USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 3 > Part 39
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ERECTED 1828. THE " ARCADE," PROVIDENCE, IN 1850.
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Apprehensions of its capture by British vessels induced the enterpris- ing owners to arrange for its redemption at a liberal price, if neces- sary, but it arrived safely. The cards were arranged on the lower floor of the centre building, the hand-looms in the wings, and the spinning jennics, of forty spindles each, on the upper floors. The shearing machines were of the Mussy pattern, used by hand, but were arranged by the ingenious manager, Mr. Sanford, to be operated by steam power, with the cloth traversing under the cutting blades. A napping machine, made with pointed brass wires arranged on a revolv- ing cylinder, was newly invented with adjustable parts to operate safely and efficiently. This machine and the fulling mills were placed in the basement. A skillful English dyer, who could operate wood vats for blue dying, had been secured, and the colors he made were highly admired and the cloths well made and very durable; but the quality of the wool being somewhat coarse, most of the products were not of fine quality. During the war a quantity of Spanish wool was captured in prizes, which gave them a finer article at comparatively low prices, and proved profitable for a time. They accumulated a large quantity of broadcloths and refused an offer of $8 per yard, with the expectation of a further advance. But the arrival of the ship Bramble, with news of an armistice, put an end to all their hopes in the further manufacture of broadcloths. Foreign broadcloths of a superior quality made their coarse goods unsalable except at a sacri- fice, and the stock was closed out at a loss to the company of $150,000. The mill was closed for some years, and was afterwards sold to Philip Allen for a print works. The Providence Woolen Manufacturing Company when established was the largest woolen mill in the country.
In 1822 Zachariah Allen erected a mill at Allendale, North Provi- dence, for the manufacture of broadcloths, in which he used the first power loom operated in the State upon the manufacture of this class of goods. Mr. Allen continued the business until 1839, using, as they appeared, the improved condenser for the carding machine, the im- proved English teazel cylinder, the extension roller (his invention), and other improvements in machinery. The first introduction of steam rolling to give a gloss to the finished cloth was in this Allendale mill. In 1839 Mr. Allen sold his woolen machinery and changed the mill to a cotton factory.
There were twelve woolen mills in the State in 1810, but most of them were small affairs in which the work was done mainly by the old hand-looms. The War of 1812 gave an impetus during its continuance to woolen manufacture, but the sudden fall in prices immediately after the close of the war, owing to the great importation of woolens and of a better quality than those of domestic make, closed for the time being nearly all the woolen mills in the country. The American woolen mills were badly handicapped at this time in competition with foreign
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competitors, by the want of capital and skilled labor, by inferior ma- chincry, and by being obliged to use a coarse quality of wool. The early tariffs did not aid them very much. The act of 1816 provided for a duty of 25 per cent. upon most woolen goods until June 30, 1819, after which it was to be 20 per cent. The law of 1824 raised these duties to from 30 to 33 per cent. and imposed a duty of 25 per cent. on worsted stuffs. The increase was of no help to manufacturers, because a duty of from 15 to 30 per cent. was levied upon raw wool of foreign growth. In 1828 duties were raised on both wool and woolens. In 1832 they were lowered on raw wool and on worsteds, but increased on common woolens ; while in the falling tariff of 1832 a reduction was made in the customs charges on both wool and woolens.
In 1820 the Pawtucket Worsted Company was formed for the man- ufacture of fine vestings, and the next year, when Hon. Nehemiah R. Knight was elected United States Senator, the company presented him with a vest of its own manufacture, which attracted considerable at- tention as the first specimen of worsted goods of American make. But even as late as 1832 there was but little woolen manufacture in the State. The canvass made that year, under the auspices of the Na- tional Tariff Association, disclosed but 19 woolen mills in Rhode Island. These factories employed 383 persons ; paid $68,500 in wages ; used 225,000 pounds of domestic, and 200,000 pounds of foreign wool ; 54,000 pounds of cotton warp ; and produced $215,835 worth of woolen goods.
