one when he came to America. Moses Brown sent him to Oziel Wilkinson's, in Pawtucket, as a suitable place for him to board. When he entered Wilkinson's house Hannalı and another of Oziel's daughters were working in the kitchen. Seeing a stranger, girl-like; they fled to an

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inner room; but Hannah, with maidenly curiosity, looked through a hole in the door and was favorably impressed with the young English- man's appearance. Samuel saw the eyes and resolved to win them. The young people were both smitten, but the Wilkinsons were Friends and did not approve of Hannah's marrying a man of another faith. . They proposed to send her away to school, but Samuel declared lie would follow the girl to the ends of the carth if need be. The parents wisely concluded to withdraw their opposition and the lovers were allowed to marry. In the words of Slater's biographer, Hannah was a "loadstone" that kept him in Pawtucket. Had it not been for her influence and sympathy, he might have given away to discouragement at the many difficulties he was obliged to encounter in making the new machines and running them successfully. In telling the story of Slater we must not forget the woman who assisted him in winning his great success.

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State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 3, Part 36

Author: Field, Edward, 1858-1928 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Boston : Mason Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 728

Author: Field, Edward, 1858-1928
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Boston : Mason Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 728