This branch of manufacture was considerably increased during the remainder of the thirties, as the census statistics of 1840 gave a total of 41 woolen mills, employing 961 persons, with a capital of $685,350 and producing goods valued at $842,572. Among the most important of the woolen mills started during the decade were those of the Valley Worsted mill, in Providence, and the Harris mill at Woonsocket. Edward Harris commenced the business there in 1831 with a capital of only $3,500. The first years were not profitable, and he came very near abandoning the business. Afterwards, however, profits were made and for a long series of years his productions constantly im- proved in quality and quantity and his goods became so popular that the "Harris label" upon them was a recommendation that required no further proof. Mr. Harris was a strong advocate of free raw mate- rials-at least in wool-and pamphlets issued by him to promote such a desideratum were often quoted by the opponents of protection. The mill which he founded has gone out of business.
The tariff of 1846 lowered the duties upon woolen and worsted goods and upon wool, and they were reduced still more by the tariff act of 1857. The census of 1850 showed a great increase in woolen manufac- tures since 1840. The figures were as follows: Number of establish- ments, 45; persons employed, 1,758; capital, $1,013,000; value of raw
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material used, $1,463,900; value of products, $2,381,825. The busi- ness had more than doubled since 1840.
Great as was the gain, however, it was less than that of the next decade. The census statistics of 1860 show 57 establishments in opera- tion with a capital of $3,168,500; there were then 4,229 persons em- ployed, to whom $1,069,176 were paid in wages. The cost of raw materials used was $4,370,224, and the value of the product was $6,915,205. The increase in production during the decade had been 176.8 per cent.
Most of the large woolen and worsted mills in the State have been established since the close of the Civil War. The statistics of each census show a gratifying increase. The war and after war tariffs during the sixties raised the duties on both wool and woolens, and the industry was not handicapped-as was the case with cotton manufac- turing by a scarcity of raw material during the Civil War. In fact, the war was beneficial to the manufacturers of woolen goods because of the large amount of clothing required by the army.
The census of 1870 divided the products of woolen manufacture into two classes-woolen and worsteds. There were then 65 woolen and 11 worsted establishments in the State, employing respectively 6,363 and 1,531 persons, and producing woolens valued at $12,558,117 and worsteds worth $2,835,950. At this time, thirty years ago, Rhode Island stood second in cotton manufacturing, yielding precedence to Massachusetts only ; fifth in woolens, being surpassed by Massachu- setts, Connecticut, New York and Pennslyvania; and third (after Massachusetts and Pennsylvania) in worsted goods.
In 1880 this State had 50 woolen establishments, which employed 7,699 persons and produced goods valued at $15,410,450. Its worsted establishments, which were 11 in number, employed 3,757 persons and produced goods valued at $6,177,754. The woolen establishments proper had made a healthy gain during the decade, but not as large as that of the worsted mills. Providence was then the third city in the country in the magnitude of its woolen manufactures of all kinds including worsteds.
Since 1880 there has been a great increase in the product of worsted goods, especially in Providence. Rhode Island in 1890 produced more worsted goods than, any other State in the Union, and Providence ranked first among the cities. Nearly all of the Providence woolen mills are now running exclusively upon worsteds or upon hosiery or knit goods, while a majority of those in the State at large are produc- ing ordinary woolen cloths.
According to the figures of the census of 1890, Rhode Island then had 40 woolen mills, 16 hosiery and knitting mills, and 28 worsted mills. These three branches of manufacture employed respectively 6,028, 1,538, and 11,757 persons, and their total products were valued
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at $9,884,945, $2,516,641 and $22,319,684. Providence then had but one mill making ordinary woolens, while it had four devoted to hosiery and knit goods, and fourteen to worsteds. In 1880 the city had four worsted mills employing 1,966 persons. In. 1890 it had fourteen mills employing 8,887 persons, and their production had inereased in value from $3,537,000 to $17,605,831. Woonsocket had four worsted mills at this time. They employed 590 persons and produced $1,033,000 worth of goods.
The manufacturing returns for 1900 show that the worsted goods industry in Rhode Island is now larger than that of cotton. There are fifty-one establishments, which employ 14,896 persons, disburse $5,537,169 in wages and produce goods valued at $33,341,329. There were at the same time twenty-six woolen establishments and fifteen devoted to hosiery and knit goods. The woolen mills employed 2,710 persons and the hosiery and knit goods establishments gave employ- ment to 1,594 persons. The woolen product was valued at $5,330,550, and the hosiery and knit goods product at $2,713,850. There was a slight increase in the hosiery business and a large decrease in the product of the woolen mills. The change of many mills from woolen to worsted fabrics is probably accountable for the loss.
Dockham's American Trade Reports for 1901 gives the following statisties of woolen and worsted manufacture: Woolen and worsted mills, 97 ; hosiery and knit goods, 20. The mills contained 9,465 looms, 450 wool cards and 237 worsted combs. At the same time there were 4 silk mills and 1 mill at Manville making fabrics of flax and jute.
Providence is more largely engaged in the manufacture of worsteds than any other locality in the country. In 1890 it had 14 establish- ments giving employment to 8,887 persons and producing goods valued at $17,605,831 ; Philadelphia, at the same time, with 32 worsted estab- lishments, gave employment to only 7,904 persons and its product of worsted goods was valued at $14,737,000. Lawrence stood third as a centre of worsted mannfacture, its product aggregating $9,970,000. Woonsocket had four worsted establishments in 1890. They produced goods valued at $1,030,000.
Several of the largest and best equipped mills in the country are located in Providence and there are also large mills devoted to this line of business in Pawtucket, Central Falls, Woonsocket, Burrillville and South Kingstown.1
Great efforts have been made at different periods to develop the pro-
"The number of employees in the largest woolen and worsted mills of the State, according to the Seventh Annual Report of the Factory Inspectors was as follows: Providence-Atlantic Mills, 2,746; National and Providence Worsted Mills, 2,065; Riverside Worsted Mill, 1,607; Wanskuck Mills, 849; Weybosset Mills, 608. Pawtucket-Lorraine Worsted Mill, 667. Central Falls-Farwell Worsted Mills, 611, South Kingstown-Peacedale Manufacturing Company, 572.
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duction and manufacture of silk. The people of Newport became interested in the industry more than a eentury and a half ago, and silk was raised and sold there at least as far baek as 1758. Although the industry received but little attention in the State for several years, a few individuals in different towns planted mulberry trees, bred silk worms in a small way, partly as a diversion, probably without expecta- tion of reaping a profit. They took pride in appearing at times in silks of their own raising and fabrication. An instance of this kind occurred in 1823, when Dr. Benjamin Dyer, a loeal physician, ap- peared at a fair in Providence dressed in a complete suit of silk made from materials produced and manufactured in his own family. The subjeet of eneouraging the propagation of the silk worm and the man- ufacture of its produet was discussed frequently in Congress, and in 1828, Mr. Rush, seeretary of the treasury, in aeeordance with a resolu- tion of the House, rendered a report accompanied by a valuable man- ual upon the management of silk worms and the manufacture of silk. Six thousand eopies were printed and distributed. The same year William A. Vernon of this State published a translation of the work of M. de Labrousse on the cultivation of mulberry trees, with valuable notes by the translator. A silk craze seemed to spread all over the coun- try during the next few years. Great expectations were entertained of being able to produce large quantities of raw silk for exportation. Large sums were paid for plants of a new species of mulberry, which were brought from the Philippines, and considerable money was made in raising and trafficking in the young shrubs.
The Valentine Silk Company was formed in Providence for the raising and manufacture of silk, with a capital of $100,000. It was conducted by Messrs. Dyer, and had a coeoonery one hundred and fifty feet long, and a big nursery of mulberry trees. A new method for winding silk upon spools or bobbins, instead of reels, invented by Gam- aliel Gay, of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., was introduced into this mill in 1835, and ten or twelve different fabrics of silk or eotton and silk woven in this establishment upon the Gay loom were exhibited in the following March at Albany, N. Y. By 1839 the Valentine Silk Com- pany had sunk all its capital and gone out of business. But little silk manufacturing is now done in Rhode Island.
The manufacturing statistics of 1900 report six establishments de- voted to silk manufacture in this State. They employed 455 persons, paid $166,675 in wages, and produeed silk and silk goods valued at $1,311,333. The product in 1890 was valued at $229,062. This shows a healthy increase during the decade.
Before the advent of domestie cotton and previous to the inaugura- tion of power spinning and weaving, linen and fabrications of hemp were common articles of domestic manufacture. Allusion has already been made to these industries in deseribing cloth making in colonial
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times. The Rhode Island General Assembly, previous to 1728 and in that year, and several times afterwards during the colonial period, offered bounties to encourage the raising of hemp and flax. In 1731, when the "Fourth Bank" of paper money was issued, bounties were ordered for hemp, flax, whale oil, whalebone and codfish. For every pound of good water-rotted hemp, well manufactured, nine pence was to be given and the bounty upon flax was four pence. The Colonial Records show that in 1733 the colony paid bounties upon 1,589 pounds of manufactured hemp, and 19,013 pounds of flax. Jonathan Sprague of Providence, but of that part afterwards sct off as the town of Smith- field, eolleeted a bounty upon 1,249 3-4 pounds of flax, while Stephen Hopkins who came from the Scituate portion of the Plantations, was seeond with 916 1-4 pounds. The largest growers of hemp were "Nikle's Shelding," Pardon Tillinghast and Benjamin Greene, who brought in respectively 401, 430 and 300 pounds. But in the long run the payment of bounties upon these productions did not produce the favorable results expected. The Revolution, however, aeted as a stimulus for the time-being upon the manufacture of linen and hempen fabries. As late as 1791, after eotton manufacturing was fairly estab- lished, we are told that 25,265 yards of linen were made in Providenec. But little linen has, however, been made in this State for a hundred years past.
Hats were made at several places in the colony in the latter part of the eighteenth century. There were three shops at East Greenwich that gave employment to a large number of hands, and thirce different grades of hats were made at Providenee in 1790. Statisties of that year, collected for Alexander Hamilton, show the output of hats in the town that year to have been as follows: Beaver hats, worth $8 each, 121; eastor hats, $18 to $48 a dozen, 1,327; felt hats, $5 to $12 a dozen, 4,564. The hat business was said to have been started in Providenee in 1730. Colonel William Barton, who led the foree which surprised and eaptured the British General Prescott, was a Providence hatter. In 1810, 50,000 hats worth $5 apiece, exclu- sive of felts, were made in the State.
Aeeording to Staples, the manufacture of straw plait or braid for liats and bonnets was originated in 1798 in Providence. As the story is told, "Miss Betsey Metealf, afterwards Mrs. Baker, at the age of twelve years, without previous instruction succeeded in making from oat straw, smoothed with her seissors, and split with her thumb-nail, a bonnet of seven braids, with bobbin inserted like open work, and lined with pink in imitation of the English straw bonnets, then fashionable and of a high price. It was bleached by holding it in the vapor of burning sulphur. The artiele was mueh admired and many ladies eame from neighboring towns to see it, and to order bonnets for
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themselves, at half the price of the imported. Young women were gratuitously instructed in the art of the inventor, and this laid the foundation of an extensive branch of business in Providence, Ded- ham, Wrentham, and other towns in New England and throughout the country."
MANUFACTURES OF IRON AND STEEL.
At the beginning of the Revolution no colony of the thirteen was better provided with expert iron workers and other skilled mechanics than was Rhode Island. It suffered more than any of its New Eng- land sisters from the presence and hostile movements of the enemy, and it was well that its people were able to manufacture the munitions of war for the emergency. Many cannon, as has already been told, were cast for Rhode Island defences and for Washington's army at the Hope furnace in Scituate, and small arms were made by Stephen Jenks at Pawtucket, and at several forges. Jenks made and supplied several of the miltary companies with muskets before the beginning of the war, and soon after news canie of the battle of Lexington, a number of iron forgers in Providence and other towns were hard at work, fitting out the troops which were being rushed to the front.
Nathan Miller of East Greenwich was an excellent bayonet maker. Jeremiah Sheffield and George Tefft of the "Kingstown Reds" were recommended to their officers to be excused from duty, as they were then employed in making and stocking guns. Elihu Peck of Providence made gun stocks, and Edward Martin, Stephen Jenks, Thomas Bicknell, Prince Keene and others made gun barrels, bayonets and ramrods for the town of Providence. Twenty of these gun barrels with bayonets and ramrods cost, as "per bill rendered," £28, or 28 shillings a set, while Peck's bill, presumably for twenty gun stocks, was £15, 15s. 11d. Early in January, 1776, the firm of Jacob Greene & Company supplied the colony with "six new, double-fortified, four pound cannon with their carriages, together with one hundred and thirty round shot, six bags of grape shot, some sliding and bar shot, with ladles, rammers, sponges, worms," etc. The whole order was valued at £100. Jacob Greene was a brother of General Nathaniel Greene, and the forge where these guns were made was in the town of Coventry, near the present Quidnick railroad bridge.1 It was established some years previously by Nathaniel Greene, sen., and sons, and the future Revolutionary hero removed to Coventry in 1770 to assume direction of it. Jacob was then a trader at the village of Apponaug, in Warwick, and the forge was probably placed in his name just before the beginning of the war by his Quaker father, who did not wish to be titularly at the head of a firm which made warlike implements.
1Field's Revolutionary Defences in Rhode Island.
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Some attempts had been made in Connecticut to make steel previous to the Revolution, and the Rhode Island General Assembly, in 1777, deeming it advisable to encourage efforts to that end, offered a bounty of £60 for every ton of steel, "as good as German steel," that should be made in the State. The offer seems to have failed in its purpose, as no steel was manufactured in the State for several years. The fame which the Hope furnace obtained as a cannon foundry during the Revolution led to the placing of a large order in Providence for cannon for the new frigates, which were ordered by Congress during Presi- dent Washington's last administration. John Brown, one of the owners of the furnace, appears to have been instrumental in obtaining the order, and he employed Sylvanus Brown-who had assisted Slater in making his first spinning machines-to superintend the eastings. Some of the cannon were cast at the Hope furnace and a part at Eas- ton, Massachusetts. Brown used the Cranston and Cumberland ores in equal portions, and they were carted by ox-teams to the furnaces. The Providence Gazette of February 14, 1795, says: "The workmen at the Hope furnace have already east seventy-six cannon for the frigates and fortifications of the United States. They are ornamented with the American eagle, and are allowed by good judges to be equal to any guns from the foundries of Europe. They are cast solid and bored by water." The famous frigates Constitution, Constellation, United States, President, etc., were then in process of construction, and it is not improbable that the guns of the Constellation, which, in 1799 and 1800, taught the French to respeet the American flag upon the ocean, and those of "Old Ironsides", which lowered the proud flag of Britain upon the sea in the War of 1812, were east in Rhode Island. At least we may well believe that they were made of good Rhode Island ore, under the supervision of an expert Rhode Island iron worker.
The old eannon formerly used as posts at the corners of several Providence streets, a few of which are still to be seen, are said to have been defective castings from Easton and Hope, made about a century ago.
Cannon were also cast in Rhode Island for the National government during the War of 1812, and it is related of Isaac Wilkinson-one of Oziel's sons-that, at the age of seventeen, he had charge of the "Cupola"-subsequently the Franklin foundry-in Providence, and that during that war he cast cannon sixty days in succession, two heats a day.
We have seen that the machinery used in the early cotton mills of the State was made within its borders. The loeal iron workers speed- ily adapted their works to the new conditions and engaged in the man- ufacture of the machinery and tools used in the various industrial trades. The Jenks and Wilkinson families of expert mechanics were the means of developing many of these earlier iron works, through
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their own direct efforts, and by means of the machinists schooled under their tuition. Nor were the representatives of these two fam- ilies the only skilled mechanics that worked in iron a century ago in Providence and Pawtucket. The Browns have already been men- tioned, and there were many others. In 1794 David Wilkinson, a son of Oziel, in company with Elijah Ormsbee, built a steamboat, in whielt they made a trip of three and a half miles, from Winsor's Cove to Providence. They did not seem impressed with the idea that the seheme could be made of practical value and after their "frolic" (as Wilkinson called it) was over, they dismantled the boat. In the course of his reminiscences, sent, in after years, to the Society for the En- couragement of Domestic Industry, Wilkinson says that while they were engaged in the construction of this steamboat a young man from Connecticut, who gave the name of Daniel Freneh, came to his shop in Pawtucket, and asked and obtained leave to look over the steamboat. He examined everything carefully, and seemed greatly interested. Many years afterward, while riding by rail from Utiea to Albany, Mr. Wilkinson says, he fell into conversation with a gentleman regarding Fulton's steamboat, and the gentleman deelared that Fulton never would have succeeded had he not kept an ingenious Connecticut Yan- kee locked in for several weeks to draw plans for him. On inquiring the name of the Connecticut Yankee, Mr. Wilkinson was told it was "Daniel French."
